Hilda and the Petrified Forest

…

"Alright! Gather round Sparrow Scouts! It's time for your next assignment!" Called the Raven Leader.

It was beginning around evening time at Scout Hall as all the children gathered around their leader, who stood happily by the stage with a series of papers in hand. Hilda, Frida, and David were all very excited, especially Hilda, since this was another opportunity to receive a badge for once.

"This weekend," Raven Leader began, "you'll all be getting into groups of three to embark on local fossil digs around town. There's a series of sites within the Trolberg area that you can visit, and each group is to retrieve just one fossil of unique quality. If you can do that, then you'll be able to earn the Palaeontology Badge!"

As Raven Leader passed around some worksheets, Hilda and her friends all swapped high-fives and huddled together.

"This will be a cinch!" David remarked, grinning with delight. "All we have to do is bring back a simple fossil and that's it!"

"Which means maybe I'll finally be able to earn a Sparrow Scout badge!" Hilda spoke. "What's the best place to look, Frida?"

"According to my notes," Frida replied as she flipped open her enormous binder, "the best places to find fossils is by the Björg ford lakeside." Frowning, she closed the binder, "but no doubt all the other Sparrow Scouts are planning to go there. I bet everyone is just going to bring in a shell or something."

"Well… we just have to find somewhere that's equally unique. That's all." Hilda responded. Thinking for a moment, she snapped her fingers. "Wait! I've got it!"

"What have you got?" David asked.

"On one of the routes I take Twig for his walks, I pass by the railroad tracks that lead into the woods. I once overheard my Mum talking about a petrified forest deep inside."

"A what? Petrified forest?" David shivered, "that sounds spooky."

"It's not spooky at all." Frida reassured. She flipped to a page in her binder and showed her scared friend some drawings of trees. "A petrified forest is simply one that gets buried by dirt before it can rot away. Groundwater runs through the wood, turning it into a mineralized form."

"Ehh…" David cringed, "I bet that sounds spooky to a tree."

"In any case, we should look for fossils there! I bet not a lot of kids know about it." Hilda suggested, to which Frida and David agreed. They planned to set off first thing tomorrow morning.

…

At the Library, Hilda strolled past the enormous bookshelves as she usually did. Little did her friends know, she had been secretly practicing magic. Ever since her adventure with the Tide Mice, she desperately wanted to perfect the art and do it justice. No more skipping footnotes, if she could help it. At this point, the most she had been doing was small levitation spells.

During this visit, however, she didn't plan on reading up on her magic. Frida wanted her to retrieve a specific book for her, since she was busy with her family that night.

Perusing through the volumes, she found what she was looking for and pulled out a brick-sized compact book.

"The Treasury of Natural History. Huh, that looks about right." Hilda said matter-of-factly.

Taking care not to get noticed, she pushed a particular shelf back and strolled down the stairs to the mysterious secret room. Mentally telling herself not to focus on magic, she got comfortable on the red armchair and examined the book.

"This cover is quite lovely." She spoke to herself, admiring the etchings of animals and plants and the gold-embossing of the title. She propped it open and was greeted by an array of images and text about nature. One artwork piqued her curiosity: there were two kinds of grotesque-looking animals, a large, big-headed one and a series of smaller, bipedal ones. They seemed to be fighting over a carcass.

"Can't say I've seen animals like those before." Hilda said, curling her lip. She peered down at the caption below which read, extinct reptiles of the Triassic Period.

"Extinct? Well that explains that." Before long, Hilda spent a half hour lingering through these pages and was introduced to all these strange, long-gone animals and plants. "That's such a shame. They're all quite beautiful. I'd so love to see these creatures alive."

And then a particular thought sparked in her brain.

With a sneaky eye, she craned her head to look at the shelves before her, filled to the brim with spell books of all kinds.

"Maybe… maybe one spell won't hurt." Hilda whispered.

Setting the nature book aside and leaving her chair, she skimmed through various titles before settling on Incantations of the Time Dimension, which seemed about right. Taking her usual care, she scanned through the book's contents, hoping to find the right spell.

Once she found what she was looking for, Hilda ran upstairs and - checking the coast - moved to the scanner to make a copy of the appropriate pages. But there were eyes watching her.

The scan completed, she hurried downstairs, placed the book back, gathered her belongings, and approached the check-out desk. Stacking books, the ever mysterious Librarian turned around and gave Hilda a suspicious look.

"Hi Maven, just this please." Hilda spoke, smiling innocently.

Smirking, the Librarian picked up the book and eyed the cover. "Hmm. Natural History? I never pegged you as a nonfiction reader."

"Oh! It's not for me. My friend needs this book to help with our Sparrow Scouts assignment. We're going fossil hunting tomorrow." Hilda explained, rubbing her arm.

"Aye, that sounds completely safe and not dangerous at all." Maven scanned the book and handed it back to Hilda.

"Thanks! See you later!" Hilda waved goodbye, but before she could turn around she felt the Librarian's hand on her shoulder.

"Hildy… make smart decisions okay?" She spoke, eyes glaring with authority.

"Uh… yes ma'am." Hilda nodded her head, giving an awkward smile. And with that she was out the doors of the library.

Maven looked after her, crossing her arms but softening her glare. "I swear this kid's gonna keep me up at night."

…

The next morning, after a lovely breakfast with her Mum, Twig, Alfur, and Tontu, Hilda was greeted at her front door by Frida and David, all geared up.

"Good morning guys!" Hilda beamed.

"Ready to go?" David asked.

"You know it." Hilda replied, reaching to grab her things. "Mum! I'm going out now!"

"Okay sweetie! Don't be gone too late now!" Johanna called back, waving to the children. "Good luck with the fossil hunt!"

"Thank you!" The kids exclaimed, before heading off down the sidewalk.

"Were you able to find the book?" Frida asked, to which Hilda spoke a little "mhmm" and pulled out the volume from her backpack.

"Oh excellent! Thank you so much!" Frida grinned and couldn't help but flip through some pages as she walked. "This will help us identify any fossils we see."

"I figured so," Hilda replied, "I didn't realize how bizarre the life of the past is. Maybe we'll find the skull of a big dinosaur or something! That would get us, like, 10 badges!"

"If we found a skull like that, how on earth do you think we'll be able to bring it back with us?!" David remarked, incredulous. "My muscles are delicate."

The children giggled and chatted all the way to the railroad tracks. After checking both ways, they crossed the tracks and headed out into the woods.

"According to the map I printed out, the petrified forest should be right… over…" Frida began, before Hilda interrupted with a "there!"

Sure enough, past a series of bushes, was a clearing in the woods where the soil turned yellow and rocky, spread out towards a large rock formation. Throughout the area were the enormous fossilized trunks of extinct trees, many of which lay in positions as if they were felled yesterday.

"Wow! This is incredible! Mum was right!" Hilda squealed with delight, spinning around the area and admiring all the trees.

"Wow is right! I wish I had seen this place sooner." Frida added, laying her hand on a mineralized trunk. "I thought I knew all the natural places around here."

"So did I." David said, turning to Hilda, "come to think of it, I wonder how many people know this is here? Besides your Mum, of course."

"Good question, but as far as I'm concerned, no other Sparrow Scouts are likely coming by anytime soon. That means we'll have more of a chance of finding something special." Hilda responded, already turning over small rocks on the ground.

"True that. Let's get searching!" Frida pulled out some small pointed hammers and brushes and handed them to her friends, sending them in opposite directions to cover more ground. Nearly an hour went by as the kids picked and scratched at the crumbly dirt. Hilda often carelessly moved stones around; Frida delicately chipped away in small localized areas; David just dug a series of holes. No luck.

Wiping her now dusty brow, Frida disappointingly looked to her friends. "You guys find anything?"

Hilda: "No!"

David: "Nope."

Frustrated, Frida tossed her hammer to the ground. "This place should be littered with fossils! I don't get it."

"Don't give up Frida," Hilda calmly cheered on, "all the special things in nature are the hardest to find. That's something I learned when I lived in the woods."

Frida dejectedly flipped through the Natural History book. "I guess that's true," she admitted.

Still content to dig his holes, David removed a series of stones and was struck by a blue gleam in the dirt. "Huh?"

Brushing away the dirt, he revealed the brilliant iridescent blue of a fossilized beetle, embedded in the rock. It sported an indigo spot on its head.

David's eyes lit up like fireworks. "Frida! Hilda! I found something!"

"What is it?" Frida called as the girls rushed over to their friend. David gently held the stone with two hands and presented it. "I think it's a bug."

"Whoa. What a pretty fossil! I didn't know they could have colors like that." Hilda remarked, eyeing the rich blue.

"Sometimes, when an animal is fossilized under certain conditions, their organic tissues can remain." Frida explained, already flipping through the book for an identification, "probably from the same process that petrified these trees."

"That's fascinating." David smiled, already proud of his find. "I gotta say, how lucky are we? We're going to be the talk of the Sparrow Scouts for sure."

"Here we go." Frida found the right page, turning the book towards David's fossil. "It's a click beetle. And according to the website I was looking at, this petrified forest is 210 million years old! So the beetle is likely that old."

"A 210 million year old bug… that's perfect." Hilda smiled, reaching in her backpack to take a peek at her scanned page.

"Way to go David!" Frida gave her friend a big hug.

"Aww, thanks." David beamed.

"We should probably wrap that in cloth to protect it." Frida said, grabbing her backpack.

Hilda held out her hands, "wait! Before you do, I want to try something."

David and Frida cocked their eyebrows. "What do you mean?" Frida asked.

"I… learned a spell last night... and I wanted to try it out on the fossil." Hilda said sheepishly, which immediately threw David in a panic.

"You WHAT?! No no no no, not this again!" David clutched his fossil tight.

"Hilda, what on earth could have possibly made you want to try that?" Frida asked, annoyed.

"It's nothing bad! I promise!" Hilda explained, "I was just so excited reading about extinct animals that I wanted to learn how to bring one to life. And it's just a beetle, so it won't be too dangerous."

Frida did a double take. "Wait… you learned a spell that can bring extinct animals back to life?"

"Yep!" Hilda smiled, "it's really simple! I just want to try it out on our fossil."

"I don't know about this, Hilda!" David said, "Maybe it likes being extinct!"

"Aww come on you guys, please?" Hilda pleaded. "I'll be able to turn it back into a fossil when I'm done. I promise!"

Frida gave Hilda a stern look. "Did you make sure to read all the fine print when you learned the spell?"

"Yes, of course!" Hilda replied.

Frida: "Every footnote?"

Hilda: "And every asterisk."

Taking a deep breath, Frida shrugged her shoulders. "Then I think we can trust you on this one."

"Frida!" David complained.

"Don't worry David. Like Hilda said, it's just a bug. Better she try to bring that back to life than a big dinosaur, right?"

The boy did have to admit that would be a much more dangerous situation. Sighing, he placed the fossil back on the ground. "Okay," he said, "do your thing".

Shaking her hands with delight, Hilda took a stance and urged her friends to get behind her. Positioning her hands towards the fossil beetle, she closed her eyes and began reciting her spell.

From the depths of time primeval,

As if yesterday was medieval,

Come to life, bare your soul,

What once was dead is now whole!

Sparks ignited from the fossilized insect, and it looked as if the animal was attempting to escape its rocky tomb.

Seeing the wriggling animal, David felt a sense of sympathy. "Aww, the poor thing is struggling. I'll help it out!"

"Wait, David NO!" Hilda yelled, but it was too late.

As soon as David touched the beetle's exoskeleton, everything seemed to grow very dark around the children. Within seconds, everyone felt a sharp pain in their heads, and collapsed onto the ground. Soon it was pitch black. Hilda, Frida, and David fell unconscious.

…

When the children came to, it felt as if someone placed an enormous lamp above them. It was egregiously hot and humid. Various sounds emanated around them, but they were not the familiar sounds of the Trolberg forest.

Hilda, Frida, and David sat up on the hard dusty ground, rubbing their heads and eyes. Their Sparrow Scout uniforms were already damp from their sweat.

"Oohhhh" David groaned, "that really hurt."

"Tell me about it." Frida replied.

Having gotten her composure, Hilda looked around at the environment before her. They were surrounded by enormous trees with great branches radiating from along their trunks. They looked very different from the pine trees they were used to back home.

Back home.

Hilda jumped up in alarm. "Frida… David… I think we're in trouble!"

"I'll say! Where are we?! This doesn't look like the petrified forest." David said, having a look around himself.

"That's just it! It doesn't look like the petrified forest… because the forest hasn't been petrified yet!" Hilda exclaimed.

"But that means…" Frida began, only to clasp her hands to her mouth.

"I didn't bring the beetle back from 210 million years ago, I sent us back 210 million years ago!" Hilda revealed, hands flailing about in shock.

"That means we've landed in the Late Triassic Period!" Frida added, at least relieved to see all their belongings made it back with them.

"Ohhhh this is bad! I must have interfered with the spell! I'm so sorry!" David cried.

"No, th-that's okay!" Hilda reassured, "I'll be able to bring us back. All I need to do is change the beetle back into a fossil, and David you can just touch it and it will send us all back again!"

"Okay then… that's all fine and good. Speaking of which… where is that beetle?" David asked, unaware of the blue insect crawling on his head.

"It's on your head!" Frida pointed out, but as soon as she tried to pick it off, the animal began to fly about in the air.

"NO NO! Quick! Grab it!" Hilda screamed.

The three children scrambled about, skipping and hopping into the air after the beetle, but it was all in vain. Before long, the spooked animal disappeared into the forest.

"Ohh shoot!" David stamped his foot, tears flowing from his eyes. "Now what are we going to do?! We're trapped out here millions of years away and it's all my fault!"

"David! It was an accident! Please don't blame yourself." Hilda ran up to her friend, hugging him gently. "We'll just have to go through the wilderness and find that bug."

"What? Out there? Hilda, with all do respect, this isn't the woodlands outside Trolberg. We don't know these parts!" Frida informed, crossing her arms.

"That may be so, but you're forgetting one thing: we're natural-born adventurers! We've been dragged into strange and unusual situations before!" Hilda noted, "and besides, if we have trouble with something we can just rely on your book."

"My book?" Frida looked into her backpack and saw that her copy of Natural History was still inside. "Oh yeah… Yeah! So it is!"

"Maybe… maybe we'll be alright then?" David sniffled.

"That's right. We're all in this together." Hilda smiled.

…

Before long, the trio went off into the direction the beetle flew. They turned over every fern and rock, hoping to find their missing bug. They made note of the peculiar flora of the area. There was not a flower or broad-leaved tree to be seen. Frida noted that all the plants in the area were either cone-bearing trees or spore-bearing plants like ferns: flowering plants wouldn't evolve for another 80 million years, it turned out. Thus, the forest was completely clothed in greens and browns.

Stepping out into the clearing, the kids were greeted to the sight of an enormous wetland, ringed by great boulders and water-loving plants.

"Oh dear. It doesn't look like there's a way around it." Hilda observed.

"Seriously? I'm not going through that!" David exclaimed.

"Shhhh! David! Not so loud!" Frida piped, putting a finger to her mouth.

"What? What are you talking about? Is something out there?" David whimpered, pulling on his shirt collar.

Hilda peered into the water and saw a big pair of yellow eyes staring back at her. The dark impression of its body in the water seemed massive.

"Something's out there alright. Something big." Hilda said quietly.

The enormous form of the animal revealed itself by rising out of the water. It was a large amphibious animal, almost like a giant salamander, and it was immediately joined by more of its fellows. Some of the rocks in the wetland, it turned out, were others of its kind.

"Uhhhh," David groaned, "what are those things?"

Frida flipped through her book. "Metoposaurs. They're amphibians that could grow to three meters long."

"Three whole meters?!" David started backing away, "that's a 'no thank you' from me!"

"Hang on David," Hilda spoke, grabbing her friend's arm, "maybe there's an easier way across?"

Surveying the area, Hilda noticed a very old and very tall tree that looked to have been partially cut into by another animal and was leaning towards the water. Smiling, she ran over to it and began pushing at its trunk. "Come on! Help me push this tree into the water! We can use it to walk across."

Without skipping a beat, Frida and David joined in and struggled with all their might, eventually managing to push the tree into the water with a loud splash. A few of the metoposaurs swam away, frightened, but all eventually settled back down.

"Woo hoo!" The kids cheered, giving each other high-fives.

"Come on, let's go!" Hilda ushered on. Balancing with care, the children walked along the enormous trunk of the tree, over the steaming water and hissing amphibians below them.

"What ugly things." David commented, "they're not going to try to catch and eat us are they?"

"I read that their jaws were like steel traps, able to bite at anything they wanted." Frida replied, baring her teeth with nervousness.

"They don't look hungry through, so as long as we stay up here, we'll be fine." Hilda spoke. "Besides, they probably can't reach us anyway."

"Well… that's good to know. Better us up here than down there with those beasties." David sighed, making sure to keep his balance.

Suddenly, the log started shaking, momentarily causing everyone to freeze in place and grip the bark.

"What was that?" Hilda yelped.

"Wasn't me!" David quipped.

"Don't look at me, I didn't do anything." Frida added.

Several meters behind the children was the sprawling, gray form of a big reptile. Crocodile-like in its visage and body, but with a strange raised snout and cony front teeth. It managed to clamber its front limbs along the trunk of the tree and made its way towards the children, opening its mighty jaws.

David looked back and screamed. "A monster! RUN"

Terrified for their lives, Hilda, Frida, and David bolted across the fallen tree, trying to keep their balance as the lurching reptile clambered after them. Several times it fell into the water, only to launch back onto the log for another bite. Snapping sounds filled the air, sending the neighboring metoposaurs scrambling into the mud.

Hilda saw the top of the tree poking into the foliage of the forest, and ushered her friends along. "Come on! We're almost there!" She called back.

With seconds to spare the trio made a jump for the brush as the attacking reptile made one final bite of its jaws, just missing David's legs by a meter. The kids tumbled down into the dirt, landing safely on the other side.

Hilda peeked over the bushes to see the lumbering animal turn back into the water.

Everyone was panting, trying to compose themselves.

"That… was… so close!" Frida managed to say.

David was livid. "Did you see that thing's flippin' teeth?! He almost made brunch out of us!"

"Frida, what was that frightening thing?" Hilda asked, returning to make sure everyone was okay.

After checking to see if the book was damaged (it wasn't), Frida managed to find a double-page spread on the animal and shared it with her friends.

"Phytosaurs," Hilda read, "large, aquatic reptiles resembling, but unrelated to, crocodiles."

"Their name means 'plant reptile'... well that's clearly a load of rubbish." David read along, scoffing. "Guess that makes me a rutabaga then."

"Hilda, now I'm getting really worried." Frida spoke up, placing the book away. "We've only been in the Late Triassic Period for 15 minutes and already we've nearly lost our lives!"

"This is clearly no place for humans, that's for sure." Hilda agreed, "but we've been in worse scrapes. We just have to become familiar with our surroundings and stick to places where we're in the least danger of being seen."

"If you say so… but the sooner we find this beetle the better." Frida replied.

…

By now it was past noon. Hilda, Frida, and David had entered a much more open landscape, still surrounded by forest, but cut through by a small stream. They settled down under the shade of an enormous fallen log and ate some of their packed lunch, making a conscious decision to save some just in case they were spending the night.

The children constantly found themselves fanning their hands in an attempt to dissipate the heat.

"Of all the places in the past to get stuck into… why couldn't we have ended up in a nice, balmy world?" David grumbled.

"I'd prefer an Ice Age world to this." Frida frowned.

"Why is it so hot out here anyway? It was autumn back home. Shouldn't it be cool where we are?" Hilda asked Frida, who was perusing through her Natural History book.

"Well, during this time in Earth's history, all the continents were joined together and there was only one big ocean, with no ice at the poles." Frida explained, "Thus, the climate was very extreme: hot and dry in the interior and wet and humid at the coasts. Apparently there would have been massive monsoons at parts of the year."

"I wouldn't mind some rain, even nasty rain, if it meant it could break up this hot day." David commented, taking one last bite out of his sandwich.

Peeking out of the bushes behind David was a little slender, reptilian head. It eyed the children and quickly popped back into the bushes. David overheard the rustles and turned his head around. There was nothing there.

"Huh… okay then." David whispered to himself.

There was a sharp buzzing sound that took everyone's attention.

"Do you hear that?!" Frida asked, putting her book away and listening in.

"It sounds like wings!" Hilda beamed, standing up and moving her head around to gauge a direction.

Sure enough, there was the blue beetle, landing delicately on David's shirt sleeve.

"David… don't move." Hilda ordered, to which David froze up.

Just as Hilda and Frida were tiptoeing to snatch the insect, David was knocked on his belly by a small, bipedal animal. Frida yelped as the seemingly fuzzy reptile tried to take a bite out of the beetle, which by now had flown away again.

"Oh no!" Hilda exclaimed, at first going after the insect, but then focusing her attention on the intruding animal and her unfortunate friend.

"Ugh! Get off of me you nasty thing!" David fumed, knocking the reptile off of his back as he got to his feet. It turned and craned its goose-like neck at him, baring its teeth and snapping at him.

"Go on! Get out of here!" David picked up a stone and chucked it at the animal, landing it right on its face. It yipped and bolted back into the forest.

Hilda rushed to David, checking his body for scrapes. "Are you okay, David?!"

"Yeah… no thanks to that stupid bird thing." David groaned, dusting his arms.

"Wait a minute… I recognize that animal!" Hilda exclaimed.

"What do you mean?" Frida asked.

"In your book! When I was reading it for the first time! Here, let me see!" Hilda asked. Frida handed her the book and Hilda rapidly scrambled to that infamous page with the curious illustration. She showed it to her friends.

"It's a dinosaur! It's called Coelophysis." Hilda remarked, "I read a little bit about it, it's a flesh-eater."

"Oh for goodness sake, does anything eat plants around here?!" David yelled, stomping his foot.

"Judging from the illustration, it looks like it was just a little one." Frida noted.

"And lucky for us too… because it's thought that this animal lived in groups." Hilda added.

A low rumbling of rapid footsteps started echoing from the forest. David was the first to feel it.

"Did you say groups?" He squeaked, wide-eyed.

"That's right. Sociable little things. I guess you'd need to be when you live in a world with threats like that guy." Hilda pointed back to the illustration, where a whole pack of Coelophysis were fighting over a carcass with a much larger animal.

"Postosuchus. Now that I don't want to meet." Frida chuckled.

"Uh guys…" David commented, as the rumbling got louder.

"Growing up to five meters in length and sporing a jaw full of curved teeth, this relative of crocodiles was the apex predator of its day." Hilda read on. "Yeah, you're right about that Frida."

"Guys!" David called.

"David, what is it?" Frida finally replied.

"WE NEED TO GO NOW!" David jumped in the air and ushered Hilda and Frida to collect their things and get a move on. No sooner had they made a beeline away from the woods when a pack of Coelophysis charged after them.

The dinosaurs, snapping and cheeping in angry, rushed after the children. Accompanying them was a smaller juvenile with a black-eye.

"Come on!" Hilda exclaimed, huffing and puffing.

"Don't look back!" Frida added.

"Aww I wish I brought my running shoes!" David moaned.

The trio kept up a good pace from the Coelophysis for a little while, but it was quickly becoming apparent that these animals were built for speed and would overpower them very soon. Thinking fast, Hilda noticed a particularly bushy tree on the edge of the clearing, with branches all alongs its sides.

"Quick! Up that tree!" Hilda called out, ushering her arm in that direction.

Wasting no time, Frida and David hurried behind her and they quickly maneuvered up the tree, using the branches like a jungle-gym. They had only managed to get a few meters up when the little dinosaurs swarmed at the base of the tree and practically started clambering over each other to take a bite out of the children.

"Oh no! What if they start climbing up?!" Frida asked in a panicked tone, holding on to the tree for dear life.

"Honestly, I don't think they can!" Hilda observed, noticing how clumsily they gripped the trunk, only to slide down on top of their fellows. Coelophysis was definitely not a tree-dwelling animal.

Hilda, Frida, and David scrambled up the tree for several more meters before they felt they were safe enough. Try as they might, the dinosaurs continued to struggle after them. Once they realized it was all in vain, the pack of fiesty carnivores simply sat on the ground and stared at them with big eyes.

"Well… looks like they're not trying to kill us anymore." Hilda chuckled.

"But they're not leaving either." David noted, frowning. "Aye, they're mighty mad at me, that's for sure." The young Coelophysis has his eye on David the entire time.

"I mean… we can't stay in this tree forever, can we? Those bloody things are just going to wait for us to get tired and come down." Frida deduced, shaking her head.

Hilda shrugged. "Maybe not? Even Twig gets bored when he can't catch a wild animal. How desperate can these Coelophysis be?"

…

Several hours passed by and the kids were still stuck in the tree, watching as the pack of hungry dinosaurs observed their every movement like a mitten and a tiny elf laser pointer. Frida lazily read from her Natural History book, while Hilda rested her head against the trunk and David ate some more snacks. At one point he chucked some jorts down on the ground, and several of the Coelophysis nipped after it, only to return their attention to them.

"Pretty desperate, I'd say." David piped in a tired/annoyed town.

Dark grey clouds had fallen over the area about an hour ago, turning the hot, dry afternoon into a humid, dark evening. It almost threatened to rain several times, but nothing passed over. They could hear thunder in the distance, however.

"Ugh! Why can't you all just leave us alone?!" Hilda yelled, snapping off a twig and throwing it at the dinosaurs. Two Coelophysis simply dodged the stick and resumed their positions.

"Thank goodness you're extinct!" Hilda barked, sticking her tongue out for good measure.

Out of nowhere, one of the older dinosaurs shot up in alarm, sniffing the air. Giving a dire-sounding chirp, it darted off towards the inside of the forest, with all the other Coelophysis in tow. The juvenile looked back at David and sneered before joining its fellows.

"Hey! Hey, they're leaving!" Frida pointed out, putting her book away in her backpack.

"Pff," Hilda huffed, "probably just waiting for us to come down so they can attack us again. I bet they're crafty enough to do it."

A low rushing noise began to permeate through the air, causing all three kids to crane their necks in the direction of the sound. It was coming from far away down the clearing.

"Oh dear, is it their bigger brothers?" David suggested.

Frida peered at the ground below and noticed how the small stream had begun to grow in width and change in color, as if getting muddier. She looked up and saw flocks of pterosaurs flying past, as if panicked.

"I don't think so." She peeped.

Before long, it became very clear: the storms in the distance had sparked an overflow on the river system beyond, sending an enormous flash flood right down the clearing and in their direction!

"Oh no! What do we do, what do we do?!" David freaked out, grasping onto a branch.

"There's only one thing we can do: climb as high as you can!" Hilda exclaimed, and she wasted no time ushering her friends higher and higher up the trunk. Within seconds the force of the waters collided into the tree, shaking everyone in their places. Frida almost slid off, but Hilda and David managed to grab both of her arms and hoist her back so she could regain her grip.

The torrent cascaded all around them, bringing along branches, entire trees, shrubs, and even poor animals caught unaware. Ever higher the waters climbed, but the children had made it as high as possible and they could only hope the waters would recede in time.

For several minutes they hung on as the flash flood intensified. Several large logs smacked into the trunk of the children's tree, each time jolting them in place and tilting the tree's orientation.

"I don't like this! We're gonna fall in!" David cried.

"No we won't! Not on my watch!" Hilda assured as she scanned the area for nearby trees.

Another bump from debris, and the tree leaned more and more towards the water. Frida and David clutched the branches even tighter.

Hilda finally saw something promising: one of the closest trees had a split down its middle where another sapling had grown in its place. It's size and distance was perfect enough to bring everyone to safety and away from the flood. However, it was a few meters out of reach and much too risky to make a jump for it. A thought ticked in Hilda's brain, and she figured it was a dire enough situation where she could try anything.

"Frida, David, trust me on something, will you?" Hilda asked, turning to her scared friends.

"If you have a plan to get us out of this mess, be my guest!" Frida replied.

David nodded along, "for once, I'm not complaining! Anything's better than this!"

"Okay…" Hilda breathed, before taking a deep breath and reaching out her right hand towards the split tree. She had never used a levitation spell on anything larger than a tennis ball, but if she could just muster enough strength and willpower, maybe she could use her magic to pull the tree a little closer in their direction.

The flood waters were getting higher and higher.

Thinking hard, Hilda wiggled her fingers. "Come on…. come on…." she whispered.

Sparkling light radiated from the tree and the branches all twitched and jerked gradually in her direction. Hilda bared her teeth and put all her weight on her arm. "Come on… be a good tree."

Eventually, the tree had turned just close enough to the children that Hilda could practically touch it with her fingers.

"Yes!" Hilda cheered. "Guys! Jump onto that tree!" She looked back to see her friends, incredulous.

"What?!" David questioned bluntly.

"How did you-" Frida began, but not before another fallen tree struck their trunk. This time, the center started crackling and Hilda almost lost her focus.

"JUST JUMP!" Hilda pleaded, and a second later Frida and David scrambled across towards Hilda's side and dived into the split tree. Once they were both across, Hilda leaped and ended her spell, which flung the tree back into its original place. The children were knocked down its branches, but were otherwise unharmed.

Breathing heavily, Hilda looked back to see that their original perch had snapped in two and careened into the rushing waters with a thud. The children were safe and on higher ground.

"Holy moly! That was amazing!" David grinned. "We're high and dry!"

"Hilda, was that magic?" Frida asked, rushing up to her and giving her a big hug.

"Sure was! Actually did us some good for once." Hilda giggled, returning the embrace.

"You saved our lives! Thank you!" Frida beamed.

"Don't thank me just yet." Hilda reminded, "let's find that beetle… then we'll celebrate."

…

After another hour, the clouds had parted, revealing the warm red-orange glow of the approaching sunset. The kids, with much better confidence, strolled through the woodland. Past ferns and giant horsetails, Hilda, Frida, and David kept a good pace.

Eventually, they reached upon another clearing. This time there was no other forest to be seen, just a seemingly endless series of muddy sand-dunes going off into the field of distant mountains. It looked as though much of the debris from the flash flood was deposited here, including several enormous tree trunks.

"Wow… take a look at that." Frida observed, "this looks to be just the right conditions for preserving these trees."

"Really?" Hilda asked.

"Yep! If there's more mud and sand to cover these trunks up, they'll eventually be fossilized." Frida explained.

"That's incredible." David remarked, clasping his hands together. "That's just like the Petrified Forest back home, only we're seeing its start."

"Come on! Let's check it out while they're still light out. Maybe if we're lucky we'll come across our trouble-making beetle?" Hilda suggested.

The children hobbled down onto the muddy sand, and wasted no time poking and prodding around the plant remains. They turned over several logs, only to find soggy lizards and insects clambering about in a daze. David was especially tense: with each site of a six-legged animal, he held his breath hoping that it would turn out to be the bug they were looking for.

Hilda rounded the corner of one of the giant tree trunks and froze in place. Eyes wide, she caught sight of the bloated carcass of a large reptile. It has a pointed snout with blunt teeth and its back was covered in a row of hard armor, some of which protruded from its shoulder and neck as curved spines.

"Whoa! Frida, David, come check this out! I found a dead animal!" Hilda exclaimed, causing her friends to run up in an excited frenzy.

"Oh my goodness! Great find, Hilda!" Frida said, patting her on the back.

"Ewww." David laughed, squinting his eyes. "It smells awful."

The three kids approached the carcass, looking it up and down.

"Got any identification on this one, Frida?" Hilda asked, and Frida wasted no time flipping the pages.

"Got it!" She announced. "It's an aetosaur: a plant-eating reptile that was covered in armor for protection from predators."

"Wow, that book has everything! I might need to borrow it one day to earn the ornithology badge." David commented, crossing his arms.

"I might even ask Mum to purchase me a copy." Hilda agreed, chuckling. She turned back to the dead reptile and felt its tough, pebbly skin with her open palm.

"Poor thing. Must have been washed out with the storm." Frida noted, frowning.

"To think that would have been us if it weren't for Hilda." David spoke, shivering at the thought.

Unbeknownst to them, a large form was making its way across the muddy dunes, leaving deep footprints behind it. Sharp breaths erupted from the animal's snout as it tracked the scent of the dead aetosaur. Honing in on its location, the animal trudged forwards with increasing speed.

"We really should be careful around here." Frida warned, "usually when there's something dead out in the wilderness, the scavengers aren't far behind."

"That's a good point. Let's keep moving." Hilda agreed, moving back from the carcass to her friends.

"Hopefully it's not our little dinosaur friends." Frida giggled.

"Ugh, yeah, hopefully." David groaned, "though, with Hilda around I think we could actually handle those guys."

"Heh, maybe! I'm not afraid!" Hilda cheered, posing heroically.

A deep bellow called from behind the aetosaur carcass as the enormous, bipedal body of a great reptile revealed itself with a mouth of gleaming sharp teeth. The children screamed in surprise and huddled together.

"Um… I think we spoke too soon!" David whimpered.

"Is that…." Hilda stammered, biting her lip.

"Postosuchus!" Frida replied, "the apex predator!"

Sniffing around the rotting body of the aetosaur, the giant crocodile-relative salivated. Eyeing the children, it clambered over the carcass and hissed out. The nasty sound ringed in the kid's ears.

"Okay… calm down." Hilda began, holding her hands out. "We mean you no harm! You want that dead animal? It's yours! Don't mind us!"

"Yes! Eat and be merry! We'll be on our way!" Frida added, smiling weakly.

Baring its teeth, the Postosuchus hopped off the dead body, reared back up, and advanced upon the children.

"No! No! Get away!" David yelled as he clung on to Frida. Hilda put herself in front of her friends, shielding them in a last-ditch effort.

"This is your last warning! Leave us alone!" Hilda demanted, stamping her foot.

The Postosuchus simply bellowed again and opened its toothy mouth at them, continuing its approach.

Breathing deeply, Hilda held out her right hand and started to concentrate. Maybe, just maybe, her magic could be strong enough to fend off even the largest land predator of this day and age. She wiggled her fingers and struggled, but the reptile just came closer and closer, drooling wildly.

As it closed in, Hilda shut her eyes and put all her efforts into her spell. The shadow of the Postosuchus enveloped the children, and it looked like this was the end.

However, within moments, Hilda overheard a whining growl and felt an even greater presence in the area. Opening her eyes, Hilda was greeting to an impressive display, and she wasted no time getting her friend's attention.

They looked up to find a giant, a fairly large one with great muscles and a large mustache, grabbing the Postosuchus by its tail and holding it up to his face. He gave a deep, piercing glare at the predatory reptile, which simply whimpered and cowered in his grasp.

"That's it… good boy." The giant spoke, after which he placed the animal down and gave it a swift flick on the tail. The Postosuchus bounded off, squealing.

"Now git!" The giant added for good measure.

Looking down at the children, the giant crouched and outstretched his hand, urging the children to climb on his palm.

Still in shock, Hilda, Frida, and David walked and took a seat, allowing the giant to bring them to his eye level.

"Well now… I reckon I've never seen critters like y'all before! I'm Kranglefant. What's yer names?" The giant introduced, giving a kind smile.

"I'm Hilda, and this is Frida and David." The children bowed respectfully. "We're humans."

"Is that so? There's something off about you kids, as if y'all don't belong in these here parts." Kranglefant commented.

"Would you believe us if I told you we accidentally time traveled from 210 million years in the future?" David spoke up, chuckling sheepishly.

"Well now," Kranglefant began, "when ya live to be several millennia old, ya tend to have seen everything. Guess this old fella's still got some surprises awaiting him. Heheh."

The children had to laugh at that. Hilda was particularly pleased to know that, even in these distant times, the giants were roaming the planet. What mysteries of nature they could have revealed had they not left the Earth due to their troubles with the 'little peoples'.

The giant looked beyond and noticed the setting sun. "It's getting pretty late, you kids looking for a place to stay?"

"Actually," Frida spoke up, "maybe you could help us? We're trying to track down an animal."

"It wasn't ol' toothy boy was it? I probably scared him off the supercontinent!" Kranglefant chuckled.

Hilda smiled, "no, we're all grateful for that. We're looking for a blue beetle. I need to perform a spell on it to get us back to our time. Or… err, forward to our time."

"Blue beetle, eh? I believe I have an idea. There's only one place around here to find them."

…

At an open woodland, the exact place where Hilda, Frida, and David were transported, the blue beetle landed safely on the dirt by a tree stump. Looking around, it buried slightly into the soil and began depositing eggs.

Great, thudding footsteps shook the trees, signaling the arrival of the giant.

Kranglefant, set the children gently down in the woods.

"Alright now, you get on home safely, ya hear?" He said, pointing a finger.

"We will! Thank you Kranglefant!" The kids waved back, and with ease the giant strolled off into the distance.

"What a nice fellow." Frida smiled.

"Yeah… the giants are really sweet. Glad you all got to meet one." Hilda added, her attention quickly turning to the sound of buzzing wings.

"You hear that too?" David asked, turning around to the source of the noise.

Without skipping a beat, the kids happened upon the beetle, still depositing its eggs.

"This is it! This is our beetle!" Hilda exclaimed, jumping into the air.

"Wait! Are you sure?" Frida asked. "What if it's just any other beetle?"

David peeked closely at the insect, noticing the peculiar indigo spot on its head. "Yep… that's our bug."

"Alright, everyone. You know the drill." Hilda motioned everyone to stand behind her.

"Say no more!" David and Frida spoke, taking their positions.

Once again, Hilda closed her eyes and sang the opposite spell.

Moving forward, day into night,

The arrow of time catching flight.

Bring back your essence, from then to now,

Return to what was, as if a vow!

The beetle, having finished laying its eggs, began to glow as sparks emanated from its body. It opened its wings, ready to fly off, but David made a dramatic leap for it.

"OH NO YOU FLIPPIN DON'T!" He yelled and tapped the beetle with a single finger.

As expected, everything went dark.

…

"My my, this is indeed a most impressive specimen!" Raven Leader admired the stony tomb of the iridescent beetle, reading off Frida's notes. "Oh my, the Petrified Forest! I've been meaning to make a trip there myself."

"It's a really cool place. I have my Mum to thank for telling me about it." Hilda blushed.

The spell had worked like a charm, and Hilda, Frida, and David managed to return to the present day. It was already night when the children made it back home to their worried parents, but they reassured them that it was all in the name of the Sparrow Scouts. It was finally Sunday and they all presented their beetle fossil, which was the talk of the meeting.

"Well done Sparrow Scouts! I think you've all earned your badges… especially Frida's group. I bet the local geologists would love to have a word with you all on your fossil discovery." Raven Leader beamed.

In the end, their unexpected adventure was a complete success.

Hilda, Frida, and David, walked away from Scout Hall deep in discussion.

"I don't think I've ever done so much for a Sparrow Scout badge in my life! Traveling through time, dealing with dangerous extinct reptiles, surviving a flash flood?!" Frida exclaimed passionately.

"And all in one day!" David added, holding his special fossil close.

"That was a world-class adventure for sure." Hilda agreed, before becoming serious for a moment. "I am sorry for getting us into such a dangerous situation though."

"What are you talking about? I was the one who touched the sparkly bug." David noted.

"But it was my magic!" Hilda assured, rubbing her arm. "I was so desperate to practice my skills that I put us all at risk."

"If it means anything," Frida said, placing a hand on Hilda's shoulder, "I think it's really cool that you're learning magic. You don't have to keep it a secret from us."

"Yeah! It's not the most unusual thing I've seen you do." David giggled.

Hilda had to laugh, "yeah, I guess that's so. I appreciate it guys."

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Frida stopped, pulling the Natural History book from her backpack. "We should probably bring this back to the library."

"I can take it back for you." Hilda offered. "I'll stop by the library on my way home."

"Okay! Thanks!" Frida handed the book to Hilda, who held it carefully.

As the children split off with a string of goodbyes, Hilda paused and opened the book, flipping through the pages. She stopped when she saw a drawing of a group of mammoths in the snow.

"Hmm… maybe that can be a summer adventure…" Hilda pondered, as another particular thought sparked in her brain.

The End!