The Case of the Missing Dinosaur Egg Read Online Free PDF Page B

red sweater was history. And I’d lost my silver biro in the mad scramble to climb the tree, so couldn’t even record the important points of my soon-to-be ghastly death.
    Blinking, I peered down at the tail-swishing, deadly-horned critter snorting his fury below. And caught my breath. The way the bull was eying me off, he’d evidently missed out on his breakfast this morning. I suddenly knew what it felt like to be a tempting piece of cheese waiting for a hungry mouse to pounce.
    How long would it take before someone at Treehaven discovered Noah and I were missing? Meal time probably. I glanced at my watch and felt like throwing up. It would be another three or four hours to our next meal—and if the bull had his way—only minutes to his.
    Where was Noah?
    I stretched my neck to see how the mastermind of this madness was getting on. Hidden in the foliage of the massive pepper tree beside me, he’d disappeared from view. Not a movement or point of color betrayed him. It was almost like he’d been beamed up by aliens—or borrowed Harry Potter’s cloak of Invisibility.
    Suddenly, a fearsome snort from below yanked me back to reality. The bull, his black hide sweating in the sun, had caught sight of a runaway red balloon. With a toss of his massive head he batted the balloon into the air and onto his knife-like horns. I shuddered. Tried to swallow a frog-sized lump in my throat. What if that balloon had been me? Fascinated, I watched him toss his plaything up and down until a loud bang sent a curious magpie scurrying off in fright.
    “Barnaby! Heel!”
    The command sliced through the air making both the bull and me turn our heads in unison.
    Oh-uh!
    It was the professor. He was hobbling toward us, leaning heavily on a knobbly brown stick. I peered closer, expecting to see a ferocious giant of a dog called Barnaby. Instead, the big black bull grinned a welcome at the frail old man with the long white beard. He lumbered across and put his huge head on the man’s shoulder.
    “Good work, Barnaby,” the professor said giving the big slobbering head a pat. “Better than that useless, no-good, dozy watch-dog of mine.” He looked around and bellowed. “Where are you, Pedro? If you are asleep again I will put pepper on your tail.”
    Down the path came a flea-sized Chihuahua looking more like a kid’s wind-up toy than a vicious watch-dog. His ears were pricked, his tail stood straight and his stiff match-stick legs were burning rubber. The look on his face seemed to say, ‘Who me? Sleeping? I’d rather be caught robbing a bank.’
    Scooping up the tiny fawn and white dog and depositing it in one of his many voluminous coat pockets, the Professor glared up at me.
    “Now,” he growled, banging his walking-stick against the tree-trunk. “What are we going to do with this girl-child, Barnaby?”
    Please—don’t ask Barnaby. He might still be thinking of the game he played with the red balloon.
    “Do you know the meaning of the words, ‘No Trespassing’, girl?”
    “Yes sir.” My voice came out all weak and wobbly. Didn’t sound like my voice at all. I cleared my throat and tried again. “It was just a bit of fun. The dare-box dared me to tie six red balloons to one of your trees.”
    I looked across at the pepper tree. Where was Short Dark and Irritating when I needed him to back me up?
    Hmm…evidently turned into Scared Pathetic and Silent.
    “Dare box?” The professor’s forehead creased into paddock sized furrows.
    I nodded without answering. Too complicated.
    The strange old man with a bull’s head resting on his shoulder and a toy guard-dog snuggled in his coat pocket looked like something from a wacky cartoon. He wore baggy pants, so old and dirty they’d probably fall to bits if he ever decided to wash them and a long button-less overcoat faded to a shabby shade of grey and done up around the middle with a hunk of green twine. His hair, silvery white and so wild, birds could have nested in there,