The time: The early to mid 1970s

The place: A pocket dimension between realities

I

When Park Ranger Cole Spencer took his two children, Lee and Millie, on a short camping trip in the California northlands shortly after the death of his wife, it never occurred to anyone they wouldn't be returning home.

Lee was sixteen, almost a man himself. He had inherited his father's dark, curly hair and his mother's bright blue eyes.

Millie was twelve and hadn't yet entered puberty. It was probably only a matter of time. She'd inherited her mother's golden locks and her father's darker, gray-blue eyes. She was a full head shorter than her brother.

When the family set off down the river that morning, everything seemed normal. Cole was wearing his rough terrain khakis. Lee donned some denim dungarees and a matching shirt, and Millie put on her red and white checkered flannel and a pair of burgundy corduroys. The family did know how to dress for outdoor activities.

Once underway, they planned to travel farther than anyone else they knew ever had downstream. Hopefully, all the way to the waterway's delta.

Ironically, they journeyed further even than they were expecting. Much further.

Things progressed rapidly when a violent earthquake struck. The high cliffs on either side of the channel started looking unreal. Massive rocks ahead of them split in half, like reality itself was being torn apart. Trapped in the churning current, the tiny rubber boat was tossed roughly about. The waters started to swirl, like they'd been caught in a. whirlpool; and then the Spencer family was swept over a towering dropoff, emptying into a vast nothingness.

Awareness faded.

II

It was a beautiful morning in Gerrold valley. The sun was shining. The weather was warm. The cantamelons and honeylaupes smelled particularly sweet this day.

The environmental obelisks had done a particularly good job starting things off right.

Happy used the opportunity to gather up some of the huge fruit for his breakfast. If only his stubby arms allowed him to carry more than two at any given moment.

Oh, well. He couldn't help he'd been given a biology not conducive to a gathering lifestyle. He stretched out his long tail to adjust for the added weight up front.

From somewhere he heard a high pitched whistling.

He looked around. The noise didn't sound anything like a duckbill or a sauropod. In fact, it was getting steadily louder and higher pitched the longer he listened.

Fearing the worst, he looked straight up. He had time to remark, "Oh, I really hate it when this happens," just as the world turned into a formless blur of midnight black and hunter's orange.

He felt grass beneath the back of his head.

"Ow."

III

Having a thick skull, Happy regained consciousness fairly quickly. He surveyed the damage. The melons were a total loss. Good thing there was always more of them growing somewhere.

He looked around and saw three prone figures.

His mind quickly identified, Species: Homo sapiens. The "wise" man.

That was a laugh.

From the old homestead, he recognized. Albeit sixty-five million years after my time.

He'd encountered their kind before. It might be more merciful to eat them now, before they had a chance to get in any real trouble.

But no, he couldn't do that. For one thing, there might be children watching.

Besides, it wasn't as if they were lawyers or similar. No brief cases.

Two were indisputably adult males, though the one in blue may not have yet reached full growth.

The sole female was either very small or, more probably, still a child. It was she who regained consciousness first.

She looked straight into his huge, incisor-filled mouth.

"Roar," he sorely groaned as he looked at her.

That's right. He didn't roar. He merely verbalized, "Roar."

She screamed.

The others awakened. There came a flurry of mindless scrambling and panic.

"That's right," he chastised them disgustedly. "Prejudge the eighteen foot tall carnivore with the razor sharp teeth." In falsetto alarm, he fluttered his ridiculously small forearms, screeching, "Everybody run! The Tyrannosaurus Rex is going to get me! Yeaugh!"

His tiny forearms then crossed over his huge chest. "Typical."

The action froze the three in their tracks. From behind the biggest of them, the wide eyed, pigtailed blonde with the horrified expression uttered, "Daddy, what's going on? That dinosaur is talking to us.

Happy sat up, trying to work a little feeling back into his massive jaw. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you three aren't from around here."

They looked at one another, stunned.

"It's okay," he coaxed. "I don't bite. Unless you want me to."

A flurry of "no's" erupted from the group.

"A joke. Relax. If I'd really wanted to eat I'd have done so already. Besides, I haven't touched meat practically since getting to this out-of-the-way little abode. Turns out its considered quite rude here to have your neighbors for dinner. Can you imagine such a thing?"

The humans remained froze.

"Oh, and that whole vision based on movement thing," the large reptile added helpfully.

"Yeah."

"Pure myth. I can see you fine."

If the world doesn't make any sense, deny reality. What was it about humans that made them do this?

"On the way down, we must have hit our heads or something," the khaki wearing one told his companions. "This can't be happening. It just can't. Maybe we're sharing a mass hallucination or something..."

Warily, they looked back at the sizable theropod.

Shaking off the last of the impact, the sandstone gray Rex rose to his feet. He looked straight at the deniers. "Skittish, aren't you?" He tsked, and queried, "May I offer up something for your consideration?"

Politely but still warily, they nodded.

"This micro reality you find yourselves in is inhabited by various species of dinosaurs, sentient reptile men, missing links, temporal vortexes, crystal computers, mobius horizons, three moons, floating energy life forms, antimatter...

"Is a talking Tyrannosaurus really the thing most interfering with your suspension of disbelief?"

The one in blue digested this. He shrugged. "It makes a good point. When put that way, the entire thing sounds kind of silly.

"I'm Lee, by the way."

A happy gaze fell upon the others.

"Cole."

"Millie."

"Pleased," the saurischian cordially nodded. "They call me 'Happy', and I'm a he, not an it."

"Sorry," Lee apologized.

The newbies exchanged glances. "Happy?"

"You were expecting something else? Not all of us are grumpy, you know."

This time, Millie was the first one to recover. "Hey, what's in a name," she uncomfortably laughed.

"Everything, apparently," Lee answered.

She elbowed him in the ribs.

Amused, Happy chuckled. "Siblings, I'm guessing. Now, while I'm sure you're wondering how to get back to...whenever it is you came from, for now I think its probably best for you to plan on being here a while. Gather up your things."

"Are we going someplace?" Cole asked, a bit confused.

"There's an abandoned cave not far from here," the tyrant lizard told them. "The finest lodgings this side of the ravine. Might as well get you settled in style."

IV

That evening, a bit after dark, the four figures sat around a crackling, small bonfire

"Happy, that was delicious," Cole complemented.

"...and you don't even have to wonder if it was someone I knew, heh-heh-heh."

Dead silence.

"Kidding. Sheesh."

Around them, cantamelon rinds had been casually discarded. The four had shared a veritable banquet of fruit together.

"Words seem hardly adequate—" Cole began once they'd finished.

The dinosaur made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, think nothing of it. Its the least I can do for fellow earthlings."

Lee snapped his fingers. "Say, that's right. You're from back home, too. Sort of."

"Don't try and figure out the mechanics of it," their host warned. "You'll give yourself a migraine trying. I should know.

"To be honest, I'm sort of glad you dropped in. Granted, unexpectedly. I'll finally have someone to talk to. Herbivores aren't exactly the best conversationalists, you know."

"I'll bet."

"We've got so many questions," Cole put in. "How did you get here? Who taught you how to speak? Why did you become a vegetarian?"

"All in good time," their rescuer assured. "For now, let me just say I think my trip through the time vortex altered me physiologically, in addition to changing my whereabouts."

"What?" Millie blankly asked.

"Happy is not your stereotypical Tyrannosaurus," her father filled in.

"Boy, I'll say. Now that we've got to know you a little better," Millie added, "you're not scary at all. More like a big, clay plushy I just want to hug the stuffing out of..."

"Plushy? Well, there goes my reputation."

"Millie. Manners," Cole automatically corrected.

Millie apologized. "What I mean is; if I was six or seven and you were the best special effect anyone had ever seen up till then, I be positively terrified of you."

"Much better. A little diplomacy goes a long way, young lady, and so sweet of you to say, too." Turning to all of them, Happy added, "I'll be sure and check in on you from time to time. Just to make sure you're doing alright.

"Being new here, you can expect all sorts of visitors. I'm thinking of this dopey Brontosaurus kid and annoying monkey boy who are both way too curious to be proper plant eaters. Things are bound to be a little hairy for awhile is all I'm saying."

"We can't thank you enough," the father sincerely acknowledged.

"Now, before I go, let me offer you up some entertainment."

From somewhere the Tyrannosaurus pulled out a banjo. "I got this from a Revolutionary War soldier a while back. Let's see if I can remember a little bit of what he taught me."

Claws flying, he played as he sang, "Spencer, Lee, and Millie, for some routine exposition..."

Lee, whipping out a guitar he'd packed for the trip, and provided the accompaniment.

Thus, another extraordinarily typical day in the nameless, lost land was brought to a close.