CHAPTER 11
The Pterodactyl had spotted us while making its periodic rounds over the marsh. Being a German Bird—strike that, a German flying Lizard—it loved mustard, and would regularly check on the growth of various mustard patches in its neck of the woods.
Seeing Drako, the airborne reptile was curious and glided down toward us. It circled a few times. The ovals it traced in the air with its wings continually diminished in size, and its speed reduced ever more. It glided slower and slower, until it finally lifted its wings above its head, flapped the tips of them, and settled down on the Zenia Zephyr, making a scratching sound with its talons on the cowling. This was followed by a screeching greeting, or warning—Albert didn’t know which at first.
You see, Albert had not turned his Doolittle to Reptilian mode (he had at first tried Birdian, but realized his mistake too late), so I relayed the message to him. It was simply, ‘Howdy!’
Before we could say anything in reply, the giant beast looked at Albert (perhaps because it had seen me interpreting its salutation to him) and asked, without preamble of any sort, “Who are you?”
By this time Albert had switched his Doolittle to Reptilian mode, and answered the flying Lizard, introducing himself and then the rest of us.
Drako couldn’t hold in her excitement any longer and blurted out, “What’s your name, lovely Pterodactyl?”
“My name is Terri Wingfinger, at your service,” she responded, bowing low, with a graceful sweep of her right wing over her chest.
“Terry? How do you spell it?” Tubthumper asked, thinking in this way she could divine whether the Pterodactyl was male or female without having to directly ask the potentially embarrassing question—after all, what animal wants to be mistaken for a member of the opposite gender?
The ruse worked. The Pterodactyl replied, “T-e-r-r-i.”
All of us understood, and we were grateful to Tubthumper for the indirect answer to the question that we had. Not that it mattered—why should we care whether a Pterodactyl was male or female?
Drako cared, though, because—as do many females—she felt a greater affinity with and felt more at ease with Terri knowing that she was a member of the scaly sisterhood.
Terri noticed Drako looking at her, and observed also that the Bearded Dragon had her head tilted to the side and that there was an obvious admiration, or even glint of affection, shining in the earthbound Lizard’s eyes.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” the Pterodactyl said to the Bearded Dragon, “but how did you get so small? I’ve never seen a grown Lizard as tiny as you before—you’re even smaller than most baby Lizards.”
“I’m not small, you’re big!” Drako countered.
“Well, I’m not as big as most of my type,” Terri said. “In fact, I’m smaller than many. We’ve got some real Titanosaurs around here. Look at that Dreadnoughtus over there,” she said, pointing her left wingtip toward the middle of the marsh. “He makes me look like a flea by comparison. He’s 85 feet long, and weighs 65 tons!”
“Oh my ears and whiskers!” gasped Marmalade.
“How do you know it weighs that much?” I challenged, a bit skeptical about the precise tonnage of the thing—although it was, without a shadow of a doubt, extremely humongous.
“Why do you say it has 85 feet? I only see four,” Marmalade asked.
Terri apparently considered my question impertinent. I drew this conclusion because she ignored it. She laughed at Marmalade’s question, and left it to Stripes to answer, figuring that Stripes was her father, or uncle.
“The biggest thing we’ve ever seen is an Elephant,” Stripes said. “We’re not used to seeing animals this large.”
“What’s an Elephant? Where are you from?” Terri now asked, looking around at all of us.
“Well, you can see an Elephant right there,” I said, lifting my right paw and indicating Tubthumper.
“She’s not that big—not much bigger than any of you midgets,” Terri said (rather rudely, I thought). “She’s got nice hair, though.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Tubthumper said. “I love the auburn tint of your skin, by the way.”
Terri grinned (you couldn’t really call it a smile; she seemed physiologically incapable of that) and nodded in acceptance of the compliment.
“But I must tell you, this is not my normal size,” Tubthumper continued. “If I were at my regular dimensions, I would not fit into my seat, so I got shrunk to make this trip—I’m off to visit my brother, who’s back home in Africa.”
“Where’s Africa? How big are you normally? How did you get shrunk?” Terri asked.
Tubthumper answered all of these questions to Terri’s satisfaction. When Terri again noted that she had never before seen an Elephant, Albert told her that Elephants were related to Mastodons.
“Thunder and Lightning! I can see the family resemblance now!” Terri said, tilting her head back and flapping the tips of her wings lightly at her side. “Why didn’t I notice it before? You’ve got the same big flappy ears, long floppy nose—and the same extending curly teeth as my old friend Matilda the Mastodon.”
“Those are called ‘tusks’” Albert said.
Terri received this information silently. She still thought of them as teeth. Besides, ‘tusks’ is a hard word to say, especially when you have no lips.
“You still didn’t tell me where you are from,” Terri said. “It must be a strange place. I’ve never seen any animals like any of you before—especially this scrawny, pasty looking specimen,” she added, pointing at Albert.
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