Primal Rage

His pleading did not work. He told his aunts. And then his grandfather. But even their collective forces could not convince his mother.

"Certainly not," she shook her head for the millionth time. "The aptitude test is in five days… and if you fall ill after the field trip…"

"I won't," pleaded Gregory. "I promise!"

"You cannot promise something which you cannot control," frowned Mrs Buckland, shutting the door behind her.

His aunts offered him ideas on how to come along on the field trip anyway, each one more ridiculous than the last.

"Sneak out of the window. Tie your blankets together and make a rope, and sneak out of the back of the house… that's what we did once…" suggested Aunt Unara.

"There's a pond behind his house." Aunt Tira rolled her eyes. "He has a better chance if he just sneaks out of the back door."

"Sara might think of that, and wait for him there!" exclaimed Aunt Unara.

"It's our sister we are talking about, not a super detective," retorted Aunt Tira. "I still think…"

"I don't want to sneak out…" Gregory interrupted. "I want to convince Ma to let me go."

Aunt Unara sighed dramatically. "You are almost thirteen. It's cool to sometimes do things without asking your mother."

"Not for him, it isn't…" Aunt Tira ruffled his hair fondly. "He takes after Sara… the obedient girl of the family."

"Yes!" Aunt Unara smiled. "Do you remember how she once told on us…"

They seemed to have forgotten the field trip altogether. Dejected, Gregory once thought of asking his father over the telephone and almost dialled the number… before putting it down.

His mother would get angrier if he asked his father.

But as days went by, the more and more tempting the idea of sneaking out seemed to become. He finally decided to do it, when his mother arrived late from work. Gregory brought in her tea with trembling hands. Every day, he brought her tea and asked her about her day.

But today, he jumped to the question. "Can I go to Garby's house tomorrow?"

His mother looked up, almost dropping the cup. "Who's Garby?"

"One of my new friends," His mother's eyebrows rose, and he quickly replied. "Well, he is my first friend in this school… we finally became friends after talking about the new superhero movie. He invited me to his house so that we could watch the other movies in the series."

The great part was that he almost never lied, so his mother believed him. The not-so-great part was that he wasn't sure about whether the plan might work. This feeling of "wasn't sure" intensified by next morning to reach levels of "absolutely sure it wouldn't work" because the number of things that could go wrong seemed to have multiplied. Mr Mantell might call up his mother to tell her… maybe his mother would even be waiting at the museum to ground him!

Because there was no doubt he would be grounded for a week if his mother found out.

In fact, he was almost about to tell his mother that he changed his mind when he heard her calling.

"Aren't you going to Garby's today? I can drop you off."

Gregory heaved a sigh. Let's do this.

About half an hour later, Gregory couldn't believe his luck. He had just managed to reach school from Garby's house. Standing in the queue, waiting to board the bus, he looked around one last time.

There wasn't much traffic today, and as the bus sped by, Gregory peered outside the window. Every time he spotted a bird flying by, he would think of the Microraptor… had it just been inside his head? He wondered if he should ask Ben because he had been there when the creature had scratched him.

But Ben was at the back of the bus and was trying to get Casey into trouble again. As of now, he stood by Casey's seat, who was trying his best to ignore him.

"Well Casey", said Ben, winking at his companions. "Any new soccer tips for the upcoming match? After all, it is said that you score the most goals."

"I did in the last match," growled Casey, flexing his knuckles. Ben wasn't in the least intimidated and sighed dramatically.

"Did I say that you hadn't? Speaking of which, do you know the word "coincidence"? Well, it has eleven letters… so it is probably beyond you."

"I am not stupid."

Ben shook his head. "Oh, I didn't say that. But hey, your life revolves around soccer right? Even in the last test, I heard you earned a magnificent soccer ball drawn in red…"

Anger sparked in Gregory but he fought it down. He wondered if he should call Mr Mantell before a fight broke out. His mother always told him to stay out of fights, but superheroes never stayed out of anything. For some reason, today, he felt he could take on Ben in a fight… but remembering that his mother might ask him about his scratches, he slumped in his seat.

Not everyone was thinking about stuff as interesting as superpowers.

One kid was talking about what they would do this field trip, while his friend groaned. "This is a field trip, not a fun trip… we will be given work. You can look less happy about it."

Other people were talking about the aptitude test. Some sat with earphones plugged in, impervious to the world. Two kids with brightly coloured hair were hunched over a cell phone, peering at the subtitles of some animated show. Gregory tried to peek at it, when he almost hit his nose on the seat before.

They had reached their destination.

A tiny bubble of joy leapt into Gregory's chest as he surveyed his surroundings. Somewhere out there was the Paluxy River, and the tracks made by the dinosaurs on the riverbed millions of years ago. This was nice… a change from being stuck in a musty classroom.

Then Mr Mantell asked them to pick partners, and that bubble of joy popped.

Choosing partners was a high school ritual that often happened on the sports field. Gregory always ended up being the last one, the one both teams argued about was supposed to be on the other team because "We took him last time!"

Gregory wasn't too bad, but neither team gave him a chance.

Almost everyone ran towards their friends, while Gregory stood alone. Normally the one who was left for last worked alone… not that this was bad now. Gregory loved dinosaurs and was sure he could work alone… when suddenly…

"NO!"

Ben's angry voice drifted over. Gregory turned curiously to where he stood before Mr Mantell, moving his arms frantically, and pointing at Gregory. Mr Mantell was shaking his head and finally, Ben's shoulders slugged and he turned and narrowed his eyes at Gregory. It was also when he noticed that everyone else had found partners except Ben.

First thought: Wait... Ben hadn't found a partner?

Second thought: Ben was the only one who hadn't found a partner.

But he balled his hands into fists. He could make this work… he wasn't great at anything… Ben didn't hate him.

But that started to seem less and less of a possibility, as Ben walked towards him with narrowed eyes. Before Gregory could open his mouth, Ben interrupted –

"Normally, I work alone. But Mr Mantell says that you came along on this trip."

Gregory didn't know what to say.

"Now apparently I have to work with you," Ben went on. "Not that it matters, because I have to do the entire work anyway."

Gregory considered saying that this was a team effort, and he could help but Ben was already moving away. Mr Mantell's voice rose over the clamour of grumbling students.

"Today, I have thought something new for you to do."

Gregory squinted over. Many students had huddled around Mr Mantell, who was waving a paper.

"The fossil site here is known as the Glen Rose Park, as you might have noticed from the sign, and the most famous feature here are the fossilized footprints… I won't repeat what a fossil is because that will make me sound old and fossilized."

Laughter rang out which he waited for to fade away, before adding, "Each pair must research on the insects, birds and plants of this area and write a three-hundred-word essay on how life here has changed since the time of the dinosaurs."

"Also, I would really like to keep your mobile phones with me, since I am a very traditional man and get very angry on seeing students using modern gadgets while researching on prehistoric life… thank you. Begin."

Almost every team hurried away, except for Gregory and Ben. Ben seemed to hesitate for a second, before moving off.

Not knowing what else to do, Gregory followed.

This should have been fun, much different from their boring classes. Gregory even had very interesting ideas on how to do it. But the fun was sucked dry by Ben's absolute ignorance of his presence. He overturned rocks, inspected leaves and peered at birds' nests, as they went further and further into the nearby pine woods. For many moments, the only sounds were those of chirping birds, scratching of pen on notebook and a low distant rumble every few seconds.

Finally, Gregory burst out. "You know, you can add that birds which nest here, and that all birds are evolved from dinosaurs…"

The rest of his sentence was muffled by the piece of paper Ben threw in his face. It was so sudden, that for a moment, Gregory could only gape at his partner.

"What?"

"You think you can do such a great job, eh?" Ben raised an eyebrow. "Well, do you know what the first feathered dinosaur was?"

Gregory did, but there were different scientific opinions – should he say the entire thing? Or just the two possibilities?

"Still think you can do a better job than me?" Ben laughed. "You didn't even read the book Mr Mantell asked us to study."

Gregory began to protest, but Ben had turned back to scribbling. Gregory tried to peer over his shoulder. Immediately, Ben moved the paper so that he couldn't see.

Disappointment welled in Gregory's stomach. The thunder rumbled again, this time much nearer like the sky was grumbling along with him.

"All you want is the grade, right?" Ben's voice brought him back. Ben was still scribbling, and not looking back, said – "Look on the bright side. You'll get a better grade working with me than alone. So at least let me do my thing?"

How about I throw a rock at you instead? Gregory tried to curb the spark of anger, just as the thunder sounded again. Gregory frowned. This time, it sounded different from thunder.

A lot different. It didn't even sound like thunder anymore.

Also, there were no storm clouds above them. "Do you hear the noise?" he blurted out.

"The thunder… of course I do…"

"No," Gregory stood up. The noise sounded again, this time louder and clearer. If Gregory hadn't been arguing and listening closely, he might have noticed it sounded like a roar, but there were no cougars or bears in this forest.

Or were there? "We need to go."

"You certainly can," replied Ben coolly. "It's not like you're even doing anything…"

Gregory wanted to call him stupid because he could hear a new sound. A muffled noise, steadily getting louder… he wasn't supposed to be scared… this was wrong... Mr Mantell had said there were no wild creatures bigger than a stoat...

"Stop making that noise," said Ben through narrowed eyes. "Are you trying to scare me? I know there are no beasts in these forests."

"I am not making it," said Gregory. "And it doesn't sound…"

"I said… STOP MAKING IT!"

Then a lot of things happened at once. Ben leapt up and shoved Gregory hard. He stumbled and fell, coughing in the dust.

SCRUNCH

The tree directly before him started to sway, and toppled… crashing on where he had been a few seconds ago. Gregory tried to jump away, but his leg slipped and he fell.

He tried to rise when a shadow fell over him. He was vaguely aware of Ben screaming in terror, as something smashed into the ground beside him.

It was a foot.

When the dust cleared, Gregory saw that the foot was attached to a body. The body extended upwards into a thick and muscular torso, from which dangled long arms tipped with three claws.

As Gregory scrambled to rise, another foot joined the first and smashed into the ground a few feet before his face. The creature roared – Gregory had seen it many a time in books; that body, those arms, the neck that formed a crocodile-like head. He had often wondered how funny the creature would be to see, a dinosaur with a crocodile head – how he had wanted to see it...

The crocodile-like jaws parted, and a deep, unearthly growl which this world had perhaps never heard the last sixty-five million years – rumbled out.