Chapter Three

"We are looking for water, right?" Aimes asked her companion.

"Yes?" Pawson said cautiously.

"I bet our dinosaur friend can see all kinds of rivers and lakes," Aimes said, "since he can see over the tops of the trees."

“Yes, I'm sure that he can," Pawson agreed. He tucked himself behind Aimes for fear of getting stepped on. "But we can’t ask him. I don’t speak dinosaur, and I don’t think you do either."

"That's a good point, Pawson. But…"

Aimes knelt down, nearly knocking her best friend over as she slung her bag around in front of her and began to look through her belongings. She hummed a triumphant tune when she found what she was looking for and held it above her head: a bright red baby rattle.

"Wait here, Pawson," Aimes said. She left Pawson’s side and hurried into the dinosaur’s line of sight. She waited until the long-necked dinosaur lowered his head, then she started jumping up and down. She shook the baby rattle with big sweeping motions to make extra noise and movement.

"Excuse me Mister Dinosaur, or Missus… or…" Aimes realized that she didn’t know the dinosaur’s gender. Then she shook the thought from her head and shook the rattle twice as hard. "Excuse me! Down here, please!"

Pawson groaned; he was sure Aimes’s plan wouldn't work. But sure enough, with a curious expression - if dinosaurs could have such things - the dinosaur began to lower its long, long, long neck towards the small human woman making all the racket.

Aimes shook her baby rattle a little to the right, then a little to the left. The dinosaurs eyes didn't move, but its head imperceptibly tilted one way or the other, as if following the sound. Soon, its head was so low and so close that Aimes could reach out and touch it.

Aimes put out her hand, then hesitated. She looked over at Pawson, who stared with wide eyes and shrugged his shoulders. With Pawson's blessing, Aimes took a step forward and put her hand on the dinosaur's nose, which was as tall as she was. The scale was unbelievable, like she was just a small rabbit touching the nose of fully grown elephant. In all her adventures, she had never experienced such a size disparity.

"Excuse me," Aimes said, still resting her hand on its nose. "Would you mind if I climbed on your neck? I'm looking for water, and I'm too small to find it."

The dinosaur didn't answer, but after Aimes removed her hand it didn't stand itself back up. Slowly, Aimes moved around the dinosaur's head until she came to the neck. She reached up to climb on it, but was just a little too short.

"Pawson, gimme a boost!" Aimes hissed, trying not to scare off the dinosaur. After a moment of disbelief passed, Pawson hurried to help his friend onto the neck of the dinosaur. It would have been a lot smarter if Pawson went up instead - he was much smaller and much lighter - but truthfully he didn't want to. Anyway, Aimes would never pass up an opportunity like this.

Pawson wasn't very strong - as one might expect from a teddy bear - but he could be used as leverage when Aimes needed it. She put her foot on his paws, so the seat of her diaper was right in his face, as she climbed onto the dinosaur's neck. It wasn't a very modest position for Aimes, but she wasn't a very modest woman. She found pants too restrictive, and they just made it harder to change her diapers.

"Just...a little more....ah-huh!" Aimes got onto the back of the dinosaur’s neck, near the top where it met with its head. She almost stood up in celebration, but the dinosaur shifted its neck and Aimes had to grab tightly to the back of its head to keep from falling off. She squeezed her thighs together tightly to hold herself steady.

"Be careful!" Pawson called from the grass.

"I’m fine," Aimes assured him, then addressed the dinosaur. "I don’t know your pronouns, and I think it might be rude to keep calling you Mister Dinosaur, so I’m going to call you Alex because anybody can be named Alex. I promise, if I ever learn dinosaur, I’ll ask you for your proper name."

Maybe Aimes was waiting for the dinosaur to acknowledge her, but this time the outcome was more in line with Pawson’s expectations: Alex didn’t seem to be listening.

"Now Alex," Aimes continued as the neck moved again and the dinosaur’s snout moved over to Pawson, "could you pretty please take me up high so I can look for water?”

At first, the dinosaur didn’t seem very interested in anything but the magenta teddy bear on the ground. Then Aimes said:

"Oh, don’t worry about Pawson. He wants to stay on the ground, don’t you Pawson?"

"Uh, yes…" Pawson agreed, taking a few small steps away from Alex as its face got closer and closer. "I’m going to wait here."

That seemed to do the trick, because the dinosaur left the teddy bear alone and stood back up at its full height. The speed at which Aimes rose from the ground was frightening, but it maybe frightened Pawson more than Aimes herself. Soon, she was high above the treetops and looking out at a vast landscape of trees and cliffs. She clung tightly to the back of the dinosaur's head, squeezing her thighs together and pressing the front of her diaper against the dinosaur's rough skin. After a moment of awe, she noticed a glittering river in the distance.

"Pawson! That way, a few miles!" Pawson looked up at the direction she was pointing and drew a little arrow in the ground with his foot.

"Thank you so much Alex, but I need to get down now," Aimes said, but the dinosaur didn't respond. It reached its head upward, toward a tall tree, and took a leaf from one of the branches with its mouth. The tilt of the dinosaur's head knocked Aimes backward and she slid a few feet down Alex's neck.

"Okay, um..." Aimes looked down at Pawson thirty or so feet below her. Carefully, she clamped her arms around Alex's neck and lowered her thighs, then shimmied down the dinosaur until she wound up on its back.

"Are you okay?" Pawson shouted from the ground, full of worry.

"Doin' great," Aimes smiled. She looked around for a way down and noticed the curve of the tail. It wasn't all that different to a slide, if she thought about it. "I'll be right down Pawson!"

"How?" Pawson said, fretting and tugging at his ears, but Aimes had it all under control. She crawled along the back of the dinosaur - because Alex’s skin was too uneven to walk on - until she reached the dinosaur’s tail. She sat down at the top of the tail and pulled the slightly damp rag from her backpack. She shimmed her diapered butt onto the rag, so it was between her and the rough dinosaur skin, and swung her weight forward. Aimes zoomed down the tail just like a slide! It was a little rougher than the slides she was used to, but the padding on her butt helped ease the discomfort. When she got to the bottom, she tumbled off Alex’s tail and into the flattened field of grass.

"Aimes!" Pawson hurried to where Aimes was lying in the grass, but she sat up and waved at the dinosaur.

"Thank you, Alex!" Aimes said.

"Goodness," Pawson sighed. "You might have gotten yourself hurt!"

"I was perfectly safe," Aimes assured her friend.

"And what if you'd fallen off?" Pawson challenged.

"You'd catch me." Aimes winked at Pawson and dusted herself off. Then she took Pawson by the paw, and together they set off toward the river.