Dinosaur liberty
[Sammy POV]
We're all resting on a big tree as Darius uses a pair of binoculars to look around.
So boring.
Darius scurries down the tree and pants.
"Good news?" I hopefully ask
"Well, the eastern mountains are out since pteranodons are nesting there."
"Ugh bad news!" I look at the map and see all the crosses.
"We can't stay on Main Street because dinosaurs. The mountains, grasslands, and jungles are out because dinosaurs."
"And Kenji's penthouse is out because he's bad at math" Yaz rolls her eyes
"I didn't think my dad was serious that he would change locks if I failed algebra!" Kenji says defensively. "That is not my fault"
"That's actually completely your fault" Yaz points out.
"Well, whatever. The whole island is full of dinosaurs. We're cooked"
"We can't give up yet! We set off the emergency beacon." I remind them. "We just need to find a place to stay until rescue arrives."
"Where? It's been days. We're out of options"
"Actually," Darius stretches the word. "There's one place we haven't tried, but I'm not sure you'll like it."
•·•
"Are you serious?" Kenji looks around at the wreckage of our previous camp.
"Didn't we specifically run away from here?"
"Just hear me out. There's a stream of fresh water. We've got trees and mountains to protect us from bad weather and dinosaur attacks."
Darius grins.
Brooklyn clears her throat meaningfully
"Okay. Maybe not all dinosaur attacks. But if you were coming to rescue a bunch of campers, wouldn't this be your first place to look?" He says. "And we've even got supplies to build shelter right here! Well, broken supplies, but we could do it! Right Brooklyn?"
"What?"
"I mean, you must've made at least one video about building a shelter, right?"
"Right! All you do is videos." Kenji remembers
"Excuse me, I do lots of other stuff aside from videos! I have a whole other life! But... I did help build a barn at the 'Unboxing Amish Country' video. Just saying" she shrugs
"There it is"
"Knew it"
"Ohh I love that one!" I gush
"Well what are we waiting for? Let's clear that stuff!" Yaz limps to the debris and painfully lifts one wooden plank up.
"Um, Yaz, maybe you could rest this one out a bit?" Darius suggests
"What? No! I'm totally-" she trips and falls to the ground, letting go of the wooden board.
"It's nothing. I'm fine. I wanted to be on the ground anyway."
"This isn't nothing!" I say. "Your ankle hurts and all that running over the past few days didn't help!" I say to her.
Darius walks up to us, holding a map. "Based on this symbol, there might be some sort of clinic nearby. We'll go see if we can find anything for your ankle. Just rest here while we're gone."
"No way! I'm not sitting around while you guys go out there! I can pull my own weight!" She tries to stand but I gently push her back
"Rest. You'll need that ankle to win gold medals when we get back home, okay?"
"And I'll stay behind to make sure she rests" Kenji finds an excuse to stay back here
"Can it be someone else? Literally, anyone else?" Yaz groans
"Okay great plan!" Darius says. "Kenji, while Yaz rests, start sorting out the stuff we can use from the stuff we can't."
"A hundred percent... Maybe."
Brooklyn throws Darius and I each a sharp wooden stick for defense and we walk to the clinic.
After a long while, Darius spots a tree with a scraped tree bark.
"Wow," he breathes
"Hey Darius look at this!" I show him a small wooden-looking plate.
"Whoa! It's a stegosaurus plate!" He explains. "They shed them while they grow!"
"Ohh! Like a deer shedding antlers?"
I walk over to the scraped tree
"You know, these look just like the marks the deers make. Helps them with the shedding. Maybe, dinosaurs do the same thing!"
"This could be new behavior! That's so cool!" Darius exclaims
We continue walking, this time with Brooklyn in the lead.
•·•
Brooklyn shoves aside some tall ferns and we burst into a clearing with many boxes. The searching starts
"Let's make this quick. Anything that might help Yaz's ankle-"
"Food!" Brooklyn says loudly
"Never thought I'd be excited to see canned fruit," I hold up the cans, "but check out all of these canned fruit!"
"Finally, something other than soggy pizza!"
Darius opens another crate.
"Look! A compression bandage!"
I hold it up. "This is exactly what Yaz needs. All 20 feet of it..."
Why is it so long?
(bellowing)
We walk towards the sound vigilantly. Eventually, we reach a clearing with huge cages. Herbivores lay moaning in them.
We lean into the cage bars and look mournfully at the sick dinos
"This must be a veterinary station for dinosaurs. I guess when everyone evacuated, they got left behind."
"Like us. They're out of food and water too!" I reach my arms into the grills. "You poor thing"
(low groan)
We look around and see several more dinosaurs around us, trapped in cages.
"We have to do something!" I cry
Darius puts a hand on my shoulder.
"We saw that Sinoceratops herd in the grasslands. If we let her out..."
"She can eat grass with them!" I finish
"Wait- what happened to making this quick?!" Brooklyn asks stressfully
"We're adapting, Brooklyn." I explain.
"New mission: free the dinos!"
I unlock the latch on one of the cages and open the huge, grilled door
"Be free!"
The sinoceratops weakly stands up and comes out of the cage gratefully.
"Next up: stegosauruses!"
We run to the other cages and start unlocking all the cages. The stegosauruses burts out, warming my heart
(growls)
I look into my left and see a large carnivorous dinosaur prowling around angrily in the cage.
"Uh, guys?"
We slowly approach the Baryonyx. It bangs against the cage, snarling.
"This one seems fiercer than the others."
"Predator?"
"Obvi"
"Uh, what exactly are we planning to do with it?"
"Well, it's kind of a no-brainer" I say
"Totally." Darius agrees
"Obviously, we should free it." I say and at the same time Darius says, "We should leave it"
Behind us Brooklyn comments, "Interesting."
"We can't free a predator!"
"But why? I thought you cared about these dinosaurs."
"I do! But I also care about going home uneaten."
"What do you think Brooklyn?"
"Wait" she holds up a hand. "Do you hear that?"
"Way to help B"
"But Darius! If we free the herbivores, we should free the predators. It's only fair."
"You wanna free something that wants us for dinner?"
"We found them, which makes us responsible. If we can't free them, we have to come back everyday to feed them"
"With what? Baryonyxes eat 100 pounds of meat a day!"
"With this" I pull out a canned fruit
"Peaches?" Darius scoffs. "They're carnivores, not omnivores."
"Okay, fine then. Where do we get that much meat?"
Darius points at the sinoceratops.
"No!" I gasp. "We are not feeding Maria to them"
"Wait, you named-?
Ugh. Doesn't matter. They aren't going to eat canned fruit or frozen pizza."
"If I can't feed them, then we go back to plan A: release them into the wild."
"Why are you releasing them? Why would you want to?!"
"Because they should go home! These guys didn't ask to be here. But they are! And now they're trapped, away from their families." I tear up
"Run, run, run!!" Brooklyn yells to us.
Another Baryonyx comes out and starts running to us.
We do as Brooklyn said. We run.
Suddenly, the Baryonyx stop chasing us and look at the one in the cage. They seem to communicate and snarl at each other repeatedly.
"Guys! Over here!" Brooklyn says
We hide behind a big metal container.
The Baryonyx starts banging the cage bars.
"It's trying to free the other Baryonyx!" Darius realizes.
While the dinosaur is distracted, we sneak into another place.
A 3rd Baryonyx comes out and looks at us
(snarls)
We all scream and run.
Somehow, the Baryonyx does not chomp us all.
I open the stegosauruses' cages and they group together, scaring the Baryonyx away from us.
We quickly escape, but Darius looks back.
"We can't leave her. They're a family"
He runs back and frees the 3rd Baryonyx.
I smile at Darius and we both run to catch up with Brooklyn as the Baryonyx joins his family
Aw...
Suddenly, the Baryonyxes scare away the stegosauruses. The stegosauruses stomp toward us and we run, screaming.
Up ahead, we see Kenji and Yaz resting by some trees.
"Up the trees! Quick!" Brooklyn alerts them.
We all scurry up the tree to safety.
"So this is why Camp Cretaceous was built up in the trees" I realize
"Hey. Maybe our new camp can be a treehouse." Darius suggests.
"Hmm. Maybe something like..." Yasmina takes out a piece of paper and draws a blueprint.
"It's great! But we definitely need a lookout tower."
"And an awesome girls' bunk! The boys can have whatever."
"And a place for storing food so the dinosaurs don't get it."
•·•
We go back to camp. Yaz draws all our suggestions while we start building it.
I gasp
"Hey Darius? I found this." I hand him his dinosaur tooth necklace. Darius smiles at me and puts it on. We hug each other thankfully
"We need some more vines!"
"On it!"
1615 words