You’re not supposed to throw rocks at triceratops’ heads, but I did anyway. Can you blame me? They basically have shields on their foreheads, they can take it. It’s not like I have an extra-hard head that I can defend myself with. Instead, I have to be pushed around by Gork everyday on the way home from Hunting and Gathering school.
Oh, I’ve talked to my teacher about it. Ms. Splert knows about Gork, but she doesn’t do anything. Why? She loves him. He’s the biggest and strongest in class (probably because he’s been held back a few grades, but that’s another story), so why wouldn’t our teacher love him more than the rest of us?
Erg knows what I’m talking about. He’s smaller than I am, and a little dopier, but I wouldn’t tell him that—he’s my best friend. Last week, when Erg and I were walking back to our community cave, Gork came out of nowhere and threw a branch at my head. I ducked, and I would have told Erg to duck if the branch hadn’t hit him already. If it wasn’t for the thick braids in Erg’s hair, that branch would have stuck him through, and I would have lost my best friend forever.
I told my dad about it, but he just grunted something I couldn’t understand. Dad is from the old country and he doesn’t talk so good. Mom looked after him once he emigrated here, and she loved him for the way he is. Luckily for me, she translates for him.
“Your father says you just have to stand up to that bully,” she told me.
“How do you know he said that?” I asked. “All he does is grunt all the time!”
“Because I know, dear. Now, listen to your father.”
“Oog! Rugga, ra!” says my dad, folding his arms.
“He says off to bed,” my mother says.
“Yeah, I heard him,” I say, kicking at some loose stones on the way to my straw mat.
“Oog!” says Dad.
“And wipe your teeth clean!”
“I know!” I mutter something under my breath because my dad has bat-hearing in our cave. For a guy that doesn’t speak our language, he’s got a lot to say, that’s for sure.
The next day, I meet up with Erg before setting off for Hunting and Gathering school.
“Hey Stone-heads!” Gork shouts across the tall grass.
“Should we run?” asks Erg.
“No, he’ll just take it out on us in class anyway,” I say. “Let’s just get it over with.”
Gork runs over to us. “You guys want to see something cool?”
Erg and I exchange looks. “Us?”
“Yes, you. C’mon, stone-heads. This way.”
Uneasily, we follow Gork into the trees nearby. We push past some thrush and leaves and then we hear it.
“Sounds like someone moaning,” says Erg.
“Quiet or you’ll chase it away!” shushes Gork.
On tiptoes, we inch towards a clearing where the moaning is as loud as ever. I get on my stomach and peak through the tall grass. My heart clenches. “We have to go. We have to go RIGHT NOW!”
“What’s the matter?” asks Erg. He peaks through the leaves. “Yup, let’s go!”
Gork grabs our hair and keeps us in place. “Would you wusses stop crying! It’s just a baby one. And it looks hurt, so it’s harmless.”
My legs are shaking, but I pull down the great green leaf in front of me for another look. Sure enough, in the middle of the clearing is a baby T-Rex no bigger than Erg. It’s on its side, clawing at its right ankle that’s bleeding and probably broken.
“Do you think something bit it?” asks Erg.
“Don’t know,” says Gork. “All I know is this is my chance.”
Erg and I look at Gork. “You don’t mean,” I say in a hush.
Gork looks around and grabs a branch, breaking it off a nearby tree. He plucks small leaves and twigs along the length, forming a makeshift spear. “You guys keep a lookout. If that thing’s momma is around, shout or something.”
“Why, so it can chase us instead?” asks Erg.
Gork smiles and proceeds stealthily out into the clearing.
Erg mutters something under his breath, the kind of stuff that Ms. Splert would make us stay after school and carve into our stone tablets to never say again. “What are we going to do? We can’t let him kill it!”
I’m shocked at Erg. “Why not?”
“Why?” Erg spits. “Because it’s a baby that’s hurt, that’s why!”
“But it’s a T-Rex,” I say. “If we were the ones that were hurt, it would eat us.”
“That’s different,” says Erg.
“How?”
“Because we know better than it does,” says Erg. “And it’s our job to take care of things that don’t know any better.”
I look down, something heavy and sad coming over me. “You saw me throwing stones at that triceratops, didn’t you?”
Erg doesn’t say either way, but the way he turns from me says he saw.
“Ok,” I say at last, “what’s the plan?”
We peak through the leaves. Gork is walking as silently as the wind, but the baby T-Rex is sniffing the air, knowing someone is near. Another step and Gork will be able to stab the T-Rex through.
Thinking, I pick up a branch on the ground. “How hard do you think Gork’s head is?”
Erg smiles. “Oh, only of the hardest quality.”
Gork lifts his sharpened branch, ready to strike. The baby T-Rex looks up in time and cries out.
Then.
Thump.
Gork falls to the ground in a heap.
Erg and I emerge from behind the thrush. “Nice throw,” I say to Erg.
“Gork taught me well,” says Erg, all tongue-and-cheek.
The baby T-Rex looks at us as we grab onto Gork’s arms and legs and begin dragging him along the tall grass. It tilts its head curiously, watching us as we go.
“Sorry,” we say.
Then, with Gork at a safe distance, we quickly pick a pile of berries and place it near the baby T-Rex.
“T-Rexes don’t eat berries,” I say.
“Who cares,” says Erg. “It’s nice.”
We bow politely to the baby T-Rex, thinking this is a good way to say goodbye, and drag Gork away with us.
The next day, Ms. Splert gives us detention for abandoning the class. She even accused us of knocking out Gork, but my mother very much doubted it. My dad didn’t have any complaints when they met with my teacher to discuss it. I still served detention with Erg, though. We carved into our tablets until nightfall when we had to make our way back to the cave.
“I still feel bad about the triceratops,” I say to Erg on the way home.
“I get it, even if I don’t like it,” says Erg. “Sometimes, you just gotta throw stones at stuff.”
“Stop right there, stone-heads,” says Gork.
He emerges from behind a tree, this time with three of his friends, each bulky and armed with branches, the pummeling kind.
“Just because you got detention doesn’t mean this is over,” says Gork. “How about we go and find that baby T-Rex again, but this time, I think we should feed you two stone-heads to it instead.”
Gork laughs and so do his friends.
“This time we’re definitely dead,” I say to Erg.
Gork and his friends surround us, getting ready to beat us with branches. I’m not sure which part of me to protect first, my head, my shins, my ribs. I can feel the first swing before it evens hits, the one that crunches some vital body part that will never work properly again. Erg and I back into one another, prepared to die.
“Wait,” says Gork suddenly. He strains his ears to the surrounding trees.
I hear it, too. Something is racing towards us from the forest.
“Run!” says Gork, prompting his three thug friends into a frenzy.
From out of the trees emerges the baby T-Rex, flashing its teeth murderously. It stops, watching Gork and his friends run away. Then, it turns to us.
Erg and I stand frozen.
The baby T-Rex approaches, sniffing us over. It looks me in the eye, prods its nose into my chest, bows its head to the ground and opens its mouth. A few freshly picked berries fall out into a slimy pile. Then, the baby T-Rex looks up and flashes its sharp teeth.
“I think he’s smiling,” I whisper.
“What should we do?” asks Erg.
“Smile back, I think.”
And that’s what we did. The baby T-Rex tilted its head, cooed something, and ran back into the forest, never to be seen by us again. We stand still because it’s the kind of thing you don’t say much about afterward, only that it happened, and we were both very happy about it.
“Oog!” shouts my dad from the lip of our cave in the distance.
“What did he say?” asks Erg.
“Time to get home,” I say.
“How do you know that’s what he said?”
I shrug, thinking about the baby T-Rex and my dad. “Some things you just know, I guess.”
