Gus had a wide, flat tail. Wide enough to sweep a whole cave floor in one swoosh. Wide enough to scatter a pile of leaves just by turning around. And completely, absolutely useless for squeezing through narrow gaps. But that was fine. Everything was fine. Because tonight was puzzle night. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Gus thumped down the rocky path to the puzzle cave, where the waterfall gurgled at the entrance and the air smelled of wet stone and green things. He could already picture it: the big leaf-shaped puzzle, golden piece in the middle, all three of them settled around it before the moon got high.
He pushed through the cave entrance — and stopped. Puzzle pieces. Everywhere. Wedged under rocks. Stacked in silly towers. Two of them bobbing slowly in the waterfall pool, spinning in little circles like they had nowhere to be. And right in the middle of the cave floor: a gap. A golden, important, very missing gap. "The middle piece!" said Gus. "DOT! ROOK!" Dot came clattering over, her long colourful crest wobbling. "Oh Gus, I'm so glad you're here, because we were just saying — well, I was saying, Rook was mostly blinking — that the pieces were all over and the middle one was gone and I think I saw something small and quick and—" Rook blinked. Slowly. Once. "I'm going to find it," said Gus. Stomp, stomp, stomp.
The narrow tunnel out the back of the cave was exactly as narrow as Gus always forgot it was. He turned sideways. He breathed in. He shuffled. His tail scraped both walls at once, making a sound like a broom on a drum. Three shuffles, two scrapes, and one very undignified wiggle later — he was through. Outside, the evening air was cool and smelled of rain just finished. And there, pressed into the soft mud of the path: small three-toed footprints. Very small. Leading away along the moonlit rocks. Stomp, stomp, stomp — Gus followed.
The footprints led around a mossy boulder, past a bush that rustled with sleeping beetles, and up onto a flat rock that caught the moonlight like a silver plate. And there, sitting on the rock, was the tiniest Oviraptor Gus had ever seen. She was holding up the golden puzzle piece with both little hands, showing it proudly to an audience of three pebbles. "Look," she was telling the pebbles, in a very serious voice. "It's the prettiest leaf. It's the prettiest leaf in the WHOLE world." Gus opened his mouth. Then closed it. The piece did look rather beautiful in the moonlight, he had to admit. Gold and glowing, like a tiny captured sun. "That's mine," he said, very gently. "It belongs to our puzzle." The baby Oviraptor looked up. "I wanted to show my mum." "Where's your mum?" asked Gus. She pointed back the way he'd come.
Stomp, stomp, stomp — back through the night, back along the muddy path, back through the terrible narrow tunnel (scrape, scrape, undignified wiggle) — and into the cave. Where a tall, calm Oviraptor was quietly handing scattered puzzle pieces to Dot, who was saying "— and that one goes near the edge, I think, or maybe not, actually I think—" while Rook watched one piece float in the pool and blinked at it, thoughtfully, at his one speed.
The baby Oviraptor walked straight to the middle of the puzzle. She crouched down. She placed the golden piece with a small, definite click. The puzzle was complete. The leaf glowed amber in the waterfall's spray-light, every piece locked together, the whole cave smelling of damp rock and something sweet Gus couldn't name. Dot sat down mid-sentence. Rook's eyes drifted half-closed. The two Oviraptors curled together near the golden middle, the baby's small hand still resting on the piece. Gus lowered himself down last, his wide flat tail sweeping a perfect half-circle in the dust, and outside the waterfall murmured on and on into the dark.
