Chapter I: Shock

Littlefoot awoke the next morning to find his grandparents gone. The breeze brought to his ears the sound of worried voices. He followed the sounds to find his friends with their parents, and many other dinosaurs of the Valley, gathered around the carcass of a bignose.

"What's going on?" Littlefoot asked Ducky.

"I do not know," said Ducky. " I cannot see anything. But the grownups are worried, they are."

"Grandpa! Grandma! What's happening?"

"Old Bignose is--um, er, uh..." faltered Grandpa.

"He's dead," snorted Threehorn.

"He looks like he was killed by a sharptooth," said Grandma.

"A SHARPTOOTH?!" cried the friends. Spike drove his head into the ground.

"But the Great Rock Wall..." said Littlefoot.

"That's the mystery," said Grandpa.

Just then a runner came, well, running in. "Trouble...wall...down," he panted. "Sharptooth...tracks."

Everyone gasped.

"We must rebuild it then," said Grandpa.

"Can't," said the runner. "Rocks...all...gone."

Everyone gasped again.

In the meantime, an outsider was looking out on the pristine valley.

"It was much easier to get in this time. Right, Strut? Strut?" Oh no, not this again.

"Yum, berries," Strut mumbled to himself.

"STRUT!"

The struthiomimus who was eating the fruit choked. Why can't Ozzy just leave me alone? He was not allowed to think about this any longer as the other struthiomimus forced his mouth open with one claw and administered blows to the back of the head with the other.

"You imbecile! No wonder our dear mother said you'd never amount to anything!"

Littlefoot and the gang were discussing the day's events by the Brown Goo.

"Me so worried," said Petrie. "What if sharpteeth attack nest?"

"ROAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

Petrie darted upwards and hung onto a tree branch, teeth chattering. He looked down and saw his friends all laughing.

"What so funny?"

"I scared you, I scared you," chanted Cera.

"Hmph," muttered Petrie, gliding down. "You no scare me. Me just playing along."

"Well," said Littlefoot, "we'll just have to be on our guard. Remember the drill. If you see a sharptooth..."

"Run and tell the grownups," droned the others in unison. As if we needed to be told.

The struthiomimus pair were "hunting," as Ozzy said. They were sneaking towards a nest filled with (what else?) eggs. Its owner, a widebeak swimmer, was engaged in a chat with her friend, a spiketail.

They were just about to reach the nest when Strut stepped on a twig. The swimmer turned around and charged. The pair ran, Ozzy not forgetting to give Strut a good slap in the face as they went. The swimmer, satisfied, returned to her nest.

Ozzy and Strut continued to run until Strut fell into a pool filled with a bubbling brown liquid. "Ozzy! Help! I'm drowning, I mean sinking! Help!"

Ozzy, who did not feel very kindly disposed towards Strut at that moment, grabbed him unkindly by the neck and pulled him out. "A little volcanic mud never hurt anybody yet, mush mouth!"

The gang continued to talk until Ducky noticed the pair on the other side of the Goo. She screamed.

"What is it, Du--" asked Littlefoot, trailing off when he saw them.

"What the--" started Ozzy, then an evil grin spread across his features. "Aha! It's you little sap suckers again. Well, this time you're not getting away."