Authors: Doug Wilhelm
The Revealers (3 page)
I popped into the hall in time to see a set of fire doors closing slowly, down at the end. Through their glass I saw the top of a dark head bobbing down the stairs.“Come on,” I said again.
“Where?” said Elliot. “Why?” His eyes were darting around, alert for danger. But the hall was empty.
“Look. Do you like to see people getting treated ⦠like you get treated?”
Elliot looked carefully at me. “No.”
“So let's just go talk to her.”
“Talk to who?” Elliot tilted his head like a puppy. I realized: He'd been deep in his dinos. He hadn't seen anything.
“You know that new girl, Catalina?”
“The tall skinny girl?”
“Yeah.”
“With the big glasses?”
“Yes.”
“She came in the library.”
“Yes.”
“She looks kind of like a salamander,” Elliot mused, his eyes unfocusing. “Like a really long newt.”
“Okay. Bethany and her pals came in and dropped that note so she would read it.”
He blinked. “They did?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she?”
“No. But I think she knew what it was. It looked like maybe this was not the first time.”
Elliot nodded slowly. “Well ⦠so?”
“She went downstairs. At least I think she did. Let's just go talk to her.”
“Why?”
Here we were again, back where we started. And actually, I wasn't sure why.
“Okay,” I said. “You know how you were talking about those defenseless dinosaurs? There were big ones, little ones â¦
“Sureâlike the duckbills. Anatosaurs. They didn't even have claws. Ever see a picture?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. But what I
mean
is, if one of those defenseless ones was pretty much all by themselves, they'd be in a lot more trouble, right?”
mean
is, if one of those defenseless ones was pretty much all by themselves, they'd be in a lot more trouble, right?”
He nodded. “They'd be pretty much dead. Sooner or later.”
“Right.”
“There are fossils in Montana that show how duckbills grouped together around their nests. They protected their young. Only dinosaurs known to have done that.”
Geez. But I kept trying. “So what if this new girl is separated from her regular group, or herd, or whatever? What if we just went and, you know ⦠checked up on her?”
“You mean if
we
were like anatosaurs?”
we
were like anatosaurs?”
“Well. I don't mean ⦔
“Hey, sure! Let's go!” Elliot said, and he went scooting down the hall.
Â
The basement of Darkland School is dim and dungeony, but it's where the “special” rooms are, so it's not that bad. The art room, the music room, and the computer lab are all down here. Looking for Catalina, we checked around. The art room's paint-spattered tables were full of plastic bottles with yellow and blue and red paint caked around the tops. Nobody was in there. The computer lab was full, as usual, of kids hunched before beeping machines. But there was no spectacled girl with almost black hair.
Next was the boiler room. Its heavy louvered door was shut.
“She could be in there,” Elliot said.
“The
boiler
room?”
boiler
room?”
“Well? She could ⦔
An awful noiseâ
“Sqwer
â¦
ONK!”
âcame from somewhere.
“Sqwer
â¦
ONK!”
âcame from somewhere.
I said, “What was
that?”
that?”
Elliot perked up. “The crested duckbill might have sounded just like that!” he said. “It had this long curving hollow bone crest that reared up and back from its nasal cavity. Kind of like a horn, you know? It must have sounded ⦔
“SqueeeeEEEEEEE
â
HONK!”
â
HONK!”
“Like
that,”
he whispered, awed.
that,”
he whispered, awed.
“The practice room,” I said. “Come on.”
Down here in the basement, across from the band room, there's this mazelike music practice room, full of cubicles. They ought to be soundproof, the cubicles, but they're just padded panels about five feet high. I've seen the same thing in the bank. The kids practicing can't see each other, but
they can
hear
each other. Sometimes when you go by there it sounds like a demented barnyard.
they can
hear
each other. Sometimes when you go by there it sounds like a demented barnyard.
This time the practice room looked empty. We started exploring among the cubicles when, from farther in:
“Sqwa-REEEEEE! Sqwaa
â¦
HAWWK1”
“Sqwa-REEEEEE! Sqwaa
â¦
HAWWK1”
We followed the aftershocks till we saw Catalina.
She was sitting hunched over in a blue plastic chair with her back to us, holding a big brass sax. Her head dipped and her shoulders clenched; she got ready to blow again.
“No?” Elliot said. “Wait!” He clapped his hands on his ears and staggered backward.
Catalina turned just as Elliot stumbled into a chair behind him that was on rollersâso it rolled, and tipped and then crashed into a music stand, and both the stand and the chair clattered into a booth while Elliot toppled over, caught another chair with a flailing arm, and that chairâwhich had music folders piled up on itâflipped and dumped on top of him. The chair's casters were spinning. The folders sifted across the floor. Elliot lay at the bottom of the wreckage.
I grinned and shook my head. Amazing. Catalina's eyes, magnified behind her glasses, were wide.
“Uh ⦠hi,” Elliot said. He waved.
“Hello.”
“You're
terrible.”
terrible.”
Catalina looked sadly at the sax. She nodded. We waited for her to say something, but she didn't.
“I tried to play the trombone once,” I offered. “I even took lessons. But I always sounded like a really drunk moose.”
Catalina looked at me. “How does a drunk moose sound?”
I shrugged. “Got a trombone?”
She smiled, almost without moving the rest of her face.
“Russell,” Elliot said. “Would you please get this thing off me?”
“Okay.” I set the chair on its wheels. Elliot struggled up till he was sitting. Catalina looked at her sax.
“I'm only renting it for a month, to try it,” she said. “I probably sound like a really weird donkey.”
“Elliot says it's more like a ⦠what was it?”
“A crested duckbill.”
Catalina said, “Anatosaur.”
Elliot's face lit up. “Yeah! And those crests were
honkable.
They'd blast the forest when a predator was coming.”
honkable.
They'd blast the forest when a predator was coming.”
“I think they were cute,” Catalina said.
“You ⦠you do?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Like edmontosaurus. That soft, dumb-looking face. You'd like to pet him.”
Elliot scrambled up amid the debris. “I know! He didn't have the crest,” he explained to me, “but he might have had a big skin balloon on top of his head. He could maybe inflate it, to honk or call or something.”
“Yes,” Catalina said. “Can you imagine all those honks and toots and blasts, all singing through the forest? It must have been incredible. A whole communication system.”
I shook my head, smiling in amazement. “A meeting of the minds,” I said.
That's when Catalina saw the folded-up paper in my hand.
Her face shrank into a blank mask. She turned away and started yanking apart her saxophone and packing it in the case.
“What?” Elliot said. “What's wrong?”
“If you came here to bring that to me,” she said without turning around, “just leave it. Wherever you want.”
“Leave what? Bring what?” Elliot looked at me.
I held up my hand with the note.
“Oh,” he said. “Heyâwe didn't ⦔
The case snapped shut. Catalina snatched it up by the handle and started sidling past us. She was a head taller than me.
“Hey,” I said, “we didn't bring this to give it to you. We came looking for you 'cause we think it sucks.”
She stopped.
“Yeah,” Elliot said. “We're duckbills, too.”
“Well,” I said, “I mean, youâ”
She said, “What?”
“We're kind of like the plant eaters in a swamp of killer reptiles,” Elliot said, and he grinned.
“Well,” I said. “Not
all
â
”
all
â
”
“My favorite was diplodocus,” she said. “I think he was extremely cute.”
Elliot said, “Cute? He was thirty feet tall!”
Catalina smiled. “That's right.”
Â
We were walking up the stairs together.
“Did every plant eater have its predator?” I asked.
“Some had more than one,” Catalina said.
“That's me,” said Elliot.
“You have more than one predator?”
“I have 'em
all.”
Elliot looked at me. “Don't I?”
all.”
Elliot looked at me. “Don't I?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
“Russell just has one tyrannosaur.”
“I'm Russell,” I said. “This is Elliot.”
“I'm Catalina.”
“We know,” Elliot said. “I think Bethany and her friends are like those medium-sized meat-eaters that hunted in packs. You know, velociraptor?”
“From the movie,” Catalina said. “With the slashing claw.”
“Yeah! And I'm like troodon.”
“I don't know him.”
“He wasn't very bigâbut he also had slashing claws.”
“Oh, that's you all right,” I said. We were walking down the hall toward the main door. Suddenly I thought about what was waiting for me outside.
I stopped. “So I want to know what
we
can do,” I said. “For real.”
we
can do,” I said. “For real.”
“He means about the predators,” Elliot told Catalina. “He thinks there's something we can do.”
“Well, why not? There must be something,” I said. “Some weakness. Some strategy. I mean, all those helpless dinosaurs weren't really helpless, were they? They all created some strategy for surviving.”
“All the dinosaurs died,” Catalina said.
“Okay. Right. But ⦠what about those furry little characters? The mammals and stuff. The platypuses.”
Elliot said, “The
platypuses?”
platypuses?”
“Yeahâthe creatures that did survive. They created some strategy, right? For surviving.”
“They didn't,” Catalina said. “Evolution did.”
“Right. Yeah. So let's evolve.”
Elliot squinted at me. “You want us to become weird little furry mammals, squatting in mud to lay eggs?”
Catalina smiled. “They are duckbills,” she said.
“Hey. Yeah!”
“Aw, just
stop
it,” I snapped. They stopped.
stop
it,” I snapped. They stopped.
“You know what?” I said, backing away. “I'm not really into this, okay? I mean, I've got a real problemâand he's most likely out there right now, waiting for me. And
don't
you say anything about tyrannosaurs.
don't
you say anything about tyrannosaurs.
“It's not a fantasy world, you know? We can't just pretend we're somewhere else in between getting clobbered.”
Elliot looked down. I started to feel bad, but still.
“I was just thinking maybe you could help me figure out some stuff,” I said to them, more quietly now. “Like why this one person is doing certain things, and what I could do
to get him to stop. But I guess ⦠I don't know. I guess it wasn't very realistic.
to get him to stop. But I guess ⦠I don't know. I guess it wasn't very realistic.
Other books
Ryder by Jani Kay
New Beginnings by Vasser, LaShawn
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
Tambourines to Glory by Langston Hughes
Hard Cold Winter by Glen Erik Hamilton
Finished by Claire Kent
This Duchess of Mine by Eloisa James
Sparrow's Release by Darke, Shiloh
Betrayed Countess (Books We Love Historical Romance) by Lewis, Diane Scott
Take It Farther by Mithras, Laran