Oasis Read online

  Jack carefully replaced the cap on his canteen, though he wasn't sure why. There was no water around to refill it, and without water, there didn't seem to be much chance that Jack himself would be around much longer.

  He glanced briefly to the east, dully wondering if they might have had a chance if they'd headed that way when he'd first suggested it. Somehow, it didn't really seem that important anymore. Nothing seemed important except the burning in his throat and the uncomfortable buzzing in his head.

  Spots swam in front of his eyes, and he blinked hard a few times, trying to chase them away. Instead, they only grew darker and larger, a hazy bluish light flickering around the edges of his vision like an aura.

  Dehydration, he thought dimly. It's starting.

  The dark spots drifted and dove as he walked. For a moment he was mesmerized by them. They reminded him of swimming in that deep, cool, shaded pool back in Waterfall City, feeling free as a dolphin as he dipped and flowed with the easy current. . . .

  “Oasis!”

  Jack snapped out of his reverie, startled at the sudden shout. Ty was hopping up and down, pointing at the horizon straight ahead and shouting.

  Jack frowned, flashing back to Ty's silly prank the previous morning. This was no time to be making jokes. He was about to say so, but as he squinted at Ty, he suddenly noticed something on the horizon beyond him. Something green.

  “Can it be?” he croaked through his dry throat. Shuffling forward, he stood beside Ty, staring with all his might. The spots blocking his vision danced in front of the dot of green on the horizon, and he blinked them away impatiently. Could those really be trees rising from the sand? Lots of trees—they seemed to go on forever. He blinked again, willing his eyes to focus.

  “Come on!” Ty blurted out. “It can't be more than a mile away.”

  Can't it? Jack wondered even as he followed the other boy, who was plowing through the sand as fast as he could. He couldn't help recalling the caravaners' tales from the day before. How many times had desperate travelers imagined that they saw the Great Oasis just off on the horizon, only to find that it was merely a mirage?

  Still, what other hope did they have? Focusing his bleary gaze on the patch of green, Jack staggered after Ty. His legs felt so shaky and weak that he wasn't sure he could continue to stand much longer, let alone walk any farther.

  Somehow, though, he managed to put one foot in front of the other, hardly feeling the sun-baked sand burning his feet through the open sides of his sandals.

  For the next few minutes Jack wavered between hope and despair. The oasis lingered tantalizingly on the horizon, never seeming to get any closer no matter how desperately the boys plowed their way through the sand.

  A mirage, Jack decided at last, falling fully into despair as the treetops disappeared for a moment behind a sandy hillock. It's got to be a mirage. Even if we did stumble upon an oasis out here, there's no way it could be as big as this one looks. When we get to the top of this hill, it will be gone. I should tell Ty to forget it.

  But he couldn't bear to dash the other boy's hopes. Calling on his dwindling reserves of energy, he caught up with Ty just as he reached the top of the hillock.

  Jack looked ahead—and gasped in amazement.

  “The Great Oasis!” Ty breathed beside him, sounding awed. “Outstanding!”

  A beautiful sight lay before them. The slight rise they were on gave them a panoramic view of a vast tangle of trees, shrubs, and undergrowth sprawling luxuriantly in the middle of the desert, like a lush green island rising out of a sandy sea. The green went on for so long that the desert was barely visible on the far side, miles off. Thick grayish clouds hung directly over the oasis like a natural shade canopy.

  “Amazing,” Jack murmured, shaking off the haze that had settled into his mind. “That's no seep oasis, that's for sure. There must be a real spring there. Probably several big ones.”

  Ty nodded. “It's the Great Oasis,” he insisted. “I'm sure of it. Come on!”

  Jack tried to follow as Ty headed down the hillock. As he started forward, his foot caught on a half-buried rock and he tripped.

  “Oof!” His weary muscles unable to move fast enough for him to catch himself, he landed flat on his chest, his face smacking onto the sand so hard that his cheek and chin went numb.

  “Jack!” Ty turned at the noise and hurried toward him. “Are you okay?”

  Spitting out a mouthful of sand, Jack pushed himself up. “I'm fine,” he said weakly, pushing aside Ty's offered hand. With a groan, he managed to climb to his feet. “I'm fine. Let's go.”

  Ty still looked worried, but he nodded and turned back toward their goal. The two of them fought their way forward, the deep, shifting sand seeming to pull at their feet to slow them down.

  Jack kept his gaze trained on the oasis ahead, trying to ignore the growing splotches dancing across his vision and the painful spasms that rocked his muscles with every move. Soon he could make out the shapes of the individual trees, then the leaves of the cycads stretching toward the desert sun.

  “We're almost there,” Ty panted from beside him. “Just another eighth of a mile. Maybe even less.”

  Jack opened his mouth to answer. At that moment his knees buckled, and before he quite knew what was happening, he found himself sprawled on the sand again. This time he didn't bother to raise his head from the warm, soft sand. He closed his eyes, knowing he couldn't go any farther. He had tried, he had almost made it, but it was just no use. This was it for him.

  A moment later he became dimly aware of an arm slipping around his shoulders, tugging at him. He squeezed his eyes tightly, wishing whoever it was would go away.

  “Come on,” Ty panted into his ear. “It's just a little farther to the oasis. I'll help you.”

  The oasis. Jack's throat spasmed as he thought of the water that must lie just ahead. He couldn't give up now. Not when they were so close.

  Somehow, with Ty's help, Jack fought his way back to his feet. He swayed unsteadily, but Ty was there to hold him up.

  Leaning on each other all the way, the two of them managed to stagger the remaining distance. They made it as far as the welcoming shade of the first few large trees before collapsing into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jack awoke to a buzzing in his left ear. At first he thought it was the result of too much sun and too little food and water. He lay still, waiting for the sound to dissipate. When it got louder instead, he cracked one eye open and saw a large dragonfly zipping around near the end of his nose.

  What? There were no dragonflies in the desert.

  Maybe this is what it's like to be dead, he thought sleepily. Perhaps I'm in the next world.

  Swatting away the insect, he sat up with a groan. His whole body felt as though it had gone over Thunder Falls without a boat. He gulped as the image called up the thought of water, but to his surprise his throat didn't feel as dry and scratchy as it had for most of the past twenty-four hours.

  He blinked and looked around. For the first time, he noted that the relentless sun wasn't beating down on him. In fact, he was resting in a grassy glade shaded by several large trees.

  “Trees?” he whispered, his voice emerging as a croak. “Where did those come from?”

  He stared blankly up into the leaves of the tall conifer whose symmetrical branches waved gently just overhead. Araucaria heterophylla, he thought, identifying the tree automatically. But those don't grow in the desert. . . .

  He moved his arm slightly, and his hand struck something. Glancing down, he saw that there was a wooden bowl lying on the grass beside him, half full of clear water. He also noticed that Ty was sitting nearby, looking nearly as confused as Jack felt himself.

  “Where are we?” Ty asked blearily, wiping a smudge of sandy dirt from one cheek.

  Jack shrugged. The movement made his shoulders ache, but he hardly noticed. “I guess we made it to that oasis.”

  Ty cleared his throat. “I know,” he said,
his voice sounding more normal. “I remember passing out just inside the tree line.” He stared pointedly toward a clearing in the tree line several dozen yards away. Patches of desert sand were visible just beyond. “So how did we get all the way over here?”

  Jack shrugged. He wasn't very worried about that. He was much more concerned with his stomach, which felt as if a couple of carnosaurs were fighting inside. “I don't know,” he said. “Someone must have dragged us. Probably the same someone who left us this water. I just wish they'd left us some food, as well.”

  “Water? What water?” When Ty's gaze fell upon the bowl, he grabbed it eagerly and gulped it so quickly that rivulets of water ran down his chin. Wiping his mouth, he passed the bowl to Jack.

  “Thanks.” Jack took a deep drink as well. Although his raging thirst had dissipated somewhat—obviously someone had poured water into them while they were unconscious—he still felt as if he could drink every canal in Waterfall City dry and ask for more.

  When he lowered the bowl, he noticed that Ty was crawling across the spongy grass. “Hey, Jack!” he called excitedly, grabbing at the ground beneath the palmlike branches of a large cycad. “I think I found us some food.”

  “What is it?” Jack's stomach let out another grumble as he pushed himself to a shaky standing position. His muscles felt weak, but he managed to take a few steps toward Ty.

  Ty held up several large seeds. “I don't know,” he said. “Some kind of cycad seed, I think. Anyway, they look edible to me. And I'm hungry enough to eat Sauropolis.”

  “Wait!” Jack yelped as the other boy opened his mouth and started to bite down on one of the seeds. “Don't eat that!”

  Startled, Ty paused with the seed between his teeth. “Mmmwhff?” he mumbled.

  Jack squinted at the seed, then at the cycad plants growing nearby. “Just a second . . . ,” he warned, reaching into his pocket for his plant-identification book. Flipping through the pages, he quickly found the entry he wanted. After scanning it, he held it out so Ty could see. “I thought those seeds looked familiar,” he said. “I was just reading about them. See? That particular cycad's seeds contain poisonous alkaloids.”

  “Alka-whats?” Ty said, removing the seed from his mouth and glancing at it nervously.

  “It's an organic substance,” Jack explained. He glanced at his book again. “But look, this tells how we can make them edible. All we have to do is soak them for a while, and they'll be safe.”

  “Really?” Ty looked impressed. “It says all that in that little book?”

  Jack nodded. If you ever picked up a book or a scroll yourself, you might know that, he thought, though he didn't say it aloud. It wouldn't be Dinotopian to be so uncharitable.

  “Come on,” he said. “We can use the rest of the water in this bowl, wherever it came from.”

  Ty started grabbing more seeds from the ground. “Okay,” he agreed. “And we can do a little exploring while they soak.”

  The two of them filled the wooden bowl with as many seeds as the water would cover. Leaving them soaking in the sun filtering down through the cloud cover, the boys wandered farther into the oasis.

  Jack walked slowly past the tall Araucaria, looking around with interest. Everywhere he glanced he saw a new species of plant—cycads, palms, ferns, succulents, and more. It was as if his plant-identification book had come to life.

  Cragnog would love it here, he thought with a pang. When would he see his Pinacosaur friend again?

  Pushing that thought aside, he looked around for Ty and soon spotted him a dozen yards away. He was bending over an open area of ground, hands on his knees, peering intently at a patch of mud.

  “What are you doing?” Jack called.

  “Come here,” Ty responded, waving his hand without looking up.

  Curious, Jack moved quickly toward the other boy. After a few steps, he skidded and almost fell as his sandal landed on something bulbous and squishy. “Yow!” he cried in surprise, catching himself just in time on the trunk of a nearby palm.

  “What's the matter?” Ty asked.

  Jack glanced down. The ground was littered with at least half a dozen three-inch yellowish fruits. Looking up at the feathery fronds of the eighty-foot tree next to him, he realized he had almost walked right past a large date palm without realizing it. “Hey!” he cried excitedly. “Over here! I found some fruit!”

  “Fruit?” Ty raced over, his eyes gleaming eagerly. “Outstanding!”

  “They're fresh dates,” Jack said. “The tree is Phoenix dactylifera. There are a couple in the sundial garden back in Dribbling Spring, but they're not old enough to fruit yet.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ty said with complete disinterest. He grabbed one of the small oblong fruits, then stopped and glanced at Jack worriedly. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You said dates, right? As in the edible kind? They're not going to poison us?”

  Jack smiled. “If I said yes, would you leave them all for me?”

  Ty laughed. “Not a chance!”

  It didn't take long for the two of them to gobble down the small fruits. After brushing off the dirt, Jack even ate the one he'd stepped on. “Wow,” he said as he licked his fingers. “I never thought a plain old date could taste so good.”

  Ty burped. “True as trilobites. That should tide us over until those cycad seeds are ready.”

  “Maybe.” Despite the welcome snack, Jack's stomach still felt disturbingly empty. To distract himself, he glanced around the area. His gaze fell on the flattened, muddy area where Ty had been standing. “Hey, what were you looking at over there, anyway?”

  “Oh!” Ty's eyes lit up with excitement. “Come here, I'll show you.”

  As soon as they reached the muddy area nearby, Jack saw what Ty had been looking at. Several dozen footprints were pressed into the spongy ground. Three or four of them belonged to Jack—he recognized the pattern from his sandals and realized he must have walked right through the mud while looking around and trying to identify the trees he was passing. The rest of the footprints had been left by some kind of saurian.

  “Guess you were too busy staring up at the treetops to notice what was right underfoot,” Ty said with a grin.

  Jack was about to retort irritably, but he realized Ty was right. “Guess so,” he said with a weak smile.

  He expected the other boy to continue teasing him, but Ty returned his attention to the footprints. “What kind of saurian has a foot that tiny?” he asked. “Do you think it was a baby?”

  Leaning closer for a better look, Jack shrugged. “I'm not sure,” he admitted. “I can think of a few that are pretty small, but I haven't seen that many footprints myself.”

  “Well, where there are footprints, there must be dinosaurs,” Ty pointed out. “I wonder why they haven't noticed us yet?”

  “They have,” Jack countered. “Someone left us that water, remember?”

  “But why would they just leave it and take off?” Ty wondered.

  Jack shrugged, examining the mud. “I don't know,” he said. “But I just thought of something else: Where there's mud, there must be water.”

  Ty's eyes lit up. “Good point,” he said. “Come on, let's go find it!”

  He raced off without waiting for a response. Not seeing any choice, Jack followed. “Wait,” he called. “We should think about this. If we try to figure out whether the mud comes from a spring or seep below the ground, or if water might have run down a hill or—”

  “Found it!” Ty called over his shoulder. He was standing atop a small, grassy hillock, pointing toward something on the other side.

  Jack hurried up the hill to join him. Just below their feet, the hill dropped away as a small, rocky cliff about five feet high. The slight rise offered a pleasing view of a small clearing surrounded by a thick forest of palms, ferns, and other tropical-looking foliage.

  For once, however, the plant life wasn't what grabbed Jack's attention. Hearing a gurgling sound, he looked down and saw a thin stream emerging from a hole h
alfway down the rock face. It splashed to the ground in a small waterfall and tumbled away across the clearing and into the trees on the far side.

  “Wow!” Jack exclaimed. “Now that's what I call a spring! It looks like it's even stronger than the one that feeds the main well back home.”

  Ty was already vaulting down the drop, and this time Jack didn't hesitate to follow. Both boys rushed to the widest spot in the stream and buried their faces in the clear, cool water, drinking their fill.

  Sitting up and swallowing a burp, Jack wiped his face and glanced around. “I wonder where the stream goes,” he said. “Maybe we should— What was that?”

  “What?” Ty looked up.

  Jack pointed, his finger shaking slightly. Had it been his imagination, or had he really seen a pair of tiny eyes peering out from the thick foliage on the far side of the stream? The only evidence was a slight rustling in the fronds of a large tree fern at the edge of the forest. “I—I thought I saw something,” he whispered. “Or someone. Over there.”

  Ty jumped to his feet. “Hello?” he called loudly. He hopped across the stream and strode toward the spot. “Is someone there? We need help.”

  “There!” Jack cried, pointing.

  Ty spun around, and both boys spotted a flash of green, gold, and brown scales as several small creatures dashed from the cover of the tree fern and raced toward a thicket of vines and leaves nearby. “Dinosaurs!” Ty cried.

  Jack leaped forward just in time to see the tiny saurians, no more than a few feet long from snout to tail, disappear into the thicket.

  “Wait! Stop!” Jack cried desperately.

  “We need your help!” Ty added.

  The last of the tiny dinosaurs, a young one with extra-long hind legs, paused just long enough to cast the boys a frightened but curious glance. Then he disappeared into the undergrowth after the others.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Come on!” Ty shouted. “Let's go after them!”

  “Wait!” Jack cried, but Ty was already leaping ahead through the underbrush.