The Case of the Dinosaur Birds

by John R. Erickson

  Her hawkish gaze flicked over to Freddy. “What’s he talking about?”

  Freddy looked very uncomfortable. “Momma, you remind him of a dinosaur, some kind of freak.”

  Her eyes snapped back to me. “Freak!”

  I searched my mind for a tactful way of putting this. “Now, ma’am, I didn’t say that. Let’s just say that a dinosaur living in the present day is . . . well, unique. Distinctive.”

  Momma’s eyes came at me like bullets. “Freak, huh? Old dinosaur?” Her head rose out of her shoulders. Her eyes were on fire. She began loosening up her wings, almost as though . . .

  I began backing away. “Now, ma’am, there’s no need to . . . What we have here is a failure to communicate. Freddy, do something with your mother!”

  “Ha. You’re on your own.”

  “Coward! Listen, ma’am, I think I can explain everything. My only point was . . .”

  BAM! BLAP!

  Chapter Nine: Drover Gets Thrown in Jail

  You know, she’d looked old and shriveled and decrepit, but when she flew into the middle of me, I thought I’d walked into an airplane propeller. I mean, you talk about getting thrashed by a pair of wings!

  And remember that long, ridiculous beak? When she turned it into a jackhammer and started using it on the top of my head, nobody was laughing. I sure wasn’t.

  Well, I thought I’d never get away from the old bat, but at last I broke away and staggered out of her range. Freddy came hopping after me, wearing a look of deep concern.

  “Are you all right? Brother, you’ve got some knots on your head! Did Momma do all that?”

  I rubbed my throbbing head. “What do you think? Those aren’t mosquito bites.”

  “Yes, she gets riled up sometimes. I had a feeling she would. Momma’s awful sensitive about her age.”

  “Yeah? Well, thanks for warning me.”

  “You know, I tried but . . .” He gave me a wink. “. . . you don’t listen too good.”

  I stuck my nose in his face. “You know, pal, I liked you at first and even felt sorry for you because you look like a fossil and your mother’s a lunatic; but after getting better acquainted, I’ve changed my mind. Get off my ranch and don’t come back!”

  He was shocked. “Well, you don’t need to get all hateful. Me and Momma never wanted to be a burden.”

  “You’re a burden. Thanks to you and your big mouth, I’ve got thirty-seven knots on my head.”

  He swallowed a lump in his throat, and mist came to his eyes. “Well, Momma’s been in poor health, and I . . . I just don’t know where to go.”

  “Poor health! She almost chopped my head off!” I stuck my nose in his face and gave him a snarl. “Look, I’m not running a rest home for dinosaurs.”

  His face grew solemn. “You keep talking about dinosaurs.”

  “Because that’s what you are—a couple of living, breathing, squawking, bacon-stealing fossils. I’m sorry you’re lost, and I hope you find your way back to wherever you belong, but get off my ranch. You’ve got five minutes to clear out.”

  Freddy gave his head a sad shake and waddled back to his mother. “Momma, he says we have to leave. We’re not welcome here.”

  “The hateful old thing!” She covered her face with both wings and began to cry. “Oh, Freddy, I just want to go home!”

  He gave her a hug. “I know, Momma, and we’ll try our best.” He turned to me and waved his wing. “Well, thanks for all your kindness. We’ll probably . . . we’ll probably be all right.”

  And with that, they flapped their big wings and flew out of my life.

  I know what you’re thinking—that I was a rat for throwing them off my ranch. Isn’t that what you were thinking? Be honest.

  Well, I don’t care. The Head of Ranch Security has to make tough decisions and sometimes . . . Hey, look at the facts. They were a couple of ugly fossil birds who would never fit into life on a modern ranch. They needed to go back to Dinosaur Land and enjoy life amongst the other fossils.

  And don’t forget that they’d stolen my breakfast bacon, right from under my very nose. I mean, that’s a serious crime, and I could have thrown the book at them. If you ask me, they got off pretty lucky.

  So if you want to waste your time worrying about Freddy and his weird momma, go right ahead, but I had more important things to do—a ranch to run, patrols to make, reports to write. I was a very busy dog, and busy dogs don’t have time to brood about homeless birds.

  I made my way back to the office. Drover was there, but I didn’t speak to him. This Dinosaur Case had worn me out and I needed a nap, so I flopped down on my gunnysack bed.

  Drover was watching. “How’d it go?”

  “It went great. I ordered them off the ranch and warned them never to come back. No problem. Good night.” I closed my eyes and tried to drift off to sleep.

  “How’d you get all those knots on your head?”

  I sat up and beamed him a glare of steel. “If you must know, Mister Snoop, the old lady drilled me with her beak.”

  “I’ll be derned. I wonder why she did that.”

  “Who knows? She’s unstable. And I guess she didn’t appreciate being reminded that she’s a dinosaur.” I noticed that he was grinning. “Did I say something funny?”

  “Well, yeah, sort of. I don’t think she’s a dino­saur.”

  “Of course she’s a dinosaur. Little Alfred said so. The boy knows everything about dinosaurs.”

  “Yeah, but after you left, Sally May got out the bird book, and she found a match.”

  “She burned the book?”

  “No, she found a picture that matched those birds.” A grin spread across his mouth. “They’re pelicans.”

  All at once, half-forgotten clues began flooding my mind. “Wait a second, hold everything. Those birds were lost, looking for a lighthouse, and Freddy even called himself ‘Freddy Pelican’! I thought it was just an odd French name, but it was actually . . . Don’t you get it, Drover? They’re pelicans!”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  I had to indulge myself in a little chuckle. “Well, no wonder the old bat got so mad when I called her a dinosaur. Ha ha.” Suddenly I had a great idea. “Drover, those birds are so ridiculous, we should sing a song about them.”

  He thought about that. “Yeah, it might be fun . . . only we don’t know any songs about pelicans.”

  “We’ll make it up as we go along. You do a verse, I’ll do a verse, and we’ll see where it goes.” And with that, we belted out a great little song called “Why Does a Pelican Look So Bizarre?” You’ll love this.

  Why Does a Pelican Look So Bizarre?

  I wonder who built the first pelican, this highly unusual bird.

  The way he’s put together brings to mind the term “absurd.”

  He sounds like a seagull and looks like a dork.

  He stands on two legs that resemble a stork.

  They’re stuck on a body the shape of a cork.

  Why does a pelican look so bizarre?

  I wonder who drew up the blueprint that yielded the basic design

  Of a dinosaur pterodactyl who got lost in the tunnel of time?

  What does he eat? A fish now and then.

  He carries a basket right under his chin.

  His beak is so long he can’t muster a grin.

  Why does a pelican look so bizarre?

  What thoughts do you reckon his mother had when she looked into his bed.

  Imagine the shock of seeing that thing! You wonder what she said.

  Maybe she fainted and fell on the floor.

  Maybe she screamed and ran out the door.

  Or maybe she issued a laugh like a roar:

  “Why does my baby look so bizarre?”

  A mother will love most any old thing that falls
into her care.

  She’ll feed it and hold it and rock it to sleep and dress it in underwear.

  But pelican mothers are put to the test.

  You can hardly imagine the level of stress

  With something so ugly right there in her nest.

  Why does a pelican look so bizarre?

  We’re all part of God’s creation; He made us in different styles.

  The day He constructed a pelican, He must have been wearing a smile.

  For here was a joke in a feathery suit,

  Wearing that highly ridiculous snoot,

  As long as your arm but with nary a tooth.

  A pelican looks like a cosmic gaffe,

  So maybe he’s here to give us a laugh.

  Pretty amazing song, huh? You bet, and don’t forget that we made it up on the spot. We laughed and celebrated our masterpiece, then Drover said, “But you know what? It gets even funnier, ’cause they didn’t steal your bacon.”

  I stared at him. “What?”

  “Hee hee. It was Pete.”

  For a moment I couldn’t speak. “Pete! That’s impossible. I was standing right there.”

  “Yeah, and so was I. While you were looking up at the pelicans, I saw the whole thing. Pete dashed over, snatched up your pieces of bacon, and gobbled ’em down.”

  “Nonsense. You’ll never convince me . . .”

  A deadly silence moved over us. In the back of my mind, I reconstructed the scene at Scrap Time: me on the left, Drover in the middle, and Pete over on the right. Yet when I discovered that my bacon was gone, Drover was on the right, I stood in the middle, and Pete had moved over . . . to the left side!

  Pete had sneaked past me and I hadn’t noticed.

  He hadn’t taken even one bite out of his biscuit, remember?!

  And when he burped, I SMELLED BACON!

  My whole body went limp and I collapsed on the ground. For several long moments, I lay there on my back, twitching and blinking my eyes, while the rest of the world spun around in dizzy circles. At last I was able to sit up.

  “He did it, he really did it, and all that stuff about the Beacon Bacon was just a cruel hoax.” I took a big gulp of fresh air and tried to steady my nerves. “Drover, you know what hurts most about this disgraceful affair?”

  “Well, let’s see. You insulted a nice old lady?”

  “No, worse than that.”

  “All those knots on your head?”

  “Even worse than the knots.”

  He frowned and rolled his eyes around. “Well, let’s see. You got skunked by the cat?”

  “No.” I pushed myself up on wobbly legs, stuck my nose in his face, and screamed, “Traitor! You saw the whole thing and didn’t tell me!”

  “Well, I tried, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Our Security Division has suffered a crushing humiliation and it was all your fault!” My screams echoed into the distance, and I sank to the ground. “Drover, we’re ruined, and the worst part, the very darkest and ugliest part, is that . . . it wasn’t your fault.”

  He stared at me with an open mouth. “I thought you just said . . .”

  “Drover, I did it to myself. I fell for every one of Pete’s tricks. Sometimes I think I’m not very smart.”

  A silly grin wiggled across his mouth. “Boy, I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “Glad? It rips my heart out!”

  “Yeah, but I’ve never had the nerve to tell you.”

  There was a long moment of silence. My eyes locked on him. Suddenly I felt a rush of fresh energy coursing through my body. I rose to my full height and towered over the slandering little wretch. “Did you just say that your commanding officer isn’t as smart as he thinks he is?”

  His grin faded. “Well, that’s what you said.”

  “Soldier, you’re going to the brig. Move!”

  Hanging his head in shame, the little traitor shuffled over to the northwest angle iron leg of the gas tank platform and stuck his nose in the corner. “I was just trying to be honest.”

  “Then let this be a lesson to you. There’s a time to be honest, and there’s a time to keep your trap shut.”

  “How long do I have to stay in jail?”

  “Weeks. Months. You may never see the light of day again.”

  “Oh, rats.” After a moment of silence, he said, “Wait! I think I’ve got the answer!”

  Chapter Ten: We Find the Answer to Life

  I had begun scratching a flea on my right ear. When I heard Drover’s words, my leg froze in midair. “The answer? The answer to what?”

  “Our problem. Everything. Life.”

  “You have the Answer to Life?”

  “Yeah, you want to hear it?”

  I hoisted myself up to a standing position and paced over to his cell. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “Nope, I just thought of it.” He gave me a mysterious look and whispered, “Let’s go chase the cat!”

  My first response was to laugh out loud. “Ha ha. Chase the cat? That’s the Answer to Life?” But then . . . hmmm . . . I found myself pacing back and forth in front of Drover’s dingy cell. “You know, that’s not as crazy as you might think. In fact . . . Drover, it was the cat that started this whole mess. Think about it. He made a monkey out of me, and I made a jailbird out of you. He’s turned us against each other, dog against dog!”

  I stopped in my tracks and whirled around. “Don’t you get it? This could be the Answer to Life Itself! Any time we’re sad, any time we’re feeling depressed, we can always chase the cat and run him up a tree! Drover, this could be a cure for everything. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”

  “I don’t know, but can I get out of jail?”

  I gave that some thought. “Have you learned a lesson from this?”

  “Oh yeah. I can’t remember it right now, but it was a great lesson.”

  “That’s close enough.” I inserted the key into the cell door and threw it open. “Drover, you are now a free dog. Let’s go chase the cat!”

  The little mutt rushed out into the sunlight and began doing rolls on the ground. “Oh, freedom!”

  “Come on, son, to the yard!”

  We launched ourselves into the morning breeze and flew in tight formation all the way down to the house. Ten yards out, we executed a perfect landing and coasted to a stop. I climbed out of the cockpit and turned to Drover.

  “All right, men, are we ready to chase a cat?”

  Drover was jumping around and throwing punches in the air. “You bet, just let me at ’im!”

  “That’s the spirit. Form a line and follow me, we’re going in!”

  I had already drawn up a plan for this mission. Would you like to see it? I guess it wouldn’t hurt to release it to the general public.

  The plan was pretty simple and straightforward. Since the enemy spent most of his pampered life inside the yard, we would have to breach the walls of the city. It would be difficult but not impossible. Our troops would have to leap upward, hook our front paws on the rim of the fortress walls, pull ourselves up and over, then sprint across the open courtyard to the iris patch.

  Once we had the area secured, we would move in and . . . heh heh . . . chase the little snot all the way into next week. The Security Division would be restored to its previous greatness, and we would experience the sheer joy of . . .

  Huh?

  What I saw in the distance caused me to stop in my tracks. “Company, halt!”

  Drover wasn’t paying attention (he never does) and ran into me. “Oops, sorry. What’s the deal?”

  “We have to cancel the mission. Look.” I pointed a paw toward the house. Pete sat on the porch—smirking at us, purring, and rubbing on Sally May, who was also sitting on the porch . . . peeling carrots.

  Oh, and get this.
When he saw us, Kitty sat up straight and waved a paw.

  Drover and I turned our backs on the cat and went into a huddle. Drover was the first to speak. “Gosh, what’ll we do now?”

  “We can’t risk sending troops over the wall. With Sally May sitting there, it would be suicide.”

  “Oops. We don’t need that.”

  “Exactly. She’s armed with a carrot peeler, and her broom can’t be far away.” My mind was racing. “Okay, here’s the backup plan.” Before I could reveal the plan, Drover began backing away. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought you said to back up.”

  “No, I said . . .”

  ZOOM. It happened so fast, I saw only a small cloud of dust and a white comet streaking toward the machine shed. Then I heard a faint voice in the distance. “Boy, this old leg’s really starting to throb, oh, my leg!” And he was gone.

  Oh well, I wouldn’t need his help anyway, because the next phase of the mission called for a delicate diplomatic effort. See, under a flag of truce, I would try to lure the cat out of the yard, away from Sally May, and then . . . well, you can guess.

  As I always say, when brute force fails, try charm. If charm works, you can always go back to brute force. Heh heh.

  I walked toward the yard gate holding up my flag of truce. “Pete? We need to talk.”

  His eyes sparkled. “Oh, really? What fun!” He scampered off the porch and came bounding down the sidewalk. “I just love talking to you, Hankie. What now?”

  There he was, sitting only two feet away from me with nothing but a wire fence between us. Before I could think, my ears leaped up and my lips began rippling into a snarl. I had to shut everything down before my savage instincts gave me away.

  I beamed him a pleasant smile. “Hi, Pete, great to see you again, no kidding.”

  “Oh, really? Somehow I find that hard to believe, Hankie.” He leaned toward me and whispered, “How were the dinosaurs? Hee hee.”

  Boy, you talk about Iron Discipline. Every cell in my enormous body was calling for me to hamburgerize the little creep, but somehow I managed to stay in control. “Say, Pete, that was a great prank. Pelicans, and I fell for it. Ha ha. I mean, I really thought they were dinosaur birds.”