In the Ice Age : In the Ice Age (9780307532497) (2 page)

Why are we still stuck in dinosaur time?
thought ten-year-old Andrew Dubble. He was strapped inside his uncle’s time-travel vehicle, the Time-A-Tron.
Why aren’t we heading for the Ice Age?

The display on the Time-A-Tron’s control panel kept blinking 65 MILLION YEARS AGO.

Sitting next to Andrew was his thirteen-year-old cousin, Judy. She was pounding the Fast-Forward button on the silvery control panel.

Outside a forest fire was roaring. Towers of flames were creeping closer.

An asteroid the size of a city had just slammed into the Earth and set off an enormous explosion. It had heated the Earth’s surface to a thousand degrees and set fires all over the world.

bong …
“The Time-A-Tron is on its side,” said the Time-A-Tron in its deep, echoey voice. “One of the Fast-Fins seems to be stuck. It is not spinning.”

“Hoo boy!” came a voice from the backseat. It was Beeper Jones, the boy they had rescued 300 million years ago.

Beeper was wearing just a T-shirt, underpants with pictures of penguins, and a black tube tied around his waist.

“I lost my camera,” said Beeper. “I think it fell off my belt when I was getting into the Time-A-Tron. I gotta go get it. It’s got the only photos of dinos in the whole world!”

“Oh no, you don’t,” said Professor Winka Wilde. She grabbed Beeper by the neck of his
T-shirt. They had found Professor Wilde stranded near a herd of triceratops.

“The fire will be here in seconds and the air may be too hot to breathe,” said Winka.

Beeper yanked himself away. In an instant he had pulled up the door in the floor and crawled into the lower compartment.

“Beeper!” yelled Winka Wilde. “Get back here!”

“What a bozo!” yelled Judy.

“I’ll get him,” said Andrew, unbuckling his seat belt.

“Noop! Noop! Noop!” squeaked a voice from Andrew’s pocket. It was Thudd, Andrew’s little silver robot and best friend. “Big, big danger!”

bong …
“Do not go after him, Master Andrew,” said the Time-A-Tron. “I will seal the doors.”

bzerk … bzerk … bzerk …

“The emergency escape!” said Andrew.

sssssss …

One of the Time-A-Tron’s doors was sliding open!

bong …
“Too late!” it groaned.

Andrew scrambled out of his chair. But just then Beeper yelled, “Found it.”

bunk …
came a sound from the bottom compartment.

“Get back here,” said Winka sternly.

“Just a minute,” said Beeper. “I, uh, dropped something.”

bong …
“What if we had taken off while you were outside, Master Beeper?” asked the Time-A-Tron.

“No
way,
” said Beeper, crawling into the upper compartment. “Old Judy-Patootie can’t even get us moving.”

“Eat worms!” said Judy. “We’re leaving in a second!”

“Not a chance,” said Beeper. “Judy Dubble’s in big, big trouble!”

“Now stop it, you two,” said Winka. She was leaning over the control panel, examining the buttons. “We need to focus on getting out of here.”

meep …
“Gotta rock!” squeaked Thudd.

Judy frowned at him. “Thudd, this is
no
time for music!”

“Noop! Noop! Noop!” said Thudd. “Gotta rock Time-A-Tron. Rock side to side. Get Fast-Fin unstuck!”

“Oh!” said Judy.

“Good thinking, Thudd,” said Winka.

“Let’s do it!” said Beeper.

“On the count of three, rock left,” said Andrew. “One
…
two
… three!”

They all leaned left, then right, then back again. The Time-A-Tron rocked back and forth.

bong …
“Good work!” said the Time-A-Tron. “Keep going!”

FLUMP!

The Fast-Fin yanked free.

WOOHOOOOOO!

Balls of green flame shot from both of the Fast-Fins. They wrapped the Time-A-Tron in a web of light.

BLAFOOOOOOOOOM!

The numbers on the control panel were changing!

64 MILLION YEARS AGO

63 MILLION YEARS AGO

62 MILLION YEARS AGO

bong …
“Congratulations!” said the Time-A-Tron. “Your excellent teamwork has gotten us moving again!”

“Finally!” said Judy, leaning back in her seat.

Andrew looked out the window. The blazing fire had disappeared. There was nothing but darkness and swirling green light.

“I’m glad we got out of there,” said Andrew. “But I feel awful that the dinosaurs are all going to die.”

Winka sighed. “Some of them survived the fires and the heat,” she said. “Animals that were in the water, or underground, or even under a pile of leaves may have lived. But then they had another big problem.”

bong …
“The asteroid blasted trillions of tons of dirt and water into the sky,” said the Time-A-Tron.

meep …
“Stuff go halfway to moon!” said Thudd.

Winka nodded. “Most of it came down again quickly. The rocks fell back to Earth as billions of meteors. But the dust circled the Earth for months.”

meep …
“Sky dark, dark, dark for long time,” said Thudd. “Lotsa plants die.”

bong …
“Then the giant plant-eating dinosaurs didn’t have enough to eat,” said the Time-A-Tron. “And the meat-eating dinosaurs
didn’t have enough plant-eating dinosaurs to eat.”

“Awwwwww,” sighed Beeper.

bong …
“But consider this,” said the Time-A-Tron. “If huge dinosaurs did not go extinct, mammals might have stayed small, like mice and opossums.”

“Or like our friend the shrew, huh?” said Judy.

bong …
“Yes,” said the Time-A-Tron. “Mammals might never have had the chance to become large, smart creatures—like you.”

“Like three of us, anyway,” said Beeper, pulling Judy’s hair.

Winka swatted Beeper’s hand away from Judy’s head. Then she said, “All the dust blocking the sun made the Earth as cold as an ice age for many months.”

meep …
“Earth have lotsa ice ages,” said Thudd.

Winka nodded. “It helped that mammals were warm-blooded,” she said. “Warm-blooded
mammals could survive the cold better than cold-blooded reptiles.”

“Ice age!” said Judy. “Andrew, did you set the DNA Detector to find Uncle Al in the Ice Age?”

Andrew and Judy’s uncle Al was a super-smart scientist. He had invented the Time-A-Tron and Thudd, too.

Beeper’s uncle, Doctor Kron-Tox, had kidnapped Uncle Al and hidden him in Ice Age Montana. He was stranded somewhere between 20,000 and 11,000 years ago.

500,000 YEARS AGO blinked on the Time-A-Tron’s display.

“Uh-oh,” said Andrew. “I almost forgot.”

From his pajama pocket, Andrew pulled the DNA Detector. It looked like a black remote control. He pressed the keys to spell “Alfred Dubble.”

100,000 YEARS AGO

50,000 YEARS AGO

20,000 YEARS AGO

It got very quiet inside the Time-A-Tron as they waited for a signal from the DNA Detector.

15,000 YEARS AGO

14,000 YEARS AGO

ping … ping … ping …

The DNA Detector had detected Uncle Al!

Judy let go of the Fast-Forward button, and the web of green light around the Time-A-Tron vanished.

The time-travel machine was sitting on a rocky plain. Low plants and scruffy bushes grew between the stones. Here and there were patches of snow.

“Wowzers!” said Andrew. “Montana sure is different from when the dinosaurs lived here.”

“Let’s get out and look for Uncle Al,” said Judy.

They unlatched their seat belts. Andrew pulled up the door in the floor and climbed down the rope ladder into the lower compartment. The others followed.

bong …
The Time-A-Tron’s oval door opened. A chilly breeze blew in.

“Woofers!” said Andrew with a shiver. “It’s cold out there!”

There was a whiff of pine in the clear air, and the sky was blue and sunny.

Andrew glanced around the compartment. “I wonder if there’s anything warm to wear,” he said.

Hoooo … hoooo … hoooo …

It was the hooting of a little pygmy owl. It had chased the shrew into the Time-A-Tron before their trip.

The hoots were coming from a tangle of black fuel tubes. Andrew crawled behind the tubes.

“Holy moly!” he said, staring down at a pile of black coils. The owl was sitting on top of a huge egg! It was exactly like the Tyrannosaurus egg they had found 65 million years ago.

“Beeper!”
yelled Andrew. “How did this egg get here?”

“Oh!” said Beeper. “I found it outside when I was looking for my camera.”

Winka shook her head. “Beeper, bringing a Tyrannosaurus to the Ice Age is
so
wrong,” she said. “We’ve told you before, we must not interfere with the past.”

WHOOOMF! WHOOOMF! WHOOOMF!

They all turned toward the door. Something was coming. Something big!

Something dark and furry blocked the light from the open door.

In the dimness, Andrew could see … a trunk! It looked like an elephant’s trunk, but this one was very hairy. The trunk was attached to a dark furry face. Thick yellow tusks sprouted beneath the trunk.

meep …
“Woolly mammoth!” squeaked Thudd.

The trunk snaked through the door and wrapped itself around Judy’s waist.

“Yaaaaahhhh!”
yelled Judy as the trunk began dragging her out of the Time-A-Tron.

Winka flung herself at Judy and hung on.

bong …

The door closed—on the mammoth’s trunk!

The trunk let go of Judy and tugged itself out of the door.

“Cheese Louise!” said Judy, flopping to the floor.

Suddenly the Time-A-Tron began to totter. It was tipping!

KRUNK!

The Time-A-Tron fell on its side and started to roll. Inside the compartment, everyone was tumbling like popcorn.

“Beeper!” yelled Winka. “Grab that egg! Let’s get to our seats and buckle up.”

Andrew, Judy, and then Beeper with the egg made their way into the upper compartment and strapped themselves in.

“Wowzers schnauzers!” said Andrew, looking out the window. “The mammoth is
rolling
us!”

“It’s like we’re in a circus!” said Beeper.

“My stomach feels yucky,” said Judy.

The mammoth was shoving them toward a jagged line of craggy mountains. Thudd pointed to a huge wall of ice stretched between two of the highest ones.

meep …
“Glacier!” he said. “Moving ice mountain!”

The mammoth stopped and wagged its trunk in the air.

“It smells something,” said Winka.

A creature crept out of the glacier. It looked like a heap of fur on two feet! The creature ran to the Time-A-Tron. There was pounding at the Time-A-Tron’s door.

bong …
“Who is there?” asked the Time-A-Tron.

“Ubble … UBBLE!” came a muffled sound.

bong …
“Professor Dubble is here!” said the Time-A-Tron, opening the door.

They unbuckled their seat belts and rushed into the bottom compartment.

The pile of fur in the doorway seemed to bow. Fur pieces tumbled from it. Underneath the falling fur was Uncle Al, dressed like a bear.

“Hey, Uncle Al!” yelled Andrew and Judy. They scrambled into his fuzzy arms.

“Hiya, Unkie!” squeaked Thudd.

“Hello, Alfred,” said Winka, smiling.

Uncle Al hugged them all.

“I
knew
Max would find you,” he said with a big smile. “And the Time-A-Tron has taken good care of you. You all look great!”

“You don’t look anything like a clown, sir,” said Beeper.

“What?”
said Judy.

“My uncle calls
your
uncle a clown,” explained Beeper. “But I don’t think he’s right.”

Uncle Al laughed. “Thank you, Beeper,” he said. “And what would your uncle Kron-Tox
say if he saw you in your underpants holding a huge
…
egg? Beeper, don’t tell me you’ve got a dinosaur egg there!”

Beeper grinned. “A monster fish pulled off my pants 360 million years ago,” he said. “And don’t worry sir, I won’t tell you about the egg.”

Uncle Al shook his head. “We’ll deal with that later,” he said as he picked through the pile of fur. “But first we have to get you dressed for the Ice Age.”

“What?”
said Judy. “Uncle Al, now that we’ve found you, can’t we just go back to our own time? Doctor Kron-Tox is after us. He could catch up with us any minute.”

The twinkle in Uncle Al’s eyes faded.

“It’s not that simple,” he said. He handed Judy a cape of shaggy brown fur. “There’s something important we have to do first.”