Rexik and Quetza the Postwoman

At breakfast yesterday, Mom said:

“Tomorrow is a special day, sweetheart.”

“Uh-huh,” Rexik nodded. He was busy turning a pebble with a golden vein over and over in his claws, and he didn’t hear the rest. He nodded, and he forgot.

And this morning, a shadow fell over the nest. A great big enormous shadow, so big that the whole clearing turned grey.

Whoosh! Down onto the grass landed Quetza, the valley’s postwoman. Grey-blue wings, a long beak, a crest on her head and a little pouch of leaves over her shoulder.

“Good morning, Rexik! Oh, I flew and I flew! Wind over the river, wind over the cliffs, and I didn’t mind one bit. Look at these wings! I’m the biggest flying animal that ever lived, did you know?”

“I knew,” said Rexik. Quetza said it every morning.

“And don’t you say I’m a dinosaur!”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“I’m a flying reptile!” Quetza dipped her beak into her pouch. “Here. A letter for you.”

It was a broad green leaf. Someone had scratched three words on it. Rexik looked closer: every line was doubled, as if it had been scratched with two claws at once.

“What does it say?” he asked. Rexik couldn’t read yet.

Quetza squinted.

“‘Stone. Fern. River.’ No, wait… ‘Fern. River. Stone.’ Or the other way round? Oh, these words are so wriggly, they just won’t stay put!”

“Who’s it from?”

“That’s a postwoman’s secret!” For some reason, Quetza gave a little snort into her beak.

Rexik looked around. Mom and Dad weren’t home: they had gone off somewhere before dawn. A letter with no name. An empty nest. Three strange words.

“What if something’s wrong?” whispered Rexik.

Stomp-stomp-stomp! Trika burst into the clearing, horns first.

“What letter? Who’s it from? Where are we going?”

“River. Stone. Fern,” Quetza read out happily.

“The river’s closest!” cried Trika. “Let’s run!”

“Maybe we shouldn’t?” asked Rexik. “Maybe we should think first?”

“I do first and think later! Come on, Mister Maybe-Not!”

Rexik sighed, picked up the leaf and trudged after her.

Quetza flew above them, chattering nonstop: about a cloud shaped like a fish, about the wind tickling her wings, about Granny Anki, who had got the very same letter twice yesterday.

Trika charged straight into the river. Splash! Spray flew all the way up to the sky, and little fish darted every which way.

“Nobody here!” she shouted, wet from her horns to her tail. “No trouble, no letters!”

“That’s because you splashed all the water out,” said Rexik.

But he wasn’t looking at the water. He was looking at the sand. There were footprints there: big, deep, three-toed ones. And next to them another set, a little smaller. Both trails led from the river straight into the ferns.

“Someone walked here,” Rexik said quietly. “Someone big.”

His tail began to tremble.

“Even better!” Trika climbed onto the bank and shook herself so hard that she soaked Rexik from head to toe. “Oops. Sorry. I was in a bit of a hurry.”

Quetza stepped into the grass by the water, snap went her beak, gulp! And she swallowed a frog whole.

“Don’t you even chew?” asked Trika in surprise.

“With what?” laughed Quetza, opening her beak wide. “I haven’t got a single tooth! And who needs teeth with a beak like this? Right, we’ve found the river. Now… the fern. Or the stone? Oh, you’ll work it out yourselves!”

The ferns were tall, taller than Rexik, and they rustled: swish-swish. The footprints dived in among them and disappeared.

In the middle of the path sat Granny Anki, slowly chewing a leaf. A flower swayed on her shell.

“Granny Anki!” called Trika. “Has someone big passed this way?”

“Who’s hatched?” asked Granny. “Nobody’s hatched! I don’t know anything, nobody told me anything!”

Rexik and Trika looked at each other.

“BIG!” Trika repeated as loudly as she could. “Someone BIG!”

“Oh, big!” Granny said happily. “The Big Stone is over there.”

And she swung her tail. Her club tail went thump! and three ferns fell flat. Behind them a path opened up, and at the end of the path stood the grey Big Stone.

It was quiet by the stone. Very quiet.

“Maybe we shouldn’t?” whispered Rexik.

But Trika was already running. Rexik gulped. He couldn’t let her go alone! And he stomped after her.

Then, from behind the stone, came a mighty roar:

“Ha-a-appy Ha-a-atch Da-a-ay!”

It was so out of tune that every midge flew out of the ferns. It was Dad singing, huge, with bushy brows. Beside him Uncle Horn roared even louder, so that Dad wouldn’t outsing him, and Aunt Frilla laughed so hard that her frill shook. And Mom stood beside a pile of fresh fish and a pile of juicy ferns, smiling.

“Hatch Day?” said Rexik, puzzled. “Whose?”

“Yours, sweetheart,” said Mom. “I told you yesterday: tomorrow is a special day.”

“I forgot…”

“I know. You said ‘uh-huh’. But Mom’s ears hear everything, even ‘uh-huh’.”

Whoosh! Down from above, Quetza landed on the stone.

“I mixed up the words on purpose! To make a real riddle! Oh, it was so hard to keep quiet, I nearly burst!”

Rexik looked at the leaf. Double lines. Two claws, just like every tyrannosaur has on each little hand.

“So it was you who wrote it, Mom!”

Mom winked.

“I knew right away it wasn’t trouble,” Trika announced.

“You said ‘let’s run’!”

“Well, yes. And I ran.”

“When I was your size,” Dad boomed, “the quetzalcoatluses brought me a whole river for my Hatch Day.”

“A whole river?” snorted Uncle Horn. “I got two.”

Aunt Frilla laughed loudest of all, and Quetza was already taking off: she had to tell the whole valley about this!

That evening, Rexik put the leaf on his shelf, next to the pebble with the golden vein. The three words sat quietly on it, each in its own place.

Then he snuggled into his nest of ferns and yawned.

“So,” whispered Mom, “will you remember your special day next time?”

“Uh-huh,” mumbled Rexik.

Mom laughed softly:

“I’ve heard that ‘uh-huh’ before.”