“And you flew well, my boy,” said Clawed.
“Gosh! You’re fast, Daddy!” said Nosy.
Clawed looked pleased.
“You must be the fastest pterodactyl in the world,” said Nosy.
Clawed looked very pleased.
“He is,” said Aviatrix.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Clawed.
“Yes, you are,” said Aviatrix. “Don’t argue. Now then, let’s go on to the Great Plain.”
“But, Mom,” said Nosy, “I’m tired. Can’t we rest for a bit?”
“Good idea,” said Clawed.
“No,” said Aviatrix. “But I’ll tell you what. You can have a piggyback.”
“What does that mean, Mom?” asked Nosy.
“You can have a ride on Daddy’s back. That’ll give you a good rest.”
“Can I really?”
“Of course you can.”
“But, Avy,” said Clawed, “I wouldn’t mind a rest too.”
“Nonsense,” said Aviatrix. “Jump on now, Nosy. Oops-a-daisy!”
Nosy never forgot the thrill he felt when, clinging tightly to his father’s back, he looked down and saw the Great Plain for the first time.
In the land where the pterodactyls lived, there were three different kinds of country.
First, there was the dry, stony desert, where Nosy had hatched. Here, each female would lay her solitary egg among the hot rocks.
Second, there were the woods, full of convenient trees for pterodactyls to hang upon.
And third, there was the Great Plain: miles and miles of grassland, where all the great planteating dinosaurs lived.
Now, as Nosy looked down in wonder, he saw herds of huge creatures such as diplodocuses and ankylosauruses and stegosauruses.
Nosy’s parents dropped lower and hovered above a single enormous dinosaur that was moving very slowly, grazing on the coarse grasses.
“Gosh! What’s that, Daddy?” he cried.
“Apatosaurus,” said Clawed.
“It’s so big!” cried Nosy. “They’re all so big, all these beasts below us!”
“Second-class creatures, the lot of them,” said his mother scornfully.
“Not a patch on us,” said his father proudly.
“Why not?”
“Because,” said his parents with one voice, “they can’t fly!”
At that moment something came out from beneath the giant dinosaur. Something which had been sheltering there and had been alarmed by the flying creatures overhead.
It was a baby apatosaurus.
5
“Ma,” said the baby apatosaurus, “what were those funny things in the sky?”
“Pterodactyls,” replied her mother, whose name was Gargantua.
“I was frightened,” said the baby.
“No need,” said Gargantua. “Pterodactyls are fourth-rate creatures, much inferior to us.”
“Why?”
“They’ve only got two legs. They can’t walk about like we dinosaurs can. Just remember that of all creatures, dinosaurs are the best, and that of all dinosaurs, apatosauruses are the greatest.”
“Yes, Ma,” said the baby.
“One day,” said Gargantua, “you’ll grow up to be a big girl, a very big girl, as big as me.”
“And then I won’t be frightened of anything, Ma?”
Gargantua looked down at her small daughter.
“Certainly not,” she said. No point in worrying her, she thought. With a bit of luck she may never meet a T. rex.
Just then another apatosaurus, even bigger than Gargantua, plodded heavily toward them.
“Oh, look!” said Gargantua. “Here comes your father.” And she called, “Titanic!”
“What does that mean, Ma?” asked the baby.
“It’s his name, dear,” replied Gargantua.
“Which reminds me, you haven’t got a name yet. I can’t go on calling you ‘Baby.’”
She waited until her huge husband reached them and then asked, “What shall we call her?”
“Call who?” asked Titanic.
“This baby of ours. Your daughter.”
“Didn’t know I had one,” said Titanic.
“Well, now you do. Say hello to your father, baby.”
“Hello, Pa,” said the little apatosaurus.
“Hello, Wotsyername,” said Titanic. “What’s she called, Gargy?”
“She hasn’t got a name yet. Can you think of one?”
“She’s very small,” said Titanic.
“She’s very young,” said Gargantua. “She’ll be big one day.”
“Suppose so,” said Titanic. “But just now she looks like a bantamweight. Tell you what Gargy, let’s call her Banty.”
Gargantua turned to her daughter.
“How about that, baby?” she said. “Shall we call you Banty? How would you like that?”
“I don’t mind,” said the little apatosaurus.
She looked up at her enormous parents. Shall I really be as big as them one day? she thought. Shall I have four great legs like pillars and a very long tail and a very very long neck?
She looked carefully at their heads.
“Why are your nostrils so high up?” she asked.
“So that we can stand in very deep water, almost completely submerged, and yet still be able to breathe,” said her mother.
“But why would you want to stand in very deep water?”
“To get cool,” replied her father.
And to escape from a T. rex, he thought, but no point in worrying the child with that. With a bit of luck she may never meet one.
“Talking of which,” he went on, “I could do with a dip. I’m hot and I’m hungry. I could murder a good meal of waterweed.”
So they plodded off toward the lake, where Banty stood in the shallows, watching as Titanic and Gargantua plunged their long necks deep under the water to pull up great mouthfuls of weed.
She looked up into the sky, remembering the flying creatures she had seen. I wonder why Ma was so nasty about pterodactyls, she said to herself. I thought they were interesting, especially the little one. It was rather sweet.
Meanwhile Nosy and Clawed and Aviatrix had arrived back at their perch in the woods. Upside down, Nosy looked at the ground below, remembering the apatosaurus and its baby. It was rather sweet, he thought. Wonder why Mom and Daddy were so nasty about apatosauruses. I thought they were interesting. I’d like to meet that little one again.
Early next morning, while his parents were still asleep, Nosy dropped off the branch and flew away in the direction of the Great Plain. Which is beyond the lake, he said to himself, and I can’t miss that.
Sure enough, before long he saw beneath him the great sheet of water. Around its edges a number of dinosaurs were drinking—diplodocuses, ankylosauruses, stegosauruses, and many others—but Nosy could not see the apatosaurus family.
This was not surprising, since all that was showing of them were, in deep water, the nostrils of Gargantua and Titanic, and in the shallows, where she was practicing going underwater, the very small nostrils of their child.
By a lucky chance, Banty popped her head up as the young pterodactyl was flapping by.
That’s it, thought Nosy, that’s the one, I’m sure, and he dropped lower and called out, “Good morning!”
Banty waded out of the water and stood looking up at him.
“Good morning,” she said. “You’re a pterodactyl, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” replied Nosy. “And you’re an apatosaurus. Excuse me for asking, but what’s your name?”
“Banty. What’s yours?”
“Nosy” -
“Oh. Are you a girl or a boy?”
“Boy. And you?”
“Girl.”
“It’s strange,” said Nosy, “but my mom and daddy are very rude about apatosauruses.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t fly.”
“Oh,” said Banty. “Well, funnily enough,
my ma and pa are very rude about pterodactyls.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ve only got two legs, so you can’t walk.”
“But I don’t want to walk,” said Nosy. “Flying’s nicer.”
“And I don’t want to fly,” said Banty. “Walking’s nicer.”
They looked at one another with interest.
“Talking’s nice too,” said Nosy.
“Yes, it is,” said Banty, “but it must be tiring for you to keep flapping about, Nosy, while I’m standing comfortably.”
“No problem, Banty,” said Nosy. “If you’ll just walk over to this tree that overhangs the water …” and he grasped a convenient branch with his little claws and swung over to hang upside down.
“Wow! That’s cute!” said Banty, and she stretched up her little neck and pulled a bunch of leaves off the branch.
“Gosh! That’s clever!” said Nosy. “You must be a herbivore.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Banty.
“A creature that eats grass and leaves. Me, I’m a carnivore.”
“Where did you learn long words like those?”
“From my mom. She knows lots of long words. She’s clever, my mom.”
“So’s my ma,” said Banty.
“What about your father?” asked Nosy.
“He’s not all that bright.”
“Nor’s my daddy. Perhaps females are always cleverer than males. What do you think?”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Banty. “It’s obvious to me that you are a much brighter dinosaur than I am.”
“Well, actually,” said Nosy. “I’m not strictly a dinosaur. I’m a pterosaur. Pteron means ‘wing’, and saurus means ‘lizard.’”
“Oh. Well, what does the dino bit of dinosaur mean?”
“Huge and terrible.”
“Wow! I like it!” said Banty.
She looked around at the sound of a mighty splashing in the lake.
“Here come Ma and Pa,” she said. “You better beat it, Nosy, before they start being rude about you. But come back another day, won’t you?”
“I will,” said Nosy as he dropped off his branch. “See you, my friend!” he squeaked as he flew away.
6
Gargantua and Titanic came lumbering up toward their daughter. They were dripping wet and covered in mud and waterweed.
“Whatever was that you were talking to, Banty?” her mother asked.
“A pterodactyl, Ma. A young one. He’s nice.”
“Nice!” said Gargantua. “I’m surprised at you, speaking to such a creature. You don’t know where it’s been.”
“Dirty things they are,” rumbled Titanic.
“Nosy isn’t dirty, Pa,” said Banty.
“Oh,” said Gargantua, “so we’re on first-name terms already, are we?”
“He can hang upside down, Ma,” said Banty.
“Hang upside down!” said her mother in tones of horror. “Well, there you are! How can it possibly keep clean?”
“What d’you mean, Ma?”
“Well, goodness me, Banty, you’re old enough now to know that all creatures have to … um, er … make themselves comfortable. No one can digest everything that is eaten. Some of it is, er, wasted. It has to be got rid of.”
“What d’you mean, Ma?”
“Droppings,” said Titanic heavily. “We all do ’em.”
“But,” said Gargantua, “we do them on the grass.”
“Or in the water,” said Titanic.
“But just imagine,” said Gargantua, “a creature that is hanging upside down and suddenly needs to do its, er …”
“ … droppings,” said Titanic.
“ … and you can easily realize that it is going to make itself filthy. I very much hope, Banty, that you will have nothing more to do with it.”
Nosy’s a “he,” not an “it,” thought Banty, and we’re friends, and if I want to see him again, I shall, Ma, so there.
Meanwhile, back in the woods, Aviatrix and Clawed were waking up to find that Nosy was absent.
“Where’s he gone?” said his mother.
“Don’t know,” said his father.
“What are we going to do?”
“Don’t know.”
“Wherever he’s gone, he’ll come back, won’t he?”
Clawed, hanging by his huge talons, stretched his huge wings and yawned a huge yawn.
“Don’t know,” he replied.
You don’t know anything, thought Aviatrix angrily, but before she could say more, Nosy came flying in at speed.
In one fluent movement, he turned on his back, reached up with his little legs, caught the branch with his little claws, and hung there, swinging to and fro.
Aviatrix turned her anger on her son.
“Wherever have you been, you naughty boy?” she cried.
“To the lake, Mom.”
“To the lake? Whatever for?”
“A drink, I expect,” said Clawed. “That’s why I go there. I like a drink now and again.”
“No, Daddy,” said Nosy. “I went to meet a friend.”
“A friend?” said his mother. “Another pterodactyl, you mean?”
“No, Mom.”
“What, then?”
“A young apatosaurus. The one we saw yesterday. On the Great Plain. She’s called Banty. She’s nice.”
“Well!” said Aviatrix. “I’m dumbfounded!”
“What’s that mean, Mom?”
“Reduced to silence.”
“But you’re talking.”
“Hold your tongue, child. I am utterly flabbergasted.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Oh, stop your endless questions. I cannot tell you how surprised I am that you should be speaking to such a creature.”
“But you are telling me, Mom,” said Nosy.
“You don’t know where it’s been,” said Clawed. “They’re dirty things, they are.”
He did a huge poo, which, by a stroke of luck, missed his head and fell to the ground below.
“They’re not dirty, Daddy,” said Nosy. “They come off the Great Plain and go and bathe in the lake. Banty certainly isn’t dirty.”
“Banty!” said Aviatrix. “What a silly name for a silly flightless creature. I trust you’ll have nothing more to do with it.”
Banty’s a “she,” not an “it,” thought Nosy. She’s my friend and I hope I’m hers, and I will see her again, Mom, so there.
7
Of all the creatures that lived on the Great Plain, the nastiest was Tyrannosaurus rex, and of all tyrannosauruses the biggest and most bloodthirsty was the one that Aviatrix and Nosy had met when they were catching flies on the body of the dead brachiosaurus. His name was Hack the Ripper.
What he liked best was to hunt a dinosaur—any one of the many kinds of grass-eaters that roamed the plain—and kill it, and eat it, or as much of it as he could stomach. Hack’s favorite prey was baby dinosaur, not because it was too slow to escape him—they were all too slow, whatever their age—but because a baby made such a lovely meal: so tender, so tasty, so mouthwatering.
On one particular morning he was walking upright across the plain, scanning the various herds of animals with his cold, hard eyes, looking to see if there was a nice fat baby nearby.
As soon as they saw him, diplodocuses, iguanodons, and the rest all moved away, slowly of course, turning small heads on the end of long necks to see if he was following.
Hack the Ripper was hungry, but not ravenously hungry. He decided he would have a drink—it was a hot day—before beginning his hunting.
It so happened that Titanic and Gargantua were standing at the edge of the lake, at the very spot indeed to which Hack was heading.
They had been out grazing on the plain since first light, and their huge stomachs were packed full of grass. Now, when they saw T. rex approaching, they splashed as hastily as they could out into deep water and submerged. Only their nostrils showed.
Some minutes passed, and then, slowly, Titanic put his head up and then so did Gargantua.
“It’s all right, Gargy,” said Titanic. “The brute is going,” and they watched as Hack strode away back to the grasslands.
“Horrible thing!” said Gargantua. “I wonder what wretched animal will die today to feed its disgusting appetite.”
“They say it likes baby dinosaurs best,” said Titanic.
The two great apatosauruses stretched up their long necks and stared, first at one another and then, as the same thought struck them, all around the lake and its shore, and with one voice, a horrified voice, they cried, “Where’s our Banty?”
8
Thinking about his new friend, Nosy had become worried about her. He knew all about T. rex—he’d seen one, close up, after all—but he was pretty sure that Banty did not.
Obviously her parents had never told her, never warned her of the danger of the plain’s fiercest flesh-eater. They just hope, he supposed, that she’ll never meet one.
She should be told, he thought. I’ll get Mom and Daddy to tell her, and I might even be able to persuade them to fly over and have a chat with Banty’s ma and pa.
With all this in mind, he had flown off very early that morning in search of his friend. By luck, he found her at the lake’s edge. He glided down.
“Hello, Banty!” he called.
Banty looked up.
“Oh, hello, Nosy!” she cried. “Where are you off to?”
“I’ve just come to see you,” Nosy said. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Well, how would you like to come and see where I live with my mom and my daddy?”
“Where’s that?”
“In the woods. It’s not far. You wouldn’t be scared, would you?”
“Scared?” said Banty. “Of what?”
“Oh, of … um … leaving your ma and pa for a while.”
Dinosaur Trouble Page 2
