The Impossible Race: Cragbridge Hall, Volume 3 Read online

  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.”

  “Just give me a minute,” Malcolm said. “These things are scary beasties, but I’m getting closer.”

  “I think I’ve spotted the Alvarezsaurus,” Rafa added.

  “I’m checking out an Argentinosaurus right now,” Abby said. She was glad that she had something to say, that she hadn’t failed yet. She couldn’t take her eyes off the huge creature. Though it was massive and awkward, there was also a grace to it. Its long neck moved smoothly as it walked, its tail swaying slightly with each step.

  Abby darted forward, trying to get a good view of its other side. It wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be. The dinosaur moved slowly, but its steps were a lot larger than hers. She had some catching up to do. Thankfully, it found another tree with leaves it liked and craned its neck to pull them off. Abby got close enough to pick out the letters g-r-a. There had to be more. She just needed a few more steps.

  With a whoosh, the forest broke open and a rush of teeth and growling crashed out. Then two more. Three giganotosauruses. Abby recognized the bigger cousins of the T. rex from her list. Not her favorite realization. Somewhere in Abby’s mind she knew they stood several stories tall and were longer than school buses, but at the moment, all she could think was that she had to get out of there. She screamed as one knocked into the side of the Argentinosaurus and then bit into its flank. It clamped its jaws a few times, moving its teeth back and forth like a saw to scrape and tear the hide.

  The huge plant-eater roared in pain.

  One of the other Giganotosauruses raced around the tail and bounded toward Abby, showing its ruler-length teeth. Apparently, it had heard her scream and thought she might be an easier meal.

  Abby screamed again. In the back of her mind, she thought she heard other members of the team shouting. Were they sharing key words? Were they coming to help her? Her mind was not clear enough to hear what they were saying.

  She sprinted away, fumbling with her rifle, but the predator caught up in a matter of a few steps. Abby pointed her gun behind her and shot. She peered back, hoping to see it wobbling with a tranquilizer dart in its front. It was only feet away, running as fast as ever. She pointed her rifle again as the beast leaned forward and opened its jaws wide. Abby was sure it could swallow her whole.

  A huge tail clobbered into the Giganotosaurus, catching it in the jaw and side. The meat-eater flew backward and toppled over. The Argentinosaurus was fighting back.

  Abby didn’t stop running, but now had a clear view of the key words on the dinosaur—Grand Canyon, Taj Mahal.

  “Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal,” she repeated to the others.

  Another roar. More pounding feat. Another predator. And the Argentinosaurus was busy with the third one. Abby fired twice behind her as she ran, the second dart sticking into the beast’s thick hide just under its head. But it didn’t slow down. This was it for Abby. She wouldn’t turn around again. She wouldn’t look into that horrifying mouth. And if Anjum thought this was making a significant mistake, she was off the team.

  A whistle cut through the air. The steps behind her became uneven, slower. Then slower. Then a thud. Abby looked over her shoulder to see the beast crashed on the ground.

  “Got it,” Anjum said through Abby’s earpiece, but she also saw him. He stood just outside of some trees, waving his hands and a large tranquilizer gun; it looked more like a bazooka than a rifle. “Sorry it took me a little bit, Abby.”

  “Amazing,” Malcolm said. “I’ve been tracking them this whole challenge, but Anjum came out of nowhere. And those guys are hard to keep up with.”

  “Malcolm, get going,” Anjum commanded. “Abby, the Giganotosaurus closest to you had key words on its back—our last ones. Read them to me.”

  Abby had to crawl onto the virtual beast to read the words—four players. She hadn’t messed up her part. At least, not yet. But the next challenge was going to be another group event.

  Less than a Second

  Derick rushed through the hal
ls, a huge smile on his face. The Race was fantastic. The challenge. The adrenaline. He loved it. Well, except for the fact that he had let Rafa go to the last challenge. He had no idea it would be a dinosaur world. Now he was running to the geography room. He doubted this would be as cool.

  A memory seeped into his thoughts. The girl from the future. Muns. The Race. And his death. He didn’t want to die. But it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. This was just a bunch of kids doing spectacular challenges. There didn’t seem to be anything sinister about it at all. Derick cleared his mind. Right now, he had to protect the secret. They had to win.

  “Second-to-last event in this round,” Anjum said. “We can’t slow down now.” At the end of the last event, they had found a square in the room with the virtual booths, which Rafa had touched to log their time. The square had repeated the key words.

  Derick ran into a geography room where Piper and Jess both sat in desks with globes in front of them. Anjum continued his instruction, “Malcolm’s on his way, but we need to find all the places we have key words for from the dinosaur challenge.”

  Derick sat down in front of a globe. It seemed alive. Clouds moved on top of it as it rotated slowly on its axis. It was a spherical screen.

  “Derick, you take Mt. Everest,” Anjum directed.

  Derick had used the globes before. He knew he could guide it with the touch of a finger. He was about to spin it to the right country, but where was Everest? He knew it was the tallest mountain in the world, but he didn’t know where he could find it on the globe.

  Malcolm burst in and sat down, sweat pouring down the side of his head and passing by his huge smile. “Any questions?” he asked. “I know my geography.”

  “Everest,” Derick burst out.

  “Almost the northeast corner of Nepal in the Himalayas,” Malcolm rattled off.

  Derick looked at the globe. Now he had to remember where Nepal was. By China. He used his fingers to spin the globe by China. Then he zoomed in by pressing his fingers against the globe and spreading them apart. He zoomed down past the clouds; the land grew larger and more detailed. He zoomed in closer and closer. But nothing was labeled. That made sense. The real Earth wouldn’t be labeled. The landscape gained more and more detail.

  He logged into his rings and looked it up. There it was, between India and China. He moved closer and closer until he could see snow-capped mountains, and dark spots of rock and crevasses.

  “Got the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon,” Malcolm said. He was fast. “Key words were feet and Dogood. Weird.”

  There were several peaks. Derick turned the view to show him a profile view of the mountain range, looking for the tallest. It was huge though, so he checked his rings to help quicken his search.

  “The key word from Petra was the,” Piper said. “I’m not sure how much that helps.”

  Derick zoomed in on the top of the legendary mountain. He saw piles of oxygen bottles and tents left there by those who had conquered the mountain. Talk about littering. And he found a key word stamped into the snow in large letters: bridge.

  • • •

  Abby watched as the sixteen-year-old boy left a letter underneath the mat. It was the shop where The New England Courant was printed. But it wasn’t just any dark-haired teenager; it was a young Benjamin Franklin.

  “This can’t be it,” Abby said. “How could they have left a clue or a square here?”

  “Just stick with it,” Anjum said. “The clues were: ‘bridge, at, of, Dogood, the, real, Mrs. Silence, the, feet, the, past.’”

  “And Mrs. Silence Dogood was Benjamin Franklin,” Abby said. “He couldn’t get published when he was sixteen, so he wrote letters pretending to be older. It totally worked.”

  “And he pretended to be a woman,” Carol said. “That’s a little wah-wah-weird. And it says here that men wrote in and offered to marry her.” Carol was reading information through her rings. “I mean, ‘she’ was really a teenage boy, but they thought she was an older lady. So awkward.”

  “But how is that the last clue?” Abby asked. She was trying not to panic. The first round of the Race ended at this challenge. And of course it had to use the Bridge. And of course, she couldn’t figure it out.

  “I think we may still have the lead,” Anjum said. “Everyone think.”

  “The pattern that makes the most sense,” Abby said, “is ‘At the feet of the real Mrs. Silence Dogood.’ But we still have bridge, the, and past left. It has to be at Benjamin Franklin’s feet, but where in the past?”

  “Don’t worry, sis,” Derick said over their communication channel. “You’ve got this, but I’m coming your way, just in case it helps.”

  She didn’t want to waste the brainpower to respond. There were thousands of entries logged into the Bridge about Benjamin Franklin. Narrowing it down to the period of time when he had pretended to be Mrs. Silence Dogood helped, but that was still a ton of ground to cover. Franklin had sent in letters every two weeks, fifteen times. That was hours of footage. They didn’t have hours. It was almost like she had it completely wrong.

  Maybe she shouldn’t be standing at the Bridge at all. She wished she could rewind time and go back to when they all had stood at the outside stage and have someone else take her place on the team.

  “Wait,” Abby said. “That’s it. What if I shouldn’t be standing here? What if I’m at the wrong bridge?”

  “All of the Bridge booths show the same episodes in history,” Anjum said.

  “No,” Abby responded. “What if the clues aren’t referring to the past and the Bridge, but are telling us to go past a bridge? Isn’t there a small stream that runs through part of the Cragbridge Hall grounds?”

  “Yes,” Piper said.

  “And isn’t there a bridge over it?” Abby said.

  “Yeah,” Piper confirmed.

  “And don’t we have a shrub that is shaped like Benjamin Franklin out there?” Abby asked.

  “Genius, Abby,” Anjum said and let out another high-pitched laugh.

  She didn’t stop to feel the compliment, but opened the door of the Bridge booth and bolted. “I’m on my way. Is there anyone else closer?”

  “Malcolm is coming out of the geography rooms now, but that’s about the same distance. Everyone run to that hedge,” Anjum yelled. “Go! Go! Go!”

  “Good luck beating Abby at a run,” Carol said.

  Abby raced out of the building and across campus. Under the bright outdoor lights, she saw other students consulting with each other, or whizzing back and forth looking for clues. Were any of them up to any foul play? Were any of them ahead of them and going to win the round?

  She ran up the path and saw a small wooden bridge over the stream in the distance. And there was Benjamin Franklin’s shrub. There were few people you could make a shrub of and have it be recognizable, but Benjamin Franklin was one. His bald head, long hair, and portly figure were easy to see even if they were only branches and green.

  Abby slowed her sprint and dropped at Franklin’s feet. Sure enough, a square leaned against one leg. She put her finger to it and moments later she was identified. Words streamed across the small device.

  You have completed your challenges. First team to bring their last square to the stage wins.

  “I’ve got it,” Abby said. “And I have to bring it back to the stage.”

  “Run, Abby. Run!” Anjum nearly screamed in her ear.

  She did. But as she took her first steps, the world went dark. All of the outdoor lighting, all of the lights within the school, everything. Dark.

  Abby slowed, not wanting to collide with anything or anyone.

  This wasn’t good. It could be a freak power outage, but what were the chances? She hoped everyone who had a key was on their guard. Someone working for Muns might be trying to steal keys.

  It was probably best for Abby to keep moving. She did, her eyes getting more accustomed to the moonlight. She changed her course around the silhouettes of a tree and a few shr
ubs, just in case Muns had someone following her. Her heart pounded. She might be ambushed any second.

  “You okay, Abby?” Derick asked.

  “Yeah,” she responded in a whisper, trying not to draw attention to herself. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Derick admitted. “An electricity failure, I guess. But it’s big. And strange for a school with so many generators.”

  Then everything came back on at once. It was like someone had flipped the switch back on. All in all, the lights had only been off for a few minutes.

  Abby looked around. No threats, just students talking on their rings or racing in different directions. She bolted toward the stage.

  “Hurry, Abby,” Anjum prodded.

  “I’m coming up on the stage,” Abby said, but just as the words left her lips, she saw a boy sprinting ahead of her. He was darting toward the stage. She turned on all she had, pounding her legs, willing them to go faster.

  The boy was a few steps ahead.

  Abby forced herself to gain speed.

  The stage was only feet away.

  With a final push, Abby lengthened her steps and reached out with her square to Landon, just as the boy did the same with Sarah.

  Landon grabbed Abby’s square and quickly slid it into a small machine. Abby saw Sarah doing the same next to him. “Oh! Nailbiter!” Landon said, watching a screen. After a few seconds he spoke again. “So close. You got second place.”

  They must have lost by less than a second.

  “Wow! That was close,” the boy from the other team said. “Good try.”

  Abby tried to smile back at the boy. He was being a good sport about it. Of course she recognized him. He was the boy who had been holding Jacqueline’s hand. Jacqueline’s team had just won the first round.