grey beast shifted from side to side, the concrete of the pool popping and cracking, then it slowly lifted its long neck, raising its head from the muck. It had a lizard-like face, a wide mouth and huge, moist eyes with long lashes. Its grey skin lay in folds like an elephant’s, but it certainly wasn’t an elephant. Willa felt a wild, insane excitement, and actually laughed out loud. Just when she thought this place couldn’t get any weirder, there turned out to be a dinosaur in the swimming pool.
Chapter Nine
Wearier and wearier, Willa solves a mystery
As they stared at it in shock, the dinosaur swung its drooping head back and forth, taking in the entire scene with sleepy eyes. It didn’t seem dangerous. Willa devoutly hoped it was a herbivore. Then the beast spotted the bird up on the balcony and slowly lifted its head, coughing wheezily. When it finally reached the third floor, the dinosaur squinted briefly at the bird. Then its eyes rolled back in its head and it flopped to the ground with a terrific crash.
Willa stared in shock. Had the only dinosaur alive in the whole world just died in front of her? They approached cautiously. Horace gingerly put a hand on its neck and announced it still had a pulse. He guessed it had simply fainted.
Willa’s next big problem was how to keep a full-sized dinosaur out of sight of the neighbours. The bushes provided only partial cover, so Willa dashed to the hardware store for enormous blue tarps and several long poles. Tengu helped her fashion a large tent over the pool, and they worked quickly in the heat and humidity while Horace sat and watched.
The dinosaur came to as they worked and watched them calmly. Its long lashes convinced Willa it was a she, and she began calling her Dinah. Willa was concerned about Dinah’s health, since she didn’t seem to be able to climb out of the pool. Horace speculated she’d been immobile in the pool for a good long while and this had probably caused her legs to weaken. Willa asked how she could have got there, and where was she before, and how old was she anyway? At this Horace got all vague again, talking about different kinds of time and something called a time talisman, and “rips in the fabric of time,” until Willa simply gave up asking questions.
However Dinah had gotten in the pool, she’d been there a while, and Horace maintained that her legs may have become “vestigial,” or permanently useless. Willa hoped not. She hoped beyond hope that she could see Dinah walking around like she would have done millions of years ago. But they’d have to work up to that and allow her to regain her strength. She did not look at all well at the moment, sniffling and wheezing, but hopefully time and rest would put her right.
Luckily they got the tent up before the Hacketts returned home late that afternoon. It blocked the entire pool area from their view, though it wasn’t tall enough to cover Dinah if she was ever able to stand up. Predictably, Mr. Hackett appeared on his back step, squinting over at the tent and shaking his head in irritation. And Mrs. Hackett squawked out the kitchen window that the thing was a “terrible eyesore,” but Willa knew there was nothing much they could do about it.
That evening Willa sat at the dining room table, surrounded by library books about dinosaurs. Curiosity drew the others to the table.
Robert peered over Willa’s shoulder. “What is she, exactly?”
“I think she’s a Diplodocus,” Willa announced. Dinah wasn’t exactly like the pictures in the book, not as big for one thing, but it was the closest match she could find. “She’s a plant eater.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” muttered Belle, squinting at the page. “She’s got the same tiny head as the picture. Not much room for a brain in there.”
“All the dinosaurs had small brains. Dinah’s neck is so long that if her head was any bigger, she wouldn’t be able to lift it at all,” answered Willa. “As it is she can really only hold her neck horizontally. She can’t lift it up vertically.”
“Why not?” asked Tengu.
“Her heart isn’t big enough to pump blood all the way up to her head if she did. That’s probably why she fainted when she did try to lift her head up.” She turned back to the book and read on. “Some scientists think that to lift their heads up high dinosaurs like these would have to have a second heart in their neck to do the job....”
“That is the silliest thing I ever heard. No wonder the poor bastards died out,” grumbled Robert.
“Not all of them did,” grinned Willa.
The dinosaur lifted everyone’s mood for a few days. Forgetting their exhaustion and cloudy sleep, the old folks chatted endlessly about the beast. They speculated on her history and how she had survived for so long. Horace said she must have stayed alive by drinking the green muck growing in the rainwater which collected in the low area around the pool. But since her food intake was so reduced, she had slipped into a kind of hibernation. A long, long hibernation.
As the next few days slipped by, Dinah showed no signs of wanting to climb out of the pool, preferring to sleep away her days. The novelty of their new pet abated and everyone fell back into a tired funk. Willa was left with the chore of piling up as much greenery — garden clippings, leaves, kitchen food waste — as she could find for Dinah. The dinosaur’s appetite was on the rise since waking. Willa had to spend a couple of hours every day pruning the huge garden and tossing the clippings into a heap. Then she’d give Dinah’s back a scratch with the garden rake. Dinah would slowly lift her head, snuffling and blinking her long-lashed cow-eyes. She’d nod a few times as she looked around, slowly zeroing in on Willa and the pile of branches, then she’d move in and gulp it all down in a few seconds.
The rest of the time she grazed on whatever she could reach, stripping leaves and bark from branches with alarming efficiency. Willa worried about her devouring all the greenery which kept her shielded from prying Hackett eyes. She also worried about Dinah’s long neck. She hoped the books were right about her not being able to lift her head, because that meant she wouldn’t be able to peek over the fence ... Willa didn’t even want to think about the hysteria that would certainly follow that! As it was she could see that keeping Dinah much longer in their backyard was impossible.
“What’ll we do with her?” she asked the others, but they were slipping back into sleepy apathy. A shrug from Baz, silence from Horace, a derisive snort from Robert. Only Belle came up with a remotely useful idea.
“She’s from the water, isn’t she? Throw her in the ocean. Let her fend for herself.”
“Fine,” countered Willa. “But how do we get a sixty-foot dinosaur from our backyard to the seashore without anyone seeing?”
Nobody had an answer for that one. Nobody had much of an answer for anything anymore. Exhaustion levels were rising higher and higher. Horace fell asleep face down in his books. Belle stared into space, her eyes glazed over. Baz didn’t cook at all anymore but slept for most of the day, curled up on the carpet in the parlour. Willa had to do everything herself now, making sandwiches and tea for them all, piling up brush for the dinosaur, and cleaning up after everyone. They were constantly spilling things, dropping things, and breaking things by dozing off at inopportune moments. Willa did her best to keep up with the work, when all she wanted to do was go to sleep herself.
One afternoon, a few days after the discovery of Dinah, Willa took a break from her chores to collapse into an armchair in the parlour. She rubbed her eyes and stared dully at the doll’s house. She could hear Mab humming cheerfully in there, clicking away with her knitting needles. Mab alone seemed immune to the weariness of the household. She kept to herself but buzzed around with her usual energy.
