Mom, There's a Dinosaur in Beeson's Lake Read online

  The Big Catch

  Was that a ripple? I sit up. Yes! The bobber on my line is moving. I twitch the pole slightly to get the fish to bite. That’s called setting the hook. A second later, the red ball goes under the water then pops back up. I’ve got something, all right! I get a firm grip on my pole with my left hand and start winding the reel with my right.

  Joe’s ears go up.

  Will stops hoovering marshmallows. He shoves Doyle. “Scab’s got a bite.”

  Doyle opens his eyes. I am winding the reel like a madman. At last, the lead sinker breaks the surface. I see the top of the hook, my sister’s dragonfly barrette, a marshmallow, a slice of hot dog, a wiggly piece of shrimp . . . and . . . the sun is blinding . . . I’ve got . . .

  I’ve got . . .

  SECRETS OF A LAB RAT

  NO GIRLS ALLOWED (DOGS OKAY)

  MOM, THERE’S A DINOSAUR IN BEESON’S LAKE

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Text copyright © 2010 by Trudi Strain Trueit

  Illustrations copyright © 2010 by Jim Paillot

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event.

  For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Designed by Karin Paprocki

  The text of this book was set in Minister Light.

  The illustrations for this book were rendered digitally.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  0110 FFG

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-4169-7593-9

  ISBN-13: 978-1-41697-593-9

  eISBN-13: 978-1-41699-877-8

  For Bailey,

  and curious scientists everywhere

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am fortunate to have more than a few extraordinary women in my life that make a profound impact on who I am and what I do. My mother, Shirley; my sister, Lori Dru; and my sisters-in-law, Jennifer and Tammy, inspire me to be my best self. Hope, Joy, Esther, Debbie, and Marie remind me to take time to laugh and love. Gail, Connie, Kay, Angela, Tonya, Lisa, Julie, and Debbie N. remain steadfastly with me on the journey, even when the road gets a bit rough. Liesa Abrams, my incredibly talented editor and friend, lights my path with her passion for all things literary. Rosemary Stimola, my ever patient agent and friend, knows just what to say and just when to say it. And Trina, my niece, is the keeper of my heart, now and forever.

  MOM, THERE’S A

  DINOSAUR IN

  BEESON’S LAKE

  CHAPTER

  1

  Big Trouble at Little Creek

  Everyone’s already in the water, Scab.” My mom is standing outside the boys’ locker room at the Little Creek Swim Club. I am standing in it. “Scab? Are you in there?”

  “No.”

  Oops.

  “Your class is starting.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You’ll care plenty when you’re stuck on land this summer.”

  Bug spit! Why did I make that dumb promise? I hate swimming. And I really hate swimming lessons. So why did I promise to take another session if my parents would let me go sturgeon fishing with Uncle Ant? Easy. I’d have said anything to get them to say yes to the fishing trip.

  “You don’t want to fall off your uncle’s boat and drown because you didn’t practice treading,” my mother calls. Her voice ping-pongs off the tiles. “You don’t want to drown, do you?”

  I take a long look at myself in the mirror.

  “Scab?”

  “I’m thinking it over.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t that bad, Squiggle Bear.”

  I shiver. And not just because she called me that nickname loud enough for the whole pool to hear. “I look stupid, Mom.”

  “If you would have come to the mall with Isabelle and me . . .”

  SCAB’S TIP #22

  WHILE WAITING FOR YOUR mom to shop, take all the clothes off the dummies. Pose the dummies so they are saluting the people that come off the escalator. Score bonus points: Stand next to the naked dummies and salute, too, while humming “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

  Shopping with my mother and twin sister is the worst torture ever. This is how it works: Isabelle takes a bunch of clothes into the dressing room. After a while, she runs out crying, “Everything is so ugly.” That’s when I say, “Maybe it’s not the clothes,” and get nailed with a hanger. Why do girls get so pruny over clothes anyway? I don’t care what I wear. As long as it’s dark blue. Dark blue trash bag? Okay by me.

  “Do they fit, Scab?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Then come on. We’ll work it out later.”

  SCAB’S TIP #23

  KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON during tip #22 or the security guard won’t let you back in the mall for a long time (trust me).

  Doesn’t she get it? Look at me. Just look at me! No, don’t. It’s too embarrassing. Let me wrap up in my dark blue beach towel. Okay, now you can look. I know, I’ve got skinny arms, but they can move fast if Lewis Pigford even thinks about snagging my double-fudge brownie at lunch. My legs are covered in bruises and scrapes from my daredevil stunts. See that patch of skin missing from my left knee? I did that on the Mighty Maze, the obstacle course that Doyle, Will Greenleaf, and I set up in my backyard.

  I was a human rocket. After blastoff I zigzagged through six stacks of paint cans, snake-slithered on my belly under the big tarp, and flew across the croc-infested water trap without so much as dipping a toe into water (okay, there weren’t really any crocs in the kiddie pool). Once I scrambled over Joe’s doghouse, however, I ran into trouble—namely Joe. My yellow Labrador grabbed my foot. As usual, Joe wanted to play. I wanted to finish. I did better on my second try. I set a new world-record time of 22.5 seconds. I am the Mighty Maze king! But that was yesterday. Nineteen and a half hours ago. Forever ago.

  My best friend, Doyle Ferguson, peers around the corner into the locker room. He’s dripping wet. “You comin’ out this century, Scab, or not?” He’s talking loudly, which means my mother sent him in here after me.

  I hold my towel tighter. “Not.”

  “Cool by me,” he says in a normal voice. He yanks on the string of his black swim trunks. Plain, black trunks. Lucky guy.

  “Give me a sec to make it look like I tried to talk you out,” says Doyle. “Then I’ll tell Ashlynn.”

  “Who?”

  “Our swim teacher. She’s in high school.” He grins. “High school.”

  It’s going to take a lot more than a cute older girl to get me out there.

  “I’ll tell Ashlynn you’re afraid of the water—”

  “Am not,” I say. “I can swim better than anybody out there.”

  “Even me?”

  “Even you.” And he knows it too.

  “Even your sister?” We both know nobody does anything better than Isab
elle.

  I puff out my chest. “Especially her.”

  “Prove it.”

  I watch myself deflate. “I’d . . . uh . . . rather not.”

  “Are you kidding? The guy who flew ten feet, nine inches over Alec’s Super Colossal Dirt Bike Ramp, the guy who burned through the Mighty Maze in twenty-three seconds, the guy who ate a wad of dryer lint—”

  TOP SECRET!

  SCAB’S PERSONAL 411

  Enter Password: __________ ACCESS DENIED

  Enter Password: __________ ACCESS DENIED

  Enter Password: __________ I’ll let it go this time.

  ACCESS GRANTED

  SCAB’S FEARS

  FEAR

  WHY?

  Deep water

  I can’t touch bottom!

  Enchiladas

  I don’t trust food that’s folded.

  (Who knows what it’s hiding?)

  Automatic sliding doors

  Squish-o-matic your kid at the Food Mart! Have a nice day.

  The letter G

  I can’t write it in cursive.

  My teacher, Miss Sweetandsour, says my G’s are saggy.

  So are her ears.

  Ferns

  Freaky branches? Curly tendrils?

  Spores?? Hello, alien species!

  Getting lost

  I’d miss my dog, Joe; my friends; and my family (even Tattletale Isabelle).

  “Twenty-two and a half seconds,” I correct. “And I’m telling you, I can’t go out there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why? Are you a fraidy cat?”

  “No.” I am starting to feeling warm.

  “Then why? Meow, meow—”

  “Just because.” I grit my teeth.

  “Meow. Me-oooooow.” He sounds like Will’s cat, Mayonnaise, before they got him fixed. The cat, I mean. Not Will. Doyle holds his arms up and lets his wrists go limp like paws. He claws the air. “Meow, meow. Why, Scab?”

  “Because—”

  “Why? Meee—”

  “Because THIS!” I let go of the towel.

  “—yooow.” Doyle’s jaw drops.

  He cannot believe it. He wipes his eyes, but we both know there is nothing wrong with his vision. It is me. It is all me. I am wearing school-bus yellow swim trunks covered in—I can hardly say it—squirrels.

  From my stomach to my knees there’s nothing but squirrels: big squirrels and little squirrels, gray squirrels and red squirrels, fat squirrels and skinny squirrels, boy squirrels and girl squirrels. Each squirrel has a fluffy tail. Each squirrel is holding a big acorn. It gets worse. Much worse.

  Doyle lowers his fake paws. “Are they—?”

  “Yeah.” I moan. “They’re dancing.”

  Some of the squirrels are wearing tuxedos and tap dancing. Others are swaying in hula skirts. A few aren’t wearing anything.

  I know my sister was involved in this. She probably told my mother squirrels were the newest thing in swim trunks. And by now, Tattletale Isabelle has probably gossiped to everyone out there, including Ashlynn, that I am wearing this ridiculous suit. My class is waiting for me to come out so they can laugh it up. But I’m not going out. No way. No how. No chance.

  “Doyle? Scab? What’s going on in there?”

  “Your mom,” croaks Doyle.

  “Boys, let’s go!”

  “What do we do?”

  Our heads swivel between the front door and the pool entrance. The front door. The pool entrance. The front—

  “Salvatore Wallingford McNally! Are you coming out or do I have to come in?”

  “NO!”

  That’s all I need: for every kid at River Rock Elementary to know that my mother marched into the boys’ locker room at the Little Creek Swim Club and hauled me out to the pool by the seat of my squirrel-print swim trunks.

  “I’m coming out!” I cry.

  Doyle gasps.

  “If I want to go fishing with Uncle Ant, I’ve got no other choice,” I remind him. I take a deep breath. “This is for the fish.”

  “For the fish,” he says.

  We knock knuckles.

  Doyle slaps me on the back. “You’re the bravest kid in the universe, Scab.”

  I nod, though I know it isn’t true. If I’m lucky, Doyle will never know how close he came to guessing the truth: that I am a fraidy cat, after all.

  I clench my teeth. I clench my fists. I clench my dancing-squirrel butt.

  And I take the longest walk of my short life.

  CHAPTER

  2

  Warning: squirrel Crossing

  Doyle and I rush past a sign that says NO RUNNING as fast as we can without running. He waves to a dark-haired older girl standing in the shallow end of the pool. That must be Ashlynn.

  I don’t wave. I have a plan. My beach towel is wrapped around my waist so tightly it’s digging into my skin. Our class is in the water. They are lined up along the edge of the pool, practicing the scissors kick. Seven pairs of eyes, including my sister’s, follow us. I fling off my towel, squat, and hop in the water. Ha! Two seconds tops. Nobody could have possibly seen—

  “Nice squirrels, McNally,” hoots Lewis Pigford.

  Everyone snickers. Except my sister. She looks away. I knew it! Isabelle tattled. My twin is forever telling people about the stuff I do, the stuff I don’t do, and the stuff she thinks I should do.

  We just turned ten years old, but I am in the fourth grade and she is in the fifth. Isabelle got moved ahead this year because she is smart times ten. I wish Isabelle would get moved ahead in swim class too. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about her reporting back to our parents every single thing I do, don’t do, or should do in the water.

  SCAB’S POOL-TIME FUN

  Have a contest to see who can make the biggest fart bubble in the pool (hint: eat a bowl of superspicy chili four hours before you go swimming and you’ll win every time).

  Tell your sister you threw a quarter in the pool. Tell her if she finds it, she can keep it. A half hour later, when she says she has searched every inch of the pool and can’t find the quarter, gasp and say, “Quarter? Did I say ‘quarter’? I meant ‘rock.’”

  During the lap swim time, swim in circles. When the lifeguard shouts at you to do laps like everyone else, yell back that you can’t swim in a straight line because one arm is shorter than the other.

  Did you know the human body is made up of 80 percent water? While in the pool, go up to a second grader and tell him this fact, then clutch your stomach and scream, “Go get help! I’m leaking!”

  “This pool is freezing,” says Doyle as we kick. His lips are turning blue.

  “I don’t think so,” I say. “If it were freezing, the temperature would be thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. Then it wouldn’t be water anymore. It would be ice.”

  “Thanks, Science Boy.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ashlynn is beside me. “Are you Salvatore—”

  “Scab. Everybody calls me Scab.”

  “’Cause it’s better than Sally McNally, right, Scab?” yells Lewis.

  Everyone giggles.

  Most people ask how I got my nickname. I have to explain about the time I went to summer camp and got 148 itchy, oozy, swollen, red mosquito bites. That’s when Doyle started calling me Scab. It stuck. The name, I mean, not the scabs. I peeled off all the scabs. Wouldn’t you?

  But Ashlynn doesn’t ask about my name. Instead she says, “Point your toes when you kick, okay? That’s it. You’ve got it, Scab.” She moves on to help Cloey Zittle. “Easy, Cloey. You’re not trying to escape Jaws . . .”

  I am in the intermediate swim class. We’re called the Salmon. You think that’s a stupid name? Last year I was a Guppy. The littlest kids are Tadpoles, then come Guppies, Salmon, Dolphins, and Orcas. I wonder what’s after that—the Giant Man-Eating Squids?

  FREEZING EXPERIMENT . . . BRRRR

  HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR STUFF

 
; TO FREEZE IN OUR FREEZER?

  ITEM

  TIME

  Water

  3 hours, 10 minutes

  Chocolate milk

  2 hours, 43 minutes

  Banana pudding

  1 hour, 29 minutes

  My sister’s underwear

  58 minutes (We have a winner!)

  Thweeeeeeet.

  Ashlynn just blew her whistle. “Crawl-stroke across the shallow end,” she shouts. After we swim two laps, we practice floating. This is all stuff I did last year, so it should be easy. At first I forget to arch my back so I get water up my nose and in my mouth. I don’t swallow, because I know what Lewis does in the water.

  “Look, Doyle,” I call, spitting water high into the air. “I’m a fountain.”

  He laughs.

  “That’s it for today,” calls Ashlynn. “Great job, Salmon. On Tuesday we’ll start learning the breast-stroke—”

  Lewis Pigford whistles.

  “Oh, grow up, Lewis,” snaps Isabelle.

  “Anybody who wants to can swim to the deep end and back with me,” says Ashlynn. She dives into the water. When her head comes up, she starts doing the crawl stroke.

  My sister, Doyle, Cloey, Henry, Beth, Juan, and Emma start racing for the other side of the pool too. I join them because the crawl is my best stroke. When I get to the middle of the pool, where the bottom starts to drop off, I turn back—not because I’m tired. I have plenty of energy left. It’s just that the water is so deep in the Deep End. Too deep. Nobody notices I have gone back, which is good. My towel is still near the edge of the pool. I plan to hop out, wrap it around me, and bolt for the locker room, where I might accidentally forget my squirrel suit after I change, if you know what I mean.

  I push myself up over the edge. Water stings my eyes as I reach for my towel. I feel a tug.

  “Not so fast.” Lewis has got the other end of my towel. “I want to get a good look at those squirrels of yours.”