In which Dinosaurs are not the only thing to worry about

“It isn’t quite what I was expecting,” said Dad, with a note of concern in his voice.

He was looking at a rickety barrier stretched across the track, which carried a faded sign that read: ‘Jurassic Camp and Dinosaur Park’. Ahead of them, Caleb could see a white, timber building squatting on the cliff top. Off to the right, a treeless camping ground was marked out with numbered plots, most of which were empty. There was only one caravan in sight, unless you counted the static caravan beside the main building that was slowly disintegrating into the grass and nettles around it.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” said Grandpa, from the back seat. “We used to camp in a field when I was young and we managed. No toilets or anything.”

Dad wasn’t so sure – a lack of customers always made him wary. It was the same with restaurants. Being too crowded was bad enough, but too few other diners and you could be sure something was amiss. About a third full was optimum. Anything else and he’d be quite ready to back out and try elsewhere. His fingers twitched at the gear stick, looking for reverse.

“Look Daddy, a dinosaur!”

Beth was pointing to the left where a grove of trees skirted a sharp rise in the landscape. In their shadow a fiberglass T-rex of modest proportions was trying to look terrifying. The missing teeth and the gaping hole in his side weren’t exactly helping.

“Yes, so it is,” replied Dad, trying to be positive.

“Come on,” said Caleb from the back, sandwiched between Beth and Grandpa. “Why are we waiting?” He’d been looking forward to this for weeks and didn’t see why a flimsy barrier should hold up their progress now. The promise of a week of camping on the south coast and the possibility of finding fossils with the help of Grandpa’s latest invention was everything he could have wished for and he was impatient to get started.

“Well, the barrier is across, isn’t it?! I can’t drive under it, can I!” said Dad in exasperation.

“Look, there’s someone coming,” said Mum.

A young woman in a black T-shirt and black torn jeans came to raise the barrier. She had short spikey hair that might have been black once, but now had so many eruptions of green and rust brown in it that it wasn’t exactly clear which colour was the original. She smiled a friendly smile and waved them through.

Dad nervously brought the lime green camper van to a stop on the gravel area between the wooden building and the trees. He noted how the walls were leaning inwards and the ridge was sagging – it had probably lost a fair bit of its height over the past few decades, a bit like Grandpa, he reflected.

“I wonder where we go next,” mused Mum, looking for clues.

They watched as the young woman entered the building through the main door and then put her head out of a hatch further along the wall, looking expectant.

“At least someone is on the ball,” said Mum, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the door. “I’ll find out what the drill is.”

Dad sank down in his seat. He needed a moment to decompress after the long drive. The children watched as Mum chatted away with the girl for a few minutes as though they were the best of friends and then return to the car clutching a map.

“You are in plot 5, which is near to the toilet block,” said Mum. “You can drive over, I’ll walk.”

Dad edged the camper van onto the grass and made for the ramshackle building that had just been given the auspicious title of toilet block. It might contain a toilet and a shower if they were lucky. The possibility of hot water seemed increasingly remote the closer he got.

He pulled into Plot 5, which afforded a fine view over the sea. In fact, there was nothing between the camper van and the sea except a thin piece of blue rope stretched between wooden pegs. Not his idea of a cosy place to sleep, but he was sure the kids would be fine. He tried not to feel guilty that he and his wife were about to get into a taxi and be taken off to a nice bed and breakfast for the night.

“Right,” said Mum, “off you go and explore, kids, but don’t get too close to the edge.”

The first thing Caleb did was step over the blue string to see just how steep the drop was.

“Caleb, what did I say?”

It wasn’t a sheer drop, just as Caleb expected. If it had been there would have been more of a barrier. It looked more like the ground had slumped in huge sections, each one still with a grassy head of hair, the layers of mud and rock exposed below. He jumped down onto the nearest section. “Aaaaggghhh!” he cried, as though he had fallen.

“Caleb!” gasped Mum.

“Only joking!” he called back, standing up.

“Caleb that isn’t funny. Come away, it may not be stable.”

Caleb climbed back onto the right side of the string where Beth was waiting for him.

“Come on, let’s go and see the dinosaurs,” said Beth.

The children left Dad and Grandpa trying to hook up the power and water to the van and walked back towards the shop. They passed the other caravan on plot 3. It looked new and shiny compared to theirs. They made brief eye contact with a middle-aged couple sitting in folding chairs who gave a friendly wave. The children managed an embarrassed half-smile. A girl of about Caleb’s age was sitting on the step up to the caravan and seemed to be writing in a notebook. She was thin and delicate and wore a white summer dress. Everything about the group was pristine and mostly silver or white in colour – the caravan, the car, the clothes – all except the man’s shirt, which was a flash of riotous colour.

“Let’s look in the shop first,” said Caleb. Beth was more interested in the dinosaurs, but thought the shop was worth checking out too. They had brought their pocket money and there would be a good chance of sweets and ice-cream.

The main door led straight into the shop. It tinkled as they opened it.

The young lady who had opened the barrier was sitting behind the counter with a pen in her hand. Behind her was the window through which she had spoken to Mum. Caleb and Beth were both shy in these situations and busied themselves looking at the shelves. Half the shop was given over to selling fossils, gems, model dinosaurs and books about the area. The other half provided basic supplies for camping: toilet rolls, sun cream, breakfast cereals and buckets and spades. Stock seemed a bit thin, but someone was doing their best to make it look full.

“Hello,” said the girl. “I’m Tess. Who are you?”

“I’m Beth and this is Caleb.” Out of the two of them, Beth was the least shy around new people. She noticed the sketchbook on the counter, a dramatic drawing of a skull in black ink staring out at them. There was more black on the page than white.

“Wow…” said Beth. “Did you draw that?”

“Do you like it?” asked Tess. “You can have it if you want. I draw hundreds of them sat here every day – it’s a bit boring working here, if I’m honest.” She tore the page out of the sketch book and passed it to Beth whose eyes were round with surprise and gratitude. “You can have the skull,” she said to Caleb, passing him a small dirty-white object. “I think it’s a squirrel.”

“Thanks,” managed Caleb, a little unsure whether it was hygienic.

“So, do you like dinosaurs?” Tess continued. She was clearly glad to have someone to talk to.

The kids nodded. Caleb knew everything there was to know about them, and his dinosaur top-trumps were pretty dog-eared.

“You all staying in that campervan?”

“No, just us kids and my Grandpa,” said Caleb. “My parents are going to a Bed and Breakfast somewhere.”

“Ah,” responded Tess, “In the village?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“That’s where I live – in the village, not the Bed and Breakfast – with my boyfriend. It’s pretty quiet, but quite pretty,” she said with a smile.

Beth was noticing the tattoos on the girls arms: more skulls, roses and words that she couldn’t make out.

The girl followed her eyes. “This is my latest,” she said, indicating an ammonite on the inside of her arm. “It was a present from my boyfriend. I can’t afford them really, otherwise I’d be covered in them!”

“Does it hurt?” asked Beth.

“Yes, but not too bad. You get used to it – and the end result is worth it!”

Her enthusiasm was captivating.

Caleb wasn’t so interested in tattoos and his eyes strayed to the two doors off the shop. One said, ‘Fossil Gallery’ and the other ‘Dinosaur Museum’.

“They’ll be open after lunch when Mr James is here,” explained Tess, noting his interest. “It’s his job to tell people about the exhibits…” There was a note of warning in her voice.

“Have you been to the pit yet?” she asked.

Caleb and Beth shook their heads.

“You can’t miss it. Just follow the dinosaur walk and you’ll get to it at the end. It’s all seen better days, I’m afraid, but it’s fun to explore. I used to go all the time when I was younger.”

Caleb and Beth took this as a cue to leave the shop and headed out into the sun. Across the dusty car park they could see a sign saying ‘Dinosaur Walk’ with an assortment of dinosaur illustrations below. Beth thought she could detect Tess’s drawing style.

“Come on,” said Caleb, “let’s have a look.”  

The walk led immediately in amongst the trees, most of which were weather beaten conifers, hunched over from years of resisting strong coastal winds. The path meandered about and at regular intervals they passed large dinosaur models staring out of the undergrowth. Beside the path in front of each was a small sign board with a few facts. “Stegosaurus – 3-5m long, meat eater, late Jurassic”. There was a diplodocus, pterodactyl and an iguanodon. All the classics from the 1980s, in fact. The path had been laid out with rocks and ancient looking plants, such as ferns and gunnera. The passage of time meant these aspects of the walk were a lot more convincing than the dinosaurs themselves, which had not worn well.  There was definitely a primeval air about the place, despite the faded plastic models.

They had just reached a bend in the path where a triceratops looked out at them rather forlornly when they heard a noise up ahead.

“What was that?” asked Caleb.

There was a flash of colour between the trees and a muffled laugh.

“Some other kids?” said Beth, stopping in her tracks.

They listened for a few moments, but all was quiet. “They’ve gone,” said Caleb. “Let’s carry on.”

They followed the path past a brontosaurus, glancing at the sign as they passed.

“They are so out of date, they are back in date,” said Caleb. “Brontosaurus was changed to Apatosaurus until just a few years ago, when it was switched back again!”

The path suddenly brought them to the edge of a cliff where the ground fell away sheer. They were looking down on what Tess had called ‘the pit’: a near-circular quarry that extended 10 metres down into the ground – that’s more than a two-storey house is high. The trees around the edge meant it was almost all in shadow, except for a short section of its rim opposite them that still managed to find the sun. A rickety staircase around the perimeter spiralled downwards. It was in sections, with two level areas for passing people on the way down to the floor of the pit.

“Shall we wait for Grandpa?” asked Beth. “He’d like to see this.”

Normally, Caleb would have been keen to press on and explore, but something about the kids they had encountered made him cautious. He looked around carefully to see if anything looked out of place.

“What’s that?” he said, pointing down into the quarry.

At the bottom of the cliff face opposite them a single word had been sprayed in red paint. The handwriting was poor, but the letters were unmistakable: BEWARE.

“It might have been those kids,” said Beth.

“Yes, it looks pretty fresh. We could see if the paint is still wet.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“It’s just some graffiti – they’re trying to scare people, that’s all.”

They slowly made their way down the staircase. It was worn and wonky, but the wood was still sound and there were no obvious pieces missing. They paused at the lower platform and looked around just to be sure.

“It looks OK,” said Caleb continuing down the last flight of steps.

Just as he got to the last step he stumbled; his left foot had caught on something. He looked down and glimpsed some string across the path. A noise from high above caught his attention. “Look out!” he shouted back to Beth as he leapt forwards.

The next moment something struck the handrail where Caleb’s hand had been only moments before. Fortunately, Beth wasn’t too close behind and had stopped where she was when she saw Caleb trip.

Caleb regained his balance and looked round to see a rock the size of his head laying on the ground, a long piece of string tied round its middle, the other end connected to one of the posts holding up the handrail. It had fallen from the top of the cliff above them, dragged over the edge by the string Caleb had tripped on. He and Beth stared at each other in wide-eyed disbelief.

“That could have killed someone!” said Caleb in horror.