Chapter
7 ‘Friends’ Page 25
Night was drawing on. Torches had been lit around the perimeter of
the pit. Tommy and the other workers
had been allowed to stop digging and rest.
After a dinner of berries and some other food Tommy didn’t recognize,
the workers settled down. Tommy’s head
was still giving him trouble. It seemed
as though one minute he would forget who or where he was and the next minute
everything would come back to him. It
was making for some pretty interesting, not to mention scary times for
him. The sudden attacks were happening
more and more frequently the longer he stayed in close proximity to the Great
Stone. He felt like it was slowly
destroying his mind.
The Nanosaurus laying near Tommy
wasn’t sleeping either. It was staring
at him. Tommy felt bad about the
dinosaur getting yelled at for something he had done. Maybe, he thought, he should try and apologize.
“Hi,” said Tommy. “I’m Tommy.
What’s your name?”
The dinosaur said nothing. It just continued to stare.
Tommy noticed it had the same
branding mark on its neck as he had on his cheek.
“Look” said Tommy. “I’m really sor--”
“Be quiet!” hissed the
dinosaur. “You’re going to get me in
trouble again. Leave me alone!”
“I’m sorry,” said Tommy
quickly. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Can’t you hear?” snapped the
Protoceratops lying next to the Nanosaurus.
“Leave us alone!”
The dinosaurs shuffled further away
from Tommy. They didn’t want to be near
him the next time he got into trouble.
Realizing the dinosaurs wanted
nothing to do with him, Tommy rolled over and stared at the wall. He was still pretty shaken by the incident
with the forbidden black crystal and had no idea why it had caused so much
trouble. He knew he had to find a way
out of here. There was no way he could
go through another day like today. His
body ached and he was so tired but still far too scared to fall asleep.
Tommy had a vague suspicion the
meteor had something to do with the dinosaurs ability to talk and the strange
magical powers they possessed, but he just wasn’t sure how.
He shifted on the cool hard
ground. He hadn’t been giving anything
to sleep on. Tommy felt something touch
his shoulder. He turned and saw the
face of Egbert the Oviraptor. Tommy was
glad to see him. He hadn’t been able to
thank him yet for saving his life.
Tommy pushed himself up on his elbows.
“Hi Egbert. Am I glad to see you.” he said.
“Egbert says hello to friend Tommy.”
The dinosaur laid down on the ground next to him.
“I never got a chance to thank you
for sticking up for me,” said Tommy.
“Egbert was glad to help his friend
but now Egbert has favor to ask of Tommy.”
“Sure,” said Tommy. “Ask away.
I owe you one.”
Egbert leaned close to Tommy and
whispered.
“Take Egbert with you.”