Tuck was the best carrier in the whole valley. Wide back, steady walk, three good horns to hold onto. Every baby dinosaur knew it. That was the problem.
She was halfway through a mouthful of ferns when Pip scrambled up her left side, Moss clambered up her right, and Zip — the smallest — simply appeared on top of her head. The ferns fell out of Tuck's mouth. She sighed. All the nearby leaves blew sideways.
"My ROCK," announced Pip. "I left it at the mud flats and I NEED it." Her rock was grey, slightly round, and completely ordinary. Tuck had seen a thousand of them. Pip loved hers specifically.
"My leaf-bed is past the fern tunnel," said Moss, who had already made himself comfortable between Tuck's shoulder blades. He smelled strongly of pine sap and old rain. "I can't sleep without it."
"THERE," said Zip, pointing into the trees. Nobody asked which there. Experience suggested Zip would not be more helpful.
Tuck took one enormous breath. Then she stomped off to sort it out. STOMP, STOMP, STOMP. Nobody sleeps until everyone is home.
The fern tunnel was first. The fronds were tall and cool and slapped wetly against Tuck's nose. Pip and Moss gripped her horns. Zip gripped Pip. A small green lizard on a log watched them pass with enormous, unblinking eyes, then quietly moved to a different log.
The mud flats were next. The ground went squelch under Tuck's feet. Pip slid down Tuck's tail, waded three steps through the thick brown mud, and grabbed a small grey rock with both arms. "FOUND IT," she announced, holding it above her head. It looked exactly like every other rock. Tuck stomped once in acknowledgement. STOMP.
Moss's leaf-bed was past the fern tunnel, through a gap between two old roots, exactly where he'd said. He disappeared into the pile with a sound like crumpling paper — fwump — and one small foot waved goodbye before vanishing entirely.
That left Zip. Tuck walked slowly now, following the small pointing claw. Past the fallen log. Around the big boulder. Through a patch of air that smelled like wet bark and night-blooming flowers. STOMP, STOMP, STOMP. Somewhere an owl asked a question nobody answered.
Then Zip said "THERE" one final time, and pointed straight down.
It was a footprint. Tuck's own footprint — a big, round dent in the soft mud, pressed deep and smooth, with three little toe-marks at the front. It was exactly the right size for one very small dinosaur to curl up inside.
Tuck looked at it for a long moment. Her tail swung once, slowly. She had made that. By accident. Just by walking. And it was — she blinked, long and low — it was actually quite a good nest.
Zip climbed back up, tucked herself between Tuck's ears, and was asleep before Tuck had taken two steps.
STOMP, STOMP, STOMP — quieter now. Back through the flower-smell, past the boulder, under the stars that had appeared while nobody was paying attention. By the time Tuck reached her own clearing, she could hear three small sets of breathing, slow and even, on her back and behind her horns.
The moon made a stripe of silver across the grass. Tuck stood very still in the middle of it. She didn't move. She just let her feet go heavy and the night air settle cool around her shoulders, three small passengers breathing against her back, the whole forest finally, perfectly quiet.
