Dinosaur Breakout

by Judith Silverthorne

  “This happened while I was trying to keep those Nel-wins away,” he said, pointing to the bandaged back of his head.

  Pederson’s face went hard. “Those good-for-nothing louts. Someone needs to teach them a lesson or two!” He gave Bear a nod and the two dogs yipped and chased one another, then dashed off to explore together.

  Daniel sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just have to figure out how.”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something. You have a good head on your shoulders, Daniel.” Pederson patted him on the shoulder and winked at him.

  Should he tell Pederson about his other adventure? He might not think Daniel was so smart then. He’d probably just figure that the knock on his head had caused some wild imaginings. Daniel himself was having a hard time believing it was anything but a delusion. But how could the extra scratches on his face be explained? And what about the fact that he’d only had one sandwich left when he came to, and the rag from around his fossil, which had been inside his backpack, had been wrapped around his head? Maybe he’d wait and think about it for a bit more before saying anything to Pederson.

  “So what’s up?” Daniel asked. There had to be a special reason for Pederson to come looking for him. He usually waited for Daniel to visit.

  “I just got back from that town council meeting. Seems that the mayor of Climax has another brilliant idea for linking our research outpost and the town museum closer to the T.rex Discovery Centre.” Pederson spoke slowly, then stopped, looking off into the distance.

  Sometimes Daniel thought Pederson’s slowness was done on purpose just to annoy him, but he had come to know that usually it meant Pederson was reflecting on his choice of words before speaking.

  After several moments, Pederson continued. “She wants me to take her ideas to our friends at the T.rex Discovery Centre to see how feasible they are before we take them to the ‘powers that be’ beyond us.” He paused and watched the dogs on the next hill.

  Daniel stared at him. “Yeah, and?” he asked impatiently.

  “Thought I might as well make a trip there tomorrow before we get started on the new dig site.” Pederson spat on the ground. “And...” he took his time getting out his handkerchief to blow his nose.

  This time Daniel knew he was doing it to irritate him. He waited, trying not to show his impatience.

  “I wondered if you’d want to go with me to Eastend in the morning?” He waited nonchalantly for Daniel to reply.

  “Sometimes you ask some dumb questions, for a paleontologist,” Daniel said, grinning.

  He loved going to the T.rex Discovery Centre and talking with Tim Tokaryk. He was the supervising paleontologist, who worked for the Royal Saskatchewan Museum at the research station located in the centre. He and some of the other staff had worked with them on the Edmontosaurus dig and Mr. Tokaryk was still involved with the preparation of the skeleton.

  “What time are we leaving?” asked Daniel.

  “Nine a.m. too early for you?” Pederson laughed.

  “Nah, that’ll give me plenty of time to do my barn chores before we go.”

  “Okay, see you then.” Pederson turned and gave a different kind of whistle that brought Bear back to his side. He waved, and the pair headed for home.

  Daniel hesitated. Maybe he should call Pederson back and tell him about his bizarre experience, after all? For an old guy, he was pretty open-minded most of the time. But maybe this time he wouldn’t believe him. Daniel could barely believe what had happened himself. No, he’d wait until he’d done some research and figured a few things out first. Maybe he’d find some answers at the T.rex Discovery Centre tomorrow.

  Chapter Four

  Daniel hurried back to his hideout to retrieve his special fossil and his backpack. Once inside, he stared at the chunk of bark on the ground, but decided to leave it where it was until his return trip. He’d make sure that happened as soon as possible. He hadn’t done all the things he’d planned to do, like rigging up some other advance warning system that only he could hear inside his hideout. And maybe even making an emerg-ency exit.

  A gentle breeze blew across the hills as Daniel headed for home. He’d be on schedule to do chores, if the position of the afternoon sun was any indication. The days were longer now, and sometimes he had trouble figuring out the time. He took a deep breath and then whistled for Dactyl, who was nowhere in sight. As he swooped down to pluck a blade of grass, he thought he saw his dog way up ahead.

  Daniel chewed on the grass blade as he thought about his morning adventures. Obviously, hitting his head both times had something to do with his shifting backwards and forwards in time. Surely there was an easier way to do it – not that he wanted to do go to the Cretaceous Period again! That was too scary! And it hurt too much, as the returning headache reminded him. Good thing he didn’t have many chores to do now that the family had reduced their farming operation.

  When he entered the barn, the air was several degrees cooler than outside, and much darker, so he turned on an overhead string of bare light bulbs. The usual array of

  kittens darted around him, waiting for his special attention. He sat on a straw bale and played with them. They chased a length of twine and an old bit of leather harness that he lazily dragged around the floor of the barn. Dust motes fluttered in the air with the movement. Gypsy, his horse, whinnied from outside, and at last Daniel set the twine aside and went to do his chores.

  Retrieving a pail of chop – a mixture of crushed oats and sometimes other grains – from the feed room, he headed out the back door that led to the corrals and pasture. He only had to water the two horses in the nearby pasture, and milk a couple of cows. Dad had sold most of the other cattle to pay off some of his debt and he only seeded and hayed a few acres now. The rest of the feed he bought from a neighbour. And the other cows were in the pasture for the summer.

  Eventually, if the dinosaur digs worked out, the Bringhams would farm in a bigger way again. For now, Daniel still had to do his share of the farm work, although most of his spare time was spent with Pederson at a dig, or with Dad and Mr. Lindstrom as they carved out the hiking trails and plotted the campsites.

  Daniel hurried outside to the fenced pasture behind the barn and past the corrals where the cows and horses patiently waited. Gypsy snorted and shook her head at him as if to let him know he’d dallied too long. He cranked on the water hose and filled the trough. Next he opened the gate, and herded the two milk cows towards the open barn door, leading them with the pail of chop.

  They plodded inside, chewing their cud and flicking their tails at the small cloud of flies and mosquitoes hovering around them. He poured the chop into the troughs in their individual stalls to keep them quiet while he milked them.

  ~

  The next morning, Daniel waited for Pederson at the end of the lane. He’d slept soundly, even though he’d expected to have horrible dreams, and had trouble going to sleep at first. He must have been more tired than he’d thought. When he woke up, he hugged his pillow to his chest, so happy to find himself at home in his own bed. Then he groaned. He still had a slight headache, and his legs and arms ached from climbing the tree. His bruises had turned into large black-and-blue spots on his head and body. He looked like he’d been a punching bag at boxing practice.

  As he shifted against a tree at the end of the lane, he felt his arm gingerly, and winced. Moments later, Peder-son rounded the trees in his rusted 1959 Studebaker Scotsman pickup and slid smoothly to a stop with a slight squeak of rusty springs. For a brief moment, Daniel patted Dactyl, who sat with pleading eyes and whined. Daniel shook his head.

  “Not this time, boy!”

  Dactyl thumped his tail on the ground, but soon gave up and wandered off with a wounded look on his face. Daniel hopped into the dusty truck and promptly sneezed. Although Pederson kept the engine running well, he did little to preserve the outside or clean the interior of his aging vehicle.

  Besides, with the usually dry land and gravel roads that he travelled,
cleaning would be almost pointless for Pederson, who was out and about regularly, especially now that he travelled back and forth to the museum in Climax and the digs on his farmland. As a result, the dash, instrument panel, seats, and floor had a thin layer of dust over them, and the odd mosquito in evidence. Daniel flicked at a small spider dangling from the bottom of the glove compartment and settled in for the jaunt to town.

  “I thought we’d go the long way. Through Climax. I haven’t picked up my mail in a while,” Pederson said, shifting into gear. “I forgot yesterday,” he admitted sheepishly. “Besides, I wouldn’t mind stopping in at the museum for a minute. We’ll do a loop to Eastend and come back through Shaunavon.”

  Daniel nodded in agreement. He didn’t often get away from the farm or get to ride in Pederson’s old cream-coloured truck. And he loved going to the museum. He knew Pederson couldn’t stay away either. He was probably checking to make sure the volunteer staff was on time and ready to answer questions from the visitors.

  As they rattled along the dust-swirled gravel road towards Highway 32, the sun shone hot in an almost cloudless blue sky. The weather forecast on the radio predicted another scorching day. Daniel could already feel the sweat forming on his forehead and his t-shirt sticking to his back against the truck seat.

  The relatively flat landscape, after the heat wave of the last several weeks, looked dowdy and brown. Even the yellow flowers of the wild sweet clover growing along the ditches seemed muted and almost blended into the dry grasses. Gophers, with their stubby tails pointing upwards like short antennas, scurried daringly across the road, darting for safety into holes hidden in the dry weeds on the other side. Calls of a yellow-throated warbler and a meadowlark punctuated the morning quiet.

  All at once, an unknown vehicle came up behind them in a shower of gravel and dust. Obviously, the driver was in a hurry. Daniel quickly rolled up his window to keep from choking on the swirl of thick gravel dust that enshrouded them when the truck passed them. Pederson did the same. They watched the dusty haze linger for the next mile ahead, billowing out across the fields as it dissipated. When the dust settled, they wound their windows down again. Pederson never said a word.

  Once they turned onto the highway, Daniel didn’t bounce around quite so much, even though Pederson did some fancy driving to miss the patches and potholes in the road. Daniel marvelled at the craggy blue-grey hills as they dipped into the Frenchman River Valley, imagining the myriad of fossils contained just below the surface. This reminded him of his wild adventure of the day before and he wondered for about the zillionth time if he should mention it to Mr. Pederson. Something always stopped him, and it did again. He’d wait until after their visit to the T.rex Centre.

  As they rounded a sharp corner, they came across Herb Milner driving the local lumberyard delivery truck. Peder-son slowed as Herb geared down to make the next long incline. Daniel stared with interest at a cut in the hillside that revealed interesting protrusions that he could only imagine held rare fossils, just waiting to be discovered.

  Suddenly, a dark blue Dodge truck screamed up be-hind them. Todd Nelwin was at the wheel. Craig hung his head out of the passenger-side window and yelled at them to get out of the way. Their radio blared some distorted, thumping country tune in the background.

  Pederson’s face went stony and he seemed to ignore them. Todd began honking and attempting to pass. Purposefully, Pederson kept to the speed limit and held to the proper side of the road. Even if he’d wanted to, he had no room to move over, as the narrow highway had no real shoulder. Todd’s impatience escalated. He breezed by, only to brake abruptly when an oncoming car appeared over the top of the hill.

  Slamming on his brakes, Pederson allowed Todd to squeeze in between him and the back of the lumber truck. The moment the car passed on the opposite side, Todd squealed out again and tore in front of Herb Milner, then disappeared down the hill, until his truck became only a speck on the horizon.

  Daniel’s heart fluttered against his chest. He released his grip from the dash and relaxed his feet from pushing into the floorboards. He hadn’t realized he’d braced himself so hard.

  “Damn fools!” Pederson swore at them, shaking his head. “They’re just the type that cause innocent people to be hurt!”

  “Typical Nelwin style,” Daniel said, sitting back in his seat, trying to relax again. Being anywhere around Todd made him nervous. He always seemed to be angry and tended to lash out first, before thinking. Especially in school, where his big mouth and talking back to the teachers regularly netted him detention. Craig usually ended up there too, often because his brother egged him on.

  A few dips and curves later, Daniel and Pederson headed across the flat stretch of land that led into Climax. They could see the old elevators, which were no longer used, poking above the horizon several miles away. Short green crops grew in the fields on either side, extending as far as the eye could see.

  The first thing they saw on the main street of town was the Nelwins’ truck parked illegally at an odd angle across two spaces in front of the post office. The pair came out with their hands empty of mail, laughing and jostling one another, and jumped into the truck. Then without looking, Todd backed around until they faced the other side of the street. He drove a few yards and screeched to a halt in front of the local café.

  With a slam of the truck doors they sauntered inside, purposely knocking into a young blonde-haired girl coming out the door. Her plastic shopping bag flew out of her hand and hit the ground with a clank, scattering the contents onto the sidewalk.

  “Watch it, you jerks!” she said, turning to look back at them as she retrieved her drinks and bags of chips.

  “Did we upset the little girl?” Craig said with exaggerated fake anxiety, and laughing. The pair guffawed and slammed the door behind her, tinkling the announcing bells loudly.

  Daniel jumped out of the truck and hurried over to help her.

  “Lucy! Are you okay?” Daniel asked, surprised to see that it was Jed’s sister.

  “Yes,” she said, straightening her long braid and grabbing another bag of chips. “Those Nelwins are such dweebs!”

  “You can say that again!” Daniel responded, handing her the last drink container.

  “They’ll pay!” Her flushed face showed determination.

  “Somehow,” Daniel sighed. “I just haven’t figured out how.”

  Then Lucy noticed his bandaged head. “How...?”

  Daniel motioned his head towards the Nelwins sauntering around inside the café.

  “You too?” Lucy glared at them through the window.

  Just then Pederson brushed past them and headed into the café. Daniel and Lucy watched him walk over to the counter where the Nelwins sat spinning on stools, sipping on bottles of pop. He spoke to them quietly.

  At first the two boys laughed and shook their heads, gesturing at him to leave with flicks of their hands. Pederson barked something at them. A moment later, they both stood up and marched outside in front of the old man, to the amazement of the waitress and several other customers sitting at the tables, solemnly watching them go.

  “Let’s hear it!” Pederson said quietly.

  With slightly embarrassed smirks, Craig and Todd looked at the ground, and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “We didn’t hear you.” Pederson stared at them with cold eyes.

  “Sorry we bumped into you,” Craig said a little louder. His smirk disappeared and he looked somewhat contrite.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Todd echoed, not looking up, clenching his hands at his sides as if he’d like to take a swing at Pederson.

  Then he turned to Pederson. “Okay?” he demanded arrogantly. Craig touched Todd on the shoulder as if to calm him down or hold him back.

  Pederson looked enquiringly at Lucy. She nodded.

  “You boys have yourself a fine day.” Pederson said, staring at them coldly.

  The two boys shuffled back into the café with their hands in their pockets. As they walked ba
ck through the customers, Craig’s face seemed flushed and slightly embarrassed, but Todd glared back at anyone daring to look his way.

  Lucy grinned at Pederson. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Anything for a lady,” Pederson bowed his head to-wards her. “May we escort you to your destination?” He held out his bent right arm to her, and with the other took her bag.

  Lucy hesitated, and then slid her arm through his. Pederson nodded at Daniel. He took her other arm. Lucy raised her head with dignity, like visiting royalty, and they all sauntered across the street towards the swimming pool. Through the surrounding chain-link fence, they could see her two sisters, Leanne and Lindsay, stop their splashing and watch their approach in amazement.

  When Daniel and Pederson released her to go inside the pool grounds, Lucy curtsied to them and retrieved her grocery bag. Her mom rose from her lawn chair and came to speak to them through the fence. She’d brought the girls in for their swimming lesson.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up at Pederson gratefully and tousling Daniel’s hair. “I saw what you did for Lucy.”

  Pederson shrugged. “Those boys need to be taken down a notch or two.” He nodded. “Have yourselves a nice day, everyone.”

  Pederson turned and walked towards the post office. The two younger Lindstrom girls crawled out of the pool, waving at them. Then they gathered around Lucy, who dispersed their snacks. Daniel looked around for Jed.

  Mrs. Lindstrom noticed and said, “Jed’s lesson is this afternoon. He’s gone to Shaunavon with his dad this morning to the Co-op.”

  “Okay,” said Daniel. He wasn’t fond of water, and the swimming classes through the school year at Shaunavon were enough for him, but Jed loved the water and would take lessons all summer if he could.

  Daniel ran to catch up with Pederson, feeling strangely touched by the old man’s kindness and his lack of fear.