Klank tries to pet the cat, but mostly just bonks its head with his robot fingers.
“Don’t worry, Watson. Frank Einstein has a plan to get you back.”
“Meoooowww meow meow meow,” answers Felis catus watson.
“Whoooooo,” hoots the great horned owl across the field. “Whoo whoo.”
• • •
Janegoodall rechecks all her supplies in her backpack. She powers off the camp light, and snuggles down in her sleeping bag.
Leslie sits up, still wide-eyed. “But what are we going to do?”
Anna folds her arms behind her head. “Like Janegoodall said: There is nothing we can do tonight. So save your energy. Tomorrow morning we will cover the area, and investigate that Area 51.”
Leslie hugs her knees tighter. “I didn’t sign up for scary science. Who would be trying to scare us?”
“Whoooooo,” hoots the great horned owl across the field. “Whoo whoo.”
Morning dawns. Soft sunlight dapples the factory picnic yard in the heart of Darwin Park. Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) coo. Pine trees (Pinus strobus) sway in the gentle breeze.
Chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) wander the yard.
T. Edison notices none of this.
Because he is sitting at the breakfast picnic table, staring at the invention in his hands, given to him by Mr. Chimp, which is almost too amazing to believe.
“Wow! You mean this thing can really blast someone around evolution?”
Mr. Chimp holds up the book he is reading and nods a truthful yes.
T. Edison taps the double-arrow-shaped buttons on the EvoBlaster Belt.
“So I can evolve into a smarter future me by going REVERSE, then FAST-FORWARD?”
Mr. Chimp finishes his breakfast bowl of Ant Granola and nods a lying yes.
T. Edison examines the belt.
“Amazing. And very fine work bringing this to me, Mr. Chimp. Why, I was saying to myself just last night what a wonderful VP and CFO you are.”
Mr. Chimp, not believing a word of it, signs:
T. Edison buckles the belt around his waist. He poses like he just won something.
“We should test this out.”
Mr. Chimp nods a very encouraging yes. His plan to trick Edison, and get rid of him, is falling right into place.
T. Edison struts around the yard. “Of course I completely understand how this works. I am a genius, you know.”
Mr. Chimp signs:
Mr. Chimp wanders over to push the REVERSE button, devolve Edison back into a fish . . . or maybe farther . . . an amoeba!
Then Mr. Chimp will be free to evolve himself into a Future Chimp, take over Edison Industries, and run the world all on his own.
With T. Edison in a glass bowl on Mr. Chimp’s desk.
“I’m just saying we should test it out to make sure that numbskull Einstein didn’t hook it up wrong.”
T. Edison struts around the yard, showing off the belt. He flexes his arms. Awkwardly. He puffs out his chest. Weakly. He throws a fake punch at a flower. He karate kicks a rock.
“Owww! Owww! Owww!”
T. Edison punches the flower off its stem, then raises his hands overhead and announces himself, “Teeeeeeeeeee Edisoooooooooon! Champion of the Worrrrrllllllllld!”
T. Edison rubs a finger over the double-arrow buttons.
Mr. Chimp signs:
Mr. Chimp can feel the whole world bowing to him.
T. Edison pauses.
“Yes! You are right, Mr. Chimp. Yes!” T. Edison takes off the EvoBlaster Belt and holds it out to Mr. Chimp. “And you should be the one to test it!”
Mr. Chimp tries not to look panicked. This was not the plan. He needs to devolve Edison first.
Mr. Chimp tries to think of a good excuse.
Mr. Chimp rubs his stomach and makes a frowning face.
“You have a stomachache? Oh, you are such a chicken!” Edison kicks another rock. A very small one this time. “Chicken, chicken . . . bawwwk bawwk bawwwk . . .” Edison teases Mr. Chimp.
Mr. Chimp tries to think of another plan to trick T. Edison into punching the REVERSE button himself. He goes back to reading.
There is grandeur in this view of life . . . from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
The real chickens wandering around the factory yard hear T. Edison and answer him, “Bawwwwk bawwwk bawwwk.”
One of the baby chicks, curious, hops inside the ring made by the belt.
“Aha!” says Edison. “Well, here’s a genius idea—if you are too chicken to test this, Mr. Chimp, I will have a real chicken try it.”
Mr. Chimp puts a finger inside his book to save his place and looks up.
Mr. Chimp knows what birds evolved from. He knows this is not a good idea.
Mr. Chimp raises his hand to sign and explain.
But he’s too late.
T. Edison pushes the REVERSE button. With the baby chick inside the EvoBlaster Belt.
The Belt hums. The compass spins backward. The electromagnetic field formed inside the belt reverses, unraveling and disconnecting the chicken’s DNA molecules, emergency reverse devolving the chicken to what its ancestors were.
The chicken shimmers and gives a very un-chickenlike sound. “EEeeeeewwwaawwwk!”
T. Edison watches, actually hopping in excitement.
Mr. Chimp puts his book down, and slowly backs away.
The EvoBlaster Belt hums louder.
The compass spins faster.
Evolution reverses. At hyperspeed.
The chicken shape inside the belt stretches out, grows up, drops feathers, sprouts teeth, hardens scales, thickens claws . . .
The baby chick swiftly devolves to what its ancestors were seventy million years ago.
Bam!
What used to be a baby chick shakes the EvoBlaster Belt off one scaled and fearsomely clawed foot.
Mr. Chimp does not waste any time signing what he feared . . . and what he knows is the name of this hungry carnivore. He jumps up into the nearest tree and swings to safety, away from one of the most fearsome superpredators of all time.
“BAWWWWWWKKKGGGGRRRRRR!” roars the baby (but still gigantic) and very scary-looking T. rex.
“Oh . . . my . . . goodness,” squeaks T. Edison.
Which is a mistake.
Because the squeak attracts the attention of the T. rex.
And T. rex turns its hungry-predator eye on one suddenly chicken T. Edison.
Morning dawns. Soft sunlight dapples the forest floor in the heart of Darwin Park. Mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) coo. Pine trees (Pinus strobus) sway in the gentle breeze.
Frank Einstein, Klink, and Klank stand at the base of a very tall black woven-metal fence with a huge sign:
DO NOT ENTER
The gray tabby cat in Frank’s arms looks up at the top of the wall and explains, “Meow. Meow meow, meow meow meow.”
“OK,” answers Frank. “Don’t panic, Watson. I have a plan.”
Franks feels terrible that his invention got his pal into this mess.
“The only way to get you back to human is to get the belt. I’m pretty sure you’re trying to tell us it’s on the other side of this fence. So we have to get in here.”
“Meeeeeeeeow,” agrees Watson.
“We can turn into giant elephants and smash down the wall!” says Klank. He takes a running start. He smashes into the metal fence with a bong! Klank falls back on the forest floor.
“Great idea,” says Klink. “You just forgot to turn into an elephant. Stand back. I may be able to bore a hole with my drill attachment.”
Klink extends his drill attachment. It spins at high speed. It smokes and whines.
It doesn’t even leave a mark on the mystery metal.
“Meow,” says Watson. He jumps on Klink’s shoulder.
Frank pets Watson’s head. He looks up at the top of the fence. He looks up at the trees leaning over the t
op of the fence. “I think it’s up to you, pal. You are going to have to climb up the tree, get on the other side of the fence, and find the belt so we can get you back to human.”
“Meeeeeeeoooowwwwww,” says Watson. But this time he looks very panicked.
There is a sudden noise of cracking sticks in the underbrush. The bushes shake. A shadowy hunchbacked figure appears.
“Oh no!” says Klank. “What is that?! It is a little Bigfoot!”
“Janegoodall?” says Frank. “What are you doing out here in the woods?”
“Frank Einstein? Klink! Klank!” calls Janegoodall, brushing the burrs off her Science Scout shorts and backpack. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“We were out here looking into some weird things happening in this ecosystem. We found this place”—Frank smacks the black fence—“and someone has been trying to scare us off.”
“No!” says Janegoodall. “Someone has been trying to scare off my Science Scout troop, too. Anna and Leslie are tracking this fence north. I’ve taken south. Looking for a way in.”
“Meeeeooowww.”
“Cute cat,” says Janegoodall, petting the gray tabby.
“It is not a cat. It is Watson,” says Klank.
“What?” asks Janegoodall.
“Ummmm . . . well . . . ah . . . yes,” says Frank. “That is true. See, I invented an EvoBlaster Belt so we could get inside this Park Area 51. The Belt lets you hyperquickly evolve forward or backward . . . into any species.”
“You are kidding.”
“Frank Einstein is not kidding,” reports Klink.
“But something snatched the belt while Watson was making an evo-blast . . . and he got stuck . . . uh . . . as this cat.”
Watson flattens his ears. “GRrrrrrrrrrrrr.”
Janegoodall stops petting Felis catus watson. “Sorry, Watson.”
“So now we really have to get in there to get my invention back . . .”
“GRrrrrrrrrr.”
“. . . and return Watson to human.”
“How can I help?” asks Janegoodall.
The morning quiet is broken by a faint roar of a noise from inside Area 51.
Felis catus watson looks up.
Frank Einstein and Janegoodall look up.
“What in the world was that?”
“My instruments have detected something,” says Klink. “But it is something that should not exist.”
“BAWWWWWKKKKKKKRRRRRRRR!”
What used to be a baby chicken, now a twenty-foot-tall baby T. rex, cocks its massive head sideways. It chomps its flesh-ripping teeth. It twitches its long green scaly and feathered tail, smashing a good-sized tree in the Edison factory yard to splinters.
“Yeeeeek!” T. Edison gasps again.
The T. rex takes a step toward T. Edison.
“Niiiiice chicken dinosaur . . . Gooood chicken dinosaur . . .” T. Edison half-sings, half-says. He backs slowly toward the safety of the steel factory door, holding his bag of Cheezy Puffs out in front of him.
The T. rex wiggles its short, two-clawed front limbs. It rakes the ground with its massive three-toed foot claws.
T. Edison takes another step back. “What a friendly chicken dinosaur . . .”
The T. rex snaps its toothy jaws. It does not look at all friendly. It looks mad. And hungry.
T. Edison throws a Cheezy Puff on the ground in front of it.
The T. rex pauses, licks up the Cheezy Puff.
Without taking his eye off the dinosaur, T. Edison calls to Mr. Chimp, sitting safely in a tree. “Oh, Mr. Chimp? This might be a good time to gather the chickens. This one especially.”
Mr. Chimp sits back in his safe tree perch. He considers this latest development. This may be an easier way to get rid of T. Edison.
Mr. Chimp answers T. Edison with a noncommittal “Ooook.”
“BAWWWWWKKKKKKKRRRRR!”
The T. rex suddenly hop-jumps a step closer to T. Edison.
“Shhoooooo! Bad chicken dinosaur! Go away, chicken dinosaur!”
Mr. Chimp, sitting back, dangles a foot off his tree branch.
T. Edison backs toward the factory door. But he knows he is still too far away to beat even a chicken, let alone a T. rex, in a race.
“You know what I have been thinking, Mr. Chimp? That you should be an equal vice president in our great water business—”
T. Edison throws a last handful of Cheezy Puffs at the T. rex’s scaly, clawed feet.
“BAWWWWWKKKKKKKRRRRR!”
The T. rex stomps the Cheezy Puffs to orange dust. It crouches, getting ready to jump on a much better, warm-blooded Homo sapiens meal.
“I mean president of the business!” T. Edison shuffles back as fast as he can.
Mr. Chimp thinks about being president.
He decides he will save T. Edison.
For now.
“Oooooook,” agrees Mr. Chimp.
Mr. Chimp goes crazy shaking the tree branches with both feet and both hands. He jumps up and down. He distracts the T. rex, hooting, “Eeee eee Ahhh Ahh Oooo Oooo!”
The startled T. rex stops, and looks up.
T. Edison sprints for the factory door.
The T. rex looks back, spots its dinner slipping away. It charges.
T. Edison fumbles with the handle. Swings the door open. Dives inside as the T. rex lunges, jaws wide open.
Whammmmm! The T. rex slams right into the steel door, knocking it shut—sending T. Edison flying inside to land on the factory floor.
T. Edison, terrified, dazed, but safe . . . sits up.
“Good heavens! A chicken devolved into a T. rex? What could be worse?”
Outside, from up in the tree, president Chimp watches the baby T. rex prowling the yard.
“Bawwwwwwkkkkrrrrr!”
The dinosaur claws at the dirt, accidentally knocking one of the North American black ants (Camponotus pennsylvanicus) from Mr. Chimp’s breakfast, and it lands inside the EvoBlaster Belt.
Then the T. rex turns away, slapping its dino tail against the EvoBlaster Belt FAST-FORWARD button.
The belt hums, the gold wheel spins forward, the ant shimmers, DNA recombines, and—Bam!—superspeed fast-forward evolves . . .
President Chimp sees, in living 3-D, exactly what could be worse than a chicken devolved into a T. rex.
T. Edison takes a peek, then slams the factory door and locks himself in his Edison Safe Room.
“Ooooh ooook,” breathes Mr. Chimp.
Felis catus watson grips the swaying tree branch hanging over the towering metal fence, terrified, claws on all four paws dug in.
“You can do it!” Frank Einstein calls from far below.
Cat Watson looks down, then out across the hidden woods.
He is not so sure he can do it.
But then Cat Watson hears noises. Sounds too faint, too high-pitched for human ears.
Cat Watson sees movement deep in the woods. Details in the shadows too faint for human eyes.
Cat Watson lifts his head. He twitches his whiskers. In the morning breeze his extrasensitive cat nose smells:
a sharp acid insect tang
a musky lizard funk
a pungent ape fur odor
a weird metallic cheese whiff
and . . . and . . . maybe . . . a faint scent of plastic/human/metal wiring.
Cat Watson rises high on the swaying branch, all senses now alert, muscles tense, suddenly full-predator fearless.
Cat Watson leaps from his branch, over the wall, tree to tree, down to pine needle–soft ground. He runs, leaps, follows his cat senses to the commotion of sights and sounds and smells ahead. He ducks under the bush at the edge of the clearing. Peeks out. And stops. Stunned.
Cat Watson wonders if there is something wrong with his cat eyes.
Not because of the giant black pipe sucking water out of the Darwin River into the low gray factory building.
But maybe because of the real live green-scaled and spotty-feathered Tyrannosaurus
rex smashing the factory picnic table.
And definitely because of the twenty-foot-long black ANT angrily waving its ten-foot antennae in front of the T. rex.
Cat Watson shakes his cat head.
“BAWWWWWWKKKKKK!” roars the T. rex.
“CHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCH!” the monster ANT answers the challenge.
Nope. These creatures are real. And the fight is on.
The ANT jumps. It snaps its massive armored jaws around a T. rex leg.
The T. rex screams . . . and bites off one of the ANT’s six telephone-pole-sized legs with a crack!
The giant ANT lifts the T. rex completely off the ground. And smashes it back down with a truly earthshaking WHAMMMMM!
The monster ANT and T. rex thrash and flop and crash through trees, down the hill, into the black pipe—breaking it. A gushing column of water explodes, rushing back into its original streambed.
Cat Watson spots T. Edison—running for the back of the half-wrecked factory. Up above, a noise—Mr. Chimp in the branch of a tree.
Exactly, thinks Watson. Exactly who I thought was behind this mess. But where where where is the—
Mr. Chimp looks down.
Watson looks to where Mr. Chimp is looking.
On the ground, under the splintered picnic table.
There!
The EvoBlaster Belt!
The T. rex and towering ANT thrash and scream and roar and fight.
Cat Watson doesn’t think twice. He doesn’t think at all. He acts on pure powerful animal instinct.
Cat Watson jumps from the bush. He dodges left and right and under the legs of the battling dinosaur and ant. He races directly below a surprised Mr. Chimp, bites the belt between sharp feline teeth, and runs.
“Nooooooooooo!” cries T. Edison, watching the unpiped river wash the rest of his factory downstream.
“Ooooooookkkk!” yells Mr. Chimp, seeing his dream of the future disappearing in a cat’s jaws.
“BAWWWWWWKK!” screams the T. rex, spotting a better dinner than the ANT.
“CHCHCHCHCHCHCH!” chitters the ANT, still looking to fight.
Cat Watson leaps and hops and runs for the wall.