Borrowed Time

by Greg Leitich Smith

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Petra answered, gesturing to where I had come up, now about twenty feet away.

  A carcass floated on the water, bobbing. Sticking out of it were two arrows.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said, feeling a sudden chill.

  Chapter

  XXIX

  Nate

  BY THEN, THE RAIN WAS SO HEAVY THAT IT WAS ALMOST HARDER FOR Nate to see with his glasses than without. The lake was even choppier, tossing the canoe with the waves. He felt ill but couldn’t tell if it was from his leg or because of all the bobbing around they were doing.

  Shivering from the chill of the rain, leg throbbing, Nate was barely able to sit up. But he was determined to sustain his end of the project.

  Resting the paddle across his knees, he wiped his glasses on his T-shirt. It didn’t help all that much. “We won’t make it back to the island at this rate.”

  “Let’s go ashore here,” Max said.

  At the front, Brady nodded, and they paddled toward the nearest shore.

  As they canoed past a pair of trees standing in the water, Nate saw a shape on the lakeshore, half in and half out of the water. It was a dead Triceratops, its three-horned skull being lapped at by the waves. When they drew closer, he could make out deep gouges along its side and a large chunk taken out of its neck.

  As the crew pulled around the animal, the canoe was rocked by a wave. Nate tried to compensate, but his paddle slipped out of his hands and the canoe went over, dashing them into the water.

  He nearly blacked out from the pain as his leg scraped the side of the boat. He came up coughing for air between the canoe and the shore. Leaning on the boat, he was able to stand, the waist-level water supporting his weight on his good leg. “Everyone okay?”

  “Make sure we still have the Recall Device!” Brady pulled himself up from the same side of the canoe.

  Petra emerged from the other side. “Where’s Aki?”

  “Here,” Max said as he stood behind Nate. The little dromaeosaur sat cowering in Max’s right hand, water dripping from his feathers. He sneezed, shivered to shake off the water, and then hopped to the shore. Max’s left hand held tightly to the Recall Device. “Here it is. Come on.”

  Max led the way out of the water. Petra, still holding her bow, scooped up Aki in the crook of an arm. The dromaeosaur huddled close to her, trying to get warm.

  With one arm over Brady’s shoulder, Nate followed, slipping only once as Max climbed past the trees. In a moment, they emerged into a clearing of ferns and cycads.

  “Can you get us out of here?” Brady asked.

  “Yeah.” Max crouched, holding the Recall Device up to his face, reading the markings. He twisted something on top and then paused. After a moment, he made another adjustment to the Device.

  “It’s okay?” Petra asked. “No water damage?”

  Max shook his head, still intent on the Recall Device.

  Nate leaned back against a tree and wiped his glasses on his shirt again. They were still wet, but when he put them back on, he got a better look at the meadow. To the right, there seemed to be a path formed by trampled ferns. He grabbed a downed branch and used it as a crutch, taking a couple of steps closer. When he paused, holding a hand out against another tree, he saw enormous footprints in the mud, leading away from the lakeshore.

  At Brady’s glance, Nate asked, “What has giant, three-toed feet?”

  “How giant?” Brady replied with a frown.

  “Yea big,” Nate said, balancing on one foot to hold his hands about a yard apart.

  “That.” Petra fluidly nocked an arrow and raised her bow to aim at a Tyrannosaurus rex. A big one. It had to have been about twenty feet high, and it was staring right at them.

  Slowly, Nate limped back toward the others. He felt the Tyrannosaurus rex’s eyes watching him, but it didn’t move.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Max stood, glancing over at the giant predator. “We are outta here now.” He held the Recall Device out in front of him with one hand and, with the other, casually pressed the button on top.

  And nothing happened.

  The Tyrannosaurus rex took a step toward them.

  Max hit the button again. This time, there was a sizzling sound, and the Tyrannosaurus paused.

  Then there was a burst of light and a popping sound.

  “Ow!” Max yelled. At the same time, Nate heard an arrow leave Petra’s bow.

  When Nate’s eyes cleared from the flash, he saw Max shaking his now-empty hand.

  “Uh-oh,” Petra said. The Tyrannosaurus growled, an arrow stuck in its jaw.

  “Where’s the Recall Device?” Brady demanded, crouching, pushing aside knee-high ferns on the ground in front of Max.

  “It left! On its own!” Max said.

  The Tyrannosaurus roared and charged.

  Chapter

  XXX

  Max

  “INTO THE TREES!” I YELLED. TOGETHER, BRADY AND I HALF DRAGGED, half carried Nate into a thicket of conifers, their trunks one to two feet in diameter, spaced too close for the T. rex to follow us through. At least, I hoped. I glanced over my shoulder. Petra was right behind us.

  We plowed over ferns and past cycads, and I nearly fell as we came upon a creek bed.

  “Where’s the T. rex?” I asked.

  “We’re clear!” Brady said, breathing heavily. “It turned back.”

  Shaking my hand, which still stung from the Recall Device, I looked behind us. “Good.”

  “What happened?” Petra asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the water interfering with the crystals or something.”

  “So we’re stuck here,” Brady said.

  I took a step out into the creek bed as rain came down harder.

  Petra took in a breath. “Don’t move.”

  “It’s back,” Nate said.

  Upstream from us stood a T. rex.

  “It’s not the same one,” Petra whispered. She was right. It didn’t have one of her arrows sticking out of its jaw. Not that that really mattered.

  “Back into the trees.” I took a careful step, feeling exhausted and despairing that there was no way we’d be able to get away from the T. rex with Nate.

  At that moment, there was a flash of light and a booming sound. In the middle of the creek bed, axle deep in water, a Hummer appeared and turned, blocking the giant theropod’s path. Grandpa Pierson’s Hummer.

  The passenger door opened. It was Emma. “Get in!” Beyond her, I could see Kyle at the wheel.

  I flung open the rear door and jumped in, the others right behind. As soon as the door closed, Kyle put the Hummer into gear to drive away from the T. rex. Before we moved, the dinosaur stepped forward and nudged the side of the SUV with its snout. The entire vehicle shook. Then Kyle turned to Emma. “Do it.”

  She reached over to a weird-looking contraption on the dashboard. It was a quartet of Recall Devices, mounted in a brass frame, connected together with wires and copper tubing.

  An instant later, there was a flash and we were gone.

  Chapter

  XXXI

  Nate

  THE SUV REAPPEARED AT THE RANCH, ON THE DRIVEWAY IN FRONT OF THE GARAGE. The door was open, the station wagon visible inside.

  “We’re home,” Nate whispered, almost ready to faint with relief. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  And was shocked into opening them when Brady and Max screamed at the same time.

  A shadow fell over the car. And then Nate saw an eye the size of a dinner plate peering through the window.

  “T. rex!” Max’s shout was the first coherent thing Nate heard that penetrated his brain.

  At almost the same time, Max reached over the seat past his brother to touch a button on the key chain and the Hummer began emitting a loud siren-like noise.

  The Tyrannosaurus roared, moisture from its breath fogging the window.

  shoved the vehicle again with its snout. The SUV rocked and the
window cracked, but the car stayed upright.“Why isn’t it working?” Kyle said, shooting Max an accusing look over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know!” Max said. “The VW siren . . . maybe it’s a different frequency or—”

  At that moment, beside the car, there came a snarl and furious barking.

  “Thor!” Nate exclaimed, and shoved Brady aside to look out the far window.

  The dog was poised beside the car, barking and snarling, confronting the giant dinosaur. Nate had never heard him sound like that.

  Brady made a choking sound. “He’s going to get eaten.”

  The Tyrannosaurus rumbled and turned its head to focus on Thor.

  Brady fumbled at the door lock. “We have to help him!”

  Just as he opened the door, Max grabbed him and pulled him back. “No, you—”

  Brady punched him in the face. As soon as Max let him go, Brady launched himself out of the SUV to stand right by the door, next to Thor. He raised his arms to make himself look bigger, like you were supposed to do when confronted by a cougar.

  Then he did the Tarzan yell.

  Confronted with a pair of mammals that had to have been bigger and louder than any it had ever seen, and a ridiculously big car-truck thing, the Tyrannosaurus roared again and lumbered off, down the hill, toward Little Buddy Creek.

  “Thor!” Brady called as the dog took off after the dinosaur. Thor turned and trotted back.

  A moment later, Kyle pressed the button on his key chain and the siren stopped.

  As Brady embraced their dog, Nate yelled at him. “You idiot! What were you doing? You could’ve been killed!”

  Kyle looked around. “Everyone okay?”

  At that moment, the back door opened, startling them all, but this time, Petra was the only one who screamed.

  Nate practically got whiplash looking toward the door just beyond her, though.

  It was his dad.

  “Boys,” he said, “thank God you’re home.” For the first time Nate could remember, there were tears in his dad’s eyes.

  Petra punched Nate in the shoulder and then shoved him out of the car and into his father’s arms. They embraced and Nate didn’t fall onto his face again.

  Brady came around the SUV with Thor and put his arm around Nate to help him stand.

  Then their dad spoke into the car. “Y’all’d best be off. You have a Tyrannosaurus rex to catch.”

  Max nodded, then leaned out past his grandfather and spoke to Brady, his voice low but intense. “Brady, don’t ever go to Ismay High School.”

  “Bye, Grandpa,” Kyle shouted from the driver’s seat at the same time, and roared off down the hill almost before Nate’s father closed the door.

  As the SUV headed down the hill, following the Tyrannosaurus Nate’s dad carried Nate into the garage and laid him in the back seat of the station wagon.

  “We’re taking you to the hospital,” he said.

  Chapter

  XXXII

  Max

  THE HUMMER SPED DOWN THE HILL AFTER THE T. REX.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded. I didn’t think the others had heard what I’d said to Brady, and I wanted to keep it that way. If they had heard, asking questions about a rogue T. rex would undoubtedly distract them.

  “We have to take him home,” Emma said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You don’t want a T. rex rampaging through the Lost Pines, do you?”

  “But how did it get here? What are those?” I pointed at the kludged-together contraption on the dashboard.

  “Uncle Nate solved the mass problem,” Kyle said. “It was one of the things he’s been doing in London. But it required four Recall Devices.”

  “We had one of ’em,” Emma said, “but we needed three more.”

  “One of them we got from Grandpa Pierson,” Kyle said as we caught up to the theropod. “But two of them were in the Cretaceous. Which was where you came in.”

  “Wait—how?” I asked.

  “One of them was the one you pulled from the water,” Emma said.

  I leaned forward, having trouble absorbing all of this new information. “But why did you need to do this at all? Why didn’t that Recall Device work when I triggered it?”

  “The water affected it,” Kyle answered. “And it did work. It came back on its own. Uncle Nate rigged it with these so that we could bring the Hummer and pick you all up.”

  “You planned all this?” Petra put in.

  “Well, it was mostly Uncle Nate,” Kyle said, without taking his eyes off our target.

  “But that leaves one more,” I said. “Where did that one come from?”

  Kyle snorted while Emma suddenly looked sheepish. She swatted Kyle’s shoulder and then explained. “That was actually yours. From Mad Jack’s cottage.”

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  “Why?” Petra demanded at the same time. “If you’d left it, Max and I could’ve just come home with Nate and Brady there on the island. And you wouldn’t have needed all this!”

  “Let’s just say,” Emma answered, “hypothetically speaking, for the sake of the space-time continuum, that someone might have, or have had, another need of that Recall Device.”

  “What does that even mean?” I asked.

  “That means, baby brother,” Kyle said, “that we are not going to tell you anything more about things you might not have done yet.”

  “Besides,” Emma said, “if I hadn’t taken the Recall Device, you might’ve been out there when the oil tank and generator exploded.”

  “Wait,” Petra said, gripping the back of the seat. “Why did the hut explode?”

  “An accident,” Emma answered, as Kyle shook his head. “No, really. Knob-and-tube wiring from that era. Big fire hazard. It’s why they don’t use it anymore.”

  Petra and I exchanged a glance. She shrugged. “She’s your sister.”

  “We’re going to have to be quick, now,” Kyle interjected. “Or else Grandpa Pierson’s going to be missing a few cows.”

  Straight ahead of us was the fence line where the cattle herd was kept. Or at least, it had been kept there in our time.

  Then the T. rex plowed through the fence, Kyle following, chunks of wood bouncing off the hood and windshield.

  “Okay—now!” Kyle shouted, and punched the accelerator. The Hummer surged forward to catch up to the side of the T. rex. Ahead, I saw cattle scattering, and then Emma pushed a button on the Recall Devices.

  Chapter

  XXXIII

  Nate

  “DAD,” BRADY ASKED AS THEY DROVE UP THE ROAD LEADING OFF THE RANCH, “what’s going on?”

  The boys’ father looked at them through the rearview mirror. Then he pulled a much-folded, yellowed envelope out of his jacket pocket. “A woman gave this to me at your grandfather’s funeral. The two of you would’ve been around five or six at the time.”

  Brady snatched it from him and began reading:

  Dear Mr. Pierson:

  A while back, in the Cretaceous, I met your sons and one of your grandsons under circumstances of which I am not proud. Our families’ histories had intersected unfortunately. Nevertheless, they were gentlemen.

  Although I left before I discovered exactly what happened to them there, I believe they may have need of a Recall Device, some years before they reach majority.

  Signed,

  Mrs. Mildred Borski, née Campbell

  “Holy . . .” Nate’s voice trailed off, and he leaned back on the car bench, staring at the back of his father’s head. “So all this time . . .”

  “I had a deadline,” their dad said. He shifted in the seat. “And I knew I had to make it happen . . . I thought I could do it before y’all got older, but when it didn’t happen . . . I should’ve been there more for you boys . . .”

  Nate tried to sort out the details. “So the quadruple Recall Device thing in that SUV. One was from me in the future. One was the one we found in the garage. And one of them was the one you’ve be
en working on all this time?”

  “Yes,” their father replied. “And the other one came from Max himself. But the one from you in the future is actually the same one I’d been working on.”

  “So all this time,” Brady said, “that you’ve been a great big pile of—”

  “Brady!” their dad said.

  “I was talking to Nate!” Brady said.

  By that point, Nate felt dizzy but strangely happy. He was kind-of-not-really mad at Brady for jumping in front of the Tyrannosaurus rex, kind-of-not-really mad at Max for telling them a little but not everything about Brady, and kind-of-not-really mad at his father for, well, everything. But they were family. And his leg was throbbing. “Just get me to the hospital. And don’t let them cut off my leg.”

  Chapter

  XXXIV

  Max

  WE EMERGED IN A FAMILIAR REDWOOD FOREST, and my brother let out a yell like Han Solo’s when they blew up the first Death Star.

  We were still beside the T. rex, but as soon as we landed, it halted and looked about, confused. Kyle slammed on the brakes an instant later and swung the wheel, spinning the Hummer into a turn and bringing it to a halt, a little too close to the theropod for my comfort.

  As I was about to say this, Kyle held up a hand. “Hold on. It’s not going to be up for anything else.”

  Sure enough, the T. rex sniffed the air, glanced at the SUV, and then strode off into the forest.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  “We will,” Kyle answered, and spun the Hummer around. But instead of activating the Recall Devices, Emma sat back in her seat and we drove on. “Grandpa’s going to be okay, by the way,” Kyle said. He turned around, flashing a grin. “We checked.”

  “Oh, good,” Petra replied.

  I was glad too. Although we hadn’t really spent much time with him before his heart attack, I wanted to get to know him better.