Maisie’s Little Track

“That stone is too smooth for footprints,” Rex said.

Maisie looked closer. “All of it?”

The two young dinosaurs stood beside a broad rock face near the fern meadow. The stone shelf stretched above them like a giant gray table. Long ago, dinosaurs had walked across it when it was soft mud. Now it was hard as a mountain and smooth as a pond on a still day.

A few old track-shaped hollows crossed the rock. One was wide, with three round toes. Another was smaller and pointed toward a crack in the stone.

“We found a picture!” Maisie said. “A picture made by dinosaurs who walked here long, long ago.”

Rex wagged his tail. “And we can finish it.”

Maisie wanted to add one tiny footprint of her own, right beside the old tracks. She lifted one foot and held it over the stone.

“Ready?” Rex asked.

“Ready!” Maisie pressed her foot down.

Nothing happened. The stone stayed smooth.

She tried again, harder. Her toes wiggled against the rock, but they left no mark at all.

“Maybe the stone needs a little mud,” Rex said.

Maisie scooped up a pawful of wet mud from the meadow’s edge. She spread it on the stone and pressed her foot into it.

Squelch!

The mud slid down the rock face in a brown ribbon. It plopped onto the ground with a soft splat.

Rex blinked. A dot of mud sat on his nose.

“Your footprint is on me,” he said.

Maisie giggled and wiped his nose with a fern leaf. Then she studied the stone again. Her own toes had left no mark, and the mud would not stay put.

Rex leaned close to the old impressions. “Maybe this picture is finished already.”

“But it’s our picture now,” Maisie said. “We found it together. I want one little track in it, too.”

She traced the edge of the wide hollow with one claw, careful not to disturb it. A thin layer of pale dust lay in its deepest part, tucked safely below the smooth stone.

Maisie tilted her head. “Rex, look. The dust stays in there.”

Rex peered into the hollow. “It’s hiding from the wind.”

“Let’s leave the old track just as it is,” Maisie said. “We can make our own picture in some soft clay.”

She turned toward the fern meadow, where the ground was dark and damp beneath the fronds.

Maisie trotted to the meadow’s edge, with Rex close behind. Beneath a wide fern, she found a patch of soft clay. It was smooth and cool, and it stuck to her toes instead of slipping away.

“Just what I hoped for!” she said.

She scooped up a little clay, then another little scoop. Rex carried a curled fern frond in his mouth, careful not to bite it by mistake.

Back at the stone shelf, Maisie set the clay on a flat patch of ground beside the rock. She patted it into a small, smooth slab, leaving the old tracks untouched.

“Will it hold a print?” Rex asked.

“Let’s see.”

Maisie raised one foot. For a moment, she wondered if the clay might squish away, too. She set her toes down slowly, then pressed.

Squish.

The clay held her foot. Maisie lifted it straight up. There, on the little slab, was a neat print with three tiny toes.

“I did it!” she called.

Rex gave a happy hop. “A brand-new track beside an ancient one!”

Maisie smiled at the old hollow on the stone and her small footprint in the clay beside it. The ancient track was still just as it had been, and her new print sat clear and snug in its soft patch.

“Now our picture needs one more shape,” Rex said. He held up the fern frond.

Maisie nodded. They laid the frond gently on an unused part of the clay slab. Rex pressed along its edges with one claw while Maisie pressed the middle stem into the clay. Then they lifted the frond away. A fern impression, with a long stem and many tiny leaves, remained in the clay.

The shelf still held its old tracks, and the little clay slab beside it now held Maisie’s new print and the fern’s shape.

Rex stepped back to admire them. “The big track, the little track, and the leafy one.”

“And all of them belong in the picture,” Maisie said.

A breeze passed over the meadow. The fern frond, resting on the grass, fluttered in the wind. The clay impressions stayed in place. Maisie pressed one loose edge of the slab with her claw, just to be sure. It held firm.

She and Rex sat beside their finished picture. Maisie rested her toes in the cool grass and looked from the old track to her own small print.

For a while, Maisie and Rex simply looked at the rock shelf and the clay slab beside it.

They noticed little things they had missed before. The widest old track had a tiny bump in one toe. A narrow line ran from the fern impression to the edge of the clay. And Maisie’s print was not perfectly even: one toe was deeper than the others.

“That must be your wiggly toe,” Rex said.

“It likes to leave a story,” Maisie answered.

Rex examined the fern frond they had used. “This leaf is much bigger than my head.”

Maisie glanced at his head, then at the leaf. “Only by a little.”

Rex gave a quiet chuckle. He settled onto the grass, and Maisie curled beside him. Ferns made a shady green room around them. The rock shelf stood nearby, its old tracks clear and undisturbed.

“Do you think the old dinosaur had toes like mine?” Maisie asked.

“Maybe,” Rex said. “Maybe it walked slowly, just like you did when you pressed your foot into the clay.”

Maisie looked at the ancient hollow and at the tiny print she had made on the clay slab beside it. She imagined a dinosaur crossing the muddy ground long ago, leaving a mark that waited for a very long time to be found.

Then she imagined a little dinosaur finding it with a friend.

“I’m glad the stone was too smooth,” Maisie murmured.

Rex turned his head. “Why?”

“Because then I had to look closer.”

Rex nodded as if this made perfect sense. He folded his tail around his feet. Maisie tucked her nose beneath one fern frond, where the air smelled of damp earth and leaves.

The meadow grew quiet. A beetle walked over a fallen leaf. Somewhere nearby, water made a small, sleepy sound as it trickled between stones.

Maisie’s eyes grew heavy. She could still see their picture in her mind: the ancient track on the stone, and her little clay print and the fern impression resting nearby. Soon, she and Rex were fast asleep beneath the ferns.