Chapter 9:

A Lost Trail

Chomper looked away from the hole broken in the ground toward the others. They noticed how confused he appeared.

"What is it?" Petrie's mother asked.

"It's like Cera just disappeared," Chomper said. "She came this way, but her scent stops at this hole in the ground. I don't see her anywhere in the cave…and a sail-backed sharptooth was here…"

The grown-ups gasped.

"Oh dear," Ducky's mother said. "I hope she got away…Can you tell if she did?" she asked Chomper.

Chomper hesitated. Mr. Threehorn was right there. Eventually he said, "I can't…her scent stops at this hole."

"She had to have gotten away," Petrie's mother said. "There's no sign of a fight, no blood…"

"…and no Cera either!" Mr. Threehorn's outburst startled everyone. "What are we doing wasting time here if Cera's not here?"

"That's enough out of you," Petrie's mother spat. "Some father you are."

"Humph!" Mr. Threehorn growled. "Fliers always think they know everything…" He went to the back of the group instead of arguing any further.

Grandpa Longneck cleared his throat. "I think we should get moving," he said. "Cera's clearly not here but a sharptooth was."

At the back of the group, Tria said to Mr. Threehorn, "Topsy, you must have faith that we'll find her. She can take care of herself, you even told me she survived out here in The Mysterious Beyond when she was just a hatchling. Why are you so worried that something bad has happened to her now when she's growing up?" He didn't answer. Tria gasped. "You think she can't take care of herself?"

"Of course not!" Mr. Threehorn protested. "I never said such a thing!"

"My point exactly," Tria said. "You didn't say anything to answer my question."

"Oh," Mr. Threehorn said. "I'm sorry. I just have a lot on my mind. Cera's my only daughter, other than Tricia, and I don't want to lose her too."

"She's my daughter too, Topsy," Tria said. "And I have faith that we'll find her. You need to have faith also. If we believe we can find Cera, then we will."

"With everything that's happened to me before you came to The Great Valley, having faith has been difficult," Topsy admitted. "I don't have much family left. You, Cera, Tricia, Dinah, and Dana are all the family I have left."

"That is why you must have faith that we'll find Cera," Tria said. "I'm worried about her, but I know we'll find her. You've told me she's always found you again when she's been lost in The Mysterious Beyond in the past. And this isn't her first time surviving a sail-backed sharptooth, according to Guido and her other friends."

Threehorn moved ahead. He would hate himself for saying what he would to Tria, but a part of him felt it needed to be said. "Maybe when you've lost as much family as I have," he said, "then you'll understand why I feel like I do."

Tria was speechless. He'd never talked to her like that once they had an egg together. But at the same time…Maybe he is right, Tria thought. I haven't lost any family to tragedies like he has. My parents passed away naturally, he watched sharpteeth murder his parents. And Tricia is still alive, all of his daughters other than Cera were killed by fast biters with his first wife. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to judge him.

Tria decided she would let him be for a bit. Maybe if Topsy had some time to be alone, he would get his thoughts together, she thought. Tria saw no other option right now but that.

Petrie's mother landed by Ducky's mother. She'd had enough of flying, which was the whole reason she was with Mr. Threehorn and the others, and not searching head with Etta and the other fliers. Of course, she wanted to help find Cera just as much as the others did, but she wasn't exactly the youngest flier anymore and, on top of that, that'd searched for places in The Mysterious Beyond from the air than the other fliers had.

"I don't think my wings will carry me much further" was what she'd said to Littlefoot's grandparents when she nearly crashed into one of them. They were all understanding that she needed to rest, except Mr. Threehorn being a little annoyed, even almost saying "Oh, she's just getting soft. You haven't heard the other fliers complaining." But he must've realized that she wasn't young anymore and he wasn't either, since he had stopped talking mid-sentence.

Ducky's mother looked down to speak to the flyer as the group walked. "Where do you think Cera could have gone?" the swimmer asked. "Chomper saying that a sharptooth had been there and Cera's scent trail vanishing without a trace worries me, but as you said, there was no blood that we could see. A dinosaur can't just disappear without there being a reason. None of us saw Cera down in that cave and if she was, she would have been there 'cause it was quite a fall, and I don't believe Cera would be able to just walk away from it."

"For once," Petrie's mother said, "I'm afraid I don't have an answer. There are just too many things about this that don't make sense and bring up more questions than answers. I haven't got an answer to this one…" Her voice trailed off. She seemed to be thinking hard about how to explain this. If they weren't walking, Ducky's mother thought, she probably would have been tapping her foot on the ground as she thought.

"Maybe Cera wasn't hurt as bad as we would think she'd be," Grandma Longneck suggested. "The children have always been resilient."

"Yes," Petrie's mother said, "but they've never fallen from such a height before. I hate to think about it, but I'm afraid Cera's been hurt bad. No one could fall from that height and not be hurt."

Ducky's mother shuddered at the thought. She remembered Ducky's tale of a similar fall, when running from Rinkus and Sierra. Except Ducky was fortunate to have fallen through a hole in the ground over a body of water, which wasn't the case for Cera if she had fallen into that cave. No one wanted to think about the other alternative, that she'd been eaten by the sail-backed sharptooth Chomper said had been there as well. It was unlikely, as, like Petrie's mother pointed out, there was no sign of blood or a fight, but it was still a possibility that worried them all.

Their respective children's' fathers crossed their minds as they walked. Petrie's father died when Petrie and his siblings were only eggs about to hatch. Their eggs had been laid in the middle of the time of the great dying and any food the family had gotten, Petrie's father let her have. One day, he never came back to the nest. Petrie's mother, although at the time different dinosaurs rarely socialized with each other, asked one of Ducky's relatives if she could watch over her nest when she went to look for her husband. And she found him, but was too late. The lack of food and water had gotten to him first and then the scavengers. Petrie's mother would never forget finding her husband as a picked-clean skeleton. Unlike Mr. Threehorn not being very open with Cera about what he knew, Petrie's mother had told her children that something bad happened to their father, and she would tell them what exactly when they were older, claiming "it's nothing something a parent should tell young'uns".

Ducky had actually known her father at one point, but she lost him under much more tragic circumstances than how Petrie lost his father. Hyp, Mutt and Nod had gone out into the Mysterious Beyond after the fast water in the Great Valley stopped flowing due to a flying rock blocking its source from somewhere in The Mysterious Beyond, thinking they could solve the problem on their own. Some of the adults had ended up following Littlefoot and his friends, who had followed Hyp, Mutt, and Nod in an attempt to bring them back before they got into trouble, but they were ambushed by a small pack of fast biters. There was only one casualty, but it was one that hit hard: Ducky's father had been caught by a fast biter that had lurked around for stragglers in the midst of all the fighting. The other leaf eaters hadn't noticed it until the fighting was over, before they returned to The Great Valley, having been focused on protecting the children from the fast biters at any cost. (A decision that almost cost Mr. Threehorn, Grandma Longneck, and Hyp, Mutt and Nod's dads their lives as well.) Ducky's family chose not to talk about the incident that often, it often upset them, particularly Ducky, who had been especially close to her father before his death.

"Just keep following the footmarks!" Littlefoot hollered over the blowing wind. Ducky, Petrie, Spike, and Ruby were struggling to keep up with Littlefoot in the middle of this sand cloud. The wind was much stronger than the last one Littlefoot and his friends had encountered in the dry land beyond the feather-headed sharpteeth's territory. "We have to keep following the grown-ups if we want to find Cera!"

"That would not be so difficult if it weren't for the sand cloud!" Ducky shouted. Then she sputtered, having gotten a mouthful of sand right after she said that. "I do not like sand clouds," she added. "No, no, no."

"Ack!" Petrie coughed. "Me neither!"

Spike groaned in agreement.

Ruby said nothing. This was not her first time being in a sand cloud, since she used to live in The Mysterious Beyond on a daily basis, and knew a mouthful of sand was something she didn't want. (Especially after seeing how Ducky and Petrie reacted to it, Ruby would keep her mouth closed until it was over.)

"Why are we not seeking shelter until the sand cloud is gone?" Ducky asked. "We can't keep going through it for much longer if it stays like this…" And then Ducky was hit in the face with sand. "Oh…" she groaned. The sand stung her eyes like water from the big water would, except it was even drier.

Littlefoot looked around. Or at least tried. The sand cloud was becoming blinding, even for him and Ruby. "I don't see any shelter to seek," he said, then spat out sand. "Ack!" he coughed. "I just hope Cera and our parents didn't get caught in this!" Littlefoot shouted back to the others.

And then a strong gust of wind sent Littlefoot head-over-tail right into the others. They all screamed as the wind blew them in the direction that they'd struggled to come from, between the swamp and now this darned sand cloud. As they tumbled across the desert in one mass, Petrie wrapped his winds around Littlefoot's neck. Ducky did the same to Ruby. Before the five friends knew it, they were all up to their necks (or up to their tails, for those who had been blown into the sand headfirst) in sand, with the cloud showing no signs of letting up soon.

"Oh dear," Ruby said.

Ducky mumbled something inaudible. She was the unlucky one, with her hind legs and tail sticking out of the ground. The rest of her body, up to her hip, was buried in the sand. She may have said "No, no, no" but the others couldn't tell, between her voice being muffled by the sand and the wind blowing louder than ever. They could hardly hear themselves think, let alone each other talk!

Petrie had been blown into a tree, where he was hanging upside-down by his feet and sputtering as the sand cloud blew past his head. He screeched like how only fliers could screech then fell to the ground with a scream. "Gah!" he coughed again. "Me hate sand cloud!" he said. "You sure there no shelter, Littlefoot?"

"I can't see right in front of me," Littlefoot said, "let alone shelter!" He was speaking loudly so his friends could hear him.

"Where's Ducky?" Ruby asked.

"Mmm-mmm." They heard a muffled voice.

"Me see her!" Petrie squawked. "To your right, Ruby."

Ruby looked down, with squinted eyes, and saw a pair of legs kicking as whom they belonged to continued yelling underneath the sand. The fast runner struggled to crawl through the sand toward Ducky, but she made it. With one hand, Ruby gently pulled Ducky out of the sand then held the little swimmer close to her torso to shield her from the sand cloud.

"What can we d-do?" Ducky asked. "Littlefoot?"

Littlefoot didn't answer. He was too focused on looking around for a cave or something they could seek refuge in, hopefully temporarily. He squinted his eyes, then saw it. "A cave!" he shouted. "Follow me!"

Littlefoot led his friends a few feet toward the opening he saw. He was small, but turned out to be large enough for them all, Spike included, to get through. The friends each talked about how relieved they were to finally be out of the sand cloud. Ducky and Petrie especially, they would have been lost from Littlefoot, Ruby, and Spike if Littlefoot hadn't noticed this cave's opening soon.

"What we do now?" Petrie asked.

"Wait it out, I guess," Littlefoot said. The others noticed the regret in his voice. He must be feeling bad that their helping Cera would be slowed down tremendously because of this sand cloud. Ruby was the first to notice the guilty look that came over his face as he stared out into the sand cloud.

"Oh, Littlefoot," said Ruby. "Don't feel so bad. We'll still rescue Cera. She's always been a strong threehorn. She's all right, I'm sure. Cera knows well enough, like we did, to seek shelter immediately if she was caught in the sand cloud too."

"It's not the sand cloud that has me worried about Cera…" Littlefoot sighed. "It's the sharpteeth footmarks we saw before the sand cloud started. Cera wouldn't admit it, but her worst fear is sharpteeth. She's frozen at the sight of fast biters before and those are the footmarks we saw…"

Ruby gasped. She hadn't ever known that about Cera. But she knew it would be best not to say anything, at risk of upsetting Littlefoot more than he already was. She could only hope Cera had gotten over her fear of sharpteeth if any had found her.

Ducky thought, I hope the grown-ups or Cera won't be too upset with us when they find out we followed them out here…