Tommy and Antonio stayed stunned by the story. Now it seemed to click together and make sense why she would come down here. The two looked over at Maggie’s head, lowering.

“Are you okay?" Antonio asked, checking on her.

“Yeah, it's fine, thanks for listening."

Tommy gave her a soft smile. "It's not a problem."

Realizing how late it got, he put out the fire surrounding the little pebbles and got out his sleeping bag.

Maggie turned and noticed Antonio hadn’t been saying a lot, wondering if there was something on his mind. He scurried over to his sleeping bag without a comment.

She shrugged and crawled into her sleeping bag before turning off the lights.

Later that night, Antonio slowly got up out of his sleeping bag. Noticing that the other two slept soundly, he tiptoed out of the hut. The pink dinosaur moved its head slightly as he watched Antonio leave the cabin. Antonio noticed the dinosaur’s interest and raised his finger to his lips to shush it.

“Please be quiet and don’t worry about me.” He whispered. “I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back, so don’t make the others worried, ok?”

The Thescelotitan nodded and tried to go back to sleep while he walked off, but was having a hard time doing so. Hissing made the pink dinosaur snap wide awake, and a snake crawled inside the hut out of the corner of its eye.

The dinosaur peaked its head from under the beaded curtains and watched as the snake crawled inside Tommy’s backpack. As it leaned further into the cabin to pull the creature out, Tommy and Maggie squirmed in their sleeping bags. They sat up and rubbed their eyes, stretched their arms, and yawned.

“Is something wrong, Riley?” Maggie asked, still half-asleep.

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“That’s the name you’re going to give it?” Tommy questioned.

Then again, he figured it was best not to complain about the unisex names at a time like this.

“Hey, what’s it doing messing around with my bag?” Tommy raised his head and noticed the dinosaur peeking inside his bag. He looked around in the hut and noticed something odd. “Huh? Where the heck did Antonio go?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Antonio had to go to, you know, the bathroom?” Maggie guessed with a shrug.

“But why would he not tell us anything? And how long had he been gone for?”

“Maybe we should find him?”

“Yeah, hopefully, he didn’t get too far...”

Tommy got out of his sleeping bag and went over to pick up his backpack.

Riley shook its head in protest, almost as if it begged for him not to take the bag with him. The dinosaur’s behavior confused him, but disregarded it as he opened the flap and reached inside for his flashlight.

By the time he noticed something inside the backpack, it was already too late. A sharp bite pierced into his hand, causing him to scream at the top of his lungs.

Maggie shot up wide awake now; she watched in horror as the snake quickly slithered away from the backpack and out of the hut.

Tommy rolled on the ground, writhing in pain. She got up and ran over to him, his hand now noticeably red and swollen.

“Oh no, are you all right!?”

“N-no...” Tommy replied weakly, trying to fight back the tears.

She turned to the pink dinosaur. “You must’ve tried to warn him about the vermin and tried to get him out of there! We’re sorry we didn’t listen!”

Maggie got out her backpack and took out the health kit to check if any health supplies could help with the snake bites. She found a medicine bottle that might have helped. She read the directions on the bottle, then turned to Tommy and injected him with a syringe of a brightly colored liquid.

She took a wrapping bandage from the health kit and tied it snuggly around his hand, hoping to prevent the pain from going further up his body.

“Won’t you please hurry and take him back to the Orso Looba village for treatment?” Maggie pleaded to the dinosaur. Riley nodded as she placed him on top.

Riley carried his body gently on its back and headed toward the village, as instructed. She took out a piece of paper and pen to write out a message for Antonio before placing it on the ground and rushing over to get on Ringo’s back. It could sense the urgency in her voice and got ready to sprint as soon as she finished.

“Come on; we need to hurry and show them the right way to get there!” Maggie exclaimed, getting on Ringo’s back. “I wrote a note to let the geek guy know we left just in case he gets back.” The purple Thescelotitan nodded and ran off to follow the pink one.

I hope we can make it on time. Maggie thought to cling to the nape of the dinosaur’s neck. “Hang in there...” She whispered. “Please.”