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.
**************************
Waking up the next morning was a complete letdown. I had been having a passionately romantic dream about Oonu, when the scene faded and I opened my eyes, finding myself alone. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get back into Oonu's arms, but it was no use. I was awake.
Making a cranky noise, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. As I woke up more fully, I remembered that I was to start my formal schooling today. Well, at least that would be interesting. I still had a lot to learn about Dinotopia before I could stop being a burden on Soneera. She insisted that I wasn't a burden, but I felt like one just the same.
After breakfast Soneera walked me to school. As we approached, I could see a young woman, probably around my age, who had to be the teacher, with a gaggle of human students gathered around her.
She looked up as we approached. "Breathe deep," she said. "You are Jennica, yes?"
I nodded. "Seek peace."
"My name is Arianna," the teacher continued. "I will be your teacher, and these are your classmates."
I looked around at my classmates, all of whom seemed to be about eight years old. Oh, great. Well, I suppose it made sense, since my Dinotopian education was currently on the same level as a small child's. Still, I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy being in class with a bunch of patty-cake playing kids.
Arianna led us into the classroom and we sat down at wooden desks arranged facing each other in four rows. Arianna stood in the middle of the room and addressed the class.
"Breathe deep," greeted Arianna.
"Seek peace," the whole class chorused together.
"Before we begin," Arianna continued, "we should introduce ourselves to our new student. Please begin," she said to a young boy seated at the end of the second row on the left side of the classroom.
"My name is Mark," the boy said. The introductions went around the room, with each child saying his or her name. When it was my turn I said, "My name is Jennica. My friends call me Jenni."
The child seated to my left, a little girl named Anastasia, smiled up at me shyly. "Wow, you must be old," she said. "Are you a dolphinback?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm here to learn the Dinotopian Way, just like you."
Arianna deposited a couple of books on my desk. "These are your textbooks," she said. Addressing the rest of the class, she continued, "Recite the Code of Dinotopia."
The children began to speak as one, as if reciting a prayer in church. The code, I discovered, was a list of instructions on how to live in the Dinotopian Way. I listened closely as the children recited:
"Survival of all or none.
One raindrop raises the sea.
Weapons are enemies even to their owners.
Give more, take less.
Others first, self last.
Observe, listen, and learn.
Do one thing at a time.
Sing every day.
Exercise imagination.
Eat to live, don't live to eat.
The final code," the class finished, "is missing."
"And what are the last five letters of the code?" Arianna asked. "Anastasia?"
"'Don't p…'" Anastasia quoted.
I gave the eight-year-old a surprised look. "Don't what?" I repeated.
"The first letter of the word is P," she whispered. "My mother says she thinks the rest of the code is 'Don't pee in the bath,' but I think it's 'Don't push your friends.'"
"Somehow I think your idea makes more sense," I whispered back.
We spent the rest of the morning continuing a class discussion about the codes that had clearly begun many days before. I had the impression that the primary purpose of this class was to learn how to put these codes into practice in everyday life. A lot of the examples given by members of the class were distinctly eight-year-old in character, but they all made a lot of sense. I wished that outside-world kids were put through such a class.
The discussion went around the room the same way the introductions had, except this time each child commented on the meaning of a different code. Mark said that "Survival of all or none" meant that your life wasn't worth as much if you didn't have the courage to risk it to save someone else.
"'One raindrop raises the sea,'" a child named Maria quoted. "This means that everyone can change the world. Even the smallest thing affects everything else."
"'Weapons are enemies even to their owners,'" Aidan stated, "because they are enemies to their victims because they get killed, and they are enemies to their owners because they make their owners killers."
The code went around the class, and when one student spoke on the last code, the next student started again with "Survival of all or none." When it was my turn, I got "Eat to live, don't live to eat." I thought a moment, then said, "'Eat to live, don't live to eat' means that eating is a pleasure as long as you don't do too much of it. In the outside world we say 'Everything in moderation,' and I guess this is sort of the same thing. It's about willpower and self control."
Arianna smiled at me. "Quite impressive for a newcomer. I think you will fit in well here."
The children clapped, and I smiled down at my desk.
Arianna took us to the Dining Commons for lunch. We all sat together at one long table, but I saw Soneera in the distance, so I waved. She waved back. After lunch Arianna began drilling us on the saurian footprint alphabet. I was behind, of course, but I caught up fairly quickly, since catching up with a bunch of eight-year-olds was nowhere near as difficult as catching up with a group of adults.
By the end of class that day I could recognize nearly ten letters on sight, and when I got home I went straight to my room, eager to study some more. I looked at the books Arianna had given me. One was on the footprint alphabet and was full of reading exercises for beginners. The other was a book in the Latin alphabet called The Care and Teaching of Humans.
Putting that book aside for now, I picked up the footprint book and finished memorizing the alphabet. I practiced by writing out the alphabet from A to Z on a piece of paper, using a cute little footprint stamp that Arianna had given me. After I had written it out perfectly for the third time in a row, it was suppertime, so I took a break to eat with Soneera.
When I finished my dinner I returned to my room. I started working through the reading exercises Arianna had assigned for homework, and discovered that even though I had memorized the alphabet, actually using it was difficult. At this point I could not yet simply look at a word and recognize it as a discreet unit; I still had to look at each letter individually and translate, letter by letter, in my head. It was slow going, but I managed to answer all the questions in the exercises.
Having finished the footprint assignment, I picked up The Care and Teaching of Humans and lay down on my bed to read it. The book was a real eye-opener for me, since it was written from the saurian point of view. The first chapter was on the arrival of the first humans in Dinotopia in 2874 B.C. The saurians' first impression of humans was that, while we may not have been the sharpest tools in the shed, we were not complete morons, either. "Humans," a saurian named Ishtaku wrote thousands of years ago, "are a bellicose species, prone to division and fighting. They are fairly intelligent, though not intelligent enough to avoid uncivilized and savage behavior. If they are to coexist with us, they must be taught to breathe deep and seek peace, and to forsake their violent ways."
Subsequent chapters in the book talked about methods saurians had used over the millennia to train violence out of their human neighbors. Humans, the book said, must spend many hours in the company of saurians during their formative years. Amashaduk, a triceratops who spent most of his life studying humans, wrote that humans learn best by example, and the best example, of course, is a saurian.
By the time I finished reading the third chapter, I was getting tired, so I put the book down and got ready for bed. I fell asleep daydreaming about Oonu.
***************************
Please read and review. Flames welcome.