In which they have a new problem to resolve

The rain didn’t ease off for several hours and by that time Caleb and the others were sound asleep in the shack. If they had been awake and ventured out at sunrise and returned to the rim of the quarry, they would have seen the Resurrection Ray-gun laying forlornly in the mud, its battery not long depleted. For hours it had continued to shine through the sheets of rain onto the cliff face exactly where it had been dropped. But they didn’t venture out, because there was no need, and they were only too happy to sleep as long as they could.

That wasn’t the case, however, for another group of children (who would have certainly not liked to have been called that). The sun hadn’t been up long when Shane and Colin slunk back along the path. They had barely slept, waiting for the rain to stop so they could return to the pit. Dale wasn’t in the best of tempers. He was angry and anxious that the ray-gun should had slipped through their fingers (metaphorically and literally) just when it promised to deliver so much.

“I can’t believe you just dropped it,” he muttered, directing his venom at Shane.

“It was heavy! And you guys were running off and leaving me behind.”

“Oh, poor little Shaney-waney. Didn’t want to be left alone in a thunderstorm…”

“You didn’t exactly help.”

“That’s cos I thought you were capable of carrying it yourself. I didn’t realise you were a weakling.”

“I’m not a weakling!” complained Shane, trotting along behind the others at risk of being left behind again.

“If it isn’t there you are going to be in BIG trouble. Think of the money we could have made with it…”

Shane’s misery was increasing by the minute. He was tired and hungry too.

“Look, there it is!” called Colin, who had reached the top platform first.

He pointed down at the quarry floor. There indeed was the Resurrection Ray-gun laying in the mud, just a short distance from the bottom of the stairs.

Dale breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Shane meaningfully. The meaning wasn’t lost on Shane. He would live to see another day.

“Quick, let’s get it before anyone comes.”

They all scampered down the stairs at fast as they dared and gathered round the machine. Dale crouched down beside it.

“What a mess. I hope you haven’t broken it…”

Shane gulped. It did look pretty bad. It was covered in mud and as Dale turned it over one of the handles came off.

“Oh, no…!” began Dale.

Shane retreated a step in case he needed to make a dash for the stairs to spare himself a thump from Dale, and in so doing he possibly saved them all. He was the only one who got a really good view of what happened next, whether he wanted it or not.

There was a sudden explosion of rock from the cliff where they had been hammering and at the same moment a terrifying, animated shape reared up and filled his field of view. It was all teeth and claws and scaly armour, everything catching the light at once in a confusion of angry movement.

Dale and Colin were still crouched down and instinctively turned their faces away from the noise and the shower of rock that followed.

“Run!” yelled Shane once he had found his voice.

The others did as advised, without looking back. Their subconscious minds assumed it was a rock fall and that was enough to propel them into flight. They made a dash for the stairs and Dale, who was last – having determined to keep hold of the ray-gun this time – had just reached the first platform when the creature threw itself at the bottom staircase hoping to take a bite out of Dale’s bottom. The lowest section of stairs collapsed under his weight.

The boys all turned around at this new noise. For Dale and Colin, it was the first time they had seen that they were being pursued and worse, just what it was that was pursuing them. “Aarrggghhh!” all three boys yelled together in terror.

Their P.E. teacher would have been impressed if he had seen them, taking the stairs three steps at a time and not slackening their pace until they were out of the trees and on the path home, quite certain the creature wasn’t following them. Even then they didn’t speak a word or stop jogging until they had arrived at Dale’s house and slammed the front door behind them.

*

The kids in the shack eventually woke up, feeling slightly damp. They stayed in bed talking while Caleb looked through the photos.

“It was all a bit of a failure really,” he moaned. “The photos aren’t very good. We didn’t get the ray-gun back and we didn’t do much to keep people safe.”

“But we do know who has it, which is progress,” observed Flora.

“Should we go back and check the quarry?” asked Beth.

“I guess so,” agreed Caleb. “Though we are unlikely to find anything much. Dale will have taken the ray-gun back with him.”

“We should at least see what state the cliff is in and warn Tess that it might not be safe for visitors,” suggested Flora.

Although little stood to be gained from returning to the quarry, their curiosity inevitably led them back. They took turns to use the cramped bathroom and got dressed as quickly as they could, regretting not having hung their damp clothes up properly (as I’m sure you would have advised them to do), and decided breakfast could wait until they returned.

Flora led them along the cliff top so they could take a more direct route to the top of the stairs into the pit. The prehistoric plants continued to drip water and they did their best not to disturb them more than necessary and so avoid a premature shower. It wasn’t long before they were leaning on the handrail peering down to the muddy floor below.

“No sign of the ray-gun,” said Caleb.

The muddy floor was devoid of any man-made object, just fragments of rock littered the ground, some large and some small, many of which hadn’t been there the day before.

“As we thought, they must have taken it with them,” concluded Flora.

“A lot of the rock has fallen down where they were working,” noted Beth.

Where Dale and the others had been focusing their efforts there was now a pile of rocky rubble in front of a shallow cave the height of a grown man.

“If it was a dinosaur fossil they found then it isn’t there anymore,” commented Caleb.

“They must have come back for it when it stopped raining,” said Flora. “But they must have worked quickly.”

Caleb wasn’t so sure. Would they really have had time to excavate a whole skeleton and remove it? That would normally take a team of palaeontologists days, if not weeks. They hadn’t come equipped with boxes the night before. Caleb looked carefully around the perimeter of the quarry from where they were standing. He leaned forward over the railing and tried to look below them.

“What are you doing?” asked Flora

“Just checking we haven’t missed anything.”

He walked to the platform that stuck out over the edge of the quarry, from which the first stairs descended. He peered over edge, but still wasn’t satisfied. He felt a little sick in his stomach. Gingerly he started to pick his way carefully down the steps, looking over the edge as he went.

He reached the middle platform and craned his neck over the railing. Still nothing. He tried to look through the small gaps in the decking but they were too clogged with dirt and weeds. Then he spotted where a knot had fallen out of the wood and knelt down and put one eye to it. If he hadn’t been in such a safe position, crouched down on a solid platform, the fright of what he saw next might have thrown him off balance. Even so, his heart leapt and his mouth went dry. Just a few feet below him he could see the sky and the trees and the quarry rim reflected off a moist eyeball and a watchful pupil flickered in and out of view as it blinked.

“Hello,” said Caleb gently, when he had found his voice. “You’ll be needing some breakfast too…”

*

“I can’t believe it!” said Tess, looking through some binoculars from the opposite side of the quarry to where it where the creature still hid below the platform. “This is just incredible… unbelievably crazy.” She was understandably excited at finding a live dinosaur in the pit.

“It’s definitely a Sarcosaurus,” she continued. “It’s a young one though. They are 2 metres tall when fully grown. This one is only about my height.”

“It looks scared,” said Beth.

“I guess it must have been a bit of a shock waking up in a thunderstorm,” said Flora.

“As would the flood of mud that put it in the ground in the first place,” said Grandpa who had insisted on coming to look despite his plaster cast.

The others looked at him.

“That’s how fossils come to be preserved. Their bodies are encased in a flow of mud. It might have been how it died. That would be scarier than a storm I expect. Though it might have happened in a storm, come to think of it.”

The others gave up on following his argument and returned their gaze to the form huddled below the platform. Every so often it shifted its position a little and gave a little grunt.

“What are we going to do with it?” asked Flora.

“That’s a good question…” mused Tess. “We had better not let Mr James find out about it or Slippers; they would want to build an enclosure and sell tickets to see it. Old Slippers would be delighted to make good money out of it!”

“Poor thing,” said Beth. “That wouldn’t be much fun for Mr Dinosaur.”

“Yes, you’re right. Anyway, the first thing we need to do is get some fencing across the stairs so it can’t get out. Then we need to find it something to eat…” said Tess.

“We could probably do with some fencing around the whole quarry to stop people getting in,” observed Grandpa. “We don’t want those boys coming back and becoming a meal for it.”

“Well, that would solve several problems at once!” chuckled Tess.

It turned out that Tess’s boyfriend Jake knew just about everyone in the village and how to get hold of just about anything they needed. He had a friend who was a builder who brought round some metal mesh fencing, the kind used to seal off a building site. After sending him on his way, they carried it to the pit and fixed it in place on the second platform with some scaffold poles for added strength. They fixed a load more all around the outside of the wood. Another of Jake’s friends was a butcher and he provided some meat that was past its best.

The problem, of course, was explaining why these things were needed. The fencing was easy enough as they could say there had been a rockfall and the quarry wasn’t safe. The meat was apparently to help catch a stray dog.

“They won’t keep him satisfied for long,” said Tess as they watched the Sarcosaurus devour the meat in a few mouthfuls. “We’ll need to find a goat or two.”

“I’m not sure the fencing won’t keep people out either,” said Grandpa. “We should mount a patrol.”

“Gosh, I had better go and tell Mr James not to come today,” said Tess. “I’ll say there has been a leak and we can’t open the museum. With all that rain we probably have too – I should go and have a look. Good job we don’t have any other campers arriving for a few days.”

*

Lunchtime found Grandpa, Caleb, Beth, Flora and Tess sat at one of the picnic benches on the cliff top, from which they could see the carpark and half the perimeter of the quarry wood and the entrance to the Dinosaur Walk. Jake was making some adjustments to the fencing and said he would take the first guard duty. He was someone who preferred to get on and do things, rather than sit around talking. He wore army surplus clothes and had an impressive ginger beard.

“We don’t really have many options,” said Tess. “The only ones I can think of are to A) keep it where it is and put it on show or B) to put it to sleep.”

The younger girls looked shocked.

“I know it sounds harsh, but it isn’t going to have much of a life here with no friends, being ogled at by visitors and prodded by scientists. Though, I’m sure none of us could do the deed if it came to it.”

“I can think of two other options,” said Grandpa.

The others looked at him hopefully.

“Option C would be to take it somewhere else where it could be safe and out of the public eye.”

“Do you have somewhere in mind?” asked Tess.

“I have a friend with a farm and an interest in rare animals. I expect he would be open to looking after it – though it would be an expensive pet.”

“Uncle Bill!” said Caleb and Beth in unison. They both had a soft spot for the larger-than-life character who had helped them in their first adventure with the Incredible Counting Machine.

“And the other option?”

“Well… I need to think a bit more about that one before I can share it.” He winked subtly at Caleb who knew exactly what he was thinking.

“But if Option C involving Uncle Bill and the farm is the best option we have to go on so far,” continued Grandpa, “I suggest we start working on it. The quicker we can get it away from this site the better. Option D could be an addition to Option C once we have got it safely out of the way.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Tess. “How far away is the farm?”

“Not very close, I’m afraid – its near where we live, a four-hour drive away,” explained Grandpa.

“We’d need a lorry or a horsebox to transport it then,” said Tess.

“I expect Bill could get what was needed. Let me speak to him on the phone right away.”

“You can use the phone in the shop,” offered Tess.

Grandpa hobbled away on his crutches and Tess went with him to open the door.

“What’s Option D?” asked Flora.

“I’m not exactly sure, but I think it involves another invention…” said Caleb.

“Well, anything is better than that poor creature being stranded here as the most famous exhibit in the world. It would never get a moment’s peace.”

“It would be very lonely,” added Beth, “with none of its brothers and sisters around.”

“Which is why Option D would be by far the best option,” said Caleb. “If I’m right about it.”

They talked for a while about how to keep Dale and his gang out of the way over the next few days. They had just come up with the idea of telling them they had won an all-expenses paid trip to Alton Towers when Tess and Grandpa returned.

“He’s on board,” said Grandpa. “He thinks he can get here tomorrow lunchtime with a horsebox.”

“Let’s hope it’s a strong one,” said Tess.

“He said he would bring tranquilisers, and I also suggested bringing a live goat or two.”

The children looked at him with concern.

“Just to put it to sleep. We wouldn’t want it stamping around while we are driving up the M25 would we?” When their expressions didn’t change, he realised it was the goats they were concerned about, not the use of the tranquilisers. “The goat might be useful as bait, for getting it into the horsebox…”

There were protests from all of them, including Tess. “The poor goat!”

“Well, if one of you would prefer to be the bait, you can have the goat as a pet instead,” suggested Grandpa with a wink.