In Fernwood Valley, every morning smelled like wet fern and fresh ink. Pip the pterodactyl would snap her little satchel shut, push her glasses up her beak, and launch off her perch at the post office with a sharp, leathery flap. She was small and blue and fast, and she knew every address in the valley by heart.
But this morning, just as Pip hoisted the satchel — WHOOOMP. A gust of wind hit like a stampede. The buckle popped. Every single letter exploded into the sky, spinning and spiralling and scattering in six different directions at once. Pip watched them go, beak open, wings frozen. "Oh no," she said. "Oh NO." Tomorrow was the Great Fernwood Feast. Every dinosaur needed their invitation or they wouldn't know to come. Pip pulled her goggles down, clicked her satchel shut on nothing, and took off. Flap, flap, find it. Flap, flap, find it.
She swooped low over the valley, squinting through the green. One letter was caught in a fern frond, trembling like a flag. She snatched it with her foot-claw, sharp and clean, and tucked it away. One down. Five to go. Flap, flap, find it. The pond glittered ahead. There — a white envelope floating on a lily pad, going round and round in a slow circle. Pip folded her wings and swooped, skimming the cold water with her wingtip, and scooped the letter up just before a frog could sit on it. The frog looked very annoyed.
Further down the path, Pip nearly crashed into Gus. Gus was a round little ankylosaur, and he was standing completely, absolutely still — right in the middle of the track. "Gus! Why aren't you moving?" Gus whispered, "Something landed on my back. I can't turn my head far enough to see what it is." Pip hovered behind him. There it was: a letter, sitting perfectly flat on his armoured back like it had always lived there. She peeled it off — it made a satisfying sticky sound — and held it out in front of him. Gus read the word FEAST. He did one very small, very dignified stomp. Thump.
Two more letters were tucked into a sleeping triceratops's chin-frill, rustling softly with every slow snore. Pip tiptoed through the air, millimetre by millimetre, and eased them free without waking her. The triceratops twitched. Pip held her breath. Then — silence. She zoomed away, heart hammering like a woodpecker. One letter left. Pip scanned the valley floor. Nothing. She looked up. There it was — stuck high in a sycamore tree, wedged between two branches, fluttering just out of reach. Pip stared at it. Then she remembered something important. She could fly. She had wings. She flew UP. She hovered beside the branch, grabbed the envelope with both feet, and pulled. It came free with a small ripping sound. She held it up to the orange evening light. The ink was smudged but the address was readable. That would do. Flap, flap, found it. Every single one.
Pip delivered the last invitation just as the sky turned the colour of a tangerine peel. And then, from all across the valley, doors opened. Big ones, small ones, doors with mud around the edges. Out came the dinosaurs, blinking in the evening air, letters in their claws, all heading the same way. They fell into a line behind Pip without anyone planning it — a rumbling, shuffling, happy parade, winding home through the ferns as the first stars appeared. Their footsteps shook the ground in a low, rolling drumbeat all the way to the village square. Pip landed on her perch at the post office. Around her, the valley filled with neighbours settling onto their doorsteps, murmuring to each other in low voices. She tucked her empty satchel under one wing, folded the other wing over her eyes, and went very, very still.
