Olive of Groves and the Great Slurp of Time (5 page)

6

In which we find ourselves in a perplexing prehistoric pickle

‘My bottom is vibrating!' cried Blimp.

‘Not gas again,' moaned Wordsworth. ‘How many times have I told you to go easy on eating the cardboard cereal boxes? They've got more fibre in them than the muesli!'

‘It's the egg!' Olive giggled. ‘Look, Blimp! The egg on which you're sitting is about to hatch!'

Suddenly, the top of the egg cracked and was flung to the edge of the nest, Blimp still attached. A green reptilian head, as large as a cat's, popped out. Warm brown eyes blinked and stared.

‘Aw, a baby dinosaur.' Olive sighed. ‘So cute!'

It smiled, mewled, then lurched forward and sank its teeth into Blimp's fat white bottom.

‘Aargh!' Blimp shrieked. ‘It's got me! It's eating me! I'm a goner!'

Basil leapt forward and slapped the baby dinosaur on the nose with a bratwurst sausage. It opened its jaws, howled and dived back into its eggshell.

‘Well done!' cried Chester.

‘Thank you,' said Basil modestly. ‘I always carry a variety of useful items from the Black Forest in my rucksack. One never knows what odd and challenging things might happen when time travelling.'

‘My butt! My butt!' sobbed Blimp. ‘My beautiful robust butt will be scarred for life.'

‘It's fine,' Olive soothed. ‘Just look. The skin isn't even broken. Not a speck of blood in sight.'

Blimp examined his bottom, sweeping the fur first this way, then that, checking for puncture wounds. ‘Phew!' he gasped, collapsing onto the soft spongy edge of the nest. ‘That's a relief.'

But relief was short-lived. Within seconds the whole nest was alive with the jiggling and rattling of eggs. Little lines started to zigzag across the shells, and a high-pitched chorus of dinosaur song began to squeeze out of the cracks and drift up through the ferns.

‘Uh-oh,' said Basil. ‘Any moment now we will be surrounded by eighteen starving baby dinosaurs. And I don't think they will be looking for seed pods and muffin crumbs.'

Olive leapt out of the nest, hugging her alarm clock to her chest. Basil, Fumble and the rats followed just as the eggshells began to fly hither and thither. Scaly green heads bobbed up and down, mewling, squawking, baying for food.

‘Take cover!' shouted Olive, half-squealing, half-laughing. ‘Everyone hide!'

Wordsworth and Chester dived down Olive's socks. Blimp scuttled up Basil's leg and squeezed in behind the braces of his lederhosen. Both Olive and Basil ducked beneath a palm tree, where they were hidden by the wide green fronds.

‘Phew!' gasped Olive. ‘Now where's Fumble?'

‘Pssst. I'm over here.'

Olive peeped out from between the palm fronds.

‘Pssst! Up here!' whispered Fumble. ‘On top of this little hill, hiding behind the row of jagged rocks.'

Olive followed the sound of Fumble's voice. ‘Oh dear!' She clutched Basil's arm and pointed.

‘
Kartoffelpuffer!
' cried Basil, which is German for ‘Goodness gracious me!'

‘Whoopsy-daisy!' moaned Fumble, beginning to grasp the blunder that he had made.

For the hill upon which he was perched decided to stand up and walk. It wandered through the jungle, out from the covering of the palms and ferns, onto a wide, open plain. Fumble was, you see, hiding between two rows of jagged plates along the back of a stegosaurus.

‘Olive!' cried Fumble, leaping up and down, waving his hooves in the air. ‘I think I'm in a pickle!' He stumbled, toppled off the stegosaurus and fell, antlers-first, onto the grass.

Olive and Basil abandoned their hiding places and dashed to his side, as did seven curious brachiosauruses, three nosy camarasauruses and four inquisitive apatosauruses. These giants of the dinosaur world loomed above them, staring, sniffing the air, swaying from side to side.

‘There, there,' soothed Olive, kneeling and stroking Fumble's velvety muzzle. ‘Everything will be fine. We're completely safe. These dinosaurs may be as big as houses, but they're all herbivores.'

‘What's a herbivore?' asked Blimp.

Chester poked his head out the top of Olive's sock. ‘A herbivore is an animal with absolutely no interest in buttons,' he said, which was not completely wrong, but neither was it totally accurate.

‘Or an animal that eats plants and never ever eats meat,' explained Wordsworth, quite correctly.

‘Oh, that's a relief,' said Basil.

But that was before they caught sight of the large and predatory creature circling in the air above them.

‘Uh-oh!' cried Wordsworth, peeping out of Olive's other sock. ‘I think that's a carnivorous pterosaur.'

‘Phooey, is that all?' said Blimp. He squeezed out from behind Basil's braces, jumped to the ground and wandered around carelessly. ‘As long as it's not an isosceles triangle. Now
that
is one scary, scary creature!'

And he was just about to launch into the horrors of voracious parallelograms and rabid rhombuses when the pterosaur screeched, swooped down, seized the fat white rat in her talons and flew towards the mountain that rose up out of the plains.

Now
that's
what I call being in a pickle!

A perplexing prehistoric pickle!

‘Basil!' screamed Olive. ‘Quick! Take your clock from your pocket. Whisk us back to Groves before something dreadful happens to Blimp!'

‘I can't,' explained Basil. ‘If we travel through time now, Blimp will be left behind. We must all be together, gathered around the timepiece, when I take us back to the future.'

‘Oh me! Oh my!' squeaked Chester.

‘How distressing!' moaned Wordsworth. ‘Distressing, grievous, tragic, appalling, nerve-racking and more than flesh and blood can bear!'

‘Good grief,' sighed Olive. She tucked her silver alarm clock down into the waistband of her skirt, pulled Fumble to his feet, then squinted at the pterosaur as it flew higher up the mountain face.

She did not, however, despair.

Olive was, you see, a brave and practical girl. And although one might expect a ten-year-old lass to burst into tears, or fan her face with the tips of her fingers, or stamp her feet and say some rather rude words like ‘snot' and ‘pig' and ‘snot-snouted pig', Olive did none of these things. She simply squared her shoulders, said, ‘Good grief,' two or three more times, performed several athletic stretches and took her friends on a brisk, impromptu jog.

Ten minutes later, they found themselves at the base of the mountain, staring up at a steep and craggy cliff.

‘Oh, woe is me!' sobbed a ratty little voice from above. ‘I am doomed . . . stuck here in the pterosaur's eyrie . . . a heavy rock on my tail to keep me pinned to the spot . . . like cheese skewered to a bread board . . . waiting for supper time . . . destined to become a tasty morsel on
a Cretaceous cracker seasoned with a dollop of Jurassic jam!'

‘Oh my!' exclaimed Wordsworth. ‘Blimp is in a terribly treacherous situation. We had better get to him quick smart before the pterosaur returns.'

Personally, I would have said that Blimp was in a pterribly ptreacherous situation. But I don't suppose it was really the time or the place to be a smart alec.

‘I just happen to have a rope in my rucksack!' announced Basil. ‘I will climb up first, anchoring the rope on juts and crags, then the rest of you can follow behind.'

And so they did, Basil clattering upwards like an alpine goat, followed by Wordsworth, Chester, Olive, Fumble and one of the newly hatched dinosaurs, who had finally caught up to them and was hanging off Fumble's tail by her teeth. ‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!'

Olive, unfortunately, was sometimes overwhelmed by heights, despite her practical nature and two weeks of intensive acrobatics training at Groves. She had a panic attack, three episodes of hyperventilation and five nervous hiccups, all before she had climbed to a height of fifteen metres. At the twenty-metre mark, she grew quite dizzy and fell, but, thankfully, Fumble caught her in his antlers and carried her the rest of the way up to the pterosaur's eyrie.

On reaching the precipitous ledge, Fumble heaved the rock from Blimp's tail. The fat white rat leapt into Olive's arms, pressed his paw to his brow and told her all about his ordeal, using words like ‘agonised' and ‘traumatised' and ‘caramelised'. He also pointed stupidly at Fumble's tail, but he was obviously in shock, so nobody paid any attention.

‘Aaaawk!' The pterosaur circled overhead, her eight-metre wingspan casting an ominous shadow over the ledge. Her beady eyes homed in on Olive. Her razor-sharp beak clacked and rasped as she swooped down for the kill.

Basil pulled the timepiece from his pocket. ‘Gather around!' He flipped the cover, stared at the clock face and yelled, ‘Back to the future at Groves!'

The pterosaur swooped, squawked, spun, then exploded in a vision of flashing lights, claws and fur, brown speckled eggs and sunshiny rain, until suddenly, miraculously, they found themselves sprawled across the floor of the entrance hall at Groves, right in the middle of an acrobatics lesson.

7

In which everything has changed

‘You're late!' declared the Ringmaster. ‘The tightrope, the vertical ropes, the trapeze – all have been rigged up for our lesson and you, Olive, are terribly late.'

‘I'm ever so sorry,' Olive began. ‘It's just that –'

‘Olive!' cried Eduardo. He cartwheeled along the tightrope, dropped to the chandelier, swung back and forth from a rather shabby-looking strand of crystals, did a double aerial somersault and landed right in front of our heroine. ‘Where have you been?' He wanted his words to sound friendly and concerned, but they came out wobbly and cross. He frowned at Basil. ‘You've been wagging with the
new boy
.' He said ‘new boy' in the same way that one might say ‘maggoty slugs' or ‘dirty underpants'.

Olive was surprised. Why on earth was Eduardo, her dear friend and acrobatics partner, being so peevish?

‘I haven't been wagging,' she explained. ‘I've been on the most incredible –'

‘Olive!' wailed Fumble, dancing around on the tips of his hooves. ‘Help me! I have something green and spiky stuck in a delicate spot. A prehistoric prickle!'

‘Urk!' shrieked Anastasia, swinging upside down from a trapeze.

‘Weird!' snuffled Reuben the rabbit, popping out from beneath the Ringmaster's top hat.

‘Wild!' cried Alfonzo, slithering headfirst down a vertical rope.

For it was not a prehistoric prickle but a newly hatched dinosaur that clung to Fumble's bottom.

The hatchling opened her mouth and dropped to the floor. She stood on her hind legs, alert, tail flicking from side to side, front claws poised for action. Her enormous brown eyes scanned the hall, settling upon each of them for several seconds before moving on.

Suddenly, without warning, she sprang forward and wrapped her jaws around Anastasia's wrist.
Slobbering, chewing, she swung back and forth through the air. ‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!'

‘Hmmm,' said Wordsworth observantly. ‘Carnivorous!'

‘Hmmm,' said Chester wisely. ‘Inconvenient.'

‘Hmmm,' said Blimp irrelevantly. ‘I'm starving!'

‘Eeeeek!' squealed Anastasia. ‘Get it off! Get it off! Get! It! Off!'

A door at the far end of the corridor banged and a bell began to ring.

‘Emergency! Emergency! Anastasia needs rescuing! Emergency!' Bozo and Boffo the clowns appeared in their little red fire engine, zooming back and forth across the hall until they collided with the front door.

Boffo collapsed onto the steering wheel and sobbed, tears spurting from his eyes like water from a hose. ‘Tragedy! Misery! Woe is me! Emergency!'

Bozo jumped out of the fire engine, grabbed a unicycle from the back seat and proceeded to ride around the hall instead. He pulled a bouquet of flowers from his pants and lobbed it at the Ringmaster. He pulled a sardine from his ear and flung it at Chester. He pulled a three-metre string of tofu sausages from his sleeve and tossed it over Olive's shoulders.

Scruffy, the little brown and white dog, jumped out from behind the sofa, barking and drooling. He leapt at Olive, seized the string of sausages and ran away up the grand staircase to the library, where he spent the next ten minutes gorging himself stupid.

Bozo slapped his thigh, laughed and cycled away down the corridor.

Boffo fell out of the fire engine and sniffed. He pulled a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth from his pocket, blew his nose, then staggered after Bozo, sobbing, ‘Emergency! Emergency!'

Anastasia was
still
swinging, upside down, with a dinosaur hanging off her wrist.

‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!'

‘Stop it!' Olive shouted. ‘Stop that chomping frenzy at once!' And grabbing the nearest thing at hand (which, unfortunately, just happened to be Blimp), she threw it at the dinosaur's head.

The dinosaur fell to the floor with a
thud
. She tunnelled beneath the Persian rug, emerging at the far side – growling, snavelling, howling – and scrambled up the velvet curtains. Bouncing off the Ringmaster's hat, she dived onto the hallstand, ripped through a dozen umbrellas, then leapt onto the antique sofa, where she
chewed her way down through the upholstery. ‘Num-num-num-num-num-num-num!' Finally, when the hole was large enough, she burrowed in, curled into a ball and fell soundly asleep.

‘Aw,' sighed Olive, tilting her head to one side. ‘Look! The poor mite's exhausted. Why, she's just a tiny tot after all.' And her heart felt suddenly warm, soft and gooey. Furthermore, she felt a strange and primitive urge to protect this little creature . . . the same as one might feel towards a newborn babe, a fluffy kitten or a box of fine French nougat.

GONG!

‘Time for lunch!' cried Blimp, and he scuttled away to the dining room. Wordsworth and Chester followed.

‘Food is ready,' said Fumble. ‘We'd better not be late.' Then taking the Ringmaster by the hand, he smiled shyly. ‘Come on, Olive. Let's sit together. There'll be baked beans on toast and crispy red apples. I
love
apples.'

Anastasia dropped from her trapeze to the floor. She shook her throbbing wrist, glared at Olive and stomped off to the dining room. Alfonzo and Eduardo cartwheeled close behind.

Olive stood in the middle of the entrance hall, stunned that the others had gone to lunch. Just like that!

As though everything was normal.

As though nothing had changed.

When, obviously, everything had changed.

And she had the time traveller to her right, the dinosaur to her left and the prehistoric dust on her shoes to prove it.