by B. A. Frade
It sounded like a fist on glass, and it took me a moment to figure out where it was coming from.
I found Connor. He was inside the grizzly bear display.
The bear was no longer stuffed and frozen. He was on the prowl now, huffing and growling behind Connor, who was slamming his fists on the glass to get my attention.
He looked back over at the bear, then at me. Then, as Blake had done earlier, Connor seemed to notice something to the side of the display case. He nodded in that direction, then reached into his pocket.
I searched for a way to break the glass and set him free. The only thing I had that was even a little heavy was the Scaremaster’s journal. I slammed the book against the glass repeatedly, but nothing happened.
I was furious. The Scaremaster had tricked me. He hadn’t brought back any of my friends. At least not safely. He’d made everything so much worse.
Connor pressed a hand to the glass.
“How do I save you?” I shouted.
He cupped his ear as if to say that he couldn’t hear.
I yelled it again.
Connor glanced back at the bear again. It seemed to be stalking him, and we both knew he had to protect himself. He had to get away.
Connor slammed his hand against the glass again, and this time, I noticed that in his palm was a plastic wrapper.
He wanted me to see it.
I leaned in. “Is that the gummy dinosaurs?” I asked out loud, even though he couldn’t hear me.
He smashed the wrapper against the glass again and gave me a strong and steady look. The bear charged the glass, and Connor ducked away, dashing toward the side of the display and out of the frame.
I looked down at the habitat’s grassy ground. Connor had dropped the gummy candy wrapper. It was empty.
What did that mean? What was he trying to tell me? And when had he eaten the gummies?
I thought about all my questions for a long moment before the bear started slamming on the glass again.
Then it came to me!
I didn’t know how to save him or Bella or Emily, but now I knew where to go.
Connor was gone, but still, I shouted, as if he might be able to hear me, “I’ll meet you at the dinosaurs.”
Chapter Eight
The Hall of Dinosaurs had its own floor. The exhibits took up the entire fourth floor of the museum. I got out my map. I had to figure out which way to go and get to the exhibit in the shortest possible time. I missed Emily in more ways than one.
There were several display areas. To one side was a place where paleontologists had re-created dinosaur skeletons. When I’d first looked at the map at home, I was excited to check those displays out. Our class was supposed to go on a morning tour with an expert. I hoped my friends and I would be there. We had to be there!
In the other direction was the Dino Lab, where students could pretend to be on a fossil dig. There were plastic bones hidden in a large sandbox. We’d get a chance to uncover the bones, figure out which kind of dinosaur they belonged to, then, in small groups, work together to build several different skeletons.
Between the two exhibit areas was one of those big movie theaters with huge screens. There was a dinosaur history film that some of the kids in my class thought would be boring, but I couldn’t wait to see it.
Again, I hoped we’d be back with the group in time.
This nightmare had to end. And now I was the hero who had to end it. I’d never been a hero before. That was as scary as anything the Scaremaster could’ve planned.
I pulled the Scaremaster’s book out of my bag and opened it. There was nothing new on the page. I wrote:
Which way?
The Scaremaster made me mad when he wrote:
Prepare to disappear. Blake is waiting for his last new friend.
That just wasn’t cool at all.
I wrote:
Not going to happen.
I was angry when I closed the book.
My best friend had left me a clue about the dinosaurs, so I decided to head straight to them. The exhibit was huge. On the map, the description said proudly that the Hall of Dinosaurs was fourteen thousand square feet. I wasn’t sure how big my house was, but fourteen thousand of anything seemed like a lot. I decided it was too big an area to run everywhere. I had to narrow my search.
“Connor!” I shouted. Then, “Emily! Bella!” I even tried, “Blake!”
The ghost was silent.
I had to get moving, so I asked myself, What would be Blake’s favorite dinosaur?
T. rex, of course. That was everyone’s favorite.
I checked my map. The Tyrannosaurus rex was in the center of the display hall. We’d learned in class that its name meant “tyrant lizard” and that the T. rex was the largest meat-eating dinosaur. I knew from my own reading that its massive four-foot-long jaw was designed for bone-crushing action.
I didn’t know what I’d do if the T. rex came to life like the bears and birds. If that happened, there was a good chance I’d be a ghost in the blink of an eye. But it felt right to start there. Crossing my fingers in the hope that I’d find my friends, I took off running.
Whoa! When I got to the display, I was shocked. The T. rex was enormous. And there wasn’t just one. There were three of the predators side by side. The display showed how they grew from a baby T. rex to a ginormous one.
“Why can’t I be on a tour instead of a rescue mission?” I moaned to myself. I had no time to look or read the signs.
It seemed like maybe the T. rex was a wrong first choice. “Hey, guys? Where are you?!” I kept focused on the idea that I was living inside the Scaremaster’s story and I could change the ending. But to change it, I had to find my friends.
I began backing up, away from the amazing display. Suddenly, I stepped in something smushy. It felt like gum.
I reached down to pull the gunk off my shoe. The blob was orange and sticky. I grabbed an end of it, and then I realized what I’d stepped in. It wasn’t gum. It was gummy. A gummy dinosaur.
My shoe had squished the corner, but the dinosaur was still recognizable as a stegosaurus. That’s the one with armored plates down its back and spikes on its tail. I checked the map and figured out which way to go.
“Thanks, Connor,” I shouted into the air. My own voice echoed back. From wherever he was, Connor was helping me change the Scaremaster’s story. I felt more hopeful than I had since Bella disappeared. Working together, the four of us could stop the Scaremaster.
I took off at top speed.
Past the raptors and pterodactyl, I found a mighty stegosaurus. It was paired with an ankylosaurus. That was the one called a “living tank” because of all its armor. While the fossils were awesome, none of my friends were in the exhibit area. It was disappointing, and I was starting to worry that I was too late.
I made a careful search in case there were other clues. I looked up high, near the top of the display cases, then low along the line of the floor.
A green gummy near the stegosaurus’s front left toe caught my eye.
I hurried to get it.
It took me a second to recognize the brachiosaurus. Its neck was folded and stuck back on itself. The gummy was also covered with pocket lint.
“You rock, Connor,” I said out loud.
A quick look at the map and off I went, running to the sauropod display, where a huge brachiosaurus took up most of the exhibit. Its tail reached from one wall of the display room to the other.
Near the end of that massive tail, I found dino gummy number three. I immediately knew that the Scaremaster had my friends over by the velociraptors. He was moving them around the displays faster than I could run.
If it wasn’t for Connor’s clues, I’d never even be close. As it was, I was starting to give up hope. Would I ever catch up? And what would I do once I did find them? What shape would they be in?
I was getting tired of running and scared that my whole hero fantasy wasn’t going to work out. What would Mr. Steinbe
rg say when four of his students were missing in the morning? All our parents would be devastated. I bet that even Connor’s brothers would miss him.
I didn’t want the last anyone heard about us to be a depressing report on the nightly news.
Thinking of our families gave me strength. I took a deep breath and carried on. I was going to find them. The Scaremaster was going down.
At the velociraptors, I found the next gummy that took me to an iguanodon, and from there, the last gummy brought me back to the place I started: the T. rex.
I stood at the base of the huge skeleton display, as close as I could to the T. rexes without setting off the alarm. There was a red velvet rope around the three dinosaurs, so I used that as my boundary.
I screamed the names of my friends. There was no answer.
The Scaremaster might play this game forever. I didn’t know when it would end. He’d keep moving my friends and I’d keep chasing them. But now there were no more gummy candies for clues. There’d only been five different kinds in the package.
I was seriously considering going back to where my classmates were sleeping and waking up Mr. Steinberg. But how would I explain what was going on?
I opened the Scaremaster’s journal and wrote:
I played your game. Now, where are they?
This game is not over. Look up.
“Oh, good grief,” I muttered, raising my eyes to the largest T. rex fossils.
I should have been surprised when the bones began to creak and shimmy. But I wasn’t. This was still the Scaremaster’s game. I knew what was coming, so I didn’t wait for the most ferocious dinosaur from the Cretaceous period to attack me. I took off running.
The T. rex stretched his bones and broke free from the platform base. The smaller T. rexes didn’t move, so that was a positive. Still, when Big T. rex stepped over the velvet cord around the exhibit, I was terrified.
He chased after me, waving his short T. rex arms and gnashing his savage teeth. I’d read that a T. rex could eat five hundred pounds of meat in one bite. I’d be an appetizer!
I wasn’t very good at PE. I barely passed the state tests. How could I outrun a T. rex? When the Scaremaster called the game “Nate’s Nightmare Hide-and-Seek,” he wasn’t kidding.
I led the dinosaur through the same route that I’d taken when I was following the gummy trail. Stegosaurus, brachiosaurus, velociraptor, iguanodon, and then we went out of the Hall of Dinosaurs and past the movie theater.
The entire next wing was the interactive dig area. A sign announced: Be a Paleontologist for the Day.
Normally, that sounded great. But right now, I was being pursued by a hungry dinosaur while searching for friends who may or may not have already been turned to ghosts.
I ducked through a doorway that was far too small for the dinosaur. In a large room, surrounded by several small classrooms, was a big sand pit. This was the actual “dig.” A sign said that fake dinosaur bones were hidden just under the surface in the oversized sandbox.
The T. rex slammed through the wall like a cartoon character, leaving a massive T. rex–shaped hole. I dodged past the sand pit and ran into a classroom. He crashed in through the window. There was nowhere to hide, so I ran toward the dinosaur, dipping down to slide under him as I made my escape, out of the classroom and back toward the center of the display area.
I hurried to the sand pit. It was a huge square that filled the central part of the room. The walls of the pit were clear so that teachers could observe what was going on, but they were also slick so no one could climb in or out. I didn’t see a door, but there had to be one for the students.
I considered searching, but then I thought, There’s no roof on the sandbox. If the T. rex just leaned over one of those open walls, I’d be trapped. Like a mouse in a box. Or in this case, Nate in a box.
The T. rex was facing me now.
The farther back I pushed toward the sandbox, the more I knew that I was in trouble. There was nowhere left to go. I could hurry into another classroom, if I was fast enough. But the T. rex broke down the last wall easily. He could take them all down. Sooner or later, he’d get me.
I glanced at the entry where I’d come in. I could run that way, try to make a break for the stairs. Maybe I should go down to another floor? What would I do then? Where could I hide?
The employee tunnel behind the bears might be a safe spot, but I wasn’t sure I could find that hidden door again.
My mind was flooded with possibilities for escape. None of them were good. And in every scenario I imagined, I got eaten by the possessed skeleton of a T. rex at the end of the chase.
The monster gave a hollow growl that came from the center of his open bones. His jaw snapped open, and in a flash, he bent toward me.
I dodged his jaw as he tried to bite off my head.
I ducked when he made a stab for my arm with those deadly fangs. My back was up against the sandbox now.
The T. rex lowered his head.
I got ready to run, not sure where I’d go, but knowing I had to try to survive. Hopefully, if I kept moving, the Scaremaster would eventually get tired of torturing me with his gigantic pet.
The T. rex was faster than I anticipated, and his sharp teeth came within striking distance. I dropped to the floor in time, and he ended up biting the side of the sandbox.
When he stepped back to reset for a new attack, I got up to make a run for it. But I didn’t get far. I couldn’t see behind me but someone, or many people, were lifting me up all at once.
I was hauled over the sandbox wall.
And dropped right into the middle of the dirt.
Chapter Nine
I struggled to stand. I kicked and flailed as my feet slipped in the sand.
The sand was hard-packed on top, but I knew it went deep since bones were planted below the surface for the activity. On a normal museum visit, kids would dig under the sand, like a real paleontologist would at an excavation.
“No!” I screamed as I found my footing. This was not going to be the way it ended. I was not going to let the Scaremaster feed me to a T. rex.
“Nate, stop wiggling. You’re getting sand in my eyes.”
That voice sure sounded like Emily, but there was no way that could be true. I’d looked in the sandbox when I’d first entered the room. No one was in there.
I stopped thrashing and looked up. Somehow, Emily, Bella, and Connor were all in the sandbox with me.
The dinosaur slammed his head against the outer wall of the sand pit.
“Not too bright, is he?” Bella remarked. “We should have been eaten right after the Scaremaster dropped us here.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked.
“About a second ago,” Emily told me.
“That’s why I didn’t see you when I came in.” I quickly turned to Connor. “Thanks for the clues.”
“You’re welcome.” Connor grinned. “It was actually Blake’s idea.” With a thumb, Connor pointed to the ghost, who was now standing behind the T. rex, distracting the dinosaur by pulling on his tail.
The T. rex turned around but didn’t see Blake there. Apparently, dinosaurs couldn’t see ghosts. Blake stuck out his tongue at the beast.
The T. rex growled in the ghost’s general direction.
“I’ve been spending time with Blake,” Bella said. “Since I was the first to disappear.” The way she said it reminded me that Bella really liked being the first at anything. Even if it was the first at being grabbed by a ghost kid with the Scaremaster’s journal. “He’s nice.” She waved at Blake as he ripped off a bone from the T. rex’s tail, giving us another minute to talk. “The Scaremaster dropped me into Blake’s room. He has a little closet that’s all set up like a real bedroom.”
“Blake wished to live in the museum,” Emily told me. “But he regrets it now. Ghost life isn’t nearly as great as he imagined.”
“He misses cookies,” Connor said. “And seeing movies.”
Apparently, after they
each disappeared, they were taken to Blake’s “home.”
“He’s seen the dinosaur show a million times,” Bella said.
“It’s great the first three hundred times,” Blake replied. He tore off two more tail bones.
The others laughed. I didn’t. What was going on? While I was running around looking for them, was it possible that they’d all become best friends?
This was so weird. And I wasn’t sure I trusted the ghost as much as my friends seemed to.
“Well,” I said, “being friends is fine, but we are about to get eaten by a giant carnivorous dinosaur!”
“I’m doing my best here to distract him.” Blake jabbed one of the T. rex’s toe bones. “You should make a run for it.”
The T. rex snarled to the air, chomped his teeth, then gnarled toward the sandbox.
“There’s no time to run,” I said, feeling panic rise in my chest. “If we don’t do something fast, we’re going to join Blake, forever!”
“That’s the idea,” Blake admitted as the dinosaur stalked us like prey. “The Scaremaster said he’d arrange it.”
That statement was so odd, especially since he’d just been trying to save us. What was Blake really up to?
The others were thrilled that Blake was working to distract the T. rex. They thought he was helping us so we could escape the sand pit. But when we looked, we couldn’t find the door. It was as if the sand pit was sealed shut.
I could hear the ticking of my watch, warning us that time was almost up.
“I have an idea.” Emily began digging in the sand. She pulled out a large gray-colored fake fossil and swung it like a baseball bat.
“That’s an allosaurus femur,” Blake told her.
“We need weapons,” Emily told us. “We’re going to attack.”
“Uh, it’s a T. rex,” I said, not wanting to be a downer, but really? This was her plan? We were going to swing a bunch of plastic bones at an attacking T. rex?
“You got a better idea, Nate?” Emily challenged me.
The T. rex snarled.