An Incredible Case of Dinosaurs Read Free Page A

millions of years old! Or this particular species might never have died out at all! It’s absolutely essential that we catch it!”
    “Besides,” added Kevin, “did you see the size of Miss Frost’s wallet? We’re going to be rich!”
    They had been waiting in the bathysphere for a long time now, hovering at the bottom of the pool near the large crack. But so far there had been no sign of the hydrosaur.
    “I don’t understand why the dinosaur keeps coming back here anyway,” said Giles.
    “After we catch it,” said Tina, flipping some switches, “and I have time to study it properly, perhaps I’ll have an answer to that question.”
    “I just hope this plan of yours works,” said Giles dubiously.
    All at once, the dinosaur slipped up through the crack and circled gracefully through the water. For the first time, Giles got a good look at it. Its skin was a deep purple, with brilliant streaks of green. Its body was quite slender, with four leathery fins jutting out from its sides. It had a very long, very thin neck, which ended with its small wedge-shaped head.
    “Look at it move!” said Giles in awe. “It’s so fast!”
    “Here we go!” said Tina excitedly. She edged the bathysphere forward until it nudged against the huge statue of Poseidon. The propeller whirred loudly, and the whole vessel began to shudder.
    “The statue’s too big!” shouted Giles.
    “It won’t budge!” cried Kevin.
    “We have the power!” said Tina through gritted teeth.
    The propeller’s whining increased in pitch, and the bathysphere shook so violently that Giles thought it would burst apart at any moment. But slowly, the statue of Poseidon began to scrape across the pool floor towards the long crack.
    “It’s working!” said Tina.
    A second hydrosaur suddenly darted up through the opening—this one a bright yellow, with a pink under-belly. The two dinosaurs rolled playfully through the water together.
    “Look!” gasped Giles. “We’ve got two now!”
    “We’ve got an incredible case of dinosaurs!” said Kevin.
    Tina threw another lever and the bathysphere pushed ahead some more. In a few seconds, the statue rolled into place over the crack, blocking the opening completely.
    “Miss Frost,” Tina said with satisfaction, “is now the proud owner of two dinosaurs.”

Chapter 5
Smarter Than You Think
    Giles wrinkled his nose as he plunged his hand into the bucket, grabbed another fish and threw it into the pool. One of the dinosaurs snapped it up before it even hit the water.
    “They sure do eat a lot,” said Kevin, lobbing a cod tail to the other hydrosaur.
    “Good job, you two,” said Tina. “Keep it up.” She was stretched out in a lawn chair at the poolside, a digital voice recorder in one hand, a glass of iced tea in the other. Every so often, she would lift the recorder to her face, speak into it, then smile and shake her head with a small chuckle—as if what she’d just said was the most amusing and remarkable thing she’d ever heard.
    Giles rolled his eyes in disgust.
    “I don’t suppose you want to take a turn feeding them?” he asked.
    “No need to be sarcastic, Barnes,” Tina replied. “Anyone can see I’m extremely busy making scientific notes on these specimens.”
    “Right,” Giles grumbled.
    Every day after school for the past week, he and Kevin had made the trip to the local fish market to buy pounds and pounds of raw fish for the hydrosaurs. The bus driver refused to let them on with their stinking buckets of dinosaur food, so they had to lug them all the way to Miss Frost’s house by foot. People on the street would sniff, then stop, then sniff again, then stare as they passed by. It was the worst!
    “This is going to make headlines,” Tina said contentedly. “‘Local genius discovers dinosaurs.’ Or maybe, ‘Breakthrough of century made by local genius.’ Or what about ‘Tina Quark wins Nobel Prize’? It’s been far too long since I was on the front page of a