The thing looked more like a lizard than a bird, with its long, toothed snout and longer tail. But it was feathered, and its forelimbs were definitely wings. Instead of taking off again, though, it paddled to the water’s edge and waddled up onto the shore, then turned to face the setting sun and spread its wings wide, as if in worship.
“It can’t fly again until it dries its wings,” Anya surmised.
“I wonder how it tastes,” I muttered back to her.
If the lizard-bird heard our voices or felt threatened by them, it gave no indication. It simply stood there on the shore of the gently lapping wavelets, drying its feathers and digesting its fish dinner.
Suddenly I realized that we could do the same. “How would you like to eat fish tonight?” I asked Anya.
She was sitting by a clump of bushes, feeding the little duckbill again. It seemed to eat all day long.
Without waiting for her to reply, I waded out into the shallow calm water, turning hot pink in the last rays of the dying sun. The lizard-bird clacked its beak at me and waddled a few paces away. It took only a few minutes for me to spear two fish. I felt happy with the change in our diet.
Anya had spent the time gathering more shrubs for our baby duckbill to nibble. And a handful of berries. The dinosaur ate them with seeming relish.
“If they don’t hurt him, perhaps we can eat them, too,” she said as I started the fire.
“Maybe,” I acknowledged. “I’ll sample one and see how it affects—”
The duckbill suddenly emitted a high-pitched whistle and scooted to Anya’s side. I scrambled to my feet and stared into the gathering darkness of the woods that lined the lakeshore. Sure enough, I heard a crashing, crunching sound.
“Something heading our way,” I whispered urgently to Anya. “Something big.”
There was no time to douse the fire. We were too far from the edge of the trees to get to them safely. Besides, that was where the danger seemed to be coming from.
“Into the water,” I said, starting for the lake.
Anya stopped to pick up the duckbill. It was as motionless as a statue, yet still a heavy armful. I grabbed it from her and, tucking its inert body under one arm, led Anya out splashing into the lake.
We dove into the water as soon as we could, me holding the duckbill up so it could breathe. It wiggled slightly, but apparently had no fear of the water. Or perhaps it was more terrified of whatever was heading our way from the woods. The lake water was tepid, too warm to be refreshing, almost like swimming in lukewarm bouillon.
We went out deep enough so that only our heads showed above the surface. The duckbill crawled onto my shoulder with only a little coaxing and I held him there with one arm, treading water with Anya beside me, close enough to grasp if I had to.
The woods were deeply shadowed now. The trees seemed to part like a curtain and a towering, terrifying tyrannosaur stepped out, his scaly hide a lurid red in the waning sunset.
The tyrant took a few ponderous steps toward our campfire, seemed to look around, then gazed out onto the water of the lake. I realized with a sinking heart that if it saw us and wanted to reach us, it had merely to wade out and grab us in those monstrous serrated teeth. The water that was deep enough for us to swim in would hardly come up to its hocks.
Sure enough, the tyrannosaur marched straight to the water’s edge. Then it hesitated, looking ridiculously like a wrinkled old lady afraid of getting her feet wet.
I held my breath. The tyrannosaur seemed to look straight at me. The trembling package of frightened duckbill on my shoulder made no sound. The world seemed to stand still for an eternally long moment. Not even the lapping waves seemed to make a noise.
Then the tyrannosaur gave an enormous huffing sigh, like a blast from a blacksmith’s forge, and turned away from the lake. It stamped back into the woods and disappeared.