Guido shook his head, at a loss for words. Never thought I’d feel like the least weird dinosaur in a group. I should have met these guys a long time ago, he chuckled inwardly.
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“Ozzy, I don’t wanna do this,” Strut whimpered.
“Oh, fine!” Ozzy grumbled, “I’ll let you have one bite of one of the eggs I get. But if you want more, you’ll have to get it yourself!”
Quickly but quietly, Ozzy began sneaking towards the clubtail’s nest, hiding behind individual trees as he got closer. Soon he was at the closest tree, less than ten feet away, and, after checking one more time to make sure that the clubtail was still facing in the opposite direction, made a lunge for the eggs.
Ozzy paused, salivating as he looked over the shelled morsels. He bent down to pick one upóand froze as a shadow waxed over the nest. For the second time that morning, he glanced up apprehensively…to see the mother clubtail’s club flailing overhead. Ozzy yelped and scrambled backward as the tail came at him again. This time he ducked, feeling the rush of air as the bony bludgeon whooshed past.
“Ha! You missed!” Ozzy shouted gleefully.
But the clubtail’s tail kept going. It slammed into the trunk of one of the nearby trees, shaking it violently. A moment thereafter, a shower of pinecones came raining down from the branches above, pelting Ozzy all over his head and back.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Ozzy cried out as he tried ineffectually to shield himself from the hard, spiky seeds.
As the hail of pointy seeds subsided, Ozzy opened one eye and peered up. The mother clubtail was standing over her nest, smirking smugly at the cowering egg stealer. She then turned and swung her tail again, this time grazing the trunks of several trees. This resulted in a veritable downpour of pointy seeds, which bounced painlessly off the clubtail’s hard armor (never touching her nest, since her body was positioned over it), but forcing Ozzy to run for cover, yelling and cursing in pain as he was bombarded with pinecones.
“So, did you get anything this time?” Strut asked upon Ozzy’s return.
“Yes,” Ozzy said flatly. And with that, he yanked Strut’s mouth open, stuffed in a handful of pinecones, then used both hands to slam his brother’s jaws shut, crunching the seeds between them.
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Her wings now dry, Amy took another shot at catching a fish. This time she tried wading into the water and standing still like a heron, waiting for the fish to come to her. They soon showed up, and Amy made a grab for one. Once again, however, all that resulted was a large splash.
Gathering her patience, Amy waited for the water to settle, and tried again. Another failure. This process repeated a few more times until finally, Amy had just about had enough. She began trudging back to shore in frustration, ignoring the fish darting out of her way. Suddenly, she tripped, and reflexively spread her wings to regain balance. This did nothing to stop or break her fall, however, and she landed flat on her front with the biggest splash she had yet produced.
For a moment she lay fuming, but then a spastic slapping sound on the bank drew her attention. To her amazement, Amy saw a fish lying in the grass in front of her; it must have been swept onto shore by the miniature wave she had created when she fell. Hurriedly she clambered onto shore and lunged for the fish, a blow from her beak putting an end to its struggles.
For a moment, Amy considered going to Anna and asking her to build a fire to cook the fish, or finding some flints and kindling and making one herself, but feeling the ache of hunger in her stomach, she thought, oh, what the heck! and tore a strip of flesh off the side of the fish with her beak. It wasn’t too bad, she thought as she swallowed it, and proceeded to eat the rest of the fish’s flesh.
