The Revealers Read Online Free Page A

for sure,” Elliot said. “It’s even possible they could rear up on their hind legs. See this picture? I mean, can you imagine an eighty-ton brachiosaurus pounding down on you? Even a tyranno would have taken off.”
    â€œSpeaking of tyrannos …”
    â€œBut I think it’s also possible they stayed mostly in the water. They could be in pretty deep water, when you think about it. It’s conceivable the big meat-eaters didn’t like water. They might even have been afraid of it.”
    He nodded proudly. “That’s one of my own hypotheses. What do you think?”
    â€œWell, I mean, for me … swinging tails, deep water, massive tonnage …” I shook my head.
    â€œI know—they don’t seem like defenses,” said Elliot. “But the plant eaters used what they had. You know?”
    I shrugged. Elliot was opening more books, going right to certain pages. I was starting to wonder what I was doing there.
    â€œOf course, stegosaurs had a spiked tail,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be something? And ankylosaurs, the armored dinos, they had a round bony club on their tails. Swing it around and, ooh … fractured skull.”
    He grinned. I reached over and shut his book. His smile did a puzzled fade.
    â€œI want to know what I can do,” I said. Elliot blinked. “You know—in real life? Like I told you?”
    He blinked again. I looked around, and leaned over the table.
    â€œOkay,” I whispered. “This one guy is bent on basically destroying my life. He wants me to be scared all the time.
What do you … I mean, no offense, but what do you do in a situation like this?”
    Elliot didn’t say anything. He just looked down.
    â€œOkay,” I finally said. “So … you’re talking about survival strategies?”
    â€œYeah! See, like dromaeosaurs. They had a huge sharp claw, just one claw, sticking forward from their back feet. They could slash a bigger dino’s belly right open.”
    â€œRight open.”
    â€œYes,” he said, with a kind of dreamy look.
    I sat back while Elliot started rummaging again in his books. At least I’m safe in here, I told myself Nothing bad can happen in a library.
    â€œHere—see this?”
    Elliot held up a picture of a huge striped head. It had a fan growing behind it, and a crown of spikes and a giant nose horn. It was, I had to admit, amazing.
    â€œThat’s styracosaurus,” he said. “He’d just have to turn and look at you with that head. I think you’d go find someone else to pick on.”
    â€œYeah, but what about the dinos that had no horns, or armor, or spikes or clubs or claws? And no speed and no hugeness. There were dinos without any of those things, right?”
    â€œOh, sure. Lots. Big ones and little ones.”
    â€œSo what’d they do?”
    â€œTraveled in herds, mostly. They’d keep the young, small, and weak ones in the middle.”
    â€œAnd that kept the killers away? Really?” I had this sudden mental picture of a whole bunch of kids—skinny kids, little kids, gawky kids, fat kids, kids with funny hair, kids with thick glasses, kids who trip over cracks in the sidewalk. They were trooping through the halls together, all wearing white T-shirts that said: NERD HERD.

    I was not in this group. I was definitely not in this group.
    â€œPredators might wait until they could pick off a straggler,” Elliot said. “But they probably wouldn’t attack a whole crowd.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œMost predators’ brains weren’t very large. If a crowd scattered in all directions they probably got disoriented.”
    I sat back and imagined this big dumb kid charging into the white-shirted crowd—and kids stumbling all over each other, scrabbling on the floor for fallen-off glasses and tossing lunches and electronic equipment out of their backpacks to appease the