Rexik, Trika and the Longest Neck

One morning a guest came to Fern Valley, so tall that at first Rexik thought a tree was walking down to the river.

Boom… boom… went her feet. Her neck stretched up like a tree trunk, and her little head swayed way up under the clouds. Her skin was sandy with green spots, as if someone had sprinkled her with leaves.

“That’s Alya! She’s an alamosaurus!” Quetza shouted from the sky. “She came from the south, she’s going to live here now, and she’s very polite, and I found out about her first, because I’m the postwoman! And I’m not a dinosaur, I’m a flying reptile!”

Quetza landed on a branch of the tall magnolia and began sorting her letters. Just then Alya was passing under the magnolia. Quetza flapped her wings hello so hard that leaves came showering down from the branches.

“Oh, something tickles,” Alya laughed, and gave her shoulders a shrug. “A leaf must have fallen.”

And she walked on, down to the river, where nearly the whole valley had already gathered.

“Alya, what’s over the hill?” Rexik called.

Alya lifted her head even higher.

“Granny Anki is dozing there. A flower has bloomed on her back.”

“And across the river?”

“Your dad is fishing there. And I think he’s singing.”

Everyone listened. And sure enough, an off-key “La-la-la-a-a!” floated over from across the river. Aunt Frilla laughed so loudly that the birds flew out of a bush.

“Alamosaurs are some of the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived,” she said. “From nose to tail, Alya is longer than two of Rexik’s dads!”

“Ooooh,” everyone breathed.

Everyone except Trika. Trika stamped her foot.

“So what if she can see far!” she snorted. “I can find anything faster than anybody. Because I run!”

“Trika, maybe we shouldn’t…?” Rexik whispered.

“Don’t worry, Mister Maybe-Not,” she said with a wave.

Just then — whoosh-whoosh! — Quetza flopped down on the riverbank. Crest up, wings sticking out every which way.

“Trouble! Trouble-trouble-trouble! My pouch is gone! And it has letters for the whole valley in it! For Uncle Horn, for Granny Anki, for your mom, Trika, and one more, a very important one, only I forgot who it’s for!”

“I’ll find it!” cried Trika. She turned to Alya and lowered her horns. “Let’s bet! Whoever finds the pouch first is the best finder in the valley. And whoever loses has to say so out loud, in front of everyone.”

Alya blinked down at her in surprise.

“Well… all right,” she said.

“Oh, my girl,” said Aunt Frilla, shaking her head, and for some reason she smiled.

Alya raised her head above the trees and slowly swung it this way and that.

“I see the river,” she said. “I see a nest on the cliff. I see Uncle Horn and Rexik’s Dad arguing about which of them roars louder… I don’t see the pouch.”

But Trika was already racing off. Hop over a rock! Zip under a fern! Crash into the cycads! Splash into the stream, spraying water up to the sky!

“Found it!” came a shout from the bushes. “Oh, no. It’s a pine cone.”

Rexik didn’t run. He walked slowly and looked at the ground, because there’s always something on the ground: a pebble, a footprint, a little feather.

By the path, a leaf hung on a fern. An ordinary green leaf, only it was covered all over with tiny scratched lines.

“Quetza,” Rexik called, “is this yours?”

Quetza flew over and gasped.

“It’s mine! The letter for Uncle Horn! That means the pouch is somewhere close!”

A bit farther on, another letter was caught on a bush. And farther still, one hung on a branch, higher than Rexik’s head. Rexik stopped and frowned. The letters weren’t lying just anywhere. They were lying next to big round footprints. Footprints so big that Rexik could have sat down in any one of them, like in a little hollow.

“The letters are falling from above,” Rexik said to himself. “From way, way up high. So who walked around here today, up that high?”

He followed the footprints. They led across the meadow straight to… Alya. Alya was standing in the middle of the grass, stretching her neck all the way to the forest and squinting.

Rexik hesitated. Maybe he shouldn’t? They might think he was making it up.

Just then — whoosh! — a letter fluttered down from above and slapped him right on the nose.

Rexik tipped his head back. High on Alya’s back, between her shoulders, a pouch made of leaves was swinging. Its strap had caught on a bump on her skin and was holding on tight, tight, tight.

“Alya,” Rexik called. “It’s on your back!”

“Where?” Alya twisted her neck to the left. Nothing. To the right. Nothing. “I can see the whole valley all the way to the hill,” she said, puzzled, “but I can’t see my own back!”

“The magnolia!” squealed Quetza. “I waved to you, and the strap went — snag! And I didn’t even notice! And you even said, ‘Something tickles’!”

She flew up onto Alya’s back and carefully unhooked the pouch.

Out of the bushes burst Trika, soaking wet, muddy, with a pine cone stuck on her horn.

“I almost…” she began, and stopped.

Everyone was looking at her. At the pouch Quetza was holding. At Alya, who was still trying to look over her own shoulder.

“So who won?” asked Aunt Frilla, and her eyes were laughing.

Trika opened her mouth. She could have said, “It doesn’t count! Rexik wasn’t even in the bet!” She could have said, “The pouch was on Alya, that’s not fair!” Trika stood there for a moment and scraped the ground with her foot. And then she said, loudly, so the whole valley could hear:

“I lost. I ran faster than everybody, and all I found was a pine cone. The best finder in the valley isn’t me.”

Her yellow frill even turned a little pink.

Aunt Frilla laughed so loudly that all the birds flew out of the magnolia at once.

“Mo-o-om!” groaned Trika.

But you can’t take back what you’ve said, and Trika knew it.

Meanwhile Quetza was rummaging in her pouch.

“And this letter, Rexik, the one that fell on your nose, you can keep it. I wrote it to myself. Do you know what it says? ‘Quetza, don’t lose your pouch!’”

Everyone laughed. Even Trika, a tiny bit.

That evening Rexik came home holding the scratched leaf in his hands.

“I heard, I heard,” said Mom before he could even open his mouth. “Trika lost, and the pouch rode around on Alya all day.”

“How do you know?”

“Mom’s ears hear everything.”

“When I was your size,” Dad rumbled, “I found a pouch on the back of the biggest… the biggest…”

“The biggest cloud,” Mom finished for him. “I’ve heard this one.”

Rexik put the leaf on his shelf, between the striped pebble, the dry leaf and the letter with three words. Then he snuggled down in his nest and closed his eyes.

From up high you can see the whole valley, he thought. But some things you can only see from down low.