Dinosaur Breakout (5 page)

Dad rolled his eyes. Mom shook her head, but her mouth was tight in disapproval. Dad glowered at a spot behind Daniel’s head, calming himself down before he spoke again.

“I’ll be back in time for supper and chores,” Daniel said, rising from the table with his hot dog in his hand.

“Just a minute, young man.” Mom rose from the table, checked his bandages and his eyes again, and then looked questioningly at Dad.

Dad shrugged his shoulders. Mom sighed. Daniel grabbed his backpack, and shoved more refilled bottles of water into it. He still had his other snacks, and he didn’t think he’d be hungry again for quite some time. He gave Cheryl a quick tickle and a hug, and then headed towards the door. As he bent to tie his runners, Mom came over and slipped a baggy of fresh oatmeal raisin cookies into his hand. They smiled at one another, and without a word, Daniel left.

Even before the door closed, he could hear his parents discussing the Nelwins again. He thought he heard Dad say something about “Maybe the boy has to learn to fight his own battles,”’ and Mom protesting. Then Dad said, “We’ll step in when we have to.”

He stopped to listen more when he heard Dad say, “They’re no different than Horace was when he was a boy. I know. I grew up with him.”

Then Mom said, “I feel sorry for them, being brought up without a mother and not always having enough to eat, but that’s no excuse for bullying people!”

“You’re right, of course. It’s just too bad they didn’t have a better role model than their father, or at least some purpose or interest in their lives instead of hurting others.”

Daniel heard the scrape of the chair as his father left the table, and he tiptoed out the door and headed towards his hideout. The afternoon sun was high in the blue sky, with large puffy clouds that looked like they were in a painting, but there wasn’t a bit of a breeze and the air felt muggy as he headed through the pasture gate.

The Nelwins really were a problem, but for the mo-ment he didn’t see how to deal with those two bullies. They’d been that way for as long as Daniel had known them. Right now, he was more interested in getting to his hideout and checking out his stash of fossils. He thought about how he’d come to be in the world of dinosaurs and back again. Probably the knock on his head had caused a hallucination!

He chose a different way to go this time, totally
avoiding the heap of rocks and the coulee of trees where the Nelwins had hidden. From now on, he’d stay well in the open so he could see long distances. No one was going to ambush him again. He also kept Dactyl occupied and closer to his side, playing fetch with the stick, instead of letting him dash off to chase gophers and rabbits.

Once he neared his hideout, Daniel looked at it from a different perspective – that of someone trying to locate the place. The first thing he noticed was the clanging of tin cans and bones tied to a piece of twine that warned him of intruders when he was inside his cave. He could hear it from some distance off, and that meant others could too. It wouldn’t be long before someone found his hideout by the sounds alone. Even his best friend, Jed, who was always getting lost! He smiled to himself, remembering a couple of incidents last summer where Jed had headed across a field in the wrong direction to deliver lunch to his father and ended up at a neighbour’s house.

A year and a half ago, Daniel had been worried about intrusions from Pederson. Then they’d discovered their common interest in dinosaurs and had become friends. Now he just had to worry about others. Which was worse? Having someone find the hideout because of the noise made by his homemade alarm, or him being startled by someone while he was inside? He removed the twine and carefully put the tin cans and bones away. If no one could find the hideout, they wouldn’t intrude on him either.

The next thing he realized was that the area around the structure of the cave was too tidy and the entrance too easily observed. Although the hideout was well hidden with branches and logs covered with soil and grass, so that it looked like a natural mound between the two hills, he had cleaned the area around the opening too well. Something had to be done!

Daniel poked around with a long stick to make sure there were no rattlesnakes coiled underneath the scrub and rocks. Then he picke
d up branches and dragged them across the doorway and around the hideout, making everything look as natural as possible. Dactyl yanked at ends of the branches with his teeth, hoping for a game of tug-of-war. Daniel played with him a bit, but soon took his work seriously, and Dactyl wandered off without his noticing.

Some time later, Daniel surveyed the work he’d completed from a certain distance away. Satisfied that he’d accomplished his objective, which was that his hideout didn’t stand out in any way, he returned to the entrance and crawled inside. Dactyl appeared suddenly and pushed his way in beside him, knocking down some of the branches. Daniel did a little repair work, then pulled over his tree-stump stool and relaxed under the ceiling opening, through which the mid-afternoon sun streamed in ribbons across the cavern walls.

He opened his backpack and pulled out some beef jerky for Dactyl, then poured him some water in an old metal pot. He took a drink from the water bottle while he surveyed the contents of his hideout: plastic ice cream pails of rocks and fossils, a tattered research book on dinosaurs, deer antlers, a special rattlesnake skin, an old sleeping bag, his excavation tools, and his emergency stash of snacks, candles, and matches.

Emptying his backpack onto the packed dirt floor of the cave, he sorted through his things and put them away into their appropriate containers. Besides the bottles of water, which he stashed near the back of the cavern to keep cool, only two things remained on the ground at the end. One was his
Receptaculites
fossil that he always took with him. The other was a piece of bark he’d never seen before. Where had it come from? He couldn’t remember collecting it. Puzzled, Daniel bent to retrieve it when he heard a shrill, birdlike whistle.

Pederson!
That was their secret code. Daniel hustled over to the doorway and gave a return whistle. Dactyl bulldozed his way past Daniel again and ran excitedly to join Pederson and his dog, Bear. Daniel crawled out and joined the others partway up the hillside.

“Looks like you’ve been un-improving the place, Daniel Bringham,” Pederson called out as he approached, his eyes twinkling in amusement. Then he noticed the cuts. “With your face, by the looks of it.”

“This happened while I was trying to keep those Nel-wins away,” he said, pointing to the bandaged back of his head.

Pederson’s face went hard. “Those good-for-nothing louts. Someone needs to teach them a lesson or two!” He gave Bear a nod and the two dogs yipped and chased one another, then dashed off to explore together.

Daniel sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just have to figure out how.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something. You have a good head on your shoulders, Daniel.” Pederson patted him on the shoulder and winked at him.

Should he tell Pederson about his other adventure? He might not think Daniel was so smart then. He’d probably just figure that the knock on his head had caused some wild imaginings. Daniel himself was having a hard time believing it was anything but a delusion. But how could the extra scratches on his face be explained? And what about the fact that he’d only had one sandwich left when he came to, and the rag from around his fossil, which had been inside his backpack, had been wrapped around his head? Maybe he’d wait and think about it for a bit more before saying anything to Pederson.

“So what’s up?” Daniel asked. There had to be a special reason for Pederson to come looking for him. He usually waited for Daniel to visit.

“I just got back from that town council meeting. Seems that the mayor of Climax has another brilliant idea for linking our research outpost and the town museum closer to the T.rex Discovery Centre.” Pederson spoke slowly, then stopped, looking off into the distance.

Sometimes Daniel thought Pederson’s slowness was done on purpose just to annoy him, but he had come to know that usually it meant Pederson was reflecting on his choice of words before speaking.

After several moments, Pederson continued. “She wants me to take her ideas to our friends at the T.rex Discovery Centre to see how feasible they are before we take them to the ‘powers that be’ beyond us.” He paused and watched the dogs on the next hill.

Daniel stared at him. “Yeah, and?” he asked impatiently.

“Thought I might as well make a trip there tomorrow before we get started on the new dig site.” Pederson spat on the ground. “And...” he took his time getting out his handkerchief to blow his nose.

This time Daniel knew he was doing it to irritate him. He waited, trying not to show his impatience.

“I wondered if you’d want to go with me to Eastend in the morning?” He waited nonchalantly for Daniel to reply.

“Sometimes you ask some dumb questions, for a paleontologist,” Daniel said, grinning.

He loved going to the T.rex Discovery Centre and talking with Tim Tokaryk. He was the supervising paleontologist, who worked for the Royal Saskatchewan Museum at the research station located in the centre. He and some of the other staff had worked with them on the
Edmontosaurus
dig and Mr. Tokaryk was still involved with the preparation of the skeleton.

“What time are we leaving?” asked Daniel.

“Nine a.m. too early for you?” Pederson laughed.

“Nah, that’ll give me plenty of time to do my barn chores before we go.”

“Okay, see you then.” Pederson turned and gave a different kind of whistle that brought Bear back to his side. He waved, and the pair headed for home.

Daniel hesitated. Maybe he should call Pederson back and tell him about his bizarre experience, after all? For an old guy, he was pretty open-minded most of the time. But maybe this time he wouldn’t believe him. Daniel could barely believe what had happened himself. No, he’d wait until he’d done some research and figured a few things out first. Maybe he’d find some answers at the T.rex Discovery Centre tomorrow.

Chapter Four

D
aniel hurried back to his hideout
to retrieve his special fossil and his backpack. Once inside, he stared at the chunk of bark on the ground, but decided to leave it where it was until his return trip. He’d make sure that happened as soon as possible. He hadn’t done all the things he’d planned to do, like rigging up some other advance warning system that only he could
hear inside his hideout. And maybe even making an emerg-
ency exit.

A gentle breeze blew across the hills as Daniel headed for home. He’d be on schedule to do chores, if the position of the afternoon sun was any indication. The days were longer now, and sometimes he had trouble figuring out the time. He took a deep breath and then whistled for Dactyl, who was nowhere in sight. As he swooped down to pluck a blade of grass, he thought he saw his dog way up ahead.

Daniel chewed on the grass blade as he thought about his morning adventures. Obviously, hitting his head both times had something to do with his shifting backwards and forwards in time. Surely there was an easier way to do it – not that he wanted to do go to the Cretaceous Period again! That was too scary! And it hurt too much, as the returning headache reminded him. Good thing he didn’t have many chores to do now that the family had reduced their farming operation.

When he entered the barn, the air was several degrees cooler than outside, and much darker, so he turned on an overhead string of bare light bulbs. The usual array of
kittens darted around him, waiting for his special attention. He sat on a straw bale and played with them. They chased a length of twine and an old bit of leather harness that he lazily dragged around the floor of the barn. Dust motes fluttered in the air with the movement. Gypsy, his horse, whinnied from outside, and at last Daniel set the twine aside and went to do his chores.

Retrieving a pail of chop – a mixture of crushed oats and sometimes other grains – from the feed room, he headed out the back door that led to the corrals and pasture. He only had to water the two horses in the nearby pasture, and milk a couple of cows. Dad had sold most of the other cattle to pay off some of his debt and he only seeded and hayed a few acres now. The rest of the feed he bought from a neighbour. And the other cows were in the pasture for the summer.

Eventually, if the dinosaur digs worked out, the Bringhams would farm in a bigger way again. For now, Daniel still had to do his share of the farm work, although most of his spare time was spent with Pederson at a dig, or with Dad and Mr. Lindstrom as they carved out the hiking trails and plotted the campsites.