Dinosaur Stakeout by Judith Silverthorne Page A

bushes, and ferns grew along the water’s ­edge.
    Luckily, they hadn’t landed right in the water. Unfortunately, though, their feet were stuck in gooey mud. Dr. Roost stood rooted in the soft mud as if held there by hardened cement. When Daniel tried to lift a sneaker, he had to pull hard against the sucking sludge. His movements roused Dr. Roost, who wrestled herself free with her cane, now firmly gripped in her right ­hand.
    Gradually, they moved farther onto the beach, steadying each other. They scraped the muck off their shoes, but not before some had oozed inside and got on their socks and pant legs. Mildred Roost didn’t even seem to notice the discomfort as she observed their ­environ-ment.
    “Bloody amazing!” Her quiet words were full of ­wonder.
    Sudden, piercing sounds penetrated the air from the depths of the dark forest in front of them. The first light of dawn sent shadows over the beachfront from a single lofty pine close ­by.
    “Daniel, look!” Dr. Roost pointed to a Basilemys , one of the largest turtles known from the period. “It must be a metre and a half long and a metre across.”
    As they watched, the creature poked its neck farther out of its thick shell, raised its head, and squinted at them with tiny eyes. Its fat, tubular legs lay flat to the ground with ­flapper-­like feet on the ends that presumably pushed the mud as it plodded ­along.
    “Graviportal legs, just like some turtles today,” observed Dr. Roost. Then she explained. “They can’t move their wrists and ankles, because the heavy shell restricts their limbs from ever becoming vertical.”
    “That’s why they move so slowly, I guess,” Daniel said. “That shell is as thick as my fist!” He studied its hard covering, marvelling at the distinctive patterns etched into it, as it turned and lumbered along the shore away from ­them.
    Towards the water’s edge on a low branch of a gingko tree, a large ­gull-­like bird groomed its multicoloured feathers with its long, ­tooth-­filled beak. Suddenly, it flew off and snapped up a giant green beetle scuttling along the ­mud.
    Mildred Roost grasped her hands together in excitement. “I can hardly believe this is real,” she said softly, so as not to attract attention to ­them.
    Around a distant point of the shoreline, some kind of creatures unfamiliar to Daniel roamed. He pointed them out to Dr. Roost, as they ripped at aquatic plants. In between their long necks and ­whip-­like tails, their bodies were protected by bony plates. They had four ­stump-­like legs, long skulls with large ear openings, and wide snouts for gobbling ­plants.
    “If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were seeing Quaesitosaurus ,” Mildred Roost spoke quietly beside him. “But they lived much earlier and only in Mongolia, so these must be some kind of related species.”
    Daniel eyed the large creatures warily, and then he noticed a flock of large shorebirds on the ­beach.
    “ Cimolopteryx, I think,” Daniel ­pointed.
    “Remarkable!” said Dr. Roost. “Remains have only been found as close as Wyoming up until now.”
    They watched the colourful prehistoric birds use their long, slender bills to probe in the mud for food. Occasionally one waded into the water and then dove after its prey, running rapidly on long, strong legs. They took no notice of the ­humans.
    As Daniel surveyed the environment, he reflected on the strangeness of being in a place where almost all the animals were unfamiliar. There were no cows, horses, cats, or dogs. All of those would come many millions of years later. How amazing to be standing there watching creatures that were extinct in his own time! Their world had to disappear for his world to evolve into what it was ­today.
    He looked in the other direction, further down the seaside, where two creatures about the size of an ostrich were drinking in the shallows. They had ­five-­fingered hands on small arms, and ­four-­toed feet at the back.