Jerry entered the visitors’ center and put two Cokes on the table.
“Thanks, Jerry!” said Alexis.
“No problem, Alex. Are those the pictures from last night?”
“Yeah,” said Kate, “but we haven’t seen anything so far.”
Jerry opened his mouth to say something, but Alexis interrupted.
“Hey!” she said. “I want to know how that guy from Channel 13 got into the park after closing last night!”
“Easy,” said Jerry. “I let him in.”
“You what?” said Alexis.
“I…let…him…in.” Jerry pushed Alexis’s Coke toward her. “Drink up and don’t worry! The news stories have been great for the park. It’s like free advertising! Do you know how much it would cost to do a real TV commercial? It’s a lot; I’ve checked. And the park was on the news for ten minutes last night!” He gave the can one last nudge. “Come on, Alex. It’s Cherry Coke…your favorite.”
Alexis took the can and shook her head. She couldn’t believe that Jerry had let someone into the park after hours. Why was he suddenly friends with Thad Swotter anyway?
“Wait!” said Kate. “Look at this!”
There, in the corner of a picture, was a Raptor’s nose.
“Remember the moved Raptor this morning?” said Kate. “I think we’re going to find out how he got there, frame by frame!”
Both of the girls were on the edge of their seats. Kate hit the button to look at the next picture.
Nothing.
But the third picture showed the Raptor’s lizard head close up. He was looking directly into the camera lens.
“It’s like he knows it’s there!” said Alexis. The following pictures reminded Alexis of a comic book: still pictures that told a story.
The Raptor’s head again, looking away.
The Raptor’s tail, like he was leaving.
The lens covered up by a bunch of leaves.
Leaves pulled away to reveal tons of Raptor footprints.
More dark leaves.
And finally, though the picture was a little fuzzy, a full-frame shot of the Raptor standing in the flowers on the other side of the path—just where they had found him this morning.
“Alexis?” said Kate.
“Yeah?”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That there wasn’t even one picture of a human?” said Alexis.
“Exactly,” Kate whispered. “Not even a finger. I don’t understand, Alex.”
“Me neither, Kate. I think the evidence is pointing to living, breathing dinosaurs.”
“But that’s impossible!” said Kate.
Alexis shrugged. Two days ago she would have laughed at the idea of dinosaurs coming to life in a Sacramento suburb.
Now she wasn’t so sure.
Crucial Clue
Later that day, Kate sent copies of the digital pictures to the Camp Club Girls. Alex followed it with an email.
TO: Camp Club Girls
SUBJECT: Notes
New Investigation: Could the dinosaurs really be alive?
Yes:
1. We still have not found any evidence of humans being involved. No prints and no people in the pictures from the hidden cameras.
2. The baby Triceratops moved without being plugged in—creepy.
3. The Tyrannosaurus Rex…enough said.
No:
1. As far as I know, electronic animals do not come to life. Otherwise, Disneyland would be in a whole lot of trouble.
2. Also, I don’t think the dinosaurs eat. None of the plants near them are damaged…and Miss Maria’s cat hasn’t gone missing yet.
Plan: Examine the footprints. Figure out if they are real or if someone is faking them.
The two Camp Club Girls waited until the park was almost empty to make their move. They were tired after another long day of giving tours, but at least nothing crazy had happened today. Mrs. Smith had been afraid that people would stay away because of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but no one seemed to care. In fact, even more people had been on the trails today.
Alexis filled her pink backpack with giant zipper bags bulging with plaster of Paris. The white goop squelched and squished as she and Kate headed through the park to the most recent set of footprints.
One of the little green Raptors was separated from the rest of the herd. It was the one that kept moving around the park.
“I think he needs a name,” said Kate.
“You’re right,” said Alexis. “How about Jogger?”
“It’s perfect! Because he never stays in one place!”
Alexis opened a bag and poured a little of the plaster onto the ground. Then she grabbed Jogger and placed his feet gently in the white mush. After a minute or so, she lifted the dinosaur and wiped his feet. Then she put him back with his herd.
Kate was already comparing the prints in the plaster to the prints that were in the mud.
“They’re a perfect match,” she said. Alexis bent to examine them and found that Kate was right.
“Almost too perfect,” Alexis said. Her thoughts were churning.
When a person walked, did they take the exact same step every time they moved? She thought about the many times she had sped up to catch someone, slowed down to wait, or tripped over something and stumbled.
No, she decided. People’s steps change all the time depending on where they are and how fast they’re moving and what they’re doing. If a girl is dialing a number on a cell phone, chances are her steps will slow down a bit and the footprints will be a bit deeper….
She walked around the Raptor area and noticed the same uniform prints everywhere. If these prints had been made by a living, breathing dinosaur, the creature had walked slowly and placed each step perfectly.
Alexis had never known any animal to move like that.
“Let’s see what the bigger tracks tell us,” she said.
At the site of the mother and baby Triceratops, the girls were disappointed. No fresh prints. Only those from the day Miss Maria got hurt. And emergency workers who helped Miss Maria into the ambulance had flattened all those prints.
While they searched, the girls got an unexpected visitor. Mrs. Smith trudged down the path carrying a heavy backpack.
“Hi, girls!” she said. “How’s the investigation going?”
“Okay,” said Alexis. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to switch out the battery for the baby Triceratops.”
“The battery?” said Kate. “I thought all of the dinosaurs ran on generators.”
“Well, most of them do,” said Mrs. Smith. “Some of the smaller ones have battery packs. It makes them more versatile. You can put them in places that you couldn’t fit a generator, and they’ll still move around. The batteries don’t last long, though.”
Mrs. Smith reached beneath the baby Triceratops and removed a large block. One side of it had greenish skin so it matched the dinosaur.
“I’ll take this one back to the center and charge it. Then I’ll swap it again in a few days.”
She dug the fresh battery out of her bag and snapped it into place. The baby dinosaur sprang to life. Its tail and head moved back and forth, and its eyes sparkled and blinked.
And it stuck out its tongue.
Alexis and Kate were stunned.
“It had a battery!” whispered Alexis.
“What’s that?” said Mrs. Smith.
“Nothing,” said Kate. The girls didn’t want to admit that they had entertained thoughts about the baby dinosaur coming to life.
“Okay,” said Mrs. Smith. “You girls take care! Miss Maria is supposed to come home today.” Mrs. Smith took off back toward the visitors’ center, leaving Kate smiling and Alexis writing furiously in her pink notebook.
“I can’t believe it!” said Kate. “Its battery was just going dead! And it actually scared me!”
“Yeah,” said Alexis. “You must have seen it using up the last little bit of power.”
They were about to move on to the Tyrannosaurus tracks when Kate saw something in the mud that made her stop. She bent down and lifted a branch to reveal a track from the baby Triceratops.
“It’s damaged!” said Kate. The back of the track was squashed.
“Perfect,” she said dully. “The evidence has been contaminated by a squirrel or something.”
“Wait!” Alexis bent down and examined the print.
“Kate,” she said. “Can you go back and count how many toes the baby Triceratops has?”
“Sure,” said Kate. In seconds she was kneeling near the dinosaur, dodging its moving horns. “Four!” she hollered back over her shoulder.
“I knew it!” said Alexis. “This print only has three toes! It’s a fake, Kate!”
“Wow!” said Kate. “Whoever did this didn’t do their homework, did they?”
“They didn’t think anyone would look this close. But they don’t know us, do they?” A triumphant smile stretched across Alexis’s face. “Let’s check out the Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
There was no way Alexis and Kate could lift the Tyrannosaurus Rex leg, so they couldn’t make a footprint in the plaster as they had with Jogger. They could only look as closely as possible to see if the foot seemed to match the tracks around it.
“Well,” said Kate, “they sure look the same to me. The bottom of the tracks have some weird stripes on them, but I can’t tell what they are.”
“They do look the same,” said Alexis. She handed Kate a bag of plaster to pour into one of the prints. If they could take the print home, they could examine it more closely. Maybe they would see something they weren’t noticing at the moment. Alexis walked around the dinosaur’s huge legs again. She tried not to think about the head falling toward her.
“Kate?” Alexis asked. “How deep are those footprints?”
“How deep are they? About an inch. Why?”
“Don’t you think an animal that weighed this much would make a deeper print in the mud?”
“Come to think of it, yes, probably,” said Kate. “At home I have special equipment that could tell us the weight of a print this size and depth. Should I have my parents send it?”
“I don’t think we need it,” Alex said. “I think we can safely say something that weighs over a ton would have deeper prints.”
Alexis followed the tracks away from the Tyrannosaurus Rex and into the forest.
“Everything looks normal—except, of course, dinosaur footprints in the dirt between the plants,” Alexis called to Kate.
“Between the plants?” Kate asked.
Alexis gasped. “Wouldn’t a dinosaur—especially a Tyrannosaurus Rex—do a lot of damage as he walked through a forest?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Kate said.
“I remember seeing a movie with a Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing something. Trees were flying everywhere, torn up by the roots. And whole bushes were stomped down,” Alexis said. “I know it was just a movie, but…”
“Yeah, not even one of Miss Maria’s tiniest flowers is bruised,” Kate said. “How could a thirty-foot dinosaur navigate his way through a forest of tightly packed aspens? Especially without damaging one?”
“And look how close the prints are together,” Kate added.
Alexis surveyed the prints and then looked back to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. “His legs are at least ten feet apart just standing there,” she noted.
“And these are only four or five feet apart at the most,” Kate said. “Unless the Tyrannosaurus Rex had tiptoed to the fence, these prints are fake!”
“And whoever made them cares enough about the plants not to damage them,” Alexis pointed out.
“Look at this, Alex.” Kate was kneeling down in the dirt, about three feet from the footprints. “When was the last time it rained?”
“A couple days ago,” said Alexis. “Right before you got here.”
“Okay,” said Kate. “So how can there be mud for the footprints? Look—the ground where the footprints are was apparently wet to make the tracks. But the path is dusty only a few feet away.”
“You’re right!” said Alexis. Someone was making mud so they could make the tracks.
Alexis got out her notebook to record all of her thoughts. The evidence was beginning to add up.
Evidence for fake tracks:
1. The Raptor tracks are too perfect—like someone picked up Jogger and sat him in the mud over and over, like a kid playing with a doll.
2. The Triceratops tracks are missing a toe.
3. The Tyrannosaurus Rex tracks are too close together, and did not damage plants.
4. There is no mud except where there are tracks.
Now Alexis was sure that someone must be planting the tracks. But who? And why would they do it? She and Kate still hadn’t found any clues to help them answer that question.
“The plaster is almost dry,” said Kate. “After we make the footprint, let’s go see if Miss Maria’s home.”
“Good idea,” said Alexis.
Alexis and Kate didn’t make it to Miss Maria’s house until after the park had closed for the day. They saw Miss Maria sitting in her favorite chair on her front porch. She hugged an afghan tight around her shoulders, despite the summer heat. Her head was covered with a bright scarf.
As the girls climbed the porch steps, Alexis thought of how small she looked.
“Hello, girls! Come keep me company!”
Jerry came out of the front door. He was about to sit down, but Miss Maria stopped him.
“Jerry dear,” she said, “could you get me a glass of lemonade, please?”
“Oh, sure!” said Jerry, and he disappeared back into the house.
Miss Maria beckoned Alexis and Kate with a crooked finger.
“Hurry!” she said in a whisper. “He won’t be gone long!” She smiled like a little girl who thought she was keeping an important secret. “How is the investigation going?”
“Good and bad,” said Alexis, looking over her shoulder at the screen door. She wondered why Miss Maria didn’t want to talk about the investigation in front of Jerry. “We’ve just found out that the footprints are fake, so we’re pretty sure the dinosaurs aren’t coming to life.”
Alexis thought Miss Maria might say something like, “Well, of course they’re not coming to life!” But she didn’t. She simply nodded and waited for Alexis to continue.
“The bad part is that we still don’t have any evidence linking the incidents to any particular person.”
“We think Thad Swotter could be doing it just to get a story,” said Kate. “But that’s just an idea. There’s no evidence!”
Their frustration did not go unnoticed. Miss Maria smiled and leaned forward slightly.
“Of course there’s evidence!” she said. “You just haven’t found it yet! You think you’ve looked everywhere, but if that were the case, you would have found something.”
Noise from inside told them that Jerry was approaching. Miss Maria lowered her voice even more.
“Stop looking where you expect to find something. Instead, look where nothing should be.”
Miss Maria nodded, as if she had just said the most obvious thing in the world. Alexis was confused, but before she could ask Maria to clarify, Jerry returned.
The girls accepted glasses of tart lemonade and stayed long enough to drink them before going back to the park. They returned to the Tyrannosaurus Rex to retrieve the dried footprint and to make sure they hadn’t missed anything.
“I wish we could find something around here besides a dinosaur track!” said Kate. She picked up the bag of wet plaster they hadn’t used and glared at it as if it were the reason they hadn’t found what they needed.
“It will happen,” said Alexis. “We just have to look where we wouldn’t expect to find anything, like Miss Maria said.”
Alexis wasn’t sure this would work, but she had to try. She didn’t know what else to do. So where was the last place they would expect to f
ind a clue? Alexis pulled her brown curls into a tight ponytail and began to look.
At that moment, they heard a loud bark. They turned to see Biscuit flying down the trail toward them, his tongue and leash wagging in the wind.
“Where did he come from?” yelled Kate.
“Mom must have brought him!” said Alexis.
“Biscuit! No!”
But it was too late. The dog couldn’t stop in time. He ran right into Kate, knocking the bag of plaster from her arms and dumping it all over. The gooey white stuff splattered Kate and doused Alexis’s foot before flowing beneath a nearby bush.
“Oh no!” said Kate. “I’m sorry, Alexis!”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Alexis. “After the plaster dries, we can pick it right up.” She knelt down to see how far under the bush the mess went, and she froze.
“Biscuit! You’re a genius!” Alexis yelled. The dog jumped and wagged his tail, as if he had meant to help her all along.
“What is it, Alex?” asked Kate.
“Look for yourself!” Alexis lifted the lower branches of the bush so Kate could see. The plaster was barely trickling now. It ran over a few sticks before resting in a footprint.
Not a dinosaur print, but the obvious crisscross pattern of a Converse All-Star.
Converse Connection
The next morning Mrs. Howell took the girls to a copy shop. Alexis wanted to print off a bunch of the posters they had made for the park. She would have done it at home, but her printer was out of colored ink. The twins had decided to print fifty copies of their latest creation: a full-color map of the neighborhood.
Mrs. Howell had been aggravated, but Alexis had to admit that the map was pretty good. The boys had marked all of the great hideouts, including a lump of honeysuckle and ivy near one corner that Alexis thought no one knew about. She was impressed. Maybe her little brothers had some detective skills hidden beneath their annoying natures.
Since their copier was out, Alexis decided on a more professional sign than she could do on her computer. She’d have the copy center make the signs full poster-sized and laminated so they’d last for a while.
Alexis Page 5