by C T Cassana
“They’re flying dinosaurs!” screamed the boy. “We must be close to the shore!”
“It doesn’t matter! We can’t make it to dry land! We have to get back right now! I just hope the cape works in water!”
“I didn’t mean that!” answered Charlie. “I mean that if there’s land nearby, there are also other dinosaurs!”
He was barely able to finish his sentence. A deafening roar came out of the water about a hundred yards away, and there appeared a creature with an incredibly long neck ending in a tiny head which, if it hadn’t been attached to such a huge body, would have been absurdly amusing.
Although he knew the name of nearly every specimen in his books, Charlie couldn’t recall what this beast was called either; he could only remember that it resembled the Loch Ness Monster, that it had enormous teeth and that in his books it was always depicted with an expression that was far from pleasant. In particular, he recalled a picture in which a dinosaur just like this one was coming out of the water devouring a prehistoric swordfish, while in the depths swam others of its species, all with extremely hungry looks on their faces.
The boy began swimming in the direction of his sister.
“Come on, Lisa! Let’s go!” he shouted.
There was barely a yard and a half between them; a couple more strokes and they would be able to get out of there before some dino-monster made a snack out of them.
Suddenly they heard another screech accompanied by the sound of flapping wings behind them and Charlie knew at once that the flying dinosaur had returned. It looked like the danger would come from the air and not the sea. And judging by the expression of terror on his sister’s face, the danger must have been pretty serious.
“Dive, Charlie, dive!” she screamed desperately.
The boy obeyed with a speed that he himself found surprising. He no longer felt cold, and his heart was beating faster than it ever had before in his life. He opened his eyes and saw that Lisa was also under water. Trying to control his panic, he tried to keep down for a few moments longer, while shooting tentative glances down below them.
Up on the surface, the flying dinosaur had miscalculated its attack, and it turned away to make another approach to try to capture its tiny prey. Its circular flight had alerted another two specimens in the area, who swept toward it with the intention of fighting it for the prize.
Charlie and Lisa brought their heads above the surface to take a breath. The girl took two more strokes and threw her arms around her brother.
“Have you reset the bracelet?” she asked.
“No,” answered the boy, close to sobbing.
“Hurry, hurry!” she pleaded.
In the sky above, a new flapping of wings announced that their potential captors were closing in. Lisa looked up and saw three creatures circling above them. One of them would manage to catch them sooner or later.
The closest one began to rise up in preparation to take a dive at them, while Charlie turned the dials frantically.
“I’ve got it!” he said.
Lisa pulled his wrist toward her to make sure. All the stars were in the correct position. She pulled her brother to her and hugged him tightly. Screeches coming from different directions announced that the beasts were beginning their attack in a race to make off with this curious prey.
Lisa watched them in terror.
“Dive down!” she squealed. “We’ll do it under water!”
They both took a deep breath and plunged down as fast as they could. On the surface, one beast gave another a fierce peck to chase it away from the hunt, while the third had begun a swift dive to capture its victims under the water.
Lisa pulled Charlie further down when she felt her brother embrace her tightly and move his hands to turn the bracelet clasp. Then she felt a fierce jolt, as if they were being sucked down a huge drain.
In the water, the flying dinosaur was just about to catch those weird creatures in its beak when suddenly they disappeared mere inches away from it. Its dinner had vanished.
It would take millions of years and a complex evolutionary process before the first predators would get a chance to taste human meat.
. . .
Lisa and Charlie were huddled together and trembling in the attic, unsure whether they were shivering from the cold or the fright, although neither of them said a word about it.
They took a few moments to finally let go of each other and acknowledge that they were back in their safe and comfortable world. Years later, both of them (and especially Charlie) would remember that experience as one of the most exciting of their lives; but at that moment if they had seen a lizard they would have squashed it without remorse. They were drenched and frozen stiff.
“We’ve got to warm ourselves up,” said Lisa.
She hid the cape away in the wardrobe and took Charlie down to the bathroom.
“Take off your clothes and hide them,” she told him while she turned on the hot water faucet. “I’ll take a shower in Mum and Dad’s bathroom.”
Charlie followed his sister’s instructions. He was exhausted and needed a good shower.
A few minutes later, his father knocked on the door and peeked into the room.
“Why are you taking a shower?” he asked, astonished.
“I was feeling a bit tired,” replied Charlie. “I had a hard day at school.”
“Well, if you like I can make dinner earlier tonight and you can go to bed early,” said Marcus.
Charlie nodded, and his father headed for the attic in search of Lisa. From the staircase he heard the sound of running water in his bathroom and guessed that his daughter must also have been having a shower. He turned around and went down to the library, without ever entering the children’s secret headquarters.
If he had, he would have found a huge puddle and a long trail of water leading to the old wardrobe where his children had hidden an old black velvet cape.
. . .
The extraction of the Elasmosaurus was proving successful. The largest bones were already out of the rock and only the smaller ones were left. The team was working keenly and at a good pace.
Dr. Oswald Butler was supervising the day-to-day operations almost obsessively; they had found a fossil in an excellent state of preservation and he didn’t want anyone to damage it at the last moment. If he had to leave the site on an errand, he always left Alice Powell in charge, knowing that she would be as careful as he himself was to ensure that everything was done with the utmost rigor.
Oswald left early that morning, but Alice requested his presence at the excavation site shortly after he had gone. When he found her, he discovered that the loathsome Mathias Lewis had made it there ahead of him. He truly detested that man and was looking forward to the end of the dig simply to be rid of him for a while.
For the excavations Oswald had accepted financing from the Ophiura Foundation, which covered all of his expenses. In exchange, the organization was to keep a portion of the discoveries and required that one of its members be on the excavation team, in order to report even the smallest finding as soon as it was made. Oswald adhered to the agreement scrupulously, but he couldn’t abide the suspicious and meddlesome attitude of that man, more befitting a KGB agent than a paleontologist.
“I hope this is important, Alice,” said Dr. Butler, inadvertently taking out his frustration on his assistant.
“I’m sorry, Oswald, but I just wanted you to see this,” she responded, pointing to something in the dirt at her feet. “We found it under one of the vertebrae of the Elasmosaurus.”
Oswald took it out carefully and prepared to make a preliminary evaluation.
“That won’t be necessary,” said Mathias Lewis, snatching it out of his hands. “I’ll send it to the Foundation for them to study.”
. . .
Lisa entered her brother’s bedroom and found him dressed in his plush pajamas, tucked in his bed with his soft, cozy bed cover pulled right up to his neck. When she saw him, she couldn’t help but
think of how but a few hours earlier they had been on the verge of being devoured by a winged dinosaur; and for a moment it all seemed unreal.
“How are you feeling, runt?” she asked, sitting down next to him.
Charlie shuffled over to give her room.
“I didn’t feel like reading about dinosaurs,” answered the boy, showing her the Adventures of Tintin comic he held in his hands.
Lisa approved his choice with a nod of her head, while she reached over and tousled his hair affectionately. She, however, needed to find some answers. She was sure that she had entered the correct date and coordinates; she had checked it several times while waiting for Charlie in the attic. But clearly something had gone wrong, and she wouldn’t rest until she had found out what it was. She went over to the bookshelf and chose what looked to be the biggest and most serious book on dinosaurs and their time. She then sat back down on her brother’s bed.
Charlie watched his sister thumb through the pages, worrying that she might realize that the specimens found in South Dakota were not exactly the most placid of species. But Lisa was not trying to identify the creatures that had attacked them that afternoon; she was trying to find an explanation for why they had ended up in the sea instead of on dry land, in a tree-covered valley like the one her brother had shown her the day before.
After flicking back and forth through the pages, she went to the table of contents and read it carefully. She then turned the pages slowly again until she stopped at page 30. There, under the heading “The World of the Dinosaurs”, while her brother looked on in astonishment, she found a series of maps of the Earth that showed the location of the major land masses in each time period. On every map, a thin red line indicated the current positions of the continents, so that the geological evolution of the planet could be easily appreciated.
In the first maps, the world had a single land mass (Pangaea), which subsequently split into two supercontinents (Laurasia and Gondwana), which would in turn break up into the six continents we know today. In the Late Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, the Earth looked a lot like it does now, except that the major continental masses were closer together and had not yet taken up their current positions. Lisa put her index finger where she estimated South Dakota to be in the twenty-first century and, just as they had that afternoon, her finger fell into the Pacific Ocean, a short distance away from the North American coastline.
“I should have realized,” said Lisa with regret. “I’ve studied all this, but I didn’t think of it for a second.”
“And I must have seen it in my books at least a thousand times. I guess Mum really is right when she says that everything, absolutely everything we study can be applied in our lives,” remarked Charlie in an effort to console her. “Even something that happened 65 million years ago.”
CHAPTER X: The Great Queen Nefertiti
Charlie decided to play it safe and let a few days go by before suggesting to Lisa that they take another trip. He didn’t want to pressure her if she didn’t feel ready for it, in case his sister ended up deciding to postpone their journeys in time indefinitely.
He knew, in fact, that he wouldn’t have to wait long at all. They had both been raised on hundreds of exciting tales from history, and the temptation to travel to see them first-hand was too strong for either of them to resist. It was clear that visiting the dinosaurs had not been a good choice; fortunately, however, there were hundreds of places and people that both he and his sister were interested in and would be able to go see without having to run the risk of being eaten again.
During this brief respite, Charlie spent his time checking over and completing his exploring equipment, adding a few things that he might need.
Luckily, when they traveled to the Cretaceous, Lisa had made him leave the backpack containing his camera behind; otherwise, it would have ended up waterlogged. Sitting at his desk, the boy examined the small device he held in his hands, and realized that he had better not take it with him on their journeys. The camera would attract too much attention wherever they went, and anyway, he would only be able to share the pictures with his sister. But the chance to photograph places and people from other times was too tempting, almost irresistible, so he slipped it into an inside pocket of the backpack, just temporarily, until he had finally made a decision on the question.
What he couldn’t find, as much as he searched, was his little compass. It had been a gift from his father and he was very fond of it. He particularly loved the fact that it was almost identical to the old compasses used by real explorers, although his had reflective paint on the needle so that you could see it in the dark. He was sure that he had taken it with him when they went to see the dinosaurs, but with all the excitement and shock he couldn’t remember seeing it on his return, so he decided to ask his sister about it.
“Hi, Lisa,” he said as he entered her room. “You wouldn’t know where my compass is, would you?”
“No,” she replied. “Isn’t it in your backpack?”
“No, I’ve checked already.”
“Well, don’t worry. It’ll turn up. In the meantime, we’ll use Dad’s GPS. It has a compass function.”
“In the meantime?” asked Charlie.
“You didn’t think we were going to stop time traveling, did you? This time it’s my turn to choose where we go.”
Charlie tried his best to contain his joy at this good news.
“And have you decided where it’s going to be yet?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Not yet. I’m trying to decide between Cleopatra and Joan of Arc.”
“Bah!” exclaimed the boy, trying to hide his contentment. “A girl’s adventure! Just what I was afraid of!”
. . .
Max Wellington greeted the young woman smiling at him from behind the counter and went to open his post office box. Nobody in his organization knew of the existence of this box, which he had acquired long ago in the name of a small company whose activities were completely unrelated to Aurum.
Since then he had been coming personally every week to check it for mail. He had been doing it for years and he would continue to do it as long as he could. Despite being one of the most powerful men in Manhattan, or even in the whole country, Max Wellington knew that some things are too important to delegate to others. And this was one of those things.
When he opened the little silver door, the light flooded into the compartment and Max could see a letter there. He had not yet turned around, so nobody, not even his fervent admirer, Sally Straw, saw Max’s pleased expression as he took it out. Still facing the box, he checked the postmark on the letter: Hill City, April 4, 1962. Max slipped it carefully into the inside pocket of his overcoat and closed the box. Finally, there was news.
He would have to make a journey at once.
. . .
On Monday afternoon, Maggie came back from the museum earlier than usual, loaded up with shopping bags. For the first time in weeks she didn’t look tired or worried. In fact, she looked totally euphoric, like she had on the day she was offered the post of Director of Conservation at the British Museum. When he saw her, Charlie worried that they had offered his mother some new position that she had been dreaming of for years and they would have to move to another city. He couldn’t help but feel distressed by the thought of having to leave the house, where there were surely more amazing treasures yet to discover. He was also far from pleased by the idea of having to say goodbye to the new friends he had made at school, even that annoying Jimmy Stevenson.
On seeing Maggie, every single member of the family asked her what was going on. But she only responded with a broad, enigmatic smile, and said she would tell them at dinner. She then went into the kitchen with all the shopping bags and closed the door behind her.
After a while, which for Charlie seemed an eternity thanks to his hunger and curiosity, Maggie opened the door and called them all to the table. Racked with mixed emotions, the boy obeyed. The dinner smelled wonderful, his mother was beaming, an
d she had set the table in style, even with candles. It was clear that she wanted to celebrate something, and unfortunately it wasn’t the birthday of any family member or a visit from their grandparents.
Charlie sat down at the table expectantly, his belly rumbling loudly. Maggie took off her apron and served wine in tall glasses of crystal so fine that they could easily have been broken with a simple toast.
“I have to tell you all something amazing,” she said at last, still smiling.
Everybody listened attentively, except for Charlie, who understood that his suspicions had been confirmed with that first sentence alone. Trying to guess what was going to happen was alright most of the time, but in cases like this it was just a bother. While he had been spending the whole afternoon mulling over the matter, the others had been calm, free of the worry of knowing that they were going to have to move again. No doubt once she found out, Lisa would be thinking the same thing he was. So far they had only discovered two of the four annuli mentioned by the professor, and there might be another one hidden in the house, or more clues hidden among the things in the attic. Convincing his mother that they had to take all those things to the new house, wherever it may be, would be an impossible task.
Their poor father would also be pretty upset when he realized that he had to leave his precious library, where he said he felt even more at home than in his own bed.
Charlie interrupted his ruminations for a moment to check the reactions of Marcus and Lisa to the news. But unfathomably, they were both smiling happily and, it seemed, sincerely. Baffled by what he saw, he decided to tune into his mother’s words and find out what was going on. But just at that moment, she finished speaking.
“Good heavens, my dear!” exclaimed Marcus. “This is wonderful news!”
“Thank you, Marcus,” gushed Maggie.
She leaned over her husband and they kissed on the lips, which only served to increase Charlie’s anxiety all the more.
