CHAPTER 13

our weeks into their hike to the Rocky Mountains of B.C. there was suddenly no more joy for Jacob Two-Two in eating enough toasted hot dogs and marshmallows to make him feel sick to his stomach. What he really longed for now was his mother’s marvelous chili, her incomparable roast chicken, and, he had to admit, her hugs, her kisses, and the stories she read to him before he went to sleep. He also missed horsing around with his father and even the teasing of his two stinky older brothers and two stinky older sisters. His longing led him to take a big risk. He slipped into a small town, found an all-night pizza parlor, and ordered a king-size L’Abbondanza made with tomato sauce, garlic sausage, green peppers, olives, and cheese. Then he took it back to camp to eat. It was too much. He couldn’t finish it. So he offered the other half to Dippy, who gobbled it up, smacking his lips. “Hey,” he said, “this is terrific stuff! How about fetching me some?”

In spite of the danger, Jacob Two-Two returned to the all-night pizza parlor. “Do you deliver?” he asked.

“Sure, kid, what do you want?”

“Fifty king-size L’Abbondanzas.”

“Holy cow! That will come to three hundred and fifty dollars. You’ll have to pay cash.”

Jacob Two-Two counted out the money and an hour later was out on the road with the delivery man. “Just another mile down the highway,” Jacob Two-Two said. “You see that big green boulder? We stop right there.”

“Funny,” the delivery man said, pulling up, “I’ve come this way maybe a thousand times, but I’ve never seen that green boulder before.”

“It’s always been here,” Jacob Two-Two said, alarmed. “It’s always been here.”

The delivery man unloaded the pizzas. He glanced at the green boulder again and suddenly his hair was standing on end. “My God!” he shouted. “It’s moving! That boulder has red eyes! Out of my way, kid!” And he leaped into his truck, made a quick U-turn, and sped away.

“Dippy,” Jacob Two-Two said, “you were supposed to sit absolutely still, with your head tucked in.”

“I know, I know, but the smell was driving me bananas. I thought he’d never get those pizza pies unloaded.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Jacob Two-Two said.

So they galloped back to camp before Dippy sat down to his feast. “Oh boy, oh boy,” he said. “Yum, yum.”

One minute there were fifty pizzas on tin-foil plates stacked in rows of ten and the next minute – gobble, gobble, gulp, gulp – there were none. “Say,” Dippy said, smacking his lips, “that was great for starters. Now what’s for the main course?”

“What’s for the main course? Gimme a break, Dippy.”

“I’m still hungry.”

“You’re always hungry, Dippy.”

An hour later Dippy wasn’t feeling well. He rolled over on his back, moaning and groaning. “Ooooh,” he wailed, “ooooh, what have I done? My poor, aching stomach.”

“Well, no wonder. You weren’t supposed to eat the tin-foil plates, too, Dippy. That isn’t even civilized.”

“But I’m not civilized. I’m just a prehistoric slob. Ooooh,” he moaned again. “Ooooh, now I understand how my unhappy ancestors disappeared. It wasn’t because we were airheads or there was a meteorite shower. There must have been somebody running a prehistoric pizza parlor back in the old swamp. Oooooh me, ooooh my!”

“Stop it, Dippy. You’re giving me a pain.”

“I’m never going to find a nice girl Diplodocus in the Rockies of B.C. I’m going to die right here. A poor, homeless orphan dinosaur. The last of a noble line.”

“Why don’t you try to walk it off, Dippy?”

Dippy rolled onto his feet, still groaning, and began to walk about in circles, his head hanging low. But he had not yet properly digested the tin-foil plates. Each time he took a step it sounded like a hundred tin cans were being kicked downhill. Jacob Two-Two held his ears. “Dippy, they can hear you miles away. Stop. Sit down.”

Dippy sat down. Clunk, clunk, clunk. But the next minute he was burping all over the place, his hot breath uprooting trees and sending them flying. “Oooh,” he moaned. “Poor me. Poor little me.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Jacob Two-Two said. “We’ll try a song. Maybe that will help take your mind off things.”

Together they sang:

“Daisy (burp, burp), Daisy (belch, belch),
Give me your answer, do (burp, belch) …”

And so on, far into the night.