Читать книгу Dinosaur Fever - Marion Woodson - Страница 6

The great animal guards her nest. Ten eggs are snug and warm under a blanket of rotting vegetation. She turns her head sideways and lowers her ear, listening for sound from inside the egg shells. It won’t be long now — some of the nearby nests are already squirming with big-eyed, limp-bodied newborns.

She dozes in the warm sunshine. The air is pungent with the smell of conifer sap and animal sweat.

A long-legged birdlike creature darts in to steal an egg from her neighbour’s unguarded nest, and the mother bellows with rage and thumps her tail. She hunches in a toad-like stance, her long, flat tail and her short forelegs resting on the ground. The muscles in her powerful hind legs ripple and bulge as she moves.

Suddenly alert, she stands. Something has changed! A huge column of black rises from a mountain on the horizon. The sky turns orange.

A bove the usual trumpets and snorts of hundreds of her fellow creatures feeding, nesting, and foraging nearby she can hear a strange sound — a faint thunder-like reverberation. The noise grows louder. The earth trembles.

Deep within her consciousness the mother recognizes danger, but the menace is not familiar. She moves closer to her nest and uses her snout to nudge the leaves and twigs over the eggs, then raises her head and swivels her slender neck slowly. Her huge eyes in outwardly projecting sockets scan the landscape in every direction. Nothing seems out of place — only the changing colour of the sky, the rumbling noise, and the slight tremors of the earth.

Other animals are on the alert now. Heads are up. For a moment all is silent except for the squeaks and cries of hungry hatchlings. The ground shakes, but the mud nest holds the eggs securely in place. Rolling booms intermingle with the warning cries of animals. A gust of wind carries the smell of sulphur.