Chapter 4

JANINE

Janine Farehouse could see her reflection in the waters below. She knew what she had become. And she knew she wasn’t dreaming.

She was a Pterodactyl. Her wings were dark crimson and Day-Glo blue, and they stretched fifteen feet from tip to tip. She had claws—but no teeth.

And she was flying. Or so she’d told herself, until she realized that she had confused flying with falling. Even though she was soaring evenly through the air, she was also descending rapidly—at high speed. The world was flashing past in a near blur.

She screamed!

Panic took over. She flapped her wings, an activity that hadn’t even occurred to her until this very moment. The world flipped over a half-dozen times and she plunged straight down like a heavy weight tossed out of a 747. She would have screamed if she hadn’t suddenly felt so sick to her stomach.

The water reached up for her, glassy and smooth. Hard as diamond. She could see her own reflection perfectly—or the reflection of the sleek, magnificent flyer in which she was unfortunately residing. It was like falling into a mirror.

A crazy thought came to her. She wished she had her markers, her spray paint cans. Her fat Magnum 44 black would be choice. Or maybe something in a German Fat Cap. She wanted to cover the flat surface barreling up at her with graffiti. She could turn it into a real burner, a true piece of art. She could picture it now: This solid wall, covered in wild colors. She’d be proud to leave her tag here, just the way she did on the buses and buildings back home.

The surface of the water rippled. The hypnotically pleasing illusion of a solid surface melted and vanished as two huge emerald-and-onyx bumps rose from the waters. Then a twenty-six-foot-long neck unfurled, writhing and whipping about like a snake. The head at the end of the neck snapped its mass of shining, needlelike teeth at the precise spot where Janine would soon plunge.

Janine freaked. She twisted and turned. She wriggled her long arms, and by extension her wings. She tried to flap, tried to sail, tried to soar, but she couldn’t break free of this terrible descent. The sea creature below snapped its maw a few more times and ground its teeth together in anticipation.

Without warning, Janine went cold. Her emotions turned off. Her fear cut out. She studied the situation calmly, determined to think of something.

This sort of thing had happened to her only twice before in her thirteen years. Once, when news came that her father had been killed overseas and she had to be strong to hold her mom together. And another time, when she and her older cousin were on the Hi-Line, good old Highway 2, and a blowout sent them careening toward a Montana double-date—two guys and two dogs sitting in the cab of a midnight black pickup truck. Without a single tremor of fear, she’d analyzed the situation, seized the wheel from Margie, and saved both their lives.

It was time to grab the wheel again. She looked calmly at what was happening: She was in the body of a Pterodactyl and she was falling to her death. She didn’t know what to do. But there was a safe bet that this body still held a prior occupant. If so, it was the only chance they both had now.

Janine searched inside. A consciousness rose up. It was the buried mind of the Pterodactyl. Janine surrendered herself totally. The Pterodactyl inside her sensed a current of air ten feet over the snapping head of the sea creature. The flyer spread her wings and angled herself into the draft.

This is going to work! Janine told herself.

There was a sound, like a parachute suddenly opening, or a massive sheet being whipped by the wind—

Thhhhhhhhhhwwwwacccccccccck!

Then came a yanking, a jerking, and the rustle of wings, and Janine was being lifted up and away from the danger! She heard the angry cry of the sea creature, and an incredible splash below. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw a mighty shape burst from the water—but she didn’t care. She was sailing away, the wind catching hold of her hollow bones.

The momentum she’d gained from the sudden nosedive robbed her of the chance to ascend toward the heavens. All she could do was glide to a landing, skipping along the frothy water, until she came to a rest on the surface.

She spun in a slow circle, relief flooding through her. Then, slowly, a nightmare came into view: The sea creature was only a hundred feet away. Its head and neck were raised, its rounded back arched in a hump. Pairs of flippers in the front and the rear slapped at the water.

Janine had seen this particular monster before. Or something just like it. Images from grainy old photographs entered her mind.

Nessie. The Loch Ness Monster. A prehistoric creature, where Janine came from. A not-so-friendly native here and now.

Janine dimly recalled reading a book when she was nine about a pair of children who had wondrous encounters with Nessie. Somehow, that book had left out a lot about the Elasmosaurus’s predatory nature and very, very sharp teeth.

Janine’s calm vanished. So did the mind of the Pterodactyl. Logic told her that if there was any way out of this, the Pterodactyl would have at least dropped a clue before it split.

It hadn’t. She was fish food.

Suddenly, a shadow fell upon her. It wasn’t the Elasmosaurus. Janine looked up and saw another Pterodactyl whipping over her, flying straight for the sea monster’s huge head!

The newcomer was golden with streaks of gray, blue, and scarlet. He loosed an ear-piercing scream and soared to the right, and then to the left.

Nessie was fascinated. The creature turned to see the new Pterodactyl sail past, spin, then perform a perfect figure eight. Nessie snapped and bit furiously, but the tricky newcomer always remained out of reach.

“Janine, swim for it!” someone called. She recognized the voice. She was about to reply, “Bertram?” when it occurred to her that it didn’t matter who was delivering the advice—she’d better just take it!

Paddling, she turned herself in the water and looked toward shore. In the distance, she could see a T. rex and an Ankylosaurus trying to get her attention.

She didn’t know much about paleontology—not like Bertram—but she knew enough to recognize that the rex and the club-tail were natural enemies, stemming from very different branches on the tree of life. Yet there they were, standing side by side as if it was the most natural thing in the world. What the heck was going on here?

A roar sounded behind her. She craned her neck and looked back to see her tricky Pterodactyl friend dive right into the Elasmosaurus’s reach, then dart away at the last second.

Nessie looked frustrated. The game was no longer fun. She wanted prey she could actually capture. She wanted Janine.

Janine swam. She paddled and kicked, nearly submersing herself twice. She heard the sighs of the waves turn to hisses and roars as they rose and fell angrily behind her. She could almost feel the Elasmosaurus closing in.

Suddenly, a pair of fins cut through the water beneath her raised wing. A dark gray shape glided beside her, and something slapped her back. Janine froze as the waves revealed an Ischyrhizz, a seven-foot-long saw shark.

Oh, good, she told herself, a killing machine with a Ginsu knife attachment. Mother Nature must have been in a funny mood the day she created this one.

The shark dove beneath the water. Janine relaxed but only a little. The waves were driving her to shore. She looked back and saw the other Pterodactyl, whom she now thought of as the Trickster, diving in close enough to scrape at Nessie with the tip of his wing.

Enraged, the Elasmosaurus forgot about her pursuit of Janine for a moment and went back to snapping at the Trickster. She nearly snagged him with her first try, and Janine suddenly feared for her mysterious savior.

“Over here!” she hollered at Nessie. “You stupid old, stupid...”

She couldn’t come up with an insult. Not for a fish. Or a water-bound mammal, or whatever it was. People—fine, no problem. But trying to dis a fish was beyond her.

It didn’t matter. Nessie heard her insults. Or she heard something, anyway. Janine understood that she wasn’t making human sounds. She was making the same piercing cries as the other Pterodactyl.

Nessie turned toward Janine. Another great tidal wave rushed up, carrying Janine a dozen feet into the air. Like a surfer, she was hurled over the water for an instant, then slapped down and nearly tugged under.

A pair of five-foot-long sharks sailed beneath her, apparently fed and disinterested. Thank goodness.

Slow-moving, four- to six-inch-long invertebrates in mother-of-pearl shells swam by, their cilia flickering. The sun bounced off their iridescent shells, creating a rainbow of color. Eight-inch-long lobsterlike Linuparus with spiny, armored segmented bodies drifted near. A school of blue-colored fish sped around her. Their jaws were filled with curved and interlocked elongated teeth. They attacked smaller jelly-bodied fish.

Janine wanted out of there! She kept swimming, hard and fast, watching the sand beneath the water rising up, higher and higher...

Finally, she looked back and saw the Elasmosaurus stuck several yards back in the deep. She wanted to laugh and cry in triumph! She’d made it. She was safe!

Then, Nessie’s great neck suddenly extended, all two dozen feet of it, and the hungry head came down at Janine.

Janine screamed! And the T. rex let out the loudest, most frightening roar Janine had ever heard. Nessie froze.

“Janine, now!” Bertram’s voice cried. “The shore! Now!”

Using her wings as paddles, Janine covered the last few feet separating her from the beach. Trembling, she walked onto shore with her spindly but strong rear legs, then folded her wings around her like a cloak.

Shells of every description littered the shore, painting it in stunning colors. Funnel-like shells, clam-shaped, teardrop-shaped, and a few that looked like small round castles, all mixed together with wreaths of coral. Her feet crunched as she walked. Tiny hermit crabs, little more than an inch long, scampered nearby. Mollusks, limpets, snails, and a few of the lobsters were scattered about.

She turned back to look at Nessie, who railed in frustration, snapped her jaws at the other pterosaur, then slipped back beneath the waves.

“Are you okay?” Bertram asked.

Janine faced the club-tail and his T. rex companion. For the first time she noticed that another dinosaur lay at their feet. It was an ugly, squat, garishly colored little thing with a parrotlike face and a nasty set of thunder thighs. Its eyes were glassy and it drooled a little.

“Yeah,” Janine said. “I’m okay.”

Above, a great sharp caw sounded. Janine looked up to see her new friend circling overhead. The Trickster looked down at her, then regarded her companions with a look that Janine somehow felt was disdain. With a snort, he flew off, dive-bombing the Elasmosaurus one last time for good measure.

Janine looked nervously at the T. rex, then back to Bertram. “Friend of yours?”

The Ankylosaurus angled his head in the T. rex’s direction. “Mike Peterefsky. Yeah, he’s friendly enough—for a predator.”

“I’m not a predator,” Mike automatically said with a weak sigh. Then he looked with concern toward the small, lumpy, yellow-and-red dinosaur at his feet.

“I hope I wasn’t too rough with her,” the T. rex began. “I had to carry her in my claws, y’know, by the leg, upside down, the whole way. I didn’t know how else to get her to come with us. I couldn’t just leave her.”

“You should have seen it,” Bertram said, “Mike dragged me the whole way by putting my tail in his mouth. He chipped a bunch of teeth doing it, but—”

“We’re dinosaurs,” Janine said.

“Yep,” replied Bertram.

Janine gestured to the glassy-eyed Leptoceratops. “Who’s Thunder-Thighs?”

“Candayce Chambers,” Mike said.

Janine’s head sunk to her chest. The rustle of wings surprised her, but only a little. She was already getting used to this. “What happened to her?”

Mike threw his little T. rex hands into the air. “She just kinda...checked out. I’ll carry her, though. It’s no problem.”

Janine looked back to the horizon, where the Trickster was heading. “So who’s he?”

“What do you mean?” Mike asked.

Janine gestured in the other Pterodactyl’s direction. “Which lucky eighth grader is that?”

Bertram cleared his throat. “I believe he’s indigenous.”

Janine was surprised. Her savior was the real thing. An actual Pterodactyl. “Smart sucker. Tricky.”

She looked back at the Elasmosaurus frustratedly kicking around the waves. Then she saw its head dip beneath the water and come up with a wriggling four-foot-long shark. It turned, happy enough, it seemed, and swam off.

“Yeah,” she said, “this place is really crazy, I’m really enjoying myself...so will someone please tell me what we’re doing here, why we can understand each other when we’re not really talking out loud, and what we have to do to get home?”

The T. rex and the club-tail were silent for a moment. Bertram spoke first. “We’re working on that.”

Suddenly, a crackling sound made everyone jump. Janine looked up, expecting to see lightning streaking across the sky. But there was nothing. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She heard a low, deep humming, and it was accompanied by a tingling at the back of her skull.

“Guys? Do you feel—”

Before she could finish, a second crackling and the sense of some alien force rippled through the air all around them. It was electric. Terrifying!

A voice rose out of the crackling:

“Bertram! Bertram, can you hear me? I pray that you can. This is Mr. London. I know what’s happened—and I think I can help...”