Feather Brain (11 page)

“Nothing?” I asked, not believing him. He must have some change in a piggy bank, at least. “C'mon, Kyle, we have to do this. I can't pay for it all.”

He muttered something.

“What?” I asked.

“I don't have any money,” he said, his voice tight. “I don't get an allowance, and I have NO money.”

I just sat there, staring. “No allowance?”

Kyle shook his head. “My dad doesn't make enough. He struggles just to pay rent and buy food. So no nice house, no computer, no allowance. Get it?” He sounded angry.

And then, finally, I got it. Now it was my turn to flush. I reached around the computer to turn on the printer so Kyle wouldn't see my face.

“Okay,” I said while I printed out the ad. “Let's count up what I have and then figure out how we can earn some more. Maybe Mom will pay us to dig the rest of the garden.”

Dad came home while we were logging out. He poked his head in to say hi and tried to hide his surprise that I wasn't alone. I heard him in the kitchen while we were walking up the stairs.

“Lucas has a friend over?”

“Mmm,” Mom answered. “They made a huge mess in the garden, killing off his new feathered dinosaur. It's the first time he's ever damaged one of his models. But they were having so much fun I just fed them more cookies.”

“See,” Dad said, “I told you he'd find a friend.”

I hurried Kyle up the stairs, hoping he hadn't heard any of it, but I could tell by the red on the back of his neck that he understood too much.

I emptied my piggy bank on my bed, and Kyle and I counted out my change. $17.32. I sighed and shook my head. “I guess we'll be digging,” I said.

As we left my room, I saw Kyle hesitate for just a moment and then stop to pick up the beast's bag.

“You can leave him here,” I said, hating every word I spoke.

Kyle shook his head. “No, I don't have any money, but I can do this.”

I followed him down the stairs, blinking. “Thanks, Kyle.”

We headed into the kitchen, where Mom and Dad were cooking dinner together. “Mom, Kyle and I need some money for dinosaur stuff. Would you pay us to dig the vegetable garden for you?”

I tried to sound excited about the possibility. She smiled down at me and ruffled my hair. “Sure. Just not as deep as your lake today, okay? I don't want any clay mixed in with my soil.” Then she turned to Kyle. “Do you want to stay for dinner, Kyle? Chicken stir-fry!”

Kyle looked surprised and then uncomfortable. “I'd like to, but my dad will be expecting me.”

“Another time, then,” Mom said with a smile.

Kyle nodded and smiled back, just a little. I knew he was thinking about getting home to cook dinner for his dad.

As he left, the bag over his shoulder, I told him to wait while I dashed into the garage. When I came back, I handed him an old pair of leather gloves. “Mom buys a new pair every year. Just watch out for the holes in the fingertips.”

Kyle and I worked every day after school. We dug the garden and helped Mom clean out the flower beds. When she saw how hard we were working, she let me order the kit on her credit card. “But it's coming to me, and I won't let you have it until you've paid me back, in full,” she warned.

Then she sent us out to turn the compost. When it rained, we cleaned the garage. We washed the van and then vacuumed and cleaned it inside. Every day she had a new job for us, and every day she marked off $5.00 for each of us against the loan.

On Friday, when Kyle and I got home from school, dreading our next job, Mom just smiled and handed us a package. “Look what arrived today!”

“We still owe you a little,” I said. My hands trembled as I held the box.

“I know. But you guys have really impressed me with how hard you've worked, so the last bit is my treat.”

I grinned. “Thanks, Mom! You have no idea how great this is!” Then Kyle and I raced each other up the stairs.

We sat on my bed and unwrapped the box. It was larger than the last one, like a medium-sized shoebox. It was wrapped in brown paper and thoroughly taped. We struggled with the tape; finally I grabbed some scissors and cut it. Then we set the box between us on the bed and looked at each other. Together, we lifted off the lid.

All we saw was scrunched-up paper. But when we pulled it out, we found a plastic spray bottle filled with a milky white liquid.

“What is this?” Kyle asked, holding it up to the window. It was so dense we couldn't see light through it at all, and yet it didn't seem that thick when we just looked into the bottle. When we tipped it, it moved like water.

I rummaged around under the rest of the scrunched-up paper and found an instruction sheet. I unfolded it and started to read out loud:

Dinosaur Too Lively?
What is alive will be still,
but only if sprayed, when alive,
by the creator/owner
.

We glanced at each other. “I'm the creator, and you're the owner, so I guess we both have to do it,” I said.

Kyle nodded. He took the sheet from me and continued reading:

Spray all parts.
Warning: It is essential not to spray
anything you want to be able to move.
Cover your skin
.

I could feel my eyes bugging out as I listened. Kyle suddenly looked pale.

“Are you sure we should do this?” I asked.

“Clarke, nothing else has worked,” he said. “I think we both have to do it, and no one else can help us
or he won't be alive when we spray him.” He gulped. “But I think we'd better do it very carefully!”

So Kyle and I collected gear. Long-sleeved shirts, pants, runners, bike helmets, gardening gloves, bandanas for our faces, ski goggles and a second spray bottle. We stuffed everything into a gym bag, told Mom we were going to Kyle's for a bit before dinner and headed to his house.

We put on our gear in Kyle's dingy kitchen. We helped each other tie on the bandanas, anchored them with the ski goggles and pulled up our collars to protect our necks. We looked silly, like four year olds pretending to be knights. We laughed at each other, but not very hard.

The trickiest bit was pouring half the solution into the second spray bottle. Kyle didn't have a funnel, so he just poured very, very carefully. He worked at the sink, with gloves on and Baggies over the gloves, but we still held our breath while he poured. Three drops crawled down the outside of the bottle. I carefully wiped them off with a paper towel and stuffed the paper towel into a garbage bag. Then we stood, looking at each other, neither of us wanting to start.

“We can do this,” I said, trying to sound brave.

“Sure we can,” said Kyle. “We can beat one weeny little dinosaur.”

I could tell from the look in his eyes that he didn't really think the beast was weeny, and neither did I, but we were both ready to pretend.

“Yeah,” I said. “We're much tougher than he is.” I took a deep breath and let out my best dinosaur roar.

Kyle looked shocked; then he grinned. “I can roar louder than that!” He threw back his head and let loose a thundering roar that echoed around the room. I joined in, the two of us sounding like rampaging dinosaurs. Then we heard an echoing cry from down the hall. We looked at each other, suddenly silent and weak-kneed.

We gave each other a final check, tucking sleeves into gloves and adjusting our bandanas; then we picked up our spray bottles and walked down the hall to Kyle's bedroom.

Kyle's room was disgusting. It smelled like rotting meat, and the floor was covered in dirty clothes and torn papers. I couldn't tell how much mess was normal and how much was from the beast. I could hear him banging in a bottom drawer.

“I figured a drawer would work almost as well as a closet,” Kyle whispered, “so I put food and water inside
it. The beast leaps around the room in a rage, and when he gets hungry he goes into the drawer. Then I slam it shut.”

I knelt by the drawer and held out my spray bottle. Kyle stood directly in front of the drawer, legs wide, mouth firm, spray bottle pointed at the drawer. Then he nodded.

Slowly, I opened the drawer, just a little. The beast screeched and clawed at the open edge. We both started squirting. It took a few pumps for my bottle to start to work. Then white spray flew from it. It hit the beast's claw as he groped for a way out of the drawer. We heard a slight hissing when the spray hit his foot; suddenly, the foot stopped. It just totally stopped, like it was frozen or something. The beast screamed and pulled his frozen foot back into the drawer.

Kyle and I glanced at each other, wondering what to do next. The beast screamed again and threw his body against the drawer. The drawer tipped open just enough for the beast to climb out, screeching and leaping on three legs.

We jumped back and took aim again. We started squeezing frantically, but he moved so fast he was
hard to hit. Kyle and I danced around the room, trying to keep out of his reach and spray the beast but not each other.

It was a good thing there were no plants in the room. Spray went everywhere. Whenever it hit something not alive, it was like spraying milk. But when the spray touched the beast, we could hear hissing.

I felt the spray hit my helmet, and I got Kyle in the back. But we were covered and the beast wasn't.

The beast leapt at my legs, and in his fury he climbed right up my pants. I jumped back in a panic and hit at him with the base of my spray bottle, trying to make him let go. Finally he dropped to the floor, shrieking, and gathered himself up for another leap. Kyle and I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed until we had no spray left and were pumping air.

It took us a few moments to realize we were both pumping uselessly. Gradually our hands slowed and stopped. We stared down at the beast. He looked like he was about to leap at us in fury, but he didn't move. We glanced at each other and leaned down for a better look. He still didn't move. Kyle touched the beast with his runner, the beast tipped over, like he was just a model again.

But he was a much better model than I had made. Much more lifelike. Much more ferocious-looking. And he still had a nasty gleam in his eye.

We kept glancing at him while we cleaned up. Kyle worried about all the spray in his room, but once it was dry, it didn't seem to do anything. We tested it—Kyle touched the very tip of one finger to a dry spot and then rubbed his finger. It was fine, but we both found spots that weren't. Kyle's right sleeve had slipped up his arm, and he had a numb patch just above his glove. And when Kyle had sprayed my helmet, some dripped onto the edge of my left ear. It left a little numb patch. I ran my finger up and down the edge of my ear, from feeling to numbness to feeling again.

Once we'd cleaned up everything, Kyle and I stood staring down at the beast. It felt like he was looking at us, even though we knew he wasn't. We could still feel his malevolence.

“What do we do with him?” I asked. “I don't want him!”

“Me neither! I could send him to my mom,” Kyle said with a nasty grin. “Let her live with him!”

I shuddered. “No, that's too mean,” I said. “Even when he is just a model.”

“So what do we do?”

“He's so nasty-looking, no one would want him,” I said, looking down at him. “Unless they really, really loved ferocious dinosaurs.”

“So who loves dinosaurs even more than you do?” Kyle asked.

“Well, no one,” I said. “No one I know of. Except—” I stood there, thinking.

“What?”

“Well, the Tyrrell Museum collects dinosaurs. And they must really, really love them. Maybe we could send him there.”

Kyle started to laugh. “And if he came back to life, they'd know just what to do!”

So we found a box, packed up the beast and mailed him to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Drumheller, Alberta. No return address.