The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3 (14 page)

Oscars and Ancient Argentina

If I had to guess,” Anjum said, “we’re in the lead, but let’s not act like it. Read the next clue as soon as you’ve got it, Malcolm.”

Malcolm’s Southern drawl came over the message, winded from the run. “All right, here it is:
Treasure chest
,
Filter
,
Not yourself
,
Maiden’s hair.
”

“You know what to do,” Anjum said. “Call out whatever may be a good guess.”

“Maybe it’s me,” Carol said. “I’ve got great hair, and I’m a maiden.”

“I asked for
good
guesses,” Anjum quipped back.

“Wow,” Carol said. “Don’t get grumpy. It’s bad for team morale.” Derick bit the inside of his cheek. He had insisted Carol be on the team and she was popping off whatever came to mind. Maybe it was how she dealt with the pressure. At least she had helped on the first clue.

“Maiden’s hair” sounded unique and kind of weird. Derick typed it into his rings then skimmed over the first entries. “Wait,” he said. “Maiden’s hair is also a name for a saltwater plant you can put in aquariums.”

“That’s it,” Anjum said. “Filter, treasure chest. They fit.”

“And we have the largest aquarium in the zoo portion of the school,” Rafa said.

“You can only go in as avatars,” Anjum added.

“We’re on it,” Rafa called back. He and Derick already had their high-tech suits on and had hooked up to harnesses to be ready.

“Uh,” Derick said, not keying his rings so everyone else could hear. This was just for Rafa. “I’ve never done fish before.”

“Just follow my lead,” Rafa instructed. “You’ll do fine.” Derick would do better than fine with most of the avatars, but the fish were the only group he hadn’t done. And Anjum could have picked any of the other members of the Crash, but he had picked Derick. Time for a crash course.

Crash
course. Derick chuckled to himself.
Dumb
.

“There are two giant aquariums, but one is freshwater,” Rafa instructed. “I think it has to be in the saltwater tank. Choose an oscar. I think they’re easiest. Don’t worry which color.”

Oscar? That was a kind of fish? It didn’t sound like it. More like the first name that popped into a kid’s head when he brought the fish home from the pet store. Of course, it was also Derick’s grandpa’s name. Derick quickly searched through the fish and picked the first oscar he saw. It had a bright orange body with black splotches.

“The machine has to find your avatar and drop it in the water,” Rafa said. “What you want to do is flex your muscles on one side of your body while you let the other side relax. Then switch. That will move your caudal fin back and forth—that’s the fin at the very back. You use your other fins to steer.”

Derick tried to think of the movements, flex one side and relax the other.

“I’m in the aquarium,” Rafa said. “You’ll be here soon. For me, it helps to just imagine I’m a fish and do what comes naturally.”

Yeah, but he had done all of these avatars for years. Derick synced to the fish avatar just as a mechanical arm dropped it into the water. “Whoa!” It was like suddenly being on a roller coaster as it careened downward. Derick took in a quick breath before he hit the water. He tried to stabilize himself with his fins on the side. It worked a little, but felt flimsy. He tried to kick too, but quickly figured out he currently didn’t have legs, and his fins definitely didn’t move like legs.

What had Rafa said? Flex one side while relaxing the other. Derick tried and flipped himself entirely over to the left. He relaxed the right side and flexed the left, but overcorrected. He was now laying on his right side as he went through the water.

Derick held his breath for nearly half a minute before he realized he didn’t have to. His real body wasn’t in the water.

“I’m checking the treasure chest,” Rafa gave an update. Derick saw his friend’s fish darting at the treasure chest like a torpedo. “Start into the maiden’s hair.”

Derick couldn’t quite bring himself upright, but managed to swim down into the plants that looked like green tufts of hair. He weaved around one, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. A large flat fish darted right in front of him. It seemed startled. Maybe it hadn’t seen sideways swimming avatar fish before. Derick moved to the next plant, and then the next. He was on his fourth one when he saw it—something white in the middle of the plant. He circled his front fins, trying to hold himself in place to get a good look. It definitely didn’t seem like it belonged there. He tried to grab it with his mouth, but ended up just bumping it with his fish face. It probably would have been better if a different member of the Crash were here.

His bump was enough to turn the white piece of plastic. “Something’s here,” Derick said. “It says
‘Room three. Four across. Two back.’
”

“Good job, Derick,” Rafa said.

“Of course,” Anjum said. “They had to put the actual square somewhere else. When you’re a fish you can’t exactly put your thumb to one and be identified.”

“My best guess is that it refers to the classrooms next to the avatar lab,” Rafa said. That made sense. They were the closest rooms and where students learned all about the different species of animals and how to become like them with the help of the avatars.

Derick concentrated away from his robot fish and back on his real body. He pressed the back of his neck to sever the connection between him and the fish. Abandoned, his fish avatar would simply float to the surface. That might also freak out the fish who had seen him swimming sideways.

Derick unharnessed himself as fast as he could and darted into the hall. Room one. He ran farther down, passing room two. When he entered room three, Rafa was already there, looking underneath a chair.

“Got it,” Rafa said. “It’s reading my fingerprint.”

“Good job, you two,” Anjum said. “Everyone else get ready.”

• • •

Abby waited. She hated waiting. Her grandfather’s secret was at stake and she was doing absolutely nothing. Nia and Malcolm had run to the first clues. Derick and Rafa had swum through the aquarium. And she was just waiting by the Bridge listening to Carol comment about everything—from how cool Malcolm’s deep voice sounded to how Derick would probably make a very cute fish.

And she waited as Nia had to play the next seven notes of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony
from where the clue had stopped playing. She grabbed a guitar, looked up the piece, followed along, and eventually plucked out the notes. Turns out her guitar hobby was useful after all.

And Abby waited as Maria and Jess dissected a virtual frog in the Biology lab to find the next clue. The clue was written on the frog’s liver. So gross. Abby was glad she didn’t have to do that one.

“It says the next challenge is for five members of the team,” Maria said. “And the key words are:
‘Virtual plains
,
Millions of years ago
,
The sixth sphere
,
Five species.’
”

“It’s at the virtual booths,” Anjum said. “I’m already there. Malcolm and Maria, you’re the closest. Come help me. Then Derick and Rafa and Carol and Abby, each of you send one of your pair and leave the other just in case we need you for the next challenge.”

Carol turned to Abby. “I really want to go super bad, but you’re faster.”

Abby took off. She sprinted down the hall toward the physics and math rooms where they had labs of virtual booths. She was better at running distance than speed, but she was fast enough. With every step she hoped she wasn’t about to mess this up. Anjum was giving her a chance and she didn’t want to be kicked off the team. And she definitely didn’t want anyone else finding out the secret.

“The clue had to be about the sixth sphere in the holding bins,” Anjum said. “Whatever virtual world that sphere holds, we’re going in.” There were several sounds of rustling as Anjum moved. “I’ve got it. Everyone sync in with my world as soon as you can.”

Malcolm and Maria said they were nearly in the room.

“I’m stepping into the world now.” Only a moment passed before Anjum whistled. “Impressive! Whoever made this is good.”

It had impressed Anjum, the student who had made a virtual space station orbiting Jupiter.

“Whoa!” Malcolm said. He must have made it into the virtual world as well.

“Quit gawking, boys, and figure out what we are supposed to do,” Maria scolded. Abby liked her sass.

Abby raced past another line of lockers, seeing students from other teams running in different directions. She was only a hall away.

“We have to find the key words,” Anjum said. “And I would guess they have to do with the list you can access at the upper right-hand corner of your vision. There are five species listed there.”
Five species
. That was one of the clues. “Quickly look at all of them and keep your eyes peeled. I’ll go north. Malcolm, east. Maria, south. Rafa, west. And Abby,” he paused. She didn’t like that pause. “Pick a direction.”

She was a leftover. Abby didn’t know what she was about to face, but it still felt like she wasn’t a high priority.

“Just some friendly advice,” Malcolm said. “Don’t get stomped or eaten. I’m pretty sure that will kick you out of the world. Oh, and you can also select a huge virtual tranquilizer gun. I’d recommend it. I doubt these things are
all
vegetarians.”

What was going on? And what kind of species were in this virtual world? Abby raced into the room just in time to see Rafa step into a booth. She went into the next, put on her suit, hooked herself up to the suspension equipment, and synced up to the world Anjum was in.

In an instant, she felt a warm humid mist and smelled a mix of ocean and leaves. She gazed at a stretching landscape of mountains and trees with a green-water coastline within a mile or two. Then she saw it. A bird. No. Not a bird. It flew closer and closer. It didn’t have feathers, but a long snout and clawed feet. And it was the size of a car.

Abby jumped behind a tree as the flying beast flapped past. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. She was in a land of dinosaurs!

Abby selected a tranquilizer gun and it appeared in her hand. She picked the smallest one, a thin rifle. She didn’t want to use it, but if she had to, she hoped her aim would be true.

Abby loaded up the list of species in the right-hand side of her vision and scrolled through it. Apparently, these were the kinds of dinosaurs they were supposed to find, all from the Cretaceous Epoch in Argentina. She didn’t see that coming. When she thought of Argentina she thought of soccer, the Iguazu Falls, and that song about not crying for Argentina. She didn’t think of dinosaurs.

Some of the beasts on the list were smaller, like the Alvarezsaurus. The pictographic beside it showed that it was about six-and-a-half feet long and ran fast. It had a tuft of feathers slicked back on the top of its head and more on its tail. Others were huge, like the Giganotosaurus—Tyrannosaurus Rex’s larger cousin. Abby hoped she didn’t see one of those.

Abby walked through the brush, gripping her rifle. She couldn’t help feeling like she was in a movie or a video game.

“I found a Microsaurops,” Anjum updated. He was the virtuality master and apparently the fastest of the team. “All you have to do is sneak up close enough to read the words on it. This one had them on its side. As I doubt these dinosaurs draw on one another, I can only imagine they are the key words. The words I found were
Great Wall
and
globes
. We have to find them on each of the species. We only have four more sets of words to go.”

“Good to know,” Maria said. “I’m trying to work around to what I think is an Unenlagia. I have no idea if I’m saying that right. Anyway, I thought I saw something behind its neck. I’m going in for a better look.”

The others were tracking something. Abby had only seen the flying dinosaur and, thankfully, that one wasn’t on the list. She could only imagine how hard it would be to track down something that could fly.

Abby pushed through trees for several minutes before they opened up to a large plain with little mounds scattered across the ground. Abby crept closer. Each lump curved in at the top and cradled a handful of eggs. This was some sort of nesting ground. And it was calm and empty.

For about ten seconds.

Abby felt the tremors in the ground first. It was like thunder coming up from the dirt and shaking her legs. Then the largest living thing Abby had ever seen stepped out of the trees.

Her mouth dropped open in complete awe.

Its head peered forward four or five stories above her, its long neck reaching forever back to the rest of its body. It moved slowly, its heavy form thudding against the plain as it walked toward a group of towering trees. It pulled huge groups of leaves from the treetops, crunching down on its meal. Then it moved to another thicket. After it took a few more steps, Abby got a better idea of its entire size. It was about as long as the inside of a gym, including the bleachers on the ends. It seemed like a moving building.

Abby checked her list.
Argentinosaurus
. It was named after the place its bones had been discovered and was about 115 feet long and could weigh over 100 tons. It was one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered. This had to be it.

But she couldn’t see any key words. Of course, if they were on the other side, she wouldn’t have seen them. Abby snuck out of the brush and crossed underneath the Argentinosaurus’s huge tail, which it carried several feet above the ground. She just hoped it didn’t come down on top of her. It had to weigh several tons. Even in a virtual world, that wouldn’t feel good.

“
Everest
,
Chichen Itza
, and
Petra
,” Maria said over their earpieces. “It’s really weird to see words painted on a dinosaur. It doesn’t quite fit the whole theme.”

“This sounds like we’re up for a geography challenge next,” Anjum announced. “Malcolm, unless you are tracking a dinosaur right now, I want you to leave and go back to the geography lab. It sounds like we may need you there. I’m moving your way.”