“Where’s the egg?” I asked.
“It’s right … uh-oh.” Lin pointed at Honk-Honk. Lin’s helmet was lying upside down in the sand next to Honk-Honk, but the egg was no longer on her back. “It was there a second ago.”
I turned around and saw the egg, balanced dangerously over a dark black hole in the ground. Right away I knew it was the entrance to an underground cave.
“There it is.” I dropped the Sonic-Earth Shaker in the sand and started walking toward the egg. Lin joined me, and the egg started to teeter. “STOP!” I hissed.
Lin stopped mid-step, balancing on one foot like a tiptoeing flamingo. “Why are we stopping?” she whispered.
“Because the egg is going to fall into that cave if we take another step. It’s only barely balanced on the edge, and I’m afraid if we take one more step it will roll in,” I said quietly.
“Should I use the Grappling-Grabber?” Lin asked. It was still glue-tied to her back.
I thought about it, but before I could decide, Bruno made my mind up for me. He sneezed, blowing a slobbery dust storm in the air that knocked the egg right down the hole.
“No!!!” Lin yelled. She threw me my smartphone, dropped her skateboard, and dove into the hole. After tucking my phone safely away, I quickly yanked two flashlights from my backpack. I had a feeling we were going to need them, and I wasn’t giving up. We’d gone too far to lose the egg now.
CHAPTER 12
BENEATH THE MICROTERIUM
I wasn’t the jumping-into-a-dark-hole type, so I poked my head into the mouth of the cave. I could hear rushing water below. I shined the flashlight down into the hole. Icicle-shaped stalactites and stalagmites were all around, growing drop by drop as the rich minerals of the Microterium leaked through the earth’s floor. An old, rusty steam pipe stretched through the cave ceiling, and a river of dark water gurgled and flowed downstream. But I couldn’t see Lin or the egg. Then I heard her voice coming up from the hole in the ground.
“Danny-ny-ny?” Lin’s voice echoed in the dark of the cave. “Help meee-mee-me!”
“Where are you-oo-oo?” I echoed back.
“I’m in the river-iver-iver!” she shouted from deep inside the cave. “Just jump in. The water is warm!”
The beam from my flashlight carved into the black and saw my soggy best friend holding on to a yellow strand of yarn tied around a great big egg.
“I’m coming-ing-ing!” I shouted. I rolled up my sleeves, held both flashlights tight in my hands, then jumped into the dark hole, hoping that I’d land in the slow-moving water.
The water was warm as I splashed around in the dark. Holding one flashlight over my head and one in my mouth, I found Lin. I swam to Lin, grabbed on to the yellow yarn, then passed her a waterproof flashlight. She put it in her mouth and said, “Hanks.” We held on tight to the yarn as we floated downstream. Time crept by, but I had no way of knowing how long it had been. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re coasting down an underground river. Eventually my feet bumped against the sandy river bottom.
I held on to the egg with one hand and took my flashlight in the other so I could talk. “It’s getting shallower,” I said to Lin.
“Aii hush hiii aaa, uh-uh ooo,” Lin said back, which I totally understood. She had just hit the bottom, too.
The narrow beam from my flashlight shined to the right and I saw a little sandy riverbank in the cave. I motioned to Lin, and in a few big, soggy steps, we were dragging the massive egg to a dry, if still pitch-black, beach.
We both fell on our backs, exhausted.
Lin spit out her flashlight and sighed.
I knew exactly how she felt. I was finished running for the day, hungry, soaked, and ready for a nap.
“Hey, Danny,” Lin said in the dark.
“Yeah?”
“Is there any chance your backpack is waterproof?” she asked.
“Of course. There’s important stuff in there,” I said.
“Important stuff like half-frozen pizza and corn dogs?” she said.
“At this very moment I can’t think of anything more important,” I said. Then we both started laughing in the warm, dark cave.
CHAPTER 13
WHAT’S FOR LUNCH?
I burrowed to the bottom of my backpack, then handed the pizza and corn dogs to Lin. Everything inside the pack, including my smartphone, was nice and dry. It was dark inside the cave, but with my four flashlights buried in the sand, pointing up to the ceiling, and my phone screen glowing it wasn’t too bad.
Lin draped the last slices of pizza and two corn dogs on the top of the steam pipe, and before long the whole cave smelled delicious.
“I’m going to save this last corn dog for later. Who knows how long we’ll be in here?” Lin said. She handed me the corn dog and I stuffed it back in my pack.
“Good idea,” I said as I tried to find out on my phone where we were.
“So, exactly how lost are we, Mr. Maps?” Lin asked as she slumped down next to me on the sandy floor of the cave.
“Oh boy. I’m really not sure. I’d say we’re somewhere between kind of lost and totally, buried-under-a-secret-lab-while-Shrink-A-Fied-to-the-size-of-ants lost,” I said.
“Oh boy is right,” Lin said. “At least we aren’t being chased by oviraptors anymore. There is that.”
“Yup. There is that.”
“So … what do we do now?” Lin asked.
“We eat some lunch, because we need food to make our brains work. Then we make a plan and get out of this cave,” I said.
“Sounds good. But I know what we can do while we wait. We can sit on the egg,” Lin said.
“I’m too tired to sit on an egg,” I said.
Lin stood up, then held out a hand to help me up, too. “Come on. We can just hug it, then. I think it needs us,” she said. I gave her my hand and she pulled me up.
Lin hugged one side of the beat-up egg, and I leaned against the other. I put my cheek right up next to the shell. The water of the cave had warmed it up, and it felt nice against my face. We were only standing there for a few seconds when something inside moved.
“Did you feel that?” Lin asked. I could hear the happiness in her voice.
“I sure did. I think something’s happening,” I said, then a crack zigzagged down the middle of the egg and a little claw reached out and wiggled in the air.
“I think it’s happening NOW! I’m going to be a mom!” Lin shouted. “Come on out, little guy. You’re going to love it here in the Microterium.”
The big egg cracked loudly, and Lin and I took a step back. A big chunk of shell fell to the ground, revealing a scaly body that twitched and squirmed.
Another crack, and a nose poked out.
“Holy micro-zoli! Are you seeing this?” I asked.
Another piece of shell fell away and a tail slipped from the egg and wagged slowly back and forth.
“This … is the greatest thing … I’ve seen in my entire life,” Lin whispered.
“Yeah,” I whispered back. “Same here.”
The nose jabbed out through the shell a bit more, revealing an eye that blinked at us in the dark cave. It was hard to tell exactly what it was inside the egg, but I started to get a little jumbly feeling in my stomach. My insides were a mixture of nervous and a little bit scared, because I had an idea of what we were going to meet.
Then something really strange happened. Another claw stabbed through the egg toward the bottom. It tore a little hole in the shell, then another nose and two tiny nostrils shoved out and sniffed around.
“What is that?” Lin asked. “A two-headed Microsaur?”
Then, with a flick of two strong, leathery tails, and a kick of four powerful back legs, the rest of the eggshell fell away.
“TWINS!” Lin and I shouted at the same time.
The baby Microsaurs rolled around on the floor of the cave, crushing what was left of the eggshell beneath them. Then one of them tried to stand on its wobbly little legs. It bob
bled around for a bit, then stood all by itself, using its long tail for balance. It hobbled over to its twin and nuzzled it with a wide nose, helping its egg-mate stand for the first time.
“They are so magically, wonderfully, perfectly, amazingly CUTE!” Lin said. “I can’t help it. I’m going to hug one.” She bounced right up to one of the twins and gave it a great big hug. The new hatchling leaned its head against Lin’s shoulder and cooed as it tried to hug her back with its tiny little arms.
“What are they, Danny? They don’t look like oviraptors,” she said.
“That’s because they are not. They have huge feet. Powerful tails. Tiny eyes on big, squarish heads. And their arms are so little. Whoa! I mean. WOW! Lin, do you know what these are?” I asked.
The Microsaur was rubbing its big head up against Lin’s chin and making a deep, rumbly, purring noise in its tiny chest. Lin started laughing. The baby Microsaur nudged her and she fell over in the sand. “Whatever they are, they are strong.”
“That’s because these are the kings of the Microsaur kingdom. These are twin Tyrannosaurus rexes,” I said as the other Microsaur approached me. It seemed to grin at me, and I reached out and scratched its nose. It closed its eyes and purred.
“You mean, Microsaurus rexes, Danny. They are still Microsaurs, remember?” Lin said.
The Microsaurus rex was only a tiny bit shorter than me, and it was less than a minute old. It tilted its head and looked at me through shiny yellow-and-black eyes. It opened its mouth and showed me a smile filled with bright white teeth. Then it let out the tiniest squeak ever. I giggled a little, and something about that noise made the tiny-saurus rex jump into action. It pushed me over and started licking my face.
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing, because its rough tongue really tickled. Who knew a face could be ticklish?
“It likes me!” I said.
“No, Danny. It LOVES you!” Lin said.
Lin was standing again, and she used both of her hands to push up the corners of her Micro-rex’s mouth into a big smile. This made her laugh so hard I thought she was going to pass out. “They are so much fun, Danny! Don’t you just adore them with all your heart?” she said.
“I do,” I said, “but this little guy needs a breath mint.”
“They need something. I bet they are starving. What do baby Microsaurs eat? Microsaur milk?” Lin asked.
I wiggled away from my newborn lick-a-saurus and stood up. I scratched it under the chin, and it closed its eyes and purred again.
“No. I mean, I’m sure they would drink milk, but I’m guessing they’d eat just about anything really. Only mammals drink milk as newborns. Reptiles and birds, and Microsaurs for that matter, eat pretty much what their parents eat,” I said.
“Oh yeah. That’s right. I saw this one show where the momma bird chewed up some worms, then barfed them into the baby bird’s mouth,” Lin said. “We need to find some worms.”
“Are you going to chew them up first?” I asked. Lin grabbed a flashlight and started shining it around the cave.
“There’s got to be some worms in this cave. Help me look, Danny,” Lin said.
“But you didn’t answer me. Are you going to pre-chew a worm for your tiny-saurus rex?” I asked.
“Wait. Did you say MY tiny-saurus rex? Do you mean I get to keep it?” she asked. “Because if that’s the case, I’ll chew and barf up anything in the world if I get to keep it.”
I laughed as I helped Lin search for worms for the baby Microsaurs. “That’s so gross,” I said. “But I totally believe you’d do it.”
“Oh, I would. A mother’s got to do what a mother’s got to do,” Lin said.
While we searched for worms or something else to feed the baby Microsaurs, the two curious rexes took matters into their own hands. Well, into their mouths, that is.
Lin swung her flashlight over to the steam pipe that was warming up our pizza and corn dogs. “Hey, look at that. Mine already found something to eat and I didn’t even have to chew it up first,” she said. And sure enough, Lin’s tiny-saurus rex was snarfing down one of the two corn dogs.
Lin ran over to her Micro-rex and patted it on the head. “Wasn’t that a tasty treat, Cornelia?” she said.
“Cornelia?” I asked. Lin tossed me the second corn dog so I could feed my tiny-saurus rex.
“Yeah. You are what you eat. But I couldn’t call her corn dog. So … Cornelia,” Lin said, which sounded perfectly logical to me.
“Well, I guess I’ll call mine Cornhowser, then. Here’s one for you, boy,” I said as I offered the half-warm corn dog to my new friend.
The tiny-saurus rex sniffed the corn dog, then wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue.
“What?” Lin said. “Have you ever met a T. rex that doesn’t like corn dogs?”
“Ummm, just one, I guess,” I said.
I took a bite of the corn dog to show him that it was safe. “Yummm. So good. You should try this, Cornhowser. It’s delicious. Could use a squirt of mustard, but it’s still really good.”
The Microsaur turned up his nose and looked at me as if I was trying to feed him rotten socks for lunch. “Here, you can give this one to Cornelia. I guess this guy isn’t hungry.” I tossed the corn dog toward Lin, and Cornelia jumped up and caught it in the air, swallowing it whole, stick and all.
“Whoa! Did you see that?” Lin asked. “Who’s a good girl?” Lin scratched Cornelia’s belly and the baby Microsaur smiled, then burped a gassy cloud of corn-dog air, which made Lin laugh.
Lin and Cornelia rolled and played in the sand as I watched the other twin sniff the air. He was searching around for something else to eat, and I certainly hoped that he wasn’t searching for a science-loving boy to munch for lunch.
He rolled over a rock and sniffed at whatever was hiding beneath it, not finding anything worth a lick. Then he sniffed at my backpack, nearly shoving me over with his strong, square nose.
“There’s nothing in there worth eating, buddy,” I said. “I mean, there’s one last corn dog, but we both know those aren’t your thing.”
Then he raised up high on his powerful back legs and got a big, deep sniff of something great, and I knew exactly what he wanted. Only the greatest food ever invented: a perfect triangle of bready goodness, covered with sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.
The Microsaurus rex followed his nose to the back of the steam pipe, where he gobbled up the two pieces of pizza in two big bites.
“Pizza!” I said, and Lin looked up at me.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“Pizza. His name is Pizza,” I said.
The pizza-loving Microsaur jumped up and down, wagged his tail, and rubbed his tummy with his tiny arms, and I knew right away that I had found the perfect name for my new friend.
Then before I even had a chance to worry about what Lin and I were going to eat for lunch, something above our heads started scratching. Dust fell from the ceiling of the cave and Pizza and Cornelia ran to hide behind us, scared of the strange noise.
“What is that?” Lin asked.
A little piece of the cave dropped down and thumped me on the shoulder and, without saying a word, Lin and I took a few steps back.
The scratching stopped for a minute, and we heard something that we did NOT want to hear. A low growling sound, followed by a clicking noise of a pack of very stubborn, very hungry tiny-raptors.
CHAPTER 14
A BIT OF LUCK
The first oviraptor to poke its head through the hole in the cave ceiling stuck its big, blue tongue out at us and licked the dirt off its snout. It looked around in the dark cave, and when it saw Lin and me holding our flashlights, it growled and clicked, and the rest of the pack clicked after him, their voices rattling in the ceiling, sending a shiver through my whole body.
“We need a plan, Danny,” Lin said. “The best plan ever, or we are in real trouble.”
“I’m thinking. But it’s hard to think of something great when Mr. Blue Ton
gue is staring at you like you are a walking hamburger,” I said.
Mr. Blue Tongue pulled his head back up into the ceiling, then started stomping in the hole that he and his pack were digging. At first they were all stomping at different times, and it didn’t seem like they would ever get through the earth, but after a few scattered hops they all got on the same rhythm.
Thump! BUMP! BOOOM!
“I don’t care for this one bit!” I said, and Pizza whined at my back.
“Maybe we should jump back in the river,” Lin said as Cornelia cleared her throat and bared her teeth at the oviraptors’ noise.
Thump! BUMP! BOOOOOOOM!
Then all at once an avalanche of rock, dirt, and tiny-raptors crashed down from above. Dust filled the air as a hole big enough to drive a car through opened above us. Sunshine stabbed in the hole, and I blinked and rubbed my eyes as I waited for them to adjust to the light.
When I could finally see again, I kind of wished that I couldn’t. Because all I could see was hungry-looking oviraptors, all around us.
I was about to step forward and yell at them to move back, hoping that they would obey, but Pizza pushed in front of me. He growled and showed the oviraptors his shiny teeth. I looked over at Lin and saw that she was being protected by Cornelia, too. Even though the Microsaurus rexes were newborns they were coming to our rescue, snarling and growling and ready for a fight!
I looked up through the hole in the roof of the cave, and I saw something glorious. A brightly colored Fruity Stars cereal box.
“How about that plan, Danny?” Lin said.
“Sometimes all the planning in the world doesn’t make up for a little bit of luck,” I said to Lin. I pointed up at the Fruity Stars Lab. “You ready to use that Grappling-Grabber you’ve been lugging around?” I asked.
Microsaurs--Tiny-Raptor Pack Attack Page 5