Borrowed Time

by Greg Leitich Smith

  “Hit her over the head,” Brady replied. “Rifle through her pockets, and see if she was telling the truth about being out of bullets. And then shove her overboard.”

  Nate laughed, then quickly stifled it when Mildred looked back. Obviously, Brady was joking. “No. Let’s just keep an eye on her and play it by ear. Besides, we need her to get out of here. Back home, I mean.”

  “Do we?” Brady asked, softly, then abruptly raised his voice. “I don’t like being here.”

  “In the Cretaceous?” Nate asked. “I thought you liked dinosaurs.”

  “I don’t like being in a narrow channel right along the shore where you can’t see what could be coming at you,” he answered. “Tyrannosaurs aren’t the only danger. They just get the most press.”

  “What else is out there?”

  “Dromaeosaurs, troodontids, hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, ankylosaurs, possibly even sauropods. Almost everything you could call a dinosaur. It doesn’t have to have big teeth to trample you to death. So we should get out of here as soon as possible.”

  “When does it get dark?” Nate asked. He didn’t know if he wanted to travel without light.

  “It’ll be a while,” Mildred said, swiveling in the fishing chair. “We should make it to the cabin in plenty of time. But if we don’t, we can probably tie up for the night somewhere.”

  Brady shook his head. “We should travel as long as we can. The dinosaurs will be less active after dark.”

  “No, they won’t,” Mildred answered.

  “What?” Brady said.

  “The dinosaur lizards are just as active at night as they are during the day,” she replied. “Whoever decided they weren’t was just plain wrong.”

  Brady froze. “Then they’re warm-blooded?”

  Mildred frowned. “I don’t know. It really doesn’t get all that cold here at night.”

  As Brady and Mildred began debating the habits of dinosaurs, Nate tuned them out. He was sticky from sweat and his leg hurt. He was being attacked by mosquitoes and flies. And he was really hungry.

  One thought kept cycling through his mind: this was all Dad’s fault. That they were still here probably meant he never figured out the Recall Device, and that meant they would be trapped here forever. And why was Dad so obsessed in the first place?

  As the channel grew narrower, the number of Enchodus swimming past seemed to increase. On both sides, ferns and cycad-like trees vied with cypresses covered in vines.

  Every now and then, they came across a fallen branch that they had to move out of the way so the boat could make it through. Once, when Brady was wading through the water, he grabbed a turtle that had been sunning itself on a log in their path and placed it onto the deck of the boat. “Dinner.”

  It was slow going and they couldn’t really see far into the woods. Nate started to wonder how well the girl really knew the area.

  After Brady climbed back aboard the boat Nate steered through another logjam and their way began to open up. The channel grew wider and the foliage on either side grew less dense.

  Finally, they turned a corner around a stand of cypresses to view a much larger lake. On the far shore, tall evergreens stood in a thick forest. A few islands dotted the smooth water.

  And then they saw a greasy billow of smoke arising in the distance from an island on the left.

  Mildred frowned. “That’s where we’re going.”

  Chapter

  X

  Max

  I PUSHED ON THE CANOE, SLIPPING ONCE IN THE MUD, but soon got the boat floating and moving away from the shore. When the water was a couple of feet deep, I tried to jump aboard, flinging my body across the bow of the canoe. Unfortunately, my momentum carried me over, and the canoe came with me.

  As Petra yelled out a warning, the boat capsized, dumping her and all our supplies into the water. Aki landed on my head with a squawk.

  Each grabbing an end, together Petra and I righted the canoe, but it was filled with water and too heavy to easily move.

  “If we can get it to shore, we can empty it out,” Petra said. “When your friend’s there”—she pointed at the trike—“go away.”

  I nodded, though with our luck we’d be just as likely to punch a hole in the bottom of the boat.

  Meanwhile, the lead Triceratops trundled over to the lake and began drinking. About twenty feet away from us.

  Where we were standing the water was about waist deep. As I was wondering if we should stay near the canoe or get out to deeper water away from the trikes, two of the large ones and two of the smaller began rolling in the mud at the edge of the lake.

  “Probably keeps the mosquitoes away,” Petra said. In one hand she held the bow she had rescued from the lake. She waded over to me and managed to climb inside the canoe to keep everything steady.

  As the Triceratops finished their mud baths and starting drinking again, we carefully gathered together the supplies that had tipped out the side of the canoe. Most of them were fine, but I supposed the cast-iron utensils would probably rust unless we got them dry. The linens were heavy with water, but at least they sort of floated in the canoe. And as for the Recall Device/Chronal Engine components, who knew what they’d do?

  After about an hour, the herd was still behind us but the fire from the island and the dogtrot seemed to have mostly burned down.

  “Should we try to get back to the pier?” Petra asked.

  By that point, my skin had gotten pruney and I was ready to get out of the water. But the canoe was hard to move and it was still about a hundred yards to the pier, as opposed to ten or so to the shore where the dinosaurs were.

  “Let’s wait a bit,” I said. “The Triceratops will probably move on pretty soon.”

  It actually took another half hour or so. By then, I was slightly disappointed that we hadn’t seen anything like a T. rex try to hunt them. On the other hand, I was also kind of glad we hadn’t seen anything like a T. rex try to hunt them.

  “Let’s go,” Petra said, placing Aki onto the bow of the canoe and clambering out

  I glanced toward the island then, and saw, through the smoke beyond, a boat approaching. “Do you see that?”

  “A bass boat!” Petra said, and waved wildly.

  The boat slowed as it approached the island and began to circle.

  “Over here!” I shouted.

  “Who are they?” Petra asked.

  A girl standing at the front of the boat pointed, and the boat steered toward us. In addition to her, there were two guys in the boat, about my age. The one driving, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, I recognized from family photos as young Uncle Nate. And I also recognized the other, the one wearing a polo shirt. “Oh.”

  “What is it?” Petra asked.

  “Uncle Nate,” I said, and swallowed. “And Brady. Uncle Brady.”

  “I didn’t know you had an Uncle Brady,” Petra replied.

  “I don’t,” I murmured as the boat came alongside us. “Not anymore.”

  The girl at the bow was dressed in what looked like a safari outfit you’d see in a Tarzan movie.

  “Are you Max Pierson?” the girl asked.

  It was actually “Pierson-Takahashi,” but she was close enough. Especially since the girl was clearly from the past and the “Takahashi” part might be giving too much away. “Yeah.”

  In a smooth, swift motion—I almost missed it—she raised a knife from out of nowhere.

  “No, don’t!” Nate called out just as the girl threw it.

  Straight at me.

  Chapter

  XI

  Nate

  THE BOY—MAX—JUMPED TO THE SIDE WHILE BRADY LAUNCHED HIMSELF TOWARD MILDRED. Brady got there just after Mildred released the knife, and they both tumbled into the water beside the boat.

  Nate stepped forward to see Max get up from beside the swamped canoe and pull the knife from the gunwale. In the meantime, on the other side of the boat, Mildred was shrieking and struggling with Brady, who held on to her, trying to preve
nt her from getting away.

  “Hold it right there!” the girl with Max shouted. “Don’t move!” She held a compound bow with an arrow nocked and aimed at Mildred, string pulled back and ready to release.

  Brady backed away from Mildred, and Max stepped to the other girl’s side, dripping, holding the knife in one hand.

  “Who are you?” Max demanded.

  “I’m Nate Pierson. That’s my brother, Brady, and the girl who threw the knife is Mildred Campbell.”

  Until then, Nate hadn’t been sure if Mildred had been telling the truth about her past. But from the look on Max’s face, it seemed she was. Or at least some of it. “You recognize the name?”

  “A man named Isambard Campbell kidnapped my sister and tried to kill me,” Max answered. “And he was also out to get Mad Jack Pierson.”

  “Lies!” Mildred screamed. “You killed my father! My father helped Mad Jack build the Chronal Engine but came to realize Mad Jack would never use it wisely!”

  “This is our friend Petra Castillo.” Max gestured toward the girl with the bow. “She, my brother, Kyle, and I came back here to save my sister, Emma, from Campbell.”

  “And the three of you killed him!” Mildred said.

  Max shook his head. “Petra and Kyle were back at our camp. Samuel and I were trying to rescue Emma when Campbell came after us, shooting. He stumbled onto a nesting T. rex and . . . got eaten.” Max grimaced. “He tried to use a Recall Device to get away, but the mass overloaded the machine and . . .” Max raised his hands. “I don’t know what happened afterward.”

  “He materialized in our backyard, burned and in severe pain,” Mildred said, her voice icy. “But he did say before he died that you were responsible.”

  Max winced. “I’m sorry he died. But he was trying to kill us.”

  As Mildred bristled again, Petra gestured with the bow. “Stay.”

  “Did you say ‘Samuel’?” Brady put in, which seemed to Nate to be the least important part of the story.

  “My great-grandfather,” Max said. “Although he was young at the time.”

  “Our grandfather is named Samuel,” Nate said, staring at Max. “Does that mean you’re . . .”

  “Yes. You’re my uncle—uncles,” Max answered. “Your sister, Ernestine, is my mother.”

  As Nate tried to absorb the fact that Ernie had, or would have, three kids, Max spoke again. “You, Brady. Make sure she doesn’t have any more knives.”

  “You’re not touching me!” Mildred said, stepping back.

  “Petra could just shoot you,” Brady told her.

  Silently, Mildred unbuttoned her jacket and allowed Brady to check if she had any more weapons. “She’s clean.”

  Petra lowered the bow and returned the arrow to the quiver on her back.

  “Do you have a Recall Device?” Nate asked Max. “Can you get us home?”

  “Well,” Max said, “about that . . .”

  Chapter

  XII

  Max

  “IT WAS STOLEN,” I SAID, AND LOOKED AT MILDRED. “Maybe she had something to do with that.”

  I’d never thought of Isambard Campbell as having a family. He was just the former assistant or graduate student or whatever who had kidnapped Emma and tried to kill us last time we were here. Yesterday, in fact. As for our Recall Device, it made sense that Mildred had taken it to trap us here. But she didn’t admit or deny anything.

  “Stolen?” Brady repeated as he took another step back from her. “So you don’t actually have a way back home?”

  I hesitated. “Not exactly. But I have an idea. There’s a chance that there’s a steamboat on the shore of the seaway not far from here that may have a functioning Recall Device. But I don’t know what kind of condition it’s in. I think the boat originally belonged to Great-Great-Grandpa Pierson, but it has a big hole in the side.” I shrugged. “I don’t know how it ended up there.”

  “How far is that?” Nate asked.

  “A couple days maximum, I think,” I told them. I’d never made the trip by boat, but it seemed as though it would be faster than walking. I gestured at the canoe. “Brady, can you give us a hand here?”

  As Brady came over, Petra stepped beside me, and I whispered to her, “Keep an eye on Mildred.”

  Petra nodded and reached out to pet Aki, who’d been sitting on the bow of the canoe.

  “What is that?” Mildred asked, staring at the chick.

  “A dromaeosaur hatchling,” Petra said.

  “That’s a dromaeosaur?” Brady exclaimed, leaning closer. He glanced at me. “Covered in down? Does that mean they have feathers as adults?”

  I hesitated over how much I should tell him. I decided that this, at least, really wouldn’t matter. “Yes, although fossil feathers on dinosaurs aren’t going to be found until the 1990s.”

  “Are there woolly tyrannosaurs too?” he asked. “Or just dromaeosaurs?”

  “Guys,” Petra said, “could you do the whole Walking with Dinosaurs thing later?”

  With that, the three of us hauled the canoe toward shore. Nate steered the bass boat up behind, and Mildred waded through the water a bit off to the side, giving me looks that would’ve killed me if she’d been able to shoot lasers out of her eyes.

  Once we got the canoe to shore, Petra held out her hand for Aki, who immediately jumped on it.

  Nate dropped anchor but stayed aboard the bass boat and didn’t get out to help.

  “He got bit,” Brady said, at my glance. “By a mosasaur.”

  “You’ve been at sea?” I asked.

  Brady shook his head, pointing back the way they’d come. “Up that way. In the lake. A freshwater mosasaur.”

  “Here?” I said. “Really?”

  “They haven’t discovered freshwater mosasaurs in your time?” Brady asked with a grin.

  “Not in North America,” I told him.

  “Guys . . .” Petra said again.

  “Unc—Nate—if you see something moving in the forest, yell,” I called out.

  “What left these tracks?” Brady asked.

  “Triceratops,” I told him. “A mixed adult-juvenile group.” I pointed out where they had come through from the forest to take their mud bath.

  Brady’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.

  We unloaded the canoe while Mildred came over and peered closely at Aki. I couldn’t hear what she and Petra were saying, but the Campbell girl seemed transfixed by the dromaeosaur. Which was fine with me.

  Once it was clear of supplies, Brady and I tipped the canoe over, emptying out the water.

  “How big will it get?” Brady asked. “The dromaeosaur?”

  “About four feet long, three feet high at the waist,” I told him. That, at least, was its mother’s size.

  As we reloaded the canoe, Petra and Mildred stepped close. Aki, I noticed, was now perched on Mildred’s shoulder.

  “It’s getting late,” Petra said. “We need to find shelter and get dry.”

  “Back to the island?” I suggested.

  Petra scrunched her nose. “It’ll be a little charred.”

  “We could sleep on the boat.” I used my hand to shield my eyes from the sun. “It looks like the dock is still there, mostly. And it’s probably safer there than here.” That was why Mad Jack had built the cabin, after all.

  It ended up being a weird night. Most of the dogtrot had burned, but we managed to salvage some bits for firewood. We discovered that the backpack was waterproof, so Petra put on my extra set of clothes—T-shirt and cargo shorts. Mildred wore Petra’s spares, although she had to be reassured that they were actually girls’ clothes. She seemed to feel they were inappropriate, or at least inappropriate to wear in the company of human males.

  We ate an Enchodus that Nate had caught earlier, cooked whole, and broke into one of the cans of peas and another of baked beans. The fish wasn’t great, but at least it was filling.

  We decided to keep watch, in part because we didn’t know who had s
tolen the Recall Device, in part because of the risk of dinosaurs, and in part because Mildred wanted to kill me.

  Mildred and Petra stretched a quilt on a rope to make a wall and provide a “separate bedchamber,” and they built their own fire so they could dry their clothes.

  For the first watch, I sat up with Petra. I wasn’t sure I felt all that safe with Mildred on the island and a machete in arm’s reach. But at least we wouldn’t let her take a watch by herself.

  For a while, Petra and I were silent, just looking into the fire and listening to the screeches and animal calls from the forest across the water. Then my thoughts drifted toward Campbell and Mildred. She’d said her father hadn’t really been trying to kill us. I wasn’t sure I believed that, though. He’d kidnapped Emma and then came after us with a gun, through a tyrannosaur-infested forest. And he’d never once said anything to Emma about saving the time stream. She definitely would’ve mentioned it if he had.

  As for Mildred trying to kill me, that was more than a little scary. It was bad enough that there were giant reptilian predators out here.

  “So what’s the story with Brady?” Petra asked, startling me.

  It took me a moment to arrange my thoughts. “It’s kind of creeping me out.” I hesitated, watching the light from the fire flicker across her face. “Grandpa never mentioned him?” Petra had lived on the ranch with her mother for the past several years, and Grandpa never left the place. I sort of figured he might’ve said something or that it might’ve come up somehow.

  “No. Honestly, though, he only rarely mentioned Nate, or your mom, either.” For a moment we watched as Aki tussled with fish guts before devouring the Enchodus’s liver.

  “He’s Nate’s twin,” I said, lowering my voice and double-checking to make sure the other three were asleep. “Fraternal, obviously. He was a volunteer fireman. He died when I was about a year old, so I don’t have any memories of him.”

  “How did he die?”

  I plucked at a fern frond and tore it apart. “He was at the Ismay High School football stadium fire when the concourse collapsed.”