The Brontosaurus Had Been Growing
didn’t want to waste the batteries- almost super-human tolerance
- even if the word “Surgery” had not been inscribed
- dive into the unknown
- the long-legged Englishman
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The Brontosaurus had been growing for as long as I could remember, becoming more ponderous and complicated all the time. It reached a point where I no longer considered Mother’s ambitions much of a danger to the world at large, simply because there was no way such a tangled mess of a plan could ever succeed.
But, what if? What if the Brontosaurus was a distraction from her real initiatives? It would explain so much. Were all of her obsessions mere pantomime, or did she really feel that way about the long-legged Englishman who cleaned the pool? He had an almost super-human tolerance for chlorine, which could qualify him for certain kinds of clandestine missions.
I had to escape this alley and its rats. I had to find Tessa and warn her, before Mother found me. I had to do it without my flashlight, which I stupidly stopped carrying with me because I didn’t want to waste the batteries. I started digging through the heaps of charred swimsuits in the dumpster, hoping something more useful had been thrown away. When I got to the bottom of the pile, I saw a pull ring attached to the floor of the dumpster. It had a trapdoor! I decided it was better to dive into the unknown below the garbage receptacle than face down the swarming rodents outside it.
Especially after I stole Yoda’s flashlight.
The stairs curved and twisted, descending for what felt like miles. Finally I stood at a door. I knew where I was, and it chilled me. I would have known even if the word “Surgery” had not been inscribed on the knob, even if the plaque beside it didn’t say “Rocketry.”
I swallowed hard, and rang the doorbell.