Feather Brain Read online

  It took us a few moments to realize we were both pumping uselessly. Gradually our hands slowed and stopped. We stared down at the beast. He looked like he was about to leap at us in fury, but he didn’t move. We glanced at each other and leaned down for a better look. He still didn’t move. Kyle touched the beast with his runner, the beast tipped over, like he was just a model again.

  But he was a much better model than I had made. Much more lifelike. Much more ferocious-looking. And he still had a nasty gleam in his eye.

  We kept glancing at him while we cleaned up. Kyle worried about all the spray in his room, but once it was dry, it didn’t seem to do anything. We tested it—Kyle touched the very tip of one finger to a dry spot and then rubbed his finger. It was fine, but we both found spots that weren’t. Kyle’s right sleeve had slipped up his arm, and he had a numb patch just above his glove. And when Kyle had sprayed my helmet, some dripped onto the edge of my left ear. It left a little numb patch. I ran my finger up and down the edge of my ear, from feeling to numbness to feeling again.

  Once we’d cleaned up everything, Kyle and I stood staring down at the beast. It felt like he was looking at us, even though we knew he wasn’t. We could still feel his malevolence.

  “What do we do with him?” I asked. “I don’t want him!”

  “Me neither! I could send him to my mom,” Kyle said with a nasty grin. “Let her live with him!”

  I shuddered. “No, that’s too mean,” I said. “Even when he is just a model.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “He’s so nasty-looking, no one would want him,” I said, looking down at him. “Unless they really, really loved ferocious dinosaurs.”

  “So who loves dinosaurs even more than you do?” Kyle asked.

  “Well, no one,” I said. “No one I know of. Except—” I stood there, thinking.

  “What?”

  “Well, the Tyrrell Museum collects dinosaurs. And they must really, really love them. Maybe we could send him there.”

  Kyle started to laugh. “And if he came back to life, they’d know just what to do!”

  So we found a box, packed up the beast and mailed him to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Drumheller, Alberta. No return address.

  Monday morning at school, Kyle and I met up first thing.

  “I brought a book for you to look at,” I said. I groped around in my backpack and pulled out a book on feathered dinosaurs. He laughed when I showed it to him.

  Soon a couple of other kids were edging closer to take a look. They gathered around to see the pictures. Then they started peppering us with questions.

  “It’s Luke’s book. Ask him,” Kyle said.

  And they did. And they called me Luke. Not Clarke or Lark or even Lucas like my mom and dad. Just Luke. I liked it.

  Then I saw Kyle getting pushed back from the book. I said something about the sounds dinosaurs might have made, and then I nodded at Kyle. “You should hear Kyle’s dinosaur roar,” I said.

  They turned to him, their faces a weird mix of curiosity and fear. When he roared, their nervousness changed to shaky laughter, replaced by real laughter as we all roared.

  After school, Kyle came over to my house. Mom had cookies waiting.

  “Hi, Kyle,” she said, smiling. “It’s good to see you.”

  He smiled back.

  We ate as many cookies as we could before Mom stopped us; then we took Stegy outside.

  Kyle wandered around the front yard for a few minutes to let Stegy graze in the back garden; then he joined me. As soon as he came around the corner, Stegy quit moving.

  “It’s hard to believe he’s real,” Kyle said, watching Stegy sitting in the garden.

  “Smell his breath,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Smell his breath. He’s been grazing on chives. See where they’re all chewed down? Chives smell like onions, so smell his breath.”

  Kyle picked him up and took a deep breath. “Eew! You’re right! This is so cool!”

  “I could make you one,” I said.

  “You could?”

  “I have enough potion left for one more. But it would have to be a nice one, like Stegy.”

  “But how would it be real for me?”

  “You’d have to steal it, I guess.”

  Kyle looked uncomfortable. “I—uh—I don’t want to steal from you.”

  “Well it won’t work if I say you can take it, will it?”

  Kyle grinned. “Right. So go make yourself another dinosaur!”

  “Or maybe,” I said, “we could make it together. Then it would be alive for both of us from the beginning.”

  Kyle grabbed Stegy and we raced upstairs to look through my books to choose a dinosaur.

  “We could make another stegosaurus,” I said. “Then they could play together.”

  “Who could?” asked Kyle.

  “Your dinosaur and Stegy. Oh, except Stegy could never be real for you.” I sighed. “It would be so much more fun if they could both be real for both of us.” I looked around. “Where is Stegy?”

  Kyle turned a page of his book. “Oh, I put him down somewhere,” he said, shrugging.

  I couldn’t see him, but as I was looking around, I noticed Kyle’s backpack moving. “Kyle, what’s in your backpack?” I asked.

  Kyle flushed. He leaned down to open it and lifted out Stegy. “I thought if I stole him, we could both play with him.”

  I grinned as I watched Stegy sniffing Kyle’s hand. “Great idea,” I said.

  While we were looking through books for photos of stegosauruses, the printout from howweirdcanyouget.com fell out of a book. We’d printed the page with the ad we wanted; other ads filled the page. I glanced at them and started to laugh. “Hey, listen to this. ‘Make your bicycle fly.’”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Kyle. He slid over to read over my shoulder. “‘Talk to your fish.’ Ever wanted to own fish?” he asked.

  “‘Live Specimens of Mythical Creatures’—ooh, that would be cool!” Kyle and I looked at each other and grinned. “But let’s start with a dinosaur,” I said.

  Born in Edmonton, Maureen Bush was raised in Edmonton and Calgary. She has worked as a public involvement consultant and trained as a mediator. Her first book was The Nexus Ring (Coteau Books, 2007). Maureen lives in Calgary with her husband and two daughters.

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