Dinosaur Summer Read Online Free PDF

up a ramp and jumping onto the horse and around the ring and then off, the woman leaping back on. Standing on the horse's back, the woman glanced at them as she passed, then jerked her head away as if she had made a mistake and no one had been there after all.
    "You think the horse gets bored?" Anthony asked, tracking the woman with his eyes.
    "Probably. Why aren't they training with a dinosaur?" Peter asked.
    Anthony laughed. "Just wait," he said.
    Shellabarger returned a few minutes later. "Lotto's on the squawk box. He says he'll join us later. Come on." Shellabarger stomped ahead, his big black-booted feet kicking up flakes of sawdust. He took them to the other end of the side tent, by the first cage on the right, and thumped the tarpaulin with his knuckles. Something inside harrumphed and squeaked.
    "Don't be fooled by their pretty eyes," Shellabarger said. "They don't think like bears or big cats, or like any mammal." Shellabarger lifted the canvas cover. Inside the cage, a leggy creature as tall as a man lifted its smooth flexible neck and puffed out its throat below a toothless pointed jaw. A long naked tail twitched like a cat's, with a slow horizontal curl at the end. It seemed to be covered with brown and gray fur, but as it stalked forward, neck bobbing, and squeaked again, then whistled, Peter saw the fur was really a fine down of primitive feathers. Its eyes gleamed a beautiful golden color, mottled with rich chocolate specks, and the inside of its mouth and tongue was lavender.
    Instead of wings it had long agile three-clawed hands. The claws gripped the bars and it angled its head to peer at Shellabarger.
    "This is Dip," the trainer said. "He's not a bird or an avisaur--he's a real dinosaur. A plains struthio. Scientists call him a ratite mesotherm." He twisted his mouth in distaste. "I like the Indian names better. Does it look like asadashe tonoro, or like aNeostruthiomimus planensis? "
    Peter grinned.
    "Yeah," Shellabarger said. "His mate's in the trailer outside. Her name's Casso. They were brought out by the last expedition in 1928. Gluck bought them from Wonder World Ohio in 1937. They were in sad shape. Damned fools didn't know what to feed them."
    "What do you feed them?" Peter asked. Shellabarger smiled craftily. "They like possums and bugs and lizards and chickens--and eggs, of course. Other circuses and zoos used to feed them strictly meat and eggs. But . . ." He put his hand between the bars of the cage. The struthio twisted his head, examined the hand as if it might be tasty, and pecked the fingers lightly. Peter was afraid he might have bitten the trainer, but Shellabarger laughed and pulled his hand back unbloodied. "We've known each other a long time. Casso's eggs, by the way, are infertile. Always have been. So far, I've never gotten any dino to make babies away from El Grande, more's the pity."
    "What else do they eat?" Peter persisted.
    The trainer bent over and whispered in Peter's ear: "They're omnivores. They love nuts and berries. Casso will do anything for a peanut."
    Shellabarger winked to show this was their secret. They walked to the next cage, considerably larger than the first in the row, and pulled on a rope that lifted the canvas cover. "Good afternoon, Sammy," he murmured. Inside the cage, lying on its side, a massive, brown-spotted green body lifted one elephantine foreleg in the air, then rolled toward the small visitors, coming to rest on both forelegs, with hind legs splayed out behind. He tipped forward an ornate crest, swung his head to one side, and regarded them with a beady little black eye. His stomach rose and fell with a deep rumble. Sammy's aspect was already formidable, but as a final touch, he sported a bent, forward-jutting horn on his rhinoceros nose.
    "Sammy's aCentrosaurus, " Shellabarger said. "A real survivor. A true older dinosaur, not very evolved. His breed's been around for about seventy million years. Sammy's small for his type, but fossil centrosaurs