by Tess Sharpe
But Dr. Wu ushers us out of the incubation lab as soon as our final fifteen-minute round is up.
“But what about the rest of our day?” Tanya asks. “We can go back to watching the beakers; I don’t mind.”
“No, no, I have a better job for all you interns,” Dr. Wu says, and his smile is positively wicked. “You’ll be reporting to the greenhouses. It’s processing day.”
“You mean new plants are getting delivered?” Tanya asks, her face lighting up like sunlight across fresh snow.
Dr. Wu’s smile grows wider. “Not exactly,” he says.
* * *
“This may be our biggest challenge yet,” Justin says, pulling on his work gloves and crossing his arms.
I lean against my shovel, trying to breathe through my mouth.
“This is ridiculous,” Wyatt hisses.
“Oh my God, stop complaining,” Amanda sighs. “It’s just a little poop.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then a ripple of laughter reverberates through the entire group. Because “a little poop” is basically the understatement of the century, considering the gigantic pile of dinosaur manure that’s been dumped behind the research greenhouse.
Our job is to shovel it into bags, label them, and then stack the bags. Very simple. Very tiring. And very smelly.
“The sooner we get started, the sooner we’re done,” Ronnie declares, grabbing one of the white bags labeled Brachiosaurus Manure (Aged 6 months) and marching toward the pile, which is about three times as tall as she is.
“I’m going in,” I tell Justin.
“Do you want to be the shoveler or the bag holder?” he asks as we take the far corner of the pile, dragging over a wheelbarrow full of bags and two shovels.
“If we set up half a dozen bags at a time and add enough manure to hold the sides up, we can both shovel. It’ll get done faster,” I say, grabbing one of the shovels to gauge its heft. I look up to catch him staring at me. “My dad likes to garden,” I explain. “He always roped me into digging stuff for him because I have the opposite of a green thumb.”
After the first few bags, Justin and I fall into a rhythm. It’s hard, sweaty, and stinky work, but with a dozen of us working—well, make that eleven, since Wyatt’s doing more complaining than work—it takes only three hours with a few breaks to get it all done. After we finish stacking the last bag, I stumble over to the lawn that stretches along the front of the research greenhouse, and I collapse in the shade of a palm tree. Tanya and Ronnie join me and slouch up against the trunk, while Justin and Art sprawl on the other side.
“We stink,” Ronnie observes.
“Getting clean requires getting up, though,” Tanya says.
“That is a problem,” Art agrees.
“I’m getting up,” I say, but then I don’t move, and it makes Justin laugh.
“Okay, someone’s gotta be first,” he says, pushing off the tree. He holds his hand out to help me up, and then looks down and realizes it’s more than a little grubby, but I take it anyway. It’s not as if I can get dirtier.
And it’s not as if I don’t like the butterflies.
“How about we all clean up and then meet at the falls to swim?” Art suggests. “We have a few hours before dinner.”
“Ooh, yes!” Amanda says. “I haven’t been yet.”
“Me neither,” I say.
“Why don’t we meet in about an hour?” Justin suggests.
We agree, loading into the jeeps, whose seats are covered with towels in anticipation of today’s dirty job. When we get back to our room, Tanya and I flip a coin to see who gets the shower first—and I win.
“I’ll be as fast as I can,” I promise. And I try to keep my word—but I do wash my hair twice, just to be sure there’s no eau de dinosaur poop in it. And I slather myself with the peony lotion I have instead of my normal scentless aloe, just in case any of the stink might be lingering on my skin.
As Tanya showers, I rummage through the dresser, trying to remember where I put my bathing suit. I finally find it tucked away in one of the pockets of my suitcase with my extra socks. I’m just finishing pulling on a pair of denim shorts over it when Tanya comes in. She’s already got her suit on, a blue and silver metallic bikini that reminds me of the Milky Way.
“Oh, that’s so cute on you,” she says when she sees my one-piece. “The gingham is very classic. You should put your hair in braids, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.”
I laugh and nod to her suit. “I love that material.”
“Isn’t it neat?” She dances back and forth, the bikini sparkling as the light catches it. “I wish I had a dress made out of this stuff. I love anything shiny.” She pulls on a crocheted beach cover-up and shoves her feet into a pair of sandals. “After this morning, I am ready to do some relaxing,” she sighs.
“The egg monitoring was awesome, though,” I say. “I want to know more about how the sensors read everything. They must’ve designed the entire incubator system from scratch.”
“If Wyatt messes up that chance for us…,” Tanya says, shaking her head, fire in her eyes.
“We’ll make sure he doesn’t,” I assure her. “He’s lazy, anyway. He just wants the prestige of being on the project, not any of the work. He’ll probably stay out of our way and then try to take credit for everything afterward.”
Tanya makes a disgusted noise. “It should be Amanda or Art in there with us, not him.”
“Wyatt’s stupid if he doesn’t think there are cameras all over that room,” I point out. “And with how afraid Dr. Wu is that we’ll break something…what do you bet he’s already watched the videos from our monitoring hour?”
Tanya’s stormy expression clears. “Oh my God, you’re right.” She breaks into a wide smile. “Dr. Wu’s going to be pissed,” she singsongs.
“Maybe Wyatt won’t even last the week,” I say. “Anyway, let’s get going so we can meet up with the others.”
I grab a tube of sunscreen and my big black floppy hat, which makes Tanya laugh when she sees it.
“I am so glad I don’t burn like you,” she says as we leave our room and head toward the elevator. “But I wouldn’t say no to having an excuse to wear a dramatic hat like that.”
I grin, taking it off my head and tossing it to her as we walk. “Try it on.”
She pops it on her head, posing. “How do I look?”
“Great,” says Ronnie’s voice behind us. Tanya beams at her as she and Amanda come out of their room.
“You two ready?” Tanya says.
“Yeah, we can walk over together. It’s just across the bridge,” Ronnie says.
Tanya hands me my hat as soon as we get outside, and I put it back on, grateful for the shade as the sun beats down on us.
“We have our weekly mentor dinner tonight,” Amanda says. “I thought we could ask Beverly if we could sit with Bertie so we can tell her Claire’s idea about painting patterns on the Gyrospheres and positive reinforcement for Pearl.”
“It wasn’t just my idea,” I say. “We all worked on it. And you’re the one who knows all about operant conditioning and brain scanning and pleasure centers.”
“Shadowing Tim has been such an experience,” Amanda says. “I came here thinking I wanted to go into research, but now I’m wondering if I want to do more fieldwork.”
“Is there a way to do both?” Ronnie asks as we come to a stop in front of a large wrought-iron gate. She pulls the bar lock open and it swings open.
“Depends on where I put my focus,” Amanda says. “Plus grad school.”
“I don’t know how you all do so many years in school,” Ronnie says, shaking her head. “I’m excited about my four years at West Point, but I won’t be able to take much longer.”
“It is a lot,” Tanya agrees. “And the expense…”
Amanda
sighs in commiseration. “God, don’t remind me. Every time I think about my student loan debt, I break out in a sweat.”
“I’ll be paying mine off from my grave,” Tanya groans.
I wince, because I know that feeling. “Maybe we’ll all luck out and get really great jobs,” I say.
“I like your optimism, Claire,” Amanda says.
“Maybe Mr. Masrani will hire all of us,” Tanya jokes.
“I wish!” Amanda sighs. “Maybe by the time I graduate, I can get a Mosasaurus trainer job.”
We take a brick path through the manicured landscape. To my eye—which is now accustomed to the wild and beautiful twining of chaos and order that is the jungle—it looks strange. The trees are set too far apart and the plants are trimmed just so, but when we turn the corner, I gasp, because the view of the rumbling falls crashing into a clear blue lagoon is the definition of wild and beautiful chaos. The rolling mountain range and deep rain forest that lie beyond the waterfalls lead to the roughest terrain on the island, the areas that are too hard for humans to navigate even on foot.
A dinosaur-free zone, by nature of topography. A terrain humans cannot traverse means a terrain dinosaurs would have too great an advantage on.
The boys are already there, sitting on some volcanic rocks near the shore, and they wave us over. The spray from the falls is a fine mist blowing in the wind, brushing across my skin like a chilly kiss as we pick our way across the rocky shore.
“Where’s Eric?” I ask, when I see it’s just Justin and Art.
“He said he wanted to chase the light,” Art says. “I think he was going to hang out in the valley with the vets and get more footage.”
“Yeah, the dinosaurs during golden hour would look great,” Tanya says.
“Art was telling me we can jump off the top of the falls,” Justin says. “There’s a path carved into the side of the mountain over to the left.” He points at the west side of the falls, and I squint, trying to make it out. Sure enough, there’s a narrow brown line snaking up the wash of green algae and porous gray rock that make up the back of the falls.
“We did it last time we hung out here,” Art says. “It’s great. The water’s really clear, and there are some cool rock formations you can see as you surface.”
“I’m up for it,” Tanya says.
“Me too,” Amanda says.
“Ronnie?”
“Absolutely,” she says with a cocky grin.
“Justin? Claire?”
I shake my head firmly. “I don’t do tall things. And I especially do not do jumping from tall things.”
“Fair enough,” Art says.
“I’ll stay down here with you, Claire,” Justin says.
“You don’t have to,” I protest.
“It’s fine,” he says.
Tanya waggles her eyebrows at me, and I shoot her a quelling look that makes her grin wider before she trots off to join Ronnie.
“So the fear of flying, it’s a height thing,” he says as he pulls off his shirt, and it’s just as distracting as I thought it would be. Not that I’ve been thinking about him shirtless.
Much.
“The flying part doesn’t help, but yeah, mostly a heights thing,” I say. I set my stuff down next to one of the huge boulders. I can hear my tablet beeping, and when I flip my bag open to grab it, my notebook falls out, and the pressed thistle flower from that day in the greenhouse slips from the pages.
He kneels down, scooping up the flower and the notebook, and my breath catches when his eyes meet mine.
“You kept it,” he says.
“You gave it to me,” I shoot back, and it makes him smile.
“I’ll put it back,” he offers. “I promise not to read any of your notes.”
“Most of my notes are very boring,” I say, scooting over to give him room to sit next to me on the rock. His foot knocks gently against my flip-flopped one, and I knock it back, watching him return the flower to its page in my notebook.
“Do you have tape?” he asks.
I lean over, grab my bag, and haul it up on the rock with us. He laughs when I unbuckle the front pouch and reveal the half-dozen carefully labeled bags of office supplies. “You were a Girl Scout, weren’t you?” he asks.
“I got all the badges,” I say seriously.
“I bet you sold all the cookies, too.”
“I’ve never really liked half measures,” I admit.
“I’m getting that,” he says, taking the tape I offer him. He tapes the flower to the page, then holds out the roll. “Trade you for a pen?”
“What color?”
“Surprise me.”
I choose purple, to match the thistle. I scoot a little closer to get a better view of what he’s doing. Our thighs press together, his line of heat against mine. With sure, quick strokes, he sketches out a drawing of the flower next to the actual specimen, and then adds at the bottom: Cirsium vulgare, common thistle flower in handwriting that’s even neater than mine—which is saying something.
“Hey, you’re a good artist,” I say.
“Oh, not really,” he says dismissively. The tips of his ears turn red, and it’s cute, because he’s so confident most of the time.
“You are,” I insist, because he is.
“It’s not that hard when you’ve got an example right in front of you,” he says.
I tap my foot with his. “Take the compliment,” I say softly. “It’s the truth, anyway.”
He looks at me, and I look at him. The mist from the falls dances across my cheeks and his hand covers mine, our fingers weaving together. I can feel all of it: the twist of that something between us, the heat of his leg against mine, and the bone-deep understanding that in a moment, one of us is going to lean forward.
I know that if I look away, he won’t push. He’ll wait and he’ll be honest and sweet and take little steps instead of big ones, because he keeps proving to me that’s who he is.
And that’s the reason I don’t want to look away. That’s the reason I lean forward instead.
Crash.
The sound startles me and I jerk back, away from Justin as Art makes his big jump and a huge swell of water breaks over the rocks near us. My pulse is thundering in my chest and my face goes hot all over when Justin gives my hand a quick squeeze before he pulls away.
“Hey, you guys, aren’t you going to get in?” Art shouts when he surfaces.
Justin clears his throat. “Be right there!” he yells.
He shoots me an apologetic grin and we scramble off the rock, heading toward the water.
It’s warm and so clear it almost doesn’t seem real, the ground changing from rock to fine sand in one step. I’m about hip deep when Tanya jumps off the falls, shrieking the whole way down. When she bobs up in the pool below, she’s beaming, and a big clump of algae is hanging off her head in two dripping strings, like green pigtails.
Ronnie laughs when she jumps off next and surfaces, plucking a few green globs off Tanya’s head as they swim over to us.
“Are you sure you don’t want to try, Claire?” Ronnie asks. “Even if you don’t want to jump, the view from up there is stellar.”
I glance over at the steep, twisting path that leads to the top of the falls. It looks wet and slippery and all kinds of dangerous.
“I’ll stick to floating,” I say firmly.
“Tanya, did you want to go up again and pick those flowers you saw?” Ronnie asks.
“Yeah!” Tanya says, paddling over to her, her green-and-blue-streaked hair floating in the water all around her. “I saw these aquatic flowers up there in the upper pool. I want to get a better look; I’ve never seen them before.”
They head off, swimming across the pool and to the foot of the path to the falls. The rest of us continue to splash around, setting ou
t to find out if the rumor Amanda heard is true—that there’s a cave behind one of the waterfalls on the island. But each time we get near it, no matter what angle we approach the thundering spray from, the force of the water emptying into the pool is too powerful—there’s no way through. Not unless you dare to dive very deep underneath.
“Maybe it’s the waterfall in the valley that has the cave,” Amanda suggests when we’ve finally given up and swum back to the shore.
I wrap myself in a towel, my hair dripping down my back.
“I hope not,” I say. “Can you imagine if Pearl or Lovelace got it in their heads to go exploring? They’d get stuck.”
Amanda giggles. “Is it weird that I kind of love how many problems the younger dinosaurs present?”
I shake my head. “I feel the same. I thought I knew what to expect here. And then here comes Pearl playing with the Gyrospheres and Lovelace getting herself all trapped. It makes them…”
“Vulnerable. Relatable,” Amanda finished.
“Yeah,” I say, a smile on my lips. “And I didn’t expect that.”
“Hey, we’re gonna go to the top one more time, find Tanya and Ronnie, and then jump down,” Art calls from the shore. “You up for it, Amanda?”
“Sure,” she yells back.
“You okay here on your own?” Justin asks me.
“I think I’ll survive,” I laugh. “I’ve got some notes to take about my morning in the labs, anyway.”
“We’ll be twenty minutes, tops,” Art says.
They splash back into the water, swimming off toward the falls path. I put my clothes back on and settle down on one of the big rocks farther from the shoreline and closer to the trees. I can see my friends reach the path and get out of the water, heading up into the distance, dark specks amid the green.
It’s not as wet over here away from the shore, so I pull out Izzie’s notebook, opening it once again to the map she drew of the island. While I can identify the landmarks, I don’t get what the X’s mean. They’re scattered across the map in two different colors, red and blue. But they don’t mark any place or landmark; it seems they were just drawn at random.
