As they get closer to the Moona-Lisa, Markus’ and Mariana’s dinosaurs get skittish and refuse to go any further. Not even sugar helps.
“Strange, we’ll have to walk the last bit.”
“Yes, it isn’t far. You can see the top of Uncle Albert’s rocket shooting up over there by the hill.”
”Maybe that’s what’s worrying our brave dinosaurs.”
Markus and Mariana dismount their dinosaurs and thank them for their valiant efforts with a big hug. The animals quickly disappear and join the rest of their herd. The children go and get the water hose. As they struggle to drag to the clearing where the rocket landed they suddenly get a terrible surprise. In front of the Moona-Lisa a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex lays sprawled out with its awful jaws gaping open showing rows of razor sharp teeth.
“Isn’t… that… a … Tyrannosaurus Rex?” Markus stutters.
”Yes, I think so,” Mariana whispers.
“Do you think… Uncle Albert has been eaten…?” Markus is afraid to ask.
Instantly Uncle Albert appears from the rocket hatch and calls to the children:
“There you are! Hurry up and get in and I’ll pull in the hose. We have to get going right now. In a hurry!”
”But what about the giant lizard?” asks Markus and points to the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
“Oh that,” says Uncle Albert. “No problem at all. He is sound asleep and won’t wake up for ages yet. I had to subdue him when he started chewing on the Moona-Lisa. Lucky I had built-in some defence mechanisms in the rocket’s shell, just in case we would land somewhere dangerous.”
“But why are we in such a hurry?”
“I have made all the observations I need and if my calculations are correct, a giant rock from space, a meteor or maybe an asteroid, will hit the Earth any minute and it is best we are not here when it does.”
The Moona-Lisa is ready for take-off in record time and off they go. Only a few minutes after they leave the Earth they see an enormous boulder pass them and start to burn as it travels through the layers of the atmosphere. As the asteroid hits Earth, the space travellers can see the explosion all the way to the moon and a big black cloud begins to spread over the Earth’s surface.
”Wowwee. That was one big explosion,” says Mariana.
“But what about all the dinosaurs?” asks Markus distraught.
“They will die out now, soon enough,” replies Uncle Albert. “It has long been suspected that the dinosaurs became extinct approximately sixty five million years before our time after an asteroid or comet hit Earth. It was what I was afraid of when I found out what time we had landed in. And now we know that it’s true. Amazing how much we’ve learned on this trip, isn’t it?”
Uncle Albert is elated, but Markus and Mariana are sad. They think of all the poor dinosaurs they just met that are now doomed. But Uncle Albert explains that if the giant reptiles had not become extinct, mammals never could have evolved and thrived. And neither could humans, since humans are mammals. So without the Earth’s collision with the asteroid, neither Uncle Albert nor the children would have existed!*19
”But Uncle Albert,” asks Mariana, ”what if an asteroid were to hit Earth in our time?”
“That would be bad indeed. The chances are very small, but we must learn to keep watch around the Earth so we can solve such problems in time should we discover them.”
“Maybe we could move to Mars for a while, if we needed to.” Markus suggests.
”Perhaps, perhaps.”
”Peep, peep,” Max whimpers.
“Max! We’ve forgotten Max. Markus, we have to care take of his cuts and bruises and give him some really tasty cheese.”
Helping Max makes the children forget about both dinosaurs and dangerous asteroids. Instead they suddenly notice how hungry they are after all the adventure. So hungry that even Uncle Albert’s tinned foods taste great.