Microsaurs_That's MY Tiny-Saurus Rex

by Dustin Hansen

  Lin and I ran inside the new Fruity Stars Lab 2.0 and took a look around.

  “Well, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be when we were big,” I said. “It won’t take us very long at all to straighten things out.”

  “I told you it was our lucky day, Danny. We didn’t get hurt after you forgot the Slide-A-Riffic brakes, we have tons of time before Penny returns, and the inside of the new lab isn’t even close to as messy as my room,” Lin said.

  “You can say that again,” I said. “How about this? You start stacking Professor Penrod’s books back on this shelf and I’ll look around for something to use for brakes for the Slide-A-Riffic.”

  “Good idea. Unless…” Lin said. She rubbed her chin with her thumb and forefinger, just like I did when I was trying to think really hard. She picked up two large, leather-covered books. “Unless you can use these as brakes.”

  “Yeah, I’m not so sure using Professor Penrod’s book collection to stop the Slide-A-Riffic is the best idea. You work on stacking, and I’ll work on stopping. Deal?” I said.

  “Deal,” Lin said as she began filling the bookshelf.

  I rummaged through Professor Penrod’s equipment, looking for something to stop the Slide-A-Riffic. I found some rubber bands that might work, some half-chewed-up pencil erasers that had promise, and a bottle of rubber cement that might have the right amount of goo, but nothing was quite right. I was lost in deep thought when Lin spoke.

  “Hey. Isn’t this Professor Penrod’s guidebook thingy?” Lin said. She was holding an old notebook with a dinosaur print stamped into its leather cover.

  “Yeah. That’s it. Can I see it, please? Maybe there’s something in there about stopping a runaway Slide-A-Riffic.”

  “Sure, but you’re probably more likely to find something about stopping a runaway triceratops,” Lin said as she slid the book over to me on the top of a dice that Professor Penrod used as a lab table. “Where do you think Pizza and Cornelia are? Don’t you think it’s kind of strange we haven’t seen any Microsaurs since we’ve been here?”

  With all the excitement of nearly crashing the Slide-A-Riffic and installing the new Fruity Stars Lab 2.0, I hadn’t really thought about it, but Lin was right.

  “Yeah, actually. That is odd,” I said. The rubber end of a suction cup dart poked up from beneath a stack of fallen papers, and I thought I might have an idea of how to fix the braking problem. “How ’bout you call for them while I see if I can turn this dart into some kind of braking system?”

  Lin didn’t need me to suggest again. She ran from the new lab and started shouting for the Microsaurs. “Cornelia. Pizza. Zip-Zap. Where are you?”

  After stuffing a broken pencil inside the foam end of the dart, I grabbed a couple of rubber bands and started dragging my new parts toward the Slide-A-Riffic. From the woods, I noticed a strange sound, kind of like a big, rumbling tummy. But it was far off and I’d heard stranger sounds in the Microterium, so I didn’t give it much thought.

  Beneath a stack of blueprint drawings, Lin found Professor Penrod’s trumpet. It was a little dented, but that didn’t stop Lin.

  BRRRRRAAAAP! Lin tooted on the horn.

  “Honk-Honk! Where are you?” Lin shouted, then she tooted the horn again. Usually Honk-Honk came running in at once when she heard the horn, but this time she was nowhere to be seen.

  I was about to start wrapping the rubber band around my new brake system when I heard Lin make a huge snort.

  “Ha. Nice one, Lin,” I shouted over my shoulder. I secured the rubber-band-and–foam-dart braking system in place. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work.

  “What? I thought it was you,” Lin said.

  The snort rumbled again, but this time I was looking right at Lin. I could tell it wasn’t her at all. It almost sounded like a growl. It was coming from the thick woods to the right of the new Fruity Stars Lab 2.0.

  “That wasn’t a snort. Was that Cornelia?” Lin said. Then a second growl echoed from the left.

  “That can’t be Pizza,” I said. “The sound was … I don’t know. Too big. Too grown-up.”

  Lin and I stopped what we were doing and started scanning around for the twin baby tiny-saurus rexes. The twins had only hatched a few days ago, but they had already had plenty of practice creating problems before they were even hatched.

  Then a welcome sight popped out of the woods. “Zip-Zap!” Lin shouted as she ran toward the fastest, most beautifully colored Microsaur ever.

  Lin tossed her arms around the big, birdlike Microsaur, but that didn’t stop Zip-Zap from bouncing around. He shook his feathery wings and tilted his head back and forth nervously. His long toes were scratching in the dirt, carving tracks in the ground.

  “What’s wrong, boy?” Lin asked, but even her most soothing tones didn’t calm Zip-Zap.

  The growl returned, but this time it was joined by a rumbling, tumbling noise that sounded like distant thunder. Zip-Zap pulled away from Lin, turned around, and dipped his head toward the sound. He puffed up all his feathers and squinted his eyes down like he was ready for a fight. For such a silly and fun-loving Microsaur, Zip-Zap can really look terrifying if he needs to.

  “Look, over there,” Lin said, pointing in the direction Zip-Zap was staring. A cloud of dust rose above the puffy trees behind the Fruity Stars Lab.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” I said. The noise grew louder and clearer. Now we could hear clicking and screeching and thumping. “Or the sound of it, for that matter.”

  CHAPTER 4

  TERRIBLE TWIN TROUBLE

  A bright blue mass burst from the forest first. His three greenish horns tore through the woods like he was pushing through blades of grass, not sturdy tree trunks. Bruno was clearly running away from something, his eyes open wide, his big mouth pulled down at the corners, running as fast as he could … straight for the new Fruity Stars Lab!

  Zip-Zap gave up his brave pose and shot straight in the air when he saw Bruno charging, which jolted Lin and me into action as well. We turned and sprinted toward the lab, trying to head off the fleeing Microsaurs.

  “Oh no, this is going to be bad,” Lin said.

  The first of the oviraptors burst from the trees, following along in the path that Bruno had carved with his massive, bony head.

  “They are going to destroy the lab again!” I shouted.

  Five or six more oviraptors shot from the woods. Honestly, with all the chaos it was hard to keep count. They ran in a wild pack toward Zip-Zap, who had landed halfway up our freshly rebuilt lab, perching nervously in a window I’d cut in the box less than an hour before.

  The oviraptors scattered, running around the base of the lab and making a dust cloud. A few of them tried to scratch and scurry their way up the box in hopes of reaching Zip-Zap. The cardboard sagged where the Microsaurs crowded around, and I was afraid they were going to tear right through.

  “Get down from there!” Lin shouted, but she might as well have shouted her address, the words to “Yankee-Doodle-Dandy,” and a recipe for tofu soup, because the Microsaurs did not listen. And they certainly did not obey!

  The entire pack of tiny-raptors had joined the mess. Then we finally saw the cause of all this commotion. Right behind them, with silly grins on their toothy mouths, were the youngest members of the Microterium. The trouble-causing, Microsaur-chasing, always-hungry Pizza and Cornelia.

  Zip-Zap started to lose his balance. He jumped from his window perch, flapping his flightless wings for balance as he headed for the top of the Fruity Stars Lab. He reached out with his pointy claws to get a better grip, but instead he started to slip down the face of the cereal box. As he skittered down, he left behind six long cuts in the front of the lab.

  Meanwhile, probably looking for a place to hide, four of the oviraptors had run inside the Fruity Stars Lab. Clanging sounds rang in my ears, and I winced as I imagined the mess they were creating.

  “Quick. In the lab!” I shouted, and Lin followed me inside after
the tiny-raptors.

  One of them was standing on the desk, looking nervous and jumpy, its eyes twitching and blinking. It kicked off a large round glass beaker, and I had to dive to catch it before it crashed to the floor.

  “Shoo them out of here, Lin!”

  Lin grabbed the lid of the trash can and a pair of metal tongs. She started clanging the two together and shouting at the overexcited Microsaurs. “Get out of here, you mess makers!” Lin shouted.

  Two ran out, but I could hear Pizza and Cornelia growling and howling outside the lab, and six more tiny-raptors ran in. Zip-Zap was still trying to scratch his way to safety on top of the lab, but he was only slicing it to shreds.

  I ran around the lab, catching books, a keyboard, a pair of Penrod’s spare reading glasses, and a fossilized print of a stegosaurus. My arms were so full I was about to topple over when things got worse.

  Not bothering to use the door, Bruno smashed his way through the wall of the Fruity Stars Lab. He used his thick skull to bounce the tiny-raptors right out of the lab, one by one. A few of them went through the front door, but most of them were blasted through the cardboard walls of the lab. Bruno must have sensed that Lin and I were in trouble. It’s usually a good quality to have. I mean, who doesn’t love having a friend that will come to your rescue when times are tough? But while his bravery was appreciated, his methods were not. By the time Bruno was finished clearing them out, the walls looked like Swiss cheese.

  He sat down right in the middle of the lab, grinned at his job well done, then licked my face with his massive pink tongue. I rubbed his nose-horn, and he woofed.

  “Good boy, Bruno,” was all I could say. After all, his heart was in the right place. It’s just that his feet, horns, and massive tail are bigger than his heart.

  Pizza and Cornelia continued their chase, spooking the pack of tiny-raptors away and disappearing back into the forest from where they had arrived less than two disastrous minutes before.

  Lin was trying to convince Zip-Zap to come down as shreds of cardboard floated down from above. The Popsicle sticks we’d used to help prop up the walls and make a small fence around the Fruity Stars Lab were nothing more than slivers. Books were once again scattered all around, and the lab tables were toppled over.

  “This is an epic disaster,” I said.

  “There’s got to be something more than epic. Jumbo? Whopping?” Lin suggested as we looked around at the mess.

  “Colossal? Astronomical?” I added.

  “Mammoth,” Lin said, and we both nodded.

  “Yup. That’s it. This is a mammoth disaster,” I said.

  Zip-Zap ducked beneath a broken pencil that we’d used as a main support for the center of the Fruity Stars Lab and joined us in the mess. “Hey, Zippy. Want to help us fix this?” Lin asked.

  “I don’t think we can,” I said, looking around at the destruction. “We’re going to have to start from scratch.”

  “There’s a problem with that, actually,” Lin said.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “If I have to eat one more Fruity Star, I’m going to turn into a fruity solar system,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” I replied. “It’s obvious cardboard is NOT Microsaur-proof, and we need to come up with a plan for the twins before rebuilding anyway. They’re barely hatched and they are already causing huge problems.”

  “Mammoth problems,” Lin said, and I shook my head in agreement.

  We sat there, the four of us, and we all thought to ourselves about ways we could rebuild the new lab. Honestly, Bruno and Zip-Zap weren’t a lot of help, but Lin and I discussed materials we could use that might be Microsaur-proof. Everything from a metal cake pan to a fish tank. Nothing seemed just right. I took off my backpack and slumped it to the ground next to me and I heard something clink around in the bottom of my bag. Something that might be the answer to our problems.

  “Hey, I know what we could try,” I said. “And I actually have some with me right now. I brought along a few extra just in case the Slide-A-Riffic needed a repair.”

  Excited by my new idea, I dug to the very bottom and found a handful of brightly colored PIBBs. “These might do the trick,” I said as I showed them to Lin.

  “It’ll take us three hundred years to build something as big as a lab with PIBBs. And it’ll take about a bazillion of the little bricks to do the job,” Lin said.

  “It would … if they were little,” I said as I picked my way through the mess toward the Expand-O-Matic. “But even if it does take three hundred years, a test is probably a good idea before we spend the time building a new lab.”

  “What kind of test?” Lin said. “A math test?”

  “Nope.” I sat down on the big copper penny outside the destroyed Fruity Stars Lab. The professor said the penny had something to do with the chemical reaction required to expand things back to their normal size, but it also made a really good seat. I quickly started snapping my little pile of PIBBs together into a basic wall. Every color was represented, but the most important color for my test was the color red. Lucky for me, I had enough red blocks to fill the middle of the little test wall I was creating with a nice round target. “Not a math test. A crash test.”

  CHAPTER 5

  A TEST FOR BRUNO

  “Are you sure this is a good idea, Danny?” Lin asked.

  “It’s a good idea, just not sure if it’s a good plan. That’s why we’re doing a test. We have to know if PIBBs are Microsaur-proof, and the best way to find out is to let Bruno try to tear them apart,” I explained.

  As soon as that lovable, puppylike, three-horned Microsaur sees as much as a pair of red gym socks, he goes absolutely nutso. It was easy to hide the tiny wall of PIBBs I’d snapped together when they were still small enough to fit inside my Shrink-A-Fied pocket, but I knew as soon as the Expand-O-Matic grew them back to their original size, Bruno would be on them in a flash.

  “We better stand back,” I said. No answer. I turned to look around for Lin. She was nowhere in sight. Zip-Zap was peeking around a torn-up corner of the Fruity Stars Lab 2.0, but Lin and Bruno had disappeared.

  “Lin?” I shouted as I jogged back to the Expand-O-Matic. “Where are you?”

  “Go ahead and expand the PIBBs wall, Danny. I’m behind the lab, keeping Bruno calm for a minute. We’re ready,” she said.

  Something in Lin’s voice made me think there was more to her story, but the CEPs were warmed up, the wall was in place, and the only thing left to do was expand the wall.

  “Okay. Here it goes,” I said. The Expand-O-Matic bubbled, boiled, and burped to life. It took a little longer than the Shrink-A-Fier to get going because the Carbonic Expansion Particles inside the machine had to get up to exactly 104.3 degrees Fahrenheit. I slammed my hand down on the button. Orange Carbonic Expansion Particles shot up the coiled tube, glittered out from the showerhead nozzle, and rained down to the tiny stack of PIBBs. They grew almost immediately, and I have to admit, even I was shocked at how big they were. I always forget just how little I am when I’m Shrink-A-Fied. I had expected the little wall to be up to my stomach, not over my head.

  I was trying to reach up to the top of the wall to measure things out a little when I heard footsteps coming my way, followed by a loud “YAAAAHOOOO!”

  I jumped out of the way just in time. Bruno smashed into the plastic barrier with Lin—skateboard helmet snapped tight beneath her chin—riding on his back.

  “Oh yeah! Smash it, Bruno!” Lin shouted as Bruno used his wide-crested head to batter into the wall again and again.

  He stabbed at it with his nose-horn. He lifted it up with his brow tines. He smashed against it with his wide rump, and thumped his powerful tail against the wall. He pounced, and hammered, and tossed, and rammed the PIBB wall while Lin rode him like a cowgirl with a rodeo bull.

  Bruno spun around like a top, winding up his powerful tail and lining it up just right. The spinning motion was too much for Lin, and I watched as Lin was sent fl
ying through the air. She landed on the copper penny below the Expand-O-Matic’s spray nozzle, laughing so hard she couldn’t stand up.

  Bruno’s tail made direct contact with the wall, and he sent it sailing through the air, right into the smashed-up Fruity Stars Lab 2.0. It clanged off the CEP holding tank. The long, spirally coils that delivered CEPs to the nozzle were wrapped around the PIBB wall as it came to a stop.

  I looked at Bruno, and he looked back at me. He had an I’m-gonna-smash-that-wall-even-more look in his eyes that I will never forget. I’ll never forget it because it matched the Oh-no-what-have-I-done-don’t-smash-that-wall-anymore feeling in my gut.

  “No, Bruno! Stop!” I shouted, but it was too late. Bruno charged after the wall. He tore it from the coils, shoving the PIBB wall through what was left of the lab. The control unit toppled to the ground, and Bruno stepped on the big red button, sending one last shot of CEPs up through the nozzle and out on Lin’s head.

  As she expanded around us, Bruno dragged half of the Expand-O-Matic with him into the woods, leaving the other half behind, torn to pieces and shooting out steam.

  Lin thought quickly. Before Bruno could do even more damage, she reached down and snatched up the PIBB wall. As soon as the red bricks were out of his view, Bruno collapsed down on his stomach and panted over and over.

  I heard a beep from inside my ear. Lin and I always wore our SpyZoom Invisible Communicators, tiny earbuds that we could hide in our ears that allowed us to communicate when we were apart. It even worked, as we’d discovered on more than one occasion, when one of us was regular-sized and one of us was super tiny.

  “Can you hear me, Danny?” Lin whispered.

  “Uh-huh” was all I could manage to say. The destruction all around me was too much to take in. The lab was a total loss, and now the Expand-O-Matic was torn in two.