Featured legend
Today's Track
A fictional clue hunt about giants, balaurs, and dinosaurs, in which the freshest track proves the hardest to recognise.
The hourglass was smaller than Daria's fist. The guide with the green badge turned it over, and the sand began to run before the last child had finished protesting.
‘Three stops,’ she said. ‘One answer at the end. Whoever finds it wins the explorer badge.’
She showed them a photograph of the prize: a circle of card printed with a three-toed track and attached to a red cord. The real badge was waiting for them at the final box. It was not bone, tooth, or stone, but simply thick card.
Daria wanted that badge. The trouble was, Matei almost always answered before she had time to think, and the sand was already running.
The other children headed towards the first table. The parents stayed back by the door. The rules of the game were simple: no one was to leave the rooms and courtyard indicated by the guide, no one was to touch the exhibits, and the team had to stay together.
A scroll tied with string lay on the table. Matei unrolled it so quickly that he nearly tore it.
In the drawing, a shepherd stood on a riverbank. A bone as thick as a tree trunk rose out of the ground, and beyond the hills loomed the shadow of a giant man.
Under the picture was written:
‘The waters brought them to light. Some of those who found them were afraid to touch them. Whose did they believe they were?’
‘Dinosaur!’ Matei shouted.
‘Too easy,’ said a girl with two plaits. ‘It's a giant's bone.’
Daria imagined a hand as large as the roof of the House. The giant knelt beyond the Sibișel, searching among the stones for a missing finger. He did not look angry. He looked puzzled that people had spoken of him because of some animals' bones.
‘In the story, they belonged to giants,’ Daria said. ‘That doesn't mean “giant” is the answer to the game.’
But the others had already found the next symbol on the back of the scroll: a green wing. They hurried towards the Elopteryx diorama in the next room.
There, beside the diorama, the second envelope was waiting. The girl with two plaits opened it and read:
‘In stories it has scales. In our game it gets feathers. Its name was borrowed for a fossil animal described by scientists. What is it?’
‘A balaur!’ three children said at once.
For a moment, Daria saw one coiled around the roof beams. It had wings that were too small, a thick tail, and blue feathers around its ears. It kept all its heads bowed so that it would fit inside the room and tried to read over the children's shoulders.
Daria blinked. The beams were empty.
‘*Balaur bondoc*,’ Matei said. ‘We've finished.’
‘Not yet,’ the guide replied. ‘That is the second clue.’
She showed them the corner of the envelope. Small muddy tracks had been drawn there, each with three slender points.
The children looked at the floor. There was a real spot of mud near the threshold, then another in the courtyard. The guide had told them they could follow only the white stepping stones between the door and the wooden table beside the fence. The whole team set off that way, with the adults behind them.
The hourglass had stayed inside, but Daria could almost see the sand running.
The tracks passed an overturned bucket, a clump of mint, and three stones painted with eyes. At the end stood a low box. Written on its lid were the words:
‘The final track has three toes. What age is it from?’
Matei lifted the lid. The box was empty, and so was the hook on its side where the badge ought to have been hanging.
‘The age of the dinosaurs,’ he said. ‘We have to write dinosaur.’
The girl with two plaits crouched beside the box without taking her feet off the white stones.
‘Maybe the balaur took the prize.’
The others talked over her. One said Elopteryx. Another said the track was too small. Matei searched for a fourth envelope under the table.
Daria looked at the marks again.
They were not hardened in stone. The mud still glistened, and one of the tracks crossed over a fresh yellow petal. Between the spots, the stones had remained dry. The tracks did not stop at the box. They continued beyond the table.
A red thread was caught on one of the stones.
‘The badge had a red cord,’ Daria said.
For the first time, the others fell silent.
The thread led towards the mint, then to an empty basket. Something rustled behind it. The team advanced along the line of stones, with the adults close by.
A brown hen stepped out of the grass. She was pecking at the end of the red cord. The explorer badge dragged behind her, covered in dust.
The hen looked at the children with one eye, dropped the cord, and took three stately steps towards the fence.
Behind her, she left three more three-toed marks.
‘She stole the prize!’ Matei said.
‘She didn't steal it,’ said the girl with two plaits. ‘She discovered it.’
The guide picked up the badge and dusted it off. Then she glanced towards the door, where the hourglass was letting its final grains of sand fall.
‘At the first two stops, you said “giant” and “balaur”. You said the last track came from the age of the dinosaurs. What does the evidence say?’
Matei was still watching the hen. The girl with two plaits had already begun drawing a head with seven beaks in the corner of the game sheet.
Daria pointed to the still-wet mud, the fresh petal, the strand of cord, and the tracks continuing all the way to the basket.
‘It isn't an old track,’ she said. ‘It's today's track.’
The guide turned the badge over. On the back was a blank space for the winner's name.
Before she could write, the hen came back, stepped across the card, and left a small muddy print in its centre.
