Otis had four stubby legs, a shell like a rock, and one very excellent skill. When he tucked those legs in tight — all four at once, snap — he rolled into a perfect armored ball. Round. Solid. Fast as anything. The dinosaurs of Dusty Bluff had a problem. A rockslide had blocked the canyon path, and on the other side, Luma the triceratops was waiting for her birthday cake. The cake was tall. The cake had flowers made of frosting. And nobody could get it through.
"Tuck in tight, roll through right," said Otis, which was just something he said when a plan was forming. He bounced on his back feet. He looked at the canyon mouth, all dark and dusty and winding. He said it again: "Tuck in tight, roll through right." Then he launched. Into the canyon he went — legs snapped in, shell spinning — and the walls blurred past in streaks of orange and red. His shell rang like a drum every time he clipped a boulder. BONG. BONG. BONG. Pebbles scattered. A lizard flattened itself against the wall and stared.
He bounced off a wide flat rock and careened left. He bounced off a tall pointed one and curved right. The canyon was winding and the echoes were enormous and Otis was going very, very fast. Dust rose behind him in a long golden plume. Then — THUMP. He stopped. A narrow gap in the rock. Too tight. His shell was wedged, his legs stuck out on both sides, and no amount of wriggling helped. The canyon smelled like chalk and old stone. Otis blinked in the dim light.
That was when he heard it. A thud. Then another. Then a third. THUD. THUD. THUD. And a very small groan. Around the bend stood Pog — a pachycephalosaurus, about knee-high, with a dome of bone on top of his head and a dazed look on his face. He had been headbutting the same boulder. Four times. Little stars seemed to wobble above his skull. "I'm making progress," said Pog, though he was clearly not making progress. Otis looked at the boulder. He looked at the gap he was stuck in. He looked at Pog. "Tuck in tight, roll through right," he said slowly. "From this side. You headbutt from that side. Same moment. Ready?" Pog cracked his knuckles — all of them, very seriously. "Ready."
Otis pulled his legs in. Pog lowered his dome. They counted — one, two, THREE — and the whole canyon cracked open like a split stone dropping into a river. Light poured in, cold and bright, and the boulder fell apart in two clean halves. Dust exploded everywhere. Otis shot out the far end of the canyon and landed with a WHUMP in the warm afternoon grass — right at Luma's enormous feet. She looked down. He looked up. His shell had a new scratch on it and his legs were still spinning slightly. "The path is open," he said. "And also I brought Pog."
Then came the parade. The dinosaurs marched through the new gap, two by two, and the birthday cake came bobbing along in the middle on a flat rock carried by six small ankylosaurs. The frosting flowers had survived. Just barely. Luma blew out her candles. The smoke curled straight up in the still air and vanished. Otis found a flat patch of ground at the edge of the party. He tucked his legs in — not to roll, just to rest — and listened to the sounds of everyone settling: low voices, a clink of rock-plates, the soft scrape of enormous feet finding comfortable ground.
