8 It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Flying Lizard!

Chapter 8 IT'S A BIRD! IT'S A PLANE! IT'S A FLYING LIZARD! "It's safe," came a voice from above. "All three of you can climb up." Andrew threw the end of the rope to Judy and she passed it to Beeper. RRROHHHURROHRR! Andrew climbed up quickly. When he got close to the top of the cliff, he saw a tall woman in jeans and a T-shirt holding the rope. Long braids that hung all the way to her waist were tied back with a scarf. "Well, hello, Andrew and Thudd!" she said, smiling. "And I see Judy right behind you."

"Hiya!" squeaked Thudd. "Hi there!" said Andrew, hauling himself onto flat ground. "You must be Professor Wilde! But how do you know me and Judy?" Winka laughed. "Your uncle Al talks about you all the time." Judy and Beeper dragged themselves over the edge of the cliff. Beeper went up to Winka and stuck out his hand. "I'm Beeper Jones," he said. "Doctor Kron- Tox is my uncle. I know he kidnapped you. He

even parked me three hundred million years ago to collect bugs. "My uncle is kinda weird. But I sure liked collecting the bugs, especially the dog-sized scorpion and the six-foot-long centipede." Winka smiled and shook his hand. "Glad to meet you, Beeper. And I wish I had seen that centipede! "But how did all of you end up here, sixty-five million years from your own time?" "We came in the Time-A-Tron," said Judy. "We've got to find Uncle Al in some stupid ice age, and then we can all go back to our own time." RRROHHHURROHRR! "Oh, shut up!" said Judy, peering over the cliff at the Tyrannosaurus below. Winka pushed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "I don't know if you know this," said Winka. "But a terrible time is coming soon." "Not another one!" said Judy, rolling her eyes. "We could write a big fat book about terrible times. We've gotten flushed down a toilet,

swallowed by a whale, and trapped at the center of the Earth." "This will be a disaster for the whole Earth," said Winka. "Very soon, an asteroid as big as a city will crash into the place where Mexico will be." "That's nothing," said Andrew. "We were here when a Mars-sized asteroid crashed into the Earth and made the moon!" Winka's eyebrows went up. "And you're alive to tell about it!" she said. "The asteroid that's coming won't rip the Earth apart, but it will make a terrible explosion. It will set huge fires, start mile-high tsunami waves, and send trillions of tons of dust and water into the air. "The Earth will be covered by a dark cloud of dust for months. Plants will die. The big plant- eaters will die, and the big meat-eaters that eat the big plant-eaters will die. "When it's over, animals that weigh more than fifty pounds will be gone."

"I weigh more than fifty pounds," said Judy. She looked around at the others. "We all do. We'd better get out of here fast." "I'll go get my notebook," said Winka. "I've been drawing the animals and writing about them." Winka turned to a tree behind her and started climbing. High above the ground, between the branches, she had woven a large net from vines. Suddenly the sky darkened. Andrew looked up. A huge creature was flying overhead. meep… "Quetzalcoatlus!" said Thudd, pointing to his face screen. "Yikes!" said Andrew. "That bird is as big as a plane!" meep… "Not bird," said Thudd. "No birds on Earth yet. Flying animal is flying lizard." "Quetzalcoatlus!" shouted Beeper. "That's my most favorite animal ever!"

"It's the biggest creature ever to fly," said Winka, climbing down the tree. "It has a nest on the side of the cliff." "I gotta see it!" yelled Beeper, taking off after the Quetzalcoatlus. "I gotta take a picture!" "Beeper!" yelled Winka. "Come back here! We have to leave!" Andrew and Judy ran through the trees after Beeper. Beyond the tall trees was a field. By the time Andrew and Judy reached the edge of the field, Beeper had disappeared among the tall ferns and bushes.