Dr. Jacobs drove right by a no trespassing sign to get to the old limestone quarry where Mom and Dad had spotted the raptor. In the middle of the bench seat, I ping-ponged between her and Pine as we bounced along a dirt road made for bulldozers. Doing my best to keep my phone up …
When I opened the door to the hotel suite, Mom gasped. “You’re soaked.” I didn’t even respond. Just ducked my head to grab my suitcase, swiveled straight into the bathroom, and locked myself in before she could jump down my throat. After getting dragged into the pool, clothes and all, I needed to dry off …
Mom called Dr. Jacobs and put her on speaker phone to join our round table. When I described the feather I’d just watched disintegrate in front of my eyes, she was so silent I thought she might be holding her breath. “Do you know what that might belong to?” Mom asked. “I can’t say for …
We skipped breakfast and went straight into getaway mode. I loaded my suitcase into the back of the 4Runner and waited outside, occasionally glancing over my shoulder to make sure the odd truck passing on the main road wasn’t Dixon’s mom—or a black-and-white cop car. After she basically broke into our house for a business …
“Get dressed,” Mom said, shaking me out of sleep. “We’re leaving.” I rubbed my eyes and found her sitting on the edge of my bed, her hand on my arm. It was so early the attic was still dark. Mom had spent the night on my floor, but her sleeping bag was all rolled up …
Mom leaned against the kitchen counter with a hand over her mouth like she was deep in thought. But the stiffness of her shoulders gave away her shock. Pine sat on the floor, propped up against the refrigerator, wearing my grandpa’s sweatpants and a patchwork quilt pulled over his head like a hood. We’d let …
“He should come along any minute now,” I said to Pine. We’d been staking out the dried-up creek bed for about an hour, waiting for Tenontosaurus to wander down the ditch. Nuke had poofed and returned to me a long time ago. As the sun slipped behind a fast-building thunderhead, I’d worked a streak of …
I trailed into the mudroom behind my mom, who was lugging two heavy guitar cases at once. “Please don’t do this.” After a long morning of begging for mercy, my hostage negotiator voice was starting to slip into the whine zone. “There’s a dinosaur stomping around out there, and I need my magic to make …
We rode home from the party in the dark. I was too scared to break the silence. Mom parked in front of the ranch house and sat in the idling car. She gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead like we were still on the highway. “What happened back there?” Her perfectly even voice raised …
I tore off my blindfold, shoved through the paleo lab door, and stumbled out into Trinity Hall. In the middle of the exhibits and refreshment tables, a ring of party guests had gathered around a crater in the tile—and in that pit stood a hulking dinosaur the size of a longhorn steer. I’d never seen …