Chapter II: The Detectives

"Oh no, it couldn't be them!" cried Cera as she saw the struthiomimus pair streak towards her. "How did they ever escape from Chomper's parents?"

"Don't ask, just run!" replied Littlefoot, suiting his actions to his words.

It is not advisable to run from struthiomimuses. They are the fastest dinosaurs of all, and these two quickly gained on the children.

"Scatter!" cried Littlefoot. The five ran in different directions. Ozzy immediately set off after Littlefoot, but Strut stopped chasing them altogether and started munching on the grass.

"Me go get grownups!" said Petrie, and he flew in the direction of his nest. Cera, Ducky, and Spike were also making for home.

But Littlefoot had a different plan. Maybe he couldn't outrun Ozzy, but he knew the terrain better. He made for the Sinking Sand, running zigzag. If Ozzy got too close, he would swat him with his tail and try to avoid the sharp claws.

"Stop, you useless little leaf licker!" cried Ozzy.

The Sinking Sand. Now if I can just--

Littlefoot gathered speed and leaped. He landed on a rock in the middle of the so-called "sand."

"Come back here!" cried Ozzy. "I'll get you!" Ha! A little volcanic mud never hurt anybody yet.

Ozzy waded right into the Sinking Sand. He could think of nothing but revenge. Then he realized that he was sinking. He started to paddle, but the liquid around him resisted. He grabbed onto a convenient rock which just barely poked up above the liquid and hung on for dear life while Littlefoot jumped back in the direction he had come and started away to find his friends.

The next day a very full Strut found Ozzy still embracing the rock. He used a branch to fish his brother out.

"What's the matter, Ozzy? A little volcanic mud never hurt anybody yet."

"Let's just go get breakfast, you stupid shrub swallower."

"What did you say, Grandpa?" asked Littlefoot. He was at his nest, as you might have gathered.

"I saw flat-tooth tracks where the Great Wall used to be."

"So? Probably a lot of dinosaurs went there to see."

"They looked like a sharptooth had tried to scratch them out. I couldn't tell what kind they were."

"Why would a sharptooth scratch out flat-tooth tracks but not his own?"

"Exactly. Besides, the flat-tooth was there at the same time as the sharptooth."

"How do you know?"

"Because a sharptooth print was right on top of a flat-tooth print in one place, and very close by a flat-tooth print was right on top of a sharptooth print. Those flat-tooth prints looked enough like each other and the scratched-out prints that I figured they were all from the same dinosaur."

"Wow. You're really smart, Grandpa."

"Well, actually it wasn't me who figured that out," admitted Grandpa. "I just showed Mr. Thicknose, and he explained everything to me."

"Wouldn't a sharptooth try and attack a flat-tooth?"

"That's just it, Littlefoot. No blood. Not even a sign of the sharptooth trying to chase the flat-tooth."

"The prints on top of each other could be a sign of that."

"I thought so too, Littlefoot, but Mr. Thicknose told me how sharpteeth hate running in tiny circles like that."

"Gee, all that's really weird, Grandpa." (Pause.) "Can I go play now?"

"Okay, Littlefoot. Just watch out for sharpteeth."

The gang gathered by the Sinking Sand to hear Littlefoot recount his exploits against Ozzy.

"I always knew he was a dumb old egg-stealer," said Cera.

"Too bad for him he not flyer like me," said Petrie.

Then Littlefoot told the friends about his grandfather's discoveries where the Great Wall had been.

"That is very strange, it is, it is," said Ducky.

"Hey! I've got an idea. Why don't we try to find out as much as we can about it, like that Hemlock Holmesaurus fellow Grandpa told us about last week?"

"Okay," said everybody at once.

So the Great Valley Detective Agency was born.