Every morning, when the mist was still sitting low in the valley, Brachio stretched his long, long neck across the ravine and let the little train roll right over him. The wheels tickled. He loved that part. Stomp, stomp, STRETCH.
But this morning, Brachio woke up with a terrible crick. He'd slept on a lumpy root, and now his neck curved off to the LEFT — a great swooping sideways curve, like a question mark made of dinosaur. He could not straighten it, no matter how he tried. Across the ravine, a small horn honked. HONK. HONK. HONK. That was Dunk, the Ankylosaurus train driver, flustered and fretting, his cargo car stuffed to the brim with fat round mushrooms that had to reach the valley market before it closed. "BRACHIO!" he hollered. "I can SEE you over there!" Brachio tried to stretch across. His neck swooped left and nearly dipped into the ravine. A single pebble dropped off the edge and clattered all the way down. "I know!" Brachio called back, his voice wobbling sideways along with his neck. "I'm working on it."
He stomped off through the valley to find help — lopsidedly, neck curving out to the left, bending ferns as he passed, leaving a very crooked trail of footprints in the mud. Stomp, stomp, STRETCH. Nothing. Still crooked. First, he found Petra the Pterodactyl, perched on a tall grey rock, preening her orange wing-tips. "I'll push it straight!" said Petra helpfully. She flapped hard, pressed both wings against his neck — and spun herself into a dizzy circle, round and round, until she landed beak-first in a puddle with a splat. "Hmm," said Petra, blinking mud off her eyes.
Next, Brachio found Stomper the Triceratops, who was eating breakfast — a long, slow mouthful of tough yellow grass. "Use my horns as a brace!" Stomper offered, which sounded clever. She lowered her head and stepped forward — and immediately got all three horns tangled deep in a fern bush. The fern bush shook and rustled. "A little help?" said Stomper, muffled by leaves. Brachio untangled her, one horn at a time, the fern smelling sharp and green in the cool morning air. Then he sat very still for a moment. His neck drooped sideways. Far away, Dunk's horn honked again, thin and reedy across the ravine. And then — Brachio had an idea.
"I need EVERYONE," he announced, "to tickle me. Under the chin. All at once. On the count of three." Petra blinked. Stomper blinked. But they called the others — a round little Pachycephalosaurus, two small Compys with very quick fingers, and an elderly Diplodocus who said she'd try her best. They all lined up. Brachio braced his feet in the soft dirt. "One," he said. "Two." He took a deep breath. The air tasted cold and clean. "THREE!" Every creature tickled at once. Brachio's laugh started somewhere deep in his belly, rumbled up his enormous chest, and BURST out of him in a laugh so big it shook the leaves off three trees — and with a magnificent, glorious SNAP, his neck shot perfectly, beautifully straight. Stomp, stomp, STRETCH. He was a bridge again. "NOW, DUNK!" Brachio bellowed. The little train came rumbling across, wheels going clickety-click along his spine, mushrooms bobbing in the cargo car, the whole valley cheering from both sides of the ravine. Dunk's whistle shrieked with joy all the way to the market.
That evening, Dunk returned and rolled one enormous mushroom off the cargo car — round and pale and soft as a cloud — and left it at the ravine's edge. A thank-you pillow. Brachio lowered his long neck slowly, curled it once around the mushroom, and closed his eyes. His footprints in the mud. The last cricket calling. Still.
