Jesse nodded. “You’re also the smallest of us, so you’re the least likely to be appetizing.”
“Okay, guys?” Laura said. “That’s probably not helping her.”
Murky cautiously approached Chicago, stopping once or twice when his whining became more of an angry growl. He didn’t snap at her or otherwise try to keep her away, though.
“It’s okay, Chicago. I just want to help you.”
The dim glow of the wall fungus made it hard for her to see details until she got close, but the worst of his wounds seemed to be on his right leg. Everywhere else the damage looked like it was just small cuts, scrapes and scratches, but here the dinosaur’s rough pebbled skin had been torn away in a deep gash. There was blood coming out of it, but not fast.
“Henderson, didn’t you have your gym shirt in your backpack?” Murky asked.
“Why the hell would you want… oh, wait. I get it.” He shrugged off his backpack and pulled out the gym shirt, causing all of them to wrinkle their noses in disgust at the smell as he handed it over. “Might not be the cleanest thing to put on an open wound, though.”
“We are literally underneath the dirt,” Jesse said. “I don’t think a little more grunginess is going to make the wound that much worse.”
With Henderson’s help, Murky tore the shirt into the longest strips she could manage and then set to wrapping them around Chicago’s leg. The resulting bandage was pretty sad looking when it came to craftsmanship, but at least it covered up the entire wound and seemed to keep it from bleeding too much. All the while Chicago left Murky alone to do her work, although he did hiss at her several times when she was less than delicate with the wound. When she was finished, he shook his leg like he was trying to get the makeshift bandage off, then tried to nip at it with his teeth.
“Maybe we should put a cone around his neck to keep him from doing that,” Murky said. “You know, like a dog.”
“Murky, think for a second,” Jesse said. “Where would we get one of those paper cone things down here in a cave?”
“Maybe we can find a way to make one out of your math book,” Murky suggested.
“We don’t have time to try being MacGyver just to give a dinosaur a cone around its neck,” Laura said.
“Maybe we should make him stay behind,” Henderson said. “If he’s too badly hurt, he might slow us down.”
“Uh-uh. No way,” Jesse said. “He saved me. He could save us again if something else attacks us.”
“Less than an hour ago none of us wanted him around, and now you’re saying you have no problem with him?” Henderson asked.
“I wanted him around,” Murky said quietly.
“Yeah, well, we were wrong,” Jesse said. “He hasn’t tried to attack us once, for some reason, and he was aware that something was wrong with the mushroom creature before any of us were. And we’re still not even positive we’re going the right way, but if he can sense danger then maybe he can help us figure out where the ant creatures went. And also? He saved us. We can’t thank him by running off without him while he’s hurt.”
“I’m going to have to agree with them here,” Laura said. “Chicago has proven pretty valuable, and if he hasn’t killed and eaten us by now, then I kind of doubt he will.”
They all looked at Henderson, who sighed. “Okay, fine. But I say it’s Murky’s responsibility to look after him and make sure he doesn’t get us into trouble. That’s fair, right?”
Murky enthusiastically shook her head. “Oh yeah. I can do that! I’ll be good at it, too! I’ll be the best dinosaur watcher ever!”
“You’ll be the only dinosaur watcher ever,” Jesse said. “At least the only human one.”
“But Murky,” Laura said, “you do realize that doesn’t mean you get to keep him when we get back to the surface, right? Under no circumstances.”
“Right. Of course. I understand,” Murky said. But what she thought was Oh my gosh, I’m going to keep him!
“If he’s up to walking again, we need to get going,” Laura said.
“Any idea how much time we have left?” Jesse asked.
“Best guess? Somewhere between four and five hours, and even if we can find everyone, we still have to go all the way back the way we came.”
“And we still don’t even know if we’re going on the right track,” Henderson said morosely. “We could have been going down the wrong tunnels this whole time and we would have no way of knowing.”
“Wait. What’s that up ahead?” Murky asked. She pointed at a spot some distance ahead where the tunnel flared out and appeared to go into another excessively large cavern like the one the dinosaurs had been in. The glow from there was far brighter than in the tunnel. Murky thought back to what Jesse had originally said about the glowing fungus being the source or large amounts of oxygen. If that was true, then it seemed possible that this might be a place that had something to do with the ant creatures that had taken the townsfolk. “That’s got to be what we’ve been looking for, right?”
Before any of her companions could say otherwise, Murky ran for the mouth of the tunnel. Laura called out after her to stop, but Murky quickly heard the fast footsteps of three humans and one dinosaur running after her.
Murky skidded to a halt as soon as she was out of the tunnel, with Jesse so close behind her that he ran into her and almost knocked her over. They were on a ledge again like they had been in the dinosaur cave, and it gave them a perfect view of everything beyond.
“Okay,
