Dinosaur Pox

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘I know how you feel,’ said Mr Bolton, ‘but we can’t barge into the hospital and rescue her. It’s hard to understand, but hospital is the best place for her at present. Mr Pinkerton-Snark is trying to cure her.’

  Mark scowled. Why did parents have to be sensible all the time? This wasn’t the time to be sensible. They had to do something.

  When he went to bed he lay there tossing

  and turning for ages, his brain humming with a thousand thoughts. He couldn’t leave Jodie like that. He kept thinking of her in her tent, all alone. Mark knew how he would feel if he were in her place, and he couldn’t bear to think of Jodie feeling that bad.

  At two o’clock in the morning he got out of bed. He gazed out of his window into the dark and silent street. It was no good. He had to rescue his sister.

  Mark dressed quickly and tiptoed downstairs. He carefully let himself out through the back door, grabbed his bicycle from the shed and set off for the hospital. He didn’t even put on his lights because he didn’t want to be seen, and his heart beat wildly. Supposing he was spotted by a passing police car, or someone saw him, riding like a Fury with no lights?

  At last he reached the hospital, hid his bicycle deep among some bushes and crept across to the Isolation Unit. The corridor was empty, and Mark slipped down it quickly. When he reached the unit he peered carefully round the open door. Mark could hardly believe his luck. The nurse was fast asleep with her head and arms spread across her desk. She was snoring.

  Hardly daring to breathe, Mark crept across the room and carefully slipped through the plastic flaps. Jodie opened one eye and then very quickly followed with the other.

  ‘Ssssh!’ hissed Mark, as he began removing the electrodes. The dials and lights went into a terminal nosedive. ‘You’ve just died!’ grinned Mark. ‘Come on, it’s time to go home.’

  Jodie struggled to her feet and followed Mark as he led the way out of the tent and past the sleeping nurse. They crept fearfully down the corridor, and Mark kept glancing back, but there was still no sign of the nurse waking. They reached the double doors at the end of the corridor, pushed them open and they were free.

  ‘This way,’ said Mark, and hurried to retrieve his bicycle.

  Jodie set off at a gallop, moving her heavy body through the dark night with surprising speed. Every time they saw the lights of

  approaching cars they quickly hid – behind hedges or walls, or just crouching in the black shadows.

  Mark’s heart was racing with excitement, and Jodie too felt a thrill as they made their getaway. It was only when they had almost reached home that Jodie suddenly had a thought that threw her into panic and she stumbled to a halt.

  ‘Stop!’ she panted. ‘Listen, I don’t think this is a good idea.’

  ‘You’re not going back to the hospital! Jodie, you can be so stupid!’

  ‘Of course I’m not going back, but I don’t think we should go home. What happens when the nurse wakes up and realizes I’ve gone? Alarms will go off. Pinkerton-Snark will come looking. They’ll all come looking, and where’s the first place they’ll look?’

  Mark gulped. Jodie was absolutely right. The first place they would look would be back at the house. Then they would take Jodie away again and that would be that. On the other hand, what were they supposed to do?

  ‘We’ve got to find somewhere to hide out,’ said Jodie. ‘Somewhere people won’t think of looking.’

  ‘The old railway yard?’ suggested Mark. ‘You know, the one we drive past when we go to the shopping centre. It’s not used any more. It’s just derelict buildings and there are loads of them. There must be one that we can hide in. We’ll stop at the house first, just for a second, so I can pick up some food.’

  Jodie nodded and, keeping to the shadows, they made their way first to the house, and then on to the railway yard. By the time they reached it, dawn was beginning to tinge the darkness with a streak of blue and pink. They found an old brick shed and at last they were able to sit down and relax.

  They were both tired, especially Mark. Being up so late, and having such excitement had really worn him out. He rested back against one wall and Jodie trotted over to him. ‘I hated it there. I never did like Winky-Pinky. Thanks for getting me out.’

  ‘I was going to take you home,’ said Mark. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do now. This wasn’t in my plan.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’ll think of something. You get some sleep. I’ll keep watch for a couple of hours, and then you can take over while I sleep.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah, go on, you go to sleep.’

  Mark rolled gratefully on to his side, closed his eyes, and was soon snoring. Jodie hated to admit it, but she was glad he was with her. She needed the company, and nobody else understood how she felt about things. She wasn’t too sure that Mark did for that matter, but she did know that he saw the problems the same way she did. They had to keep one step ahead; they had to remain free.

  She stared out at the big yard. In the growing light she could make out a lovely bunch of fresh green nettles. They looked absolutely scrumptious. If only it was all over. When it was all over they’d go back home.

  Home. Jodie had no idea how long it would take, or what would happen, but she longed to be able to walk through the front door and say ‘Hello everyone – it’s me – I’m home!’ as if nothing had happened. She had a bizarre thought. I haven’t got my door key. Sadly, Jodie leaned her heavy head against the edge of the door and gazed out at the deserted yard.

  5 The Hunt Begins

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark was not a happy man. He strode down the hospital corridor with a tearful nurse trailing in his wake. ‘I don’t know how it happened,’ cried the nurse. ‘She was asleep.’

  ‘You were asleep!’ roared the irate specialist. ‘And now we have a dinosaur on the loose. Do you realize my career has probably just run out of this hospital, right under your nose?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ stuttered the unfortunate nurse.

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ sneered Pinkerton-Snark, ‘and do you know why you don’t know? It’s because you’re STUPID!’

  The specialist banged through some doors and strode into his office. ‘I shall have to call in the police. Soon the whole town will know. We shan’t be able to keep this a secret any longer.’ Moments later he was on the phone to the police, explaining everything, and still desperately hoping that he might be able to get the stegosaurus back before the newspapers got on to the story.

  ‘She’ll have headed straight for home,’ he said. ‘But there might be trouble. If she’s escaped it means that she won’t want to come back here quietly. Her parents could prove awkward too. They’re rather over-protective. You know how parents are sometimes – too stupid to understand what’s going on … Yes, I’ll meet you over there, and make sure you have plenty of officers.’

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark slammed down the telephone and glared at the night nurse.

  ‘You’re fired,’ he snapped. ‘If – IF – I get my dinosaur back, I might just reconsider your position, but in the meantime I don’t want to see your useless face here again. Pack your thermometer and go.’

  The poor nurse burst into tears all over again and flung herself at the specialist’s feet. ‘Please, please,’ she cried. ‘I’ve got two children at home I’m trying to bring up, and their dad left home months ago … Please!’

  She clung to the specialist’s left leg and as he tried to leave his office she was dragged along the floor by his leg, like a wailing mop. Her pleas fell on deaf ears and Pinkerton-Snark finally managed to shake her off and leave her lying in a sobbing heap,

  while he hurried to his car and went racing off to the Boltons’ house to recapture his prize.

  The police had already arrived and were piling out of a big black van, which had POLICE UNDERCOVER TEAM written down each side. Now they were hammering on the door loudly enough to wake the dead, let alone the sleeping. Mr Bolton came hurrying d
own in his dressing gown and opened the door, only to have a flashlight shone directly into his face. He staggered back as policemen poured into the house and began a frantic search.

  ‘What’s going on?’ cried Mr Bolton, while Mrs Bolton stared anxiously over his shoulder. Pinkerton-Snark turned on him.

  ‘Your daughter has escaped,’ he hissed.

  ‘Jodie?’ Mrs Bolton pulled the collar of her gown round her neck. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘You tell me,’ snapped Pinkerton-Snark.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Where is she? Where are you hiding her?’

  A great crashing noise came from upstairs as the house was ransacked in the desperate search.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Mr Bolton.

  ‘WHERE IS SHE?’ roared the specialist, pushing his face close up against Mr Bolton’s.

  ‘I DON’T KNOW!’ Mr Bolton roared back. ‘And don’t you try to bully me!’

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re all in this together, aren’t you?’

  At that moment, several policemen came crashing back down the stairs. ‘No dinosaur here,’ reported one. ‘There’s nobody else upstairs.’

  Mrs Bolton shot a worried glance at her husband. Nobody? What about Mark? She went up the stairs two at a time and threw herself into his room. It was empty. Mrs Bolton came back out, white as a sheet, and stood at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Mark’s gone too,’ she whispered.

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark smiled. Now they were getting somewhere. He turned to the Inspector in charge of the police, who still had his pyjamas on underneath his raincoat. ‘They’re all in this together. They’ve freed the dinosaur from hospital and now the boy is hiding her somewhere.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Mr Bolton was furious. ‘Do you think we’d let a nine-year-old boy go out at dead of night, with or without a dinosaur?’

  Inspector Craw, a tired, grey man with a thin face and thinner hair, stifled a yawn and nodded. ‘The gentleman does have a point. My guess is that this was the boy’s idea, and these people didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Hmmm. Maybe – and if that is the case then it shouldn’t be too difficult to find them,’ claimed the specialist. ‘A small boy and a dinosaur will soon give themselves away. We’ll have them back in no time. Come on, Inspector, there’s no time to lose.’ And the poor inspector, still blinking sleep from his eyes, was hauled away by the eager specialist.

  Mr and Mrs Bolton stood at the door and watched the police cars swirl away in a flurry of flashing lights. Mr Bolton put an arm round his wife’s shoulders. ‘There’s something fishy about that specialist. He’s more like a shark than a snark. You know what I wanted to do? Pull his big nose right off his face! Well done, Mark,’ he muttered proudly. ‘I do hope they’re OK.’

  When Mark woke, bright sunlight was flooding the derelict yard. He stirred, opened his eyes and gazed across at his sister.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she growled. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Starving. Let’s have some food.’ He rummaged inside his rucksack, pulling out several tins and placing them in a neat row along the floor.

  Jodie looked at them, mournfully reading the labels to herself. ‘Baked beans with sausage, chunky chicken casserole, frankfurters, meatballs! I’m a vegetarian, Mark. Stegosauruses are herbivores. We eat vegetables.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry, I forgot.’ He gazed gloomily inside his rucksack. ‘It doesn’t

  matter anyway. I haven’t got a tin-opener.’

  Jodie almost exploded. ‘Haven’t got a tin-opener? You’re supposed to be helping me and you’re about as much use as a wet paper bag.’ She began lifting her feet and stamping on the ground with frustration.

  Mark glanced round the derelict shed. ‘No wood,’ he muttered, ‘and I forgot the matches. I haven’t got anything to cook with either.’ He looked helplessly at his sister.

  ‘This is too much! No tin-opener! No stove! What is the point in being rescued by the most useless rescuer in the entire history of rescuing?’

  ‘I’ve got a torch,’ Mark added lamely.

  Jodie finally lost her cool. She thundered angrily about the shed, banging up against the walls with all her impressive weight and making them shudder. She barged into Mark several times, shoving him around with her head and grunting crossly. Finally, Jodie went and threw her bulk into a dingy corner, where she lay regarding her brother with angry, accusing eyes. Mark was hopeless. She was helpless. Everything was pointless.

  Mark waited until she had calmed down a bit. ‘I shall have to go and get some food.’ Jodie lifted her head in alarm. Mark could see the panic in her eyes. ‘I’ll be careful. We’re pretty close to the Retail Park here. I’ll slip into the supermarket, nobody will notice. At least I remembered my pocket money.’ He fished inside one trouser pocket, pulling out a ten pound note and several coins and counting it, while Jodie watched with growing interest.

  ‘How come you’ve got so much dosh? That’s absolutely typical. You’ve always got more money than me. How do you do it?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ said Mark. ‘You’re a dinosaur now. Dinosaurs don’t go shopping.’

  What have I done to deserve this? That’s what Jodie kept asking herself now. She thought she had been fed up before, when all she had to fret over were freckles and curly hair. She thought her life had been miserable before, when all she had was a brother to quarrel with and parents who wouldn’t be what she wanted them to be. She had thought that it would surely be wonderful to be big and strong and powerful.

  But it wasn’t wonderful, not really … not at all, in fact, if she was honest with herself. (And this was probably a first for Jodie.) She didn’t like being the only stegosaurus in the world, being that kind of special, being the centre of so much attention. Jodie was beginning to look back on her pre-stegosaurus days as a golden carefree time.

  It was too late now. She was a prehistoric dinosaur, two-metres long and one-and-a-half-metres high, with purple blotches instead of freckles and great fat scaly plates instead of her curly black hair. She stepped closer to Mark, pressing up against his legs and gazing up at him with mournful eyes. She let out a long, long sigh, a heavy rush of air from the depths of her dinosaur belly, and laid her head across his feet.

  Mark bent down and stroked the tough skin on her head. ‘I guess it’s not much fun,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ll be as quick as I can, and

  very, very careful.’ He checked through the crack, pulled the door a bit wider and slipped out into the warm sunshine.

  The fresh air hit his face and perked him up in an instant. Stepping away from the old building he realized that Jodie smelled. Fond as he was of his sister (with the kind of fondness great quarrellers always have for each other), he had to admit she was getting stinky. He took a deep breath and hurried off to the supermarket.

  6 Twinkletoes Makes a Mistake

  Never had a supermarket seemed so dangerous. Mark’s eyes darted about as he watched for any signs of approaching trouble. Every person he saw seemed a potential threat, but as time passed and they completely ignored him he began to relax a little. He was glad to find the supermarket thronging with people. He felt safer among so many – less likely to be noticed.

  He picked out some ready-made sandwiches for himself and then spent a long time wandering about in the vegetable section, pondering over what he should get Jodie. At one point a young assistant approached him, sending Mark’s heart into overdrive as he panicked about being caught, but she only wanted to know if she could help.

  ‘You seem a bit lost,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I thought maybe you were looking for something in particular?’

  This was quite true, but how could Mark say yes, he wanted something for a stegosaurus waiting in a derelict shed by the railway line?

  ‘Thanks, but I’m just browsing,’ he muttered, and then he had a bright idea. ‘Actually I’ve got to feed my guinea pig.’

&
nbsp; ‘I used to have a guinea pig!’ said the assistant. ‘He was called Sniffer. He was black and white. What’s yours called?’

  ‘Oh, er, Twinkletoes,’ Mark said quickly, as a vision of Jodie’s elephantine feet flashed through his mind. ‘She’s purple, I mean brown.’ He hurriedly grabbed two bumper packs of carrots, a big savoy cabbage and a

  giant bag of potatoes that he could barely lift. ‘These will be fine,’ he said.

  The girl laughed. ‘Is that all for your guinea pig? She must be very big.’

  ‘She’s the biggest I’ve ever seen,’ Mark answered evenly. ‘And when she’s eaten this lot, she’ll be even bigger.’ He marched off to the till and paid, leaving the surprised assistant wondering if she should have fed her guinea pig on potatoes.

  Back at the shed, Jodie waited, staring wistfully at the big nettle patch. It was so near. It was so juicy. She could even smell it from her hiding place. The old railway yard was completely quiet and quite deserted. There wasn’t a single house near by.

  Her stomach rumbled loudly. She nuzzled at the opening, pushing the door further open. What lovely, luscious scents filtered across her sensitive nostrils! If I make a quick run at them, she thought, I can grab a mouthful and get back here in a jiffy and no harm done.

  Jodie fixed her eyes on the nettle patch and began a mini countdown. Three, two, one, go! She dashed out, thundering the short distance across the concrete to the nettles, where she grabbed a huge mouthful, skidded on two fat legs and went rushing back to the shed. Brilliant! She chewed ecstatically on the tough nettle leaves and in too short a time they had vanished down her throat, leaving her even more hungry.

  Well, if it worked once, it could work twice. Three, two, one, go! Again Jodie plunged out from the shed, hurtled across to the nettles, seized a bunch and charged merrily back to the shed. A minute passed and then out she came for a third time, pounding across the yard and back to the shed.