DISCLAIMER: I don't own Dinotopia and I don't want to. I have not and will not make any money off this story. Basically what I'm trying to do is reconcile some of the conflicts between the books and the miniseries. The M rating is for material to appear in later chapters.

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The next morning I awoke shortly after dawn, which was unusual, since I was not traditionally a morning person. I lay in bed for a few minutes, thinking about the night before. Now that the sun was streaming through my window, it was hard to believe all that stuff had actually happened.

I got out of bed and put my Dinotopian outfit back on. When I arrived in the kitchen, Soneera was already there, preparing breakfast.

"Good morning," she said cheerfully.

"Morning," I replied, as I sat down at the table. "Sorry I missed dinner last night."

Soneera set plates on the table and took her seat. "No problem at all. So, whom did you meet last night?"

"No one." I looked at my plate, hoping she wouldn't notice my blush.

Soneera took my chin in her hand and turned my head so I had to look her in the eye. "Honesty is a Dinotopian value," she said gently.

I sighed. "All right, who tattled on me?"

Soneera looked surprised. "No one," she said. "Dinotopians don't tattle. I saw it on your face when you got home last night. So who was it?"

"Look, I don't want to say anything yet, okay? I don't need you making fun of me. And—"

"What makes you think I would make fun of you?"

I shrugged. "Everyone else would."

"I'm not so sure of that," Soneera said, "but go on."

"And I don't even know if he'll come back," I finished. "I mean, he said he would, but something might come up, or he might forget or… or worse, he might decide not to come back."

Soneera looked at me sadly. "What kind of place do you come from?"

I looked away. "It's fine if you're one of the chosen few," I said bitterly. "But if you're not, forget it."

"I see," Soneera said slowly. "So your society excludes people. How sad. Can you tell me more about your life? You've given me some incomprehensible statistics, but that's not an account of the experience of growing up there."

I shook my head. "It's probably better if I don't talk about it. I really don't think you'd understand. Things are so different here that none of those problems exists. When you come right down to it, I'm probably a statistic. A social statistic, anyway."

"Wow," Soneera said softly. "It must be pretty bad out there. If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. But if someday you want to tell me, I'll be ready to listen."

"Thanks." In my head, I examined the reasons for my reluctance to open up to Soneera. A lot of it simply was that I thought her life experience wouldn't give her the capacity to understand. Some of it was that I didn't fully understand it myself.

For me, growing up with money was a blessing in some ways and a curse in others. It was a blessing because it meant I had access to the best possible education and learning tools. But it was precisely that education that made it a curse.

My parents decided to send me to a fancy private school because they felt that the academic standards would be higher. They were, but what my parents didn't know was that the parents of the other kids in my school thought they were going to be using the school as a segregation academy. Those parents were not prepared for the fact that there might be wealthy minority students in their kids' school.

Being one of only a few nonwhites in the school had made my school years difficult. Most of my peers were being raised by parents who passed on racist attitudes, making it nearly impossible for kids like me to fit in. And when my classmates found out that my mother was white, that just made it worse because they started criticizing my mother for being a "sellout."

During my school years I had exactly three friends. We were not friends because we particularly had anything in common; we bonded together because we were all outcasts. We all had characteristics that were "wrong" in our peers' eyes: my racial makeup, and the fact that I was not particularly athletic in a school full of jocks and cheerleaders, were the reasons why I was marginalized. My friend Elizabeth weighed about three hundred pounds, and no one wanted to be seen with a "fat" person. My friend Tyesha was African-American, so she faced racism even worse than I did. And my friend Maura was in a wheelchair, so no one would talk to her for that reason. The four of us formed a little group that the rest of the school publicly referred to as "The Defective Merchandise Club."

College was better, of course, because the students had matured enough to be courteous and more accepting of people's differences. However, I still found it difficult to get close to people, since it seemed like everyone else already had a set of five best friends and didn't need any more. So the result was that I had a series of friendly acquaintances each semester that I invariably lost track of after final exams. Part of this difficulty may have been my fault, since my previous experiences had left me afraid to try to get close to people. I timidly figured it was better to wait for people to seek me out as their friend. I did not have the courage to risk further social rejection by asking any classmates, male or female, to hang out after class or study for an exam. I did end up in an occasional study group, but it was always the same: we'd have a nice time, I'd explain the material well enough for my acquaintances to get A's, and then they'd be gone, hanging out with their five best friends that they'd known since kindergarten.

I mulled this over while I ate my breakfast, thanking God or fate or whatever that I was here in Dinotopia now, where I had a second chance. People here were so open and friendly that I thought I might actually have a chance to form some real friendships that started for reasons other than mutual exclusion. Soneera seemed to be a real candidate for the role of "best friend," but I sincerely hoped that I would assimilate quickly so that I could stop being her surrogate child.

Thinking of Soneera as my "mother" made me giggle. "Um, Soneera, I was wondering. Do you mind my asking how old you are?"

"Not at all," she replied. "I'm in my first years of adulthood, just like you. I've recently finished my education and have started my career. I've lived on my own for about a year now."

"I guess you're a bit ahead of me, then," I said. "I had just finished college and was looking forward to graduate school. I was still living in a college dorm and going home to my parents for the summer. That's where a lot of twenty-two-year-olds are where I come from."

"Wow, you're twenty-two? In Dinotopia, most humans have finished their training started working their trades on their own by the age of eighteen, and saurians by fourteen or fifteen."

"Yikes, saurians must grow up fast," I observed.

Soneera laughed. "Yes, we do. Think of a brachiosaur, for instance. They go from being a five-pound infant to being a seventy-ton adult in sixteen short years. That's an awful lot of growing."

"I would say so," I agreed. Just thinking about it made my head spin. "Speaking of such things, I have loads of questions about life and culture here. May I go to the library with you today so I can do some research? I can't wait to start learning more about this place."

"Of course," Soneera replied. "I'll introduce you to the head librarians, a human named Adeiseli and a saurian named Thor. They will show you around and help you find answers to your questions."

"Thanks, that sounds great. Does Thor speak human?"

"Yes, he does. And Adeiseli is an ancient man; you'll find him a positive encyclopedia of information about history, science, everything."

"He sounds a bit like my grandfather," I said. "Just curious, but how old is 'ancient' here?"

Soneera laughed. "That depends on your perspective, I think. To a hatchling, I'm probably ancient, and I'm only seventeen. But Adeiseli is around a hundred and thirty; he won't tell anyone his exact age. It's his way of being mysterious."

"A hundred and thirty!?" I gasped. "How is that even possible?"

Soneera spread her hands. "How about if I give you a little homework assignment? When you get to the library, look up Articum longevus. It's commonly called 'trilobur.'"

"Okay," I said. "I'll ask Ad – Aday – er, Thor – about it, if I can remember how to pronounce either one of those names. Needless to say, I have no idea how to spell them, either."

Soneera laughed. "I'm sure they'll help you with the spelling. And the librarian's name is Adeiseli. Uh-DAY-sel-lee. He's a very nice old man."

"That's good," I said. "I hope he'll still be nice if I butcher his name."

"Goodness," Soneera said, shaking her head. "People must be awfully irritable where you come from."

"They sure are," I replied. "May I be excused?"

"Oh, please!" Soneera blurted, cracking up. "Will you stop treating me like your mother? I'm too young to have a kid your age!"

"Sorry," I said. "I guess I can't help it because I still know so little about life here. I mean, you are teaching me all the stuff that you would teach your own kid. Maybe if I learn a lot at the library today, I'll stop feeling like your surrogate child."

Soneera was laughing so hard she almost fell off her seat. "Oh, for Harmony's sake! I'm more like a big sister than a mother. You don't have to ask permission to leave the table or ask for something to eat. If you're hungry just go to the icebox and get something. You don't have to tell me where you're going, or when you will be back, or anything like that. I'll answer all your questions, but you need to learn to be independent. Forget your outside-world upbringing. Being independent and thinking for yourself are good here."

"That's good to know," I said. "I'm going to go get washed up," and disappeared into the washroom.

About ten minutes later, Soneera and I met at the front door and headed for the library. When we got there, I just stood in front of the building and stared.

The place was huge.

A moment later, I was reminded of why. A brachiosaur, the largest I had yet seen, walked through the front door without even dipping his neck.

"Wow," I whispered to Soneera as we followed the huge saurian into the building. "Who is that?"

"His name is Brownback," Soneera replied. "He's one of the archivists, very knowledgeable. I work with him a lot."

"Does your neck get sore from looking way up at him all the time?"

"No. He bends down to the level of anyone smaller than he is, which is just about everybody." Soneera led me to a counter that had to be the great-granddaddy of the circulation desk at my university library. An old man with wild gray hair looked up from a book.

"Breathe deep, Soneera."

"Seek peace, Adeiseli. I'd like you to meet my friend Jenni. She is a dolphinback, and comes seeking answers to her questions about Dinotopia."

Adeiseli held his palm out. "Breathe deep, Jenni."

"Seek peace, Mr. Adeiseli." My pronunciation was a little shaky, but not too horrible.

"Just call me Adeiseli. Have you signed the registry yet?" he asked.

"What's the registry?"

"Oh, so you haven't signed it then. Come with me." Adeiseli emerged from behind the desk, and I followed him out of the room.

Adeiseli led me on a convoluted route that consisted of so many twists and turns that I wasn't sure whether we were still in the library or not. Our journey ended at a long scroll that contained an endless list of names from all over the world and dates of arrival.

"This is where all dolphinbacks register their arrival," Adeiseli explained. "After you have registered, you may begin your formal education. But I see you have a desire to do some independent research first, which is most laudable." He handed me a quill pen. "Here, sign in, and then I'll show you around the library."

I took the quill pen and looked at it. Never having used one before, I wasn't sure how to write with it. I placed the tip on the paper, but nothing happened. Adeiseli pushed an inkwell toward me. "Dip it in here," he said. Oops. Duh. I dipped the end of the feather in the ink and signed my name. Jennica Lucia Martinez, I wrote. I had lost track of the date, so I just put June and the year. Then I handed the quill back to Adeiseli, who wiped it on a cloth and placed it back on the registry table.

Adeiseli took me back to the library – that is, if we'd left it – and showed me how to use the card catalog, which was utterly different, since most volumes were available in three versions: in human using the Latin alphabet, in human using the saurian footprint alphabet, and in Saurian.

I didn't know the footprint alphabet yet, so both the human/footprint volumes and the Saurian volumes were out of the question. Adeiseli showed me how to find books and scrolls written with Latin characters, and then said, "I'm going back to work. Ask me if you need anything."

"Okay, thanks." Adeiseli left the room, and I began my research. I had three principle questions: Number one, I wanted to find out what a skybax was and how people got to ride them. I knew vaguely what a pterosaur was from paleontology classes in college, but I found it hard to imagine one big enough to carry any human, let alone one as big as Oonu. I figured that the more I learned about the skybax, the more I would learn about this man I was rapidly falling in love with. Two, I wanted to know what the World Beneath was. Three, I wanted to know more about sunstones.

I looked through the card catalog, but I didn't find anything that said "The Basics of Dinotopian Society" or anything like that. I decided to find Adeiseli and ask for some help.

I found my way back to the circulation desk, but there was no one behind the desk. Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I spun around to find myself face-to-face with a two-legged saurian with a mouthful of teeth!

"Aughhh!" In my haste to get away, I tripped over my own feet and landed on my butt. Terrified of this obviously carnivorous dinosaur, I scuttled backward like a crab.

"Easy," the saurian said. "Breathe deep. My name is Thor."

My breath escaped in one great "whoosh" of relief. I sagged back on the floor. "Oh, my god. You scared the living crap out of me."

"Sorry," said Thor. "I suppose you must be a dolphinback. I'm a Deinonychus. We are one of the tribes of civilized carnosaurs. We eat fish, not the flesh of land creatures. I am Adeiseli's assistant."

I climbed back to my feet, feeling like a complete idiot. If Soneera heard about this, she'd never let me live it down. "Breathe deep," Thor said again.

"Seek peace."

"Now, did you have a question before I almost gave you a heart attack?"

"Yes, I still do, actually. You are correct; I am new here. So I guess what I need is a crash course in Dinotopian culture. I looked in the card catalog, but I didn't find anything that seemed to be a primer for dolphinbacks."

"Ah," Thor replied, gesturing for me to follow. "I know just what you need. Arthur Denison's journal. His account of his and Will's arrival here will give you just the 'crash course' you're looking for." Thor turned to look at me, a glint of amusement in his eyes. "Actually, I think you had your 'crash course' when you arrived here. Did your ship crash into the reef?"

"I was in an airplane crash. As far as I know, I'm the only one who survived."

"I have heard of airplanes. They are sky galleys that can travel all over the world, yes?"

"Um, I guess so." I had never heard of a sky galley, so I wasn't sure. And now I had another question to add to my research.

Thor led me to a shelf, where he removed three volumes in book form. "Here you are," he said. "Arthur Denison's journal, in three volumes. Enjoy your research."

"Thank you very much," I replied. "I really appreciate your help."

"Not a problem at all," Thor said, flashing me an extremely toothy grin. "That's what I'm here for. I'll be around if you need anything. Or you can ask Adeiseli; he's around too." Thor disappeared through a door to another part of the library.

Clutching Denison's journals, I found a seat that was the right size and shape for a human and crawled in. For the next several hours, I lost myself in the world of Denison's discovery and exploration of Dinotopia.

From the journal, I learned that a skybax was a mind-bogglingly enormous pterosaur that looked like a cross between a bat and a long-beaked water bird. A skybax was approximately three times the length of a man but weighed surprisingly little, only about three hundred pounds. This was because skybaxes had hollow bones.

Dinotopia had a vast network of caverns beneath it, known as the World Beneath. According to legend, the saurians had taken refuge there after dust from an asteroid impact millions of years ago had blotted out of the sun. Denison wrote in his journal that he also found evidence of later human occupations as well. One of the only known entrances to the World Beneath was at a place in the Amu River canyon called The Portal.

Denison also wrote about sunstones. It seemed from his writings that he and his fellow explorers were actually the discoverers of sunstones, which, according to legend, had been originally mined from the World Beneath. I found this amazing, since sunstones were so much a part of Dinotopian life today, and Denison's expedition only took place in the 1860s.

I also learned that Thor's "sky galleys" were similar to what I knew back home as gliders. They were used to carry people and small saurians into and out of Waterfall City and to and from a mountain retreat called the Tentpole of the Sky. One minor thing which I found to be of interest was that Denison's guide on his explorations, one Mr. Lee Crabb, referred to humans as "skinnies" and to saurians as "scalies." I presumed these were the Dinotopian equivalents of racial slurs, but I noted that I had never heard either term used in the streets.

Just as I was beginning to get hungry, Soneera walked into the reading room and said, "Come with me to the Dining Commons for lunch. They have excellent food there, and since you are new to Dinotopia, you will be introduced to the citizens of Waterfall City. That is important, since you have not had a proper welcome yet."

"Okay," I said. But inwardly I groaned. The last thing I needed was to be paraded around like a curiosity in front of a crowd of strangers. I had to keep reminding myself that this was Dinotopia; that here people would not be giggling and whispering behind their hands about my clothes, my skin color, or the way I wore my hair. But of course, what if someone recognized me from last night? That would let one very major cat out of one very major bag. Don't think like that! I ordered myself angrily. It was dark last night, and no one was paying attention. No one saw us. Besides, even of someone did, they'd be too polite to make stupid remarks. I hope.

The Dining Commons was several blocks from the library. When Soneera and I arrived about ten minutes later, we sat down at a long table. There I was introduced to an assortment of Soneera's friends and colleagues, both human and saurian. They all welcomed me enthusiastically and told me to breathe deep and seek peace.

Soneera and I were sitting across from Sara and David, a married human couple. They explained that in Dinotopia marriage (or sometimes close friendship) is called cumspiritik, a word derived from Latin that means "breathing together." When I asked Sara how she and David knew Soneera, Sara replied, "I work in the library – I'm a preserver of antiquities, so I work with Soneera quite often. David is a baker; he makes about forty percent of the bread consumed by Waterfall City."

"Wow," I said. "That's a lot of bread."

"Yes, it is," David said, "but I don't make it all myself. I have three apprentices, two of whom are saurians. And I have a Diplodocus friend named Mikaia who delivers bread for me when she's not in a cross-basin caravan."

"What's it like to cross the Rainy Basin?" I asked. "I've been doing some reading, and they say that the caravans are sometimes attacked by carnosaurs."

"That's true," David said. "Mikaia says that angry T-rexes can be really hard to escape. She says that without skybax escorts, basin crossings would not be possible. I've crossed in caravan a couple of times myself, but thankfully I've never seen a T-rex attack."

"Is it dangerous for the skybax riders who fly those missions?" I asked, thinking of Oonu.

"It can be," Sara replied. "But usually the people riding the brachs are in more danger, because they can't fly away."

"What are brachs?"

"Brachiosaurs," Soneera answered. "A lot of names of saurian species are typically shortened; most people would call me a struthie. A trike is a Triceratops."

At that moment the food arrived. It was delicious; some kind of fried seafood – trilobite, Soneera said – served over a strange pasta with a salad made of all sorts of exotic greens on the side.

After everyone had been served and had had a chance to begin eating, a stegosaur walked to a speaking platform at the front of the room and stomped for attention.

"Breathe deep," he said after everyone had quieted down. "I have great news to share with you. This morning we officially welcomed our newest dolphinback at the registry."

Oh, lord, here we go.

"I don't know anything about her," the steg continued, "except for the fact that she signed in this morning. Jennica Martinez, will you please come forward?"

Oh, groan. I had thought that maybe all they'd do would be mention my name, but no such luck. I stood up and walked to the front of the room.

As I approached, the steg said, "Breathe deep. My name is Spiketail. It is my honor to welcome you to Dinotopia on behalf of the citizens of Waterfall City."

"Seek peace," I replied. I don't think anyone behind the front row heard me.

"Jennica, at this point all we know about you is your name. Why don't you tell us a little about yourself? Where are you from?"

"I'm from Richmond, Virginia," I said. "I was in a plane crash."

"How long have you been here in Dinotopia?"

"In Dinotopia, four days. I just arrived in Waterfall City yesterday."

"I see," Spiketail said. "On behalf of all the citizens of Dinotopia, and those of Waterfall City specifically, I wish you the warmest welcome to Dinotopia."

All these groups started coming forward to welcome me, festoon me with flowers, and serenade me with songs. A couple of saurians even tried to dance with me, but I had never been much of a dancer.

I felt like Dorothy being welcomed to Munchkinland. These groups weren't quite the Lullaby League and the Lollipop Guild, but some of them were pretty close. I looked around, half expecting someone to tell me to "Follow the Yellow Brick Road."

After about five minutes of embarrassing attention, the good citizens of Waterfall City allowed me to return to my seat. Thankfully, no one seemed to recognize me from last night.

You may be wondering why I was so reluctant to tell anyone, even Soneera, what had happened. The answer is simple. At that point I did not know whether things would work out. As long as I told no one, if it did not work out, it could just fail quietly and no one would have to know. So while I couldn't save myself from heartbreak, maybe I could protect myself from total social humiliation.

After lunch I returned to the library with Soneera. On the way back, she told me that I would begin my official studies the next day. "Finish all your research today, if you can," she told me. "You'll have plenty of regular homework once you start school."

"Okay," I said. "Oh, that reminds me. What was that stuff you wanted me to look up?"

"Articum longevus. Just say 'trilobur.' The librarians will know what you mean."

When Soneera left me at the library door, I made my way to the circulation desk. Adeiseli was there, deep in conversation with a blue-and-brown sauropod. I waited my turn. When the sauropod left, Adeiseli said, "Greetings, Jenni. How goes your research?"

"Fine, thank you. Uh, Soneera wants me to look up something."

Adeiseli joined me in front of the desk. "Certainly. What is it?"

"I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Trilo-something. I think it's supposed to make you live a long time."

"Ah, yes, trilobur," Adeiseli murmured, beaming. "Also known as Articum longevus. It is the secret to Dinotopian longevity. Come with me." He led me through a maze of shelves, until he pulled one old scroll from a niche near the floor. "Here it is," he said. "Everything you ever wanted to know about A. longevus but didn't know how to ask."

I thanked Adeiseli and headed to the reading room. In the same seat I had occupied this morning, I began to read – or tried to read – about the trilobur plant. The scroll Adeiseli had given me was an exhaustive scientific description of the health benefits of the plant, written on such a high level as to be incomprehensible by anyone without a PhD in biology.

Basically, what I got out of it was this: trilobur was a plant that grew in cultivated patches all over Dinotopia. Once a year, its roots swelled up and got all funky-looking. A chemical compound that occurred naturally in these swollen roots could be made into a salve for cleaning wounds. The roots could also be ground up and brewed into a tea which greatly lengthened the human lifespan, sometimes to 250 years or more.

I found all this pretty hard to believe. But then, talking dinosaurs were pretty unbelievable too. They were real, so that meant all that stuff about trilobur could be true as well.

I spent the rest of the afternoon simply reading anything that seemed interesting. This approach introduced me to all manner of Dinotopian legends, fairytales, and history. By the time Soneera and I left the library that evening, my brain felt so saturated with knowledge that I thought it was going to explode.

Soneera and I shared a simple supper at home. Then, exhausted, I retired quickly to bed. As soon as I closed my eyes, images of Oonu filled my mind. I remembered his face, his voice, his touch. The events of the previous evening replayed in my memory as if my brain had turned into a VCR. I fell asleep wondering when he would come back, wishing he were here with me now.

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