Rexik, Trika and the Dads' Contest

In the night, rain thundered in the mountains above Fern Valley. Only a few drops made it down to the valley, and by morning everything was steaming.

Rexik sat on the bank of the stream, looking for his treasure of the day. The stream was strange today: brown and muddy, and instead of babbling it grumbled, as if it were cross. A twig floated past Rexik, whoosh, and it was gone.

“Mom, why is the stream so fast?” asked Rexik.

Mom lifted her head and listened. The necklace of shells around her neck gave a soft jingle.

“Because it rained in the mountains,” she said. “Mom’s ears hear everything. Even what the stream says.”

Just then, through the ferns, pitter-patter-pitter-patter, came Trika running. Behind her, taking their time, walked her mom and dad: cheerful Aunt Frilla and stern Uncle Horn.

“Rexik!” called Trika. “Let’s go jump over the stream!”

Rexik looked at the muddy water.

“Maybe we shouldn’t? It’s cross today.”

“Oh, you Mister Maybe-Not!” Trika laughed.

Then Rexik’s Dad stepped out from behind the trees, stretched, and roared across the whole valley:

“GOOD MORNING!”

Uncle Horn jumped and, just in case, lowered his horns.

“Why are you roaring like that?”

“Oh, that was a quiet one,” Dad laughed. “When I was your size… I mean, Rexik’s size, I roared so loud that clouds fell out of the sky.”

“Clouds don’t fall,” grumbled Uncle Horn. “Anyway, I can roar louder.”

“You? Louder than a tyrannosaurus?”

“Louder. And stronger!”

Aunt Frilla snorted with laughter so loudly that dragonflies flew up out of the ferns. Rexik’s Mom didn’t say a word. She looked for a long, long time at the brown stream, and then whispered to Frilla:

“Come on, Frilla dear, let’s have a contest too. Only a quiet one.”

Frilla looked at the stream as well, and all at once she stopped laughing.

The dads found a judge quickly. Along the path came Granny Anki, an old ankylosaurus in a greenish-brown shell. A flower grew on her back: Granny walked so slowly that the flower had time to grow.

“Granny Anki!” called Dad. “Be our judge! Who will roar the loudest?”

“Who will snore the loudest?” Granny asked again. “Well, go ahead and snore, sonnies, snore away.”

“RO-AR!”

“Ah, roar. Well, go on and roar. Only not too much, because my grandchildren are still asleep in their eggs, right over there on the low bank.”

Dad drew in a chest full of air:

“R-R-R-R-R!”

Uncle Horn dug his feet into the ground:

“MOO-OO-OO-OH-OH-OH!”

Leaves rained down from the trees. Triceratopses came running and ankylosauruses came crawling from the neighboring glades: what was going on? Soon the whole valley had gathered around the dads.

“A tie,” announced Granny Anki. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

Then the dads started pushing a boulder. Rexik’s Dad pushed it with his side, and the boulder rolled all the way to a bush. Uncle Horn pushed it with his horns, and the boulder rolled even farther.

“Aha!” cried Uncle Horn happily.

“Whoever pushed it closer wins,” said Granny. “And the winner is… this one, the ginger one.”

“Whoever pushed it FARTHER!” shouted both dads.

Granny turned around to hear better, and her clubbed tail, WHAM, sent the boulder flying into the bushes. Nobody ever saw it again.

Rexik laughed along with everyone, and then he looked around. Mom was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Aunt Frilla.

“Trika, where are our moms?”

“Probably went to get some ferns,” said Trika, waving it away. “Look, look, the funniest part is coming!”

Rexik looked down. Tracks ran across the wet ground: Mom’s, with three long toes, and Frilla’s, wide and round. And next to them, long furrows, as if someone had rolled something heavy. The tracks led down to the low bank.

Meanwhile the dads thought up a third contest: who could stand on one leg the longest. Rexik’s Dad lifted a foot and wobbled. Uncle Horn thought for a long time, because a triceratops has four legs and it wasn’t clear how many to lift. At last he lifted three, and wobbled even harder.

To keep from falling, Dad started to sing. He sang so out of tune that even Granny Anki heard it and winced.

“Whoever stands longest on his head,” she announced, “wins…”

“On ONE LEG!”

Rexik wasn’t laughing anymore. He was listening. The stream grumbled now not where it had that morning, but farther down, where the low bank was.

“Trika,” he whispered. “The stream is heading for Granny Anki’s grandchildren.”

Trika spun around at once.

“I do first and think later!” And she raced off along the tracks.

“Maybe we shouldn’t?..” squeaked Rexik. But he was already running after her.

On the low bank the water had climbed out of its bed and was creeping over the sand. And on the sand, in warm little hollows, lay the eggs. Dinosaurs didn’t carry their eggs around; they laid them right in the ground, in hollows, and covered them with sand and leaves to keep them warm. Cold water would chill a nest like that in no time.

But between the water and the nests a dam of stones and logs was already standing. Rexik’s Mom was rolling one more big rock. Her necklace was splattered with mud. Aunt Frilla was holding up a log with her head and puffing. Neither of them roared or competed. They just worked, and the water, grumbling, turned into the old dry bed, away from the nests.

“I’ll help!” called Trika, and she pulled a stone right out from under the dam.

Sh-sh-sh! Water spurted through the gap.

“Oh…” Trika froze. “I didn’t think.”

“Put it back, dear,” said Aunt Frilla calmly.

Trika put the stone back and blushed all the way up to her frill.

But Rexik was watching carefully. Under the biggest log, where nobody had looked, glug-glug, bubbles were rising. A thin little trickle was sneaking toward the nests.

“Mom! There, under the log, a hole!”

Mom pushed over a flat boulder, Aunt Frilla pressed it in place with her head, and Rexik and Trika stuffed the gaps with pebbles and mud. The water gurgled and grumbled, and then it went off into the old bed. The nests stayed dry and warm.

“Now that’s a contest!” Aunt Frilla roared with laughter across the whole bank. “Who can roll the most stones!”

“I heard this morning that the stream wasn’t grumbling for nothing,” Mom smiled.

Rexik bent down to the mud. A pebble lay there, with a little hole worn right through it, probably by a hundred years of water. Treasure of the day.

When they came back to the glade, the dads were still standing on one leg. Or rather, Dad was on one, and Uncle Horn on one of four. Both wobbled like ferns in the wind, and the whole valley was watching.

“Granny!” Rexik shouted with all his might. “The moms dammed the stream! Your grandchildren are dry!”

“What, what?” Granny Anki lifted her head. “Who rolled the most stones? Well, you should have said so at once!”

She thought for a moment and then announced:

“The moms win! They rolled the most stones, and they were the ones you could hear the least!”

The dads looked at each other. Rexik’s Dad put his foot down, Uncle Horn put down his three, thump! thump! and both of them sat down in a puddle.

“We lost,” said Dad.

“Both of us,” said Uncle Horn. And for the first time he laughed next to a tyrannosaurus, so hard that his chipped horn shook.

In the evening Rexik put the pebble with the hole on his shelf, next to his other treasures, and snuggled into his nest.

“When I was your size,” Dad began, “I dammed a whole river all by myself. With just my tail!”

“I’ve heard that one,” Mom smiled. “Yesterday you jumped over that river in one leap.”

Rexik looked through the hole in the pebble at Mom, then at Dad, and closed his eyes. Far away the stream was grumbling, now over where the moms had turned it.