by Tess Sharpe
It makes my stomach churn like a boat navigating choppy waters. I want to make real change, but not at the cost of hurting people. Wyatt seems to thrive on the idea of winning at all costs, and I know better than to think like that. Some costs are too high.
“But her parents…,” I stress. If I never came back from this island, I can’t even imagine the hell my parents would unleash on Mr. Masrani and every other person—or dinosaur—they could get their hands on. So the idea that some parents let themselves get paid off and kept their daughter’s involvement—and death—quiet just doesn’t compute.
“Don’t be so naive, Claire,” Wyatt says. “That makes no difference.”
“To some people, it does,” Justin says.
“I’d think you’d be well versed in parental abandonment,” Wyatt says. “Mr. Ivy Rose. I read your mom’s Forbes magazine interview. She talked about raising you on her own. She seems…plucky.” Only he could make that sound like an insult.
“Wyatt! That’s really mean,” Amanda says, frowning at him.
Wyatt’s words are designed to be a barb, but Justin doesn’t even flinch. “Wyatt, if you’d actually understood what my mom was saying in that interview, you’d see that I had the parent I needed. Not everyone comes from a nuclear family. I can’t believe I have to say this, but get with the times. You act like you wish it was the nineteen fifties again.”
“It’s not a good look,” I add, making Wyatt’s mouth flatten.
Justin turns to me. “You ready to check out the corpse flower Tanya was talking about on the ride over, Claire? Or do you want to hear more about the phantom interns?”
“Yeah, let’s go find the twins,” I say. “Amanda, do you want to come with us?”
Amanda bites her lip, looking back and forth between us and Wyatt. His comment to Justin has definitely put her on guard. “I’ll be fine,” she says finally.
“Come on over to our table at dinner if you want,” I offer.
“I’d like that. I’ll see you then.”
“I wish Eric didn’t have to room with that guy,” Justin says under his breath as we walk away toward the other side of the greenhouse.
“Yeah, but Eric can hold his own,” I say as we turn the corner and the carnivorous plants come into view, but the twins are nowhere to be seen. Considering how much Tanya was talking about the corpse flower on the way over, she’s probably run off to find it if it isn’t in this particular dome.
“Did they go outside?” I ask, standing on my toes to peer over the impressive array of Venus flytraps set along one of the potting benches. Something tickles my forehead, and Justin’s dimples flash as I look up, a bright purple flower—more like a thistle, really, with spiky looking purple petals tightly clustered together—brushing against my head. I try to move forward, and that’s when I realize it’s caught in one of the pins holding my braids up.
“Please tell me it’s not carnivorous and about to eat my hair,” I say, holding very still as the thought occurs to me.
“It’s just a flower,” he assures me. “Wait a second, let me,” Justin says, stepping close.
I’m concentrating so hard on not turning pink—and failing so hard—as his fingers brush against my hair. It shouldn’t send this rush through me, like jumping off a cliff or running down a hill full speed, but it does. And it just gets worse when he snaps the stem of the flower where it’s caught in my pin and holds it out to me.
“The purple’s pretty with your hair,” he says…and what do you say to something like that? Especially when he’s looking at you like that? Greenhouses aren’t particularly romantic, but the sun’s shining through the dome’s triangles, and sure, the Venus flytraps are stirring hungrily below us, but it kind of adds to the moment, and all I can see, for a second, is him, holding the flower.
He says, “Can I?” and he waits for me to nod before he plucks the pen out from its place behind my ear and tucks the flower there instead. The pads of his fingers are rough—callused from what, I don’t know—against my skin, and it’s all fluttery inside my stomach. I don’t quite know what I want and I think he knows that, because he just smiles and steps back. “Let’s hope it’s not some rare prehistoric bloom,” he says.
“It’s Cirsium vulgare, common thistle flower,” says Tanya, and I whirl around to see my friend smiling wickedly at me, like she knows exactly how many butterflies are in my stomach right now. “I don’t think the botanists will be chasing you down with their pitchforks anytime soon.”
“Oh good, because those pitchforks we saw on the way in looked nasty,” Justin says.
“Come on, Eric’s waiting for us outside,” Tanya says. “I found the corpse flower!”
“If it smells as bad as they say it does, I’m calling first dibs on the shower when we get back to our room,” I say, but I follow her, Justin right beside me.
After dinner, by the time we get back to our room, my eyes are starting to ache. My brain feels swollen, like so much has happened today that there’s not enough room to hold it all in. I keep replaying everything over and over in my head…that moment Lovelace joined her herd, and how happy it sounded, greeting her.
“I’m going to go hang out with Amanda and Ronnie before curfew,” Tanya says. “Wanna come?”
“I think I’m gonna call it a night,” I say. “I want to write in my journal while everything’s still fresh.”
“I wish I had the discipline to journal,” Tanya sighs. “Your memoirs are going to be so much more detailed than mine!”
Her confidence, it’s infectious. I love that she just assumes someday we’ll be writing memoirs; that someday, we’ll be important enough for people to want to read them.
“Okay.” She grabs her bag and tablet. “We’ll be in Ronnie’s room, if you change your mind.”
“Thanks,” I say.
After she leaves, I settle down with my notebook. I spend over an hour journaling, writing down everything I can remember about today—how I felt, what was said, what I learned, and the questions all that brought up. Because there are a million questions whirling in my head. When we arrived, I had this idea that this was a place of answers. And it is.
But it’s also a place of questions.
When I’m done journaling, I take the thistle flower that Justin tucked behind my ear in the greenhouse and press it between two of the pages. I stack a few of my books on top of it, and for good measure add the amber dinosaur egg paperweight that was on the desk. I’ll leave it for a few days, and when I open it up, the flower will be pressed and dried perfectly, and I can fix it to the page with some glue. A little reminder of a big day.
I set my notebook on the bedside table, knocking my row of colored pens onto the ground in the process.
“Shoot.”
I get out of bed and scoop them up, but the green one’s missing. Green is for notes about the herbivores. Red is for carnivores. Blue is for my journal entries. Purple is miscellaneous, and I even use the pink sometimes. To doodle. In the scribbles section of my notebook. Because I am not going to draw in the margins or outside of that section designated for scribbles. Organization is key. I absolutely cannot lose my green pen—my notes will be in chaos!
I get down on my hands and knees to peer under the bed. The pen’s rolled all the way to the wall, and there’s no way I can move this heavy wood bed frame on my own. Hoping Tanya doesn’t come back unexpectedly, I wriggle under the bed. I have to crawl all the way under to grab the pen, and just as I’m awkwardly scooting backward, trying not to bump my head, I realize the lining of the box spring is torn and there’s something tucked inside. I reach in, searching, and my fingers brush against something smooth and cool—a notebook. I grab it and inch my way out from under the bed. My hair’s all staticky once I stand up, the pen clutched in one hand, the notebook in the other.
After I return my pen to its pl
ace on the end table, I sit cross-legged on the bed and open the notebook. It’s your basic black Moleskine, but the spine is cracked and worn, like it’s been opened over and over, and the edges of the paper are yellowed just a little.
Did Tanya hide this? I don’t want to read her diary.
I open it to check, looking at just the inside flap, and see a messy scrawl that says Property of Iz.
So not Tanya’s. Then whose? Did the notebook belong to someone who stayed in this room before us? A scientist or trainer, maybe?
I flip through it and see that every page is filled with cramped handwriting and intricate pen-and-ink drawings. There are dinosaurs, mountains, a waterfall, even what looks like a map of the island, scattered with red X’s. I turn back to the first page and start reading.
1/15
I threw up the entire ferry ride over. Great start, right? I almost missed it when we came upon the island, but I dragged myself up to the deck, determined to witness the moment.
The sun was just rising, and when it hit the mountains, I could hear them roaring a greeting. Fanciful, absurd, and not possible, but I swear…
They put us to work as soon as our boots hit the dock. I was still queasy as we drove along the dirt roads—apparently asphalt’s getting poured in a few months—but everything faded away when they brought us to their enclosure.
It’s just two of them. That seems so ridiculous. Just two of them. Just two dinosaurs. They have names. Agnes and Olive. The names fit them. That seems so ridiculous too…or does it? What did I think? That living beings wouldn’t have personalities just because they’re prehistoric?
I’m not making any sense. I’m overwhelmed. I’m probably dehydrated. I’ll write more later. I just…
They have names.
“Claire.”
Someone’s shaking me awake. I jerk up and see the notebook on the floor, where it must have fallen when I nodded off. “What time is it?” I ask Tanya.
“Seven,” she says. “Breakfast’s in an hour. I’m sorry I didn’t wake you up sooner; I thought you set an alarm.”
“It’s okay.” I pick up Iz’s—Is it someone’s initials? A nickname?—notebook and put it under my own on the bedside table. “I was tired, I guess. I’ll get ready fast.”
“Our tablets say we’re due back in the valley with the trainers and the Triceratops,” Tanya calls as I hurry to the bathroom and turn on the shower. “And it says we need to wear our boots.”
“That’s ominous,” I say, peeking around the bathroom door. “But I’m all for more Lovelace. I’ll be out soon.”
I close the door and duck into the shower, letting the hot water beat down on my face. I must’ve been asleep when Tanya came back, but I stayed up pretty late, reading through the notebook. After the first dated entry, there were a lot of sketches of Brachiosauruses, and then pages and pages of numbers that I puzzled over for at least an hour before I realized they were stats—Agnes’s and Olive’s stats. Heart rates, weights, pounds of food consumed, pounds of, um, waste…the owner of the notebook recorded it all in minute detail. I must’ve fallen asleep after that, because I didn’t finish the whole thing.
I get out of the shower and dry off, doing my whole morning routine double-time because being late is never an option. Breakfast is set up in the same conference room as yesterday, and Amanda joins us like she did last night. Art’s smiling at her as they immediately fall into conversation, just like they did over dinner.
“Love is in the air,” Tanya says in an undertone so they don’t hear and get embarrassed.
“Shhh,” I say, but I agree with her; they’d make a cute couple.
Everyone’s talking about going back to the valley as we head out after breakfast. We’re allowed to drive ourselves to our assignment, and this time, I take the wheel while Justin navigates. The twins are riding with Ronnie, so it ends up being just the two of us.
“Does this thing have a radio?” He fiddles with the dials as we head out but finds nothing but static, so he turns to his tablet as Mr. DNA directs me to take a left in three miles. A minute ticks by, and then suddenly, a familiar tune fills the jeep. He’s playing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and I’m laughing as they sing about being in the jungle, because Justin is a goof. A totally cute, utterly at-ease-in-his-own-skin, true-blue dork.
And I tell him that. Not the cute part. But the dork part.
“Unreservedly,” he agrees. “I think you like it.”
I bite the inside of my lip, and I don’t fight my smile, but I don’t confirm or deny it either. Whatever this is…I don’t want to push or run. Go too fast or slow. I kind of just want to stay in this with him, and see, step by step, what might happen.
“Any other really old songs to play?” I ask as the song ends and we take the left at the sign that says VALLEY with an arrow.
He plays “Born to be Wild,” and we don’t stop laughing and singing along off-key until we reach our destination.
* * *
There’s a whole group of people waiting for us outside the fence around the valley as we pull up and get out of the jeep. Bertie and her trainers are in regular khaki, and the rest of the adults—the veterinarians, I realize when I see their names embroidered on their tan shirts—are in light khaki pants. And then there are half a dozen men and women in black vests with guns unlike anything I’ve ever seen slung over their backs. These were the people in charge of security—the Asset Containment Unit. Asset seems a cold thing to call the dinosaurs, but maybe that removal is important when working this kind of job. You have to be a special kind of brave to face down a dinosaur in ways the ACU might have to. It’s hard to even wrap my head around the kind of security protocols and plans that must in place now—and what’s waiting in the future, once hundreds of guests are on the island. There are just so many variables to consider.
“Do I have all of you?” Bertie asks, counting us. “Yep! Okay, great. Gather round, everyone.”
Bertie’s wearing tall boots that go all the way up to her knees, and there’s a knife sheathed in each of them. Her dark skin is shaded by a floppy khaki hat.
“Today we’re doing fieldwork,” she says. “As in, we’re going in.” She jerks her thumb behind her, to the valley sprawling below us.
There’s a squealing noise behind me, and I look around to see Amanda turning red. “Sorry,” she says.
But Bertie beams. “Never apologize for being excited. I’m excited too. Our dinosaurs are used to the trainers and the vets. But they must also get used to you. To young people, and to children…to all the guests who will soon be visiting us. Your presence on the island is an integral step forward in our animals’ development, in their understanding of the world and of humans. And I’m grateful for your participation—and your excitement.”
“I want to be her,” Ronnie whispers to Tanya next to me, and I totally agree, though we might have different reasons.
The way I see it, Bertie’s the boss of more than just her human team. She’s the boss of the dinosaur team too. The ultimate boss. Who wouldn’t want to be that?
“Let’s go over the rules,” Bertie says. “You stay within the security perimeter.” She points to the three guys who are flanking our group on either side. “At all times. We’re going to be doing a basic sweep through the valley to check on Lovelace. Her tracker shows that she hasn’t moved in a few hours, and she’s a little farther away from the herd than we’d like. She’s in an area with a lot of tree cover, so cameras haven’t caught her yet.”
“Do you think she’s okay?” Ronnie asks, sounding worried.
“Yes,” Bertie says. “This is routine. We like to check in regularly with the newly integrated animals. Sometimes the first few days in a new habitat, they can get a little stressed,” she explains. “It can lead to things like disorientation, excessive sleeping, or queasiness.”
&
nbsp; “Are we playing scut so you guys don’t have to clean up dino vomit?” asks Wyatt, horrified. “I’m not a janitor. I go to Harvard!”
It’s such a ridiculous thing to say that Justin and Eric burst out laughing. Tanya’s trying hard not to join them, but Wyatt’s serious. I roll my eyes.
“Collecting scientific samples is not scut, Wyatt,” Bertie said, her expression going steely. “However, if the task’s beneath you, you can return to the hotel.”
He looks away, obviously fuming, and an awkward silence fills the space.
“I’ll collect all the samples of poop and vomit you want,” Amanda pipes up. “It doesn’t gross me out.”
Wyatt shoots her a disgusted look, and she shrugs at him.
Bertie chooses to ignore the drama and goes on. “As I said, stay within the security perimeter, and always listen to the adults—do not question them when you’re given orders. Following them quickly could be a matter of life and death, just like it is working with any big animal.
“Tim is the head of our vet team.” She points out a tall beanpole of a man with auburn hair, who raises his hand so we know who he is. “And Oscar is the head of the security unit,” she adds, as a shorter, bald Latino man carrying a semiautomatic nods and waves from the group wearing black vests.
“Now, pull out your tablets and tap the Gyrosphere Valley on the map of the park,” Bertie instructs. We obey, and the screen shifts to a terrain-style map showing the valley. “The blue markers that you see every half mile alongside the perimeter fence are stunner caches. This is not going to happen, because it hasn’t happened in the entire time we’ve been here, but if there’s a stampede, you need to run to the gate. If you can’t get to the gate, head for one of the weapons caches and arm yourself with the stunners, then get to the gate. The code to get out is 5438. Do you understand?”
I gulp. How often do the dinosaurs stampede? Surely only when they’re afraid of something or there’s a fire or danger, right? So we’ll be safe.