Sonja hugged him.
“Hey! If I knew you were going to do that, I would have let the thing eat it!” Kyle blushed so hard his face glowed in the dark.
Let’s make sure we don’t have any company. Then I’m going to see if I can get this thing together so we’ll have some protection.”
“You really think it will work?” asked Teresa.
“It better. If not, you’re right. We’ll be on the menu as the catch of the day.”
***
After examining the enclosure, Kyle sat down in an area where light shone through the tree roots. He opened a small towel, placed all the tools neatly in a row and the components he brought with him. Sonja and Teresa watched as they munched on an energy bar and a bottle of water.
“What are you going to do with that?” Teresa asked pointing to the small transistor radio.
“Listen to music, of course,” said Kyle without batting an eyelash.
“You can get music here?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Dino-rock. FM. It’s on all the stations.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“Duh.”
“What are you going to do with it?” asked Sonja.
“It’s what my father used to make the distortion device. I have to install an amplifier and focus the beam. I figured all the parts must have been in the lab. That’s where he would have gotten them when he tried to…stop me from coming back the last time.”
Kyle still felt pain in his heart whenever he thought about it. But then, his father—or the Commissioner—let him go. Deep down his father cared about him, Kyle realized, even if he didn’t show it. The girls could tell.
“So, what was I like in this future? What was I wearing?” asked Teresa.
“Same old dumpy clothes you always wear.”
“Come on. Be serious. What happened to us?”
“I think the Allosaurs ate you.”
“What! They ate us?”
“I think so. I barely made it back to the lab. You guys didn’t follow me and…I kinda forgot about you.”
“What! You forgot us? That’s not very nice. You killed us!”
“What’re ya whining about? You’re alive now.”
“For the moment. Looks like you’re going to do us in…again.”
“If I hadn’t gotten into the capsule when I did, none of us would be here. So take your lipstick and stick it…”
“Hey, you two. Knock it off!”
Kyle and Teresa looked at Sonja as if she had just arrived from Mars.
“Teresa. Let Kyle work on this device so at least we will have a chance.”
“That’s okay, Sonja. Snodgrass here can yell all she wants. I’m done.”
Sonja’s eyes sparkled in the glare of the shafts of sunlight filtering through the trees above. “You are amazing!”
“Okay, okay. But does it work, Mr. Amazing?”
“I just need to plug it in…”
“Plug it in? Did you say plug it…Oh, you almost had me there.” Teresa began giggling hysterically and then she started to cry. Kyle felt terrible. It was his fault again that they were stuck in the past. They had one chance and only one chance of getting back. He didn’t want to say anything just yet—just in case. He knew there was a chance—a long shot.
Kyle opened the back of the radio; now a distortion device. He inserted four D cell batteries and shut the trap door in the back.
Sonja looked puzzled.
“Now what?”
“What are you going to do when the batteries run out?”
***
Dr. Bashan and Dr. Donavan worked frantically through the night and well into the next day without taking a break. Their wives brought food and a thermos of coffee, and prepared themselves for the possibility they might not return once they entered the green Jell-O capsule.
“Maybe just one of you should go,” said Dr. Donavan.
“We thought about that,” said Medina. “Neither of us can go on living if the other doesn’t come back. You’re sending us both back there, so get over it. There’s no way you can talk us out of it.”
“You might just dematerialize into your subatomic structure. Doesn’t that scare you?”
“I need to lose a couple of pounds anyway. So hurry up fellas. We haven’t got much time.”
“Once you launch,” interjected Dr. Donavan. “You’ll have all the time in the world.”
***
Kyle checked the tape recorder and then sealed it in a plastic Ziploc baggie.
“Why did you do that?” Sonja was intensely interested in everything Kyle did and it was starting to make him nervous.
“When we go into the pond, I do not want it to get wet.”
“Go where?” asked Teresa with alarm.
“In the pond. That’s where Nessie is.”
“I can not go in the pond,” said Sonja. “You go in the pond. I can not swim. I am afraid of water!”
“You mean, you can’t swim? At all?” asked Kyle shocked. He knew his sister could swim better than he could, even if he hated to admit it. She had won several swimming meets at school. He hadn’t even given a second thought to Sonja. He still had an awful lot to learn about everything. He had to become more careful with the details.
“I do not even like to take a bath,” Sonja answered sourly. Her eyes had taken on the look of someone about to cry. It touched Kyle in a way he didn’t expect.
“I…I…uh…we…I don’t know what to say. I’ll figure out…something. Don’t worry about it right now. The first thing I need to do is test this thing and see if it works. You guys…uh…girls stay here.”
Teresa noticed the change in attitude. Kyle’s sweet on Sonja! Wow!
Kyle hoped an Allosaur wasn’t the first test of his device. He turned the radio on and checked the toggle switch he had installed on the top. He couldn’t hear the sound; it was too focused. And the pitch much higher than anyone—anything—could hear including the dinosaur. But the effect it would have on the animal’s brain would be instantaneous.
There was movement in the bushes. It didn’t sound very large, so Kyle went up closer for a look. Sonja and Teresa were watching from a safe distance nestled in the roots of the tree. Suddenly, out jumped two smallish velociraptors with their claws extended and talons poised to kill. The girls screamed and instinctively ran to the back of the tree house.
Kyle threw the toggle switch.
***
The girls hugged each other and shivered as they listened.
“Do you think he’s okay?” asked Teresa.
“I do not hear anything. Let us go and look.”
“You look. If they ate my brother, I don’t want to see it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Hey! You guys still in there?” It was Kyle.
Sonja and Teresa moved to the front of the opening and couldn’t believe their eyes. Kyle was sitting on one of the velociraptor’s backs.
“I wouldn’t keep your mouth open like that. There’re some nasty bugs around here. Fly right in. What? I told you this thing would work.”
The velociraptors were completely placid. It was like riding a tame horse. However, Kyle lost his footing and fell off. The raptor turned around, looked at Kyle, and then trotted off into the bushes.
“I guess it doesn’t hurt to know how to ride,” said Kyle matter-of-factly. He got up and dusted himself. There was raptor dung on his trouser. “Whew, that stinks!”
Teresa and Sonja looked around to make sure there weren’t any other dinosaurs ready to spring on them.
“How did you do that?” asked Sonja.
Kyle showed them the device. “It sends out a harmonic signal of sorts that we can’t hear. You know…like a dog whistle? When you blow a dog whistle, humans can’t hear that, but the dog can. Some of the signals are so strong they hurt the dog’s ears. But the distortion device acts on neurotransmitters in the brain.”
“Newmo…what?” asked Teresa.
&
nbsp; “No neuro, as in neuron? Like in the brain? If you had one, you’d know that. And transmitter like in sending out a radio signal. Kyle…uh…the professor, the other me in the future said it does something to chemicals in the brain and makes the animals docile. He said that meant tame. At least for a short time. I should only have to turn the device on an animal for a few seconds. The results last for days. So, hopefully, the device will last for a while. Hey, I did bring a few more batteries.”
“Wow! What an invention, Kyle,” said Sonja smitten as ever.
Kyle groaned inwardly. While Sonja was a pretty girl, she was still like a little baby to him. After all, he thought, I’m two years older!
It was getting dark and the sun was setting rapidly.
“I think we should stay in the root house until tomorrow.”
Teresa asked, “But won’t Mom and Dad be worried?”
“Yeah. I suppose. But if it was anything like the past, they are already much older. There’s not much else we can do.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Its breath smelled like the dumpster behind Ernie’s New York Deli in downtown Boston, two days after the fish special. There were just as many flies buzzing around its massive head covered with small feather-like growths. The colors were the same drab grayish green and browns he saw in the majority of dinosaurs living here in the past. The creature’s teeth were inches away from his face What Kyle noticed the most, however, were the teeth—rows of foot-long ivory daggers dripping with yellowish-green saliva. He was certain they were impressive enough to send a megalodon—the ancient white sharks—swimming for the open seas like a frightened guppy.
The girls watched from the safety of their temporary root structure home near the base of the tree. Kyle wanted to put his device to the ultimate test despite the girl’s strong advice to the contrary.
“He’s…he’s just standing there…in front of the T-rex! I can’t believe how stupid and stubborn my brother is,” said Teresa clearly upset.
“I never have seen in my whole life anyone so brave as he.”
“You won’t be saying that if he gets eaten. Then what? We’ll be stuck here in the past and probably end up as dino-food ourselves!”
“Why is the T-rex just standing there looking at him?” wondered Sonja aloud. “Oh no!” she added suddenly alarmed.
“What? What is it?”
“I…I know why the T-rex is standing there.”
“Well…?”
“Look! Behind Kyle on the ground. His distortion device. He must have dropped it!”
“Oh no! What are we going to do? We have to go out there and help him!”
“I will go, too,” said Sonja as she began to push her way through the tangle of branches. Halfway out she stopped, pulled her head back in and gasped.
***
Kyle continued his controlled breathing as best he could despite the odor hitting him square in the face. The T-rex knew he was there, but either he couldn’t see Kyle, or he couldn’t smell him. A predator would simply begin snapping at everything in front of him with its teeth, but a scavenger responded to the smell of fresh carrion—a freshly killed animal. The T-rex could detect no odor recognizable as its meal, but it knew there was something there that might eventually entice him to eat.
Kyle considered his options. He could wait until the T-rex became tired of waiting or dive for the distortion device and hope it would have an immediate effect. Neither idea sounded very good.
Suddenly, the T-rex snapped its jaws shut so hard it sent Kyle sprawling backward. The ground shook with the weight of the T-rex as it inexplicably took off running. Immediately, Kyle wondered what could possibly frighten a T-rex. He looked up from his seated position on the ground and his jaw dropped open.
***
Sonja and Teresa pressed their faces against the gnarly branches of the tree roots and gazed upwards in awe.
“What is that?” asked Teresa.
“I have absolutely no idea. I have never seen anything that big move so gracefully.”
“And so fast! Is it after the T-rex?”
“Hey guys!” yelled Kyle from across the clearing. “Come on out and see this! It’s…unbelievable!”
The girls watched in amazement as an enormous beast, over ten stories high, fluidly raced past Kyle within a few feet. It looked like a house with legs and a neck. Kyle watched as casually as if he was watching a parade go by.
Teresa yelled, “Are you crazy? Have you lost your mind?” She turned back and looked at Sonja. “He’s lost his mind!”
Kyle ignored her warnings. The creature noticed Kyle, slowed and swung its head in his direction, snorted, and resumed its trek. Kyle thought it looked more like the head of a dog. Two more giants passed and then a smaller one no bigger than the T-rex—obviously a baby—followed.
After the massive dinosaurs passed, the girls ran over to where Kyle was standing. He was examining the distortion and device and testing the switch to make sure it hadn’t been damaged when the T-rex frightened him and he dropped it.
He turned to the girls, “Did you see that? Weren’t they cool?”
“You really are out of your mind! Of course, I always knew that, but this is possibly the dumbest thing you ever did! You could have been eaten!”
“If I were a head of cabbage, maybe. Those are vegetarians. They’re Camarasaurs I’m surprised we didn’t see any before now. Supposedly, there were lots of them around here.”
“They looked like the Brachiosaurus. Only not as sleek and their necks are shorter,” observed Sonja.
“In fact, they’re related. They’re both sauropods.”
“I give up with you two. You deserve each other!” said Teresa sourly as she stormed off.
“What’s wrong with her?” asked Kyle.
“She was very worried about you. You scared her…and me.”
The sound of Teresa screaming interrupted them.
***
Standing all around Teresa were three dinosaurs much larger than the raptors. Teresa lay on the ground rolled up in a ball clutching her chest to her legs. One of the creatures bent over and sniffed.
Teresa screamed again and this seemed to anger the animals as they reared back and growled and hissed.
As suddenly as they appeared, they stopped. Instead of the drooling maniacal attitude from one moment earlier, the animals relaxed. Teresa opened one eye and then the other. The dinosaurs were now ignoring her and seemed as placid as puppy—a very large puppy.
“You can get up now,” said Kyle. “I’ve got them under control.”
Teresa slowly got to her feet and brushed off the soil and wet leaves clinging to her clothing. Kyle was holding his device.
He walked up to one of the dinosaurs and put his hand on its front shoulder, which was about as high as he could reach.
“They’re Anchiasaurs. At least I think that’s what they are. Supposed to be vegetarians, too. I can see why they were confused about eating you, though,” he added with a smirk.
Teresa ran up and hugged her brother.
“Hey! What are you doing? If I knew you were going to do that, I would have at least let them taste you!”
The dinosaur he was standing next to reached around and licked Teresa as if on cue.
“Ewwwww!”
“Hey, he likes you! Wanna ride ‘em?”
“No way!”
“Oh, come on.”
“Besides, it’s too tall. I can’t get on its back.”
Kyle realized she was right but, looking over to another group of dinosaurs, he had another idea.
“Come on. I know you can get on one of these!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
“Okay. Everything is all set to go. We must leave at once. Remember. Just get the kids and get back here as quickly as possible.”
“Shouldn’t we have a gun or something? I mean, you saw that creature in the video. What if it’s aggressive?” asked Medina.
Ravina looked at Medina with a gl
int in her eye. “You mean you do not have a gun in your pocketbook?” She thought it was strange the way American women could go nowhere without their pocketbooks and this case was no exception. Both women laughed nervously. They were frightened beyond description, but the lives of their children were at stake. They would challenge a grizzly bear if it meant protecting them.
“I thought I’d never get to see you in jeans!” exclaimed Medina. Dr. Bashan raised an alarmed eyebrow. He had never seen his wife in jeans before either.
Ravina said, “They are very comfortable. I may get used to this. What do you say Paul? What? No comment? Cat have your nose?”
“That’s tongue,” remarked Dr. Bashan clearly irritated.
“Oh, so now you are an expert in American English? And you scold me for wearing jeans. Humpf!”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s get serious. You realize that we might never see you again?” said Dr. Donavan.
“Then let us have this light moment, my dear,” answered Medina. “Besides, we will be back. Women never fail. Launch the Jello-O baby! See you next time?”
They couldn’t really express what they were feeling. It was too painful. Hiding their feelings in the lightness of the moment served to obscure their real thoughts. What they were attempting might prove fatal. They couldn’t bear the possibility of never seeing one another again.
***
Kyle tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. He tossed and turned on the hard ground. The light blanket he brought didn’t have much material to it and it wasn’t any softer than the dirt floor.
The sounds of nocturnal dinosaurs and birds filled the night with an eerie alien ambience. The heavy fog permeated everything. A ghostly moon shimmered through the clouds and occasionally stabbed the night with shafts of bluish light like a strobe.
Kyle couldn’t stop thinking about the past and the future. He thought about what he had done or, rather, failed to do. That the success or failure of their trip should come down to a shoestring was incredibly ironic. A shoestring held the sneaker to his foot. The shoestring in the capsule held his entire being either in the future or the past.
“What’s wrong?” Teresa whispered. Sonja was fast asleep.
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