Read Online Hollow Earth by John Barrowman, Carole E. Barrowman - Free Book Online Page B

ready to hear it yet.’
    Em felt frightened. She and Matt had never thought about what they could do in quite as serious a light as her grandfather was suggesting. Even though they’d always placed their abilities in the same category as being really good singers or amazing football players, they knew they were different from most children. They’d always understood they had to keep their abilities between themselves, but they’d honestly never thought that their imaginations were such a big deal. And here was their grandfather, telling them it really was a big deal; such a big deal, in fact, that an ancient guild existed to protect and watch them. Em couldn’t decide if this made her feel better or even more anxious.
    Now their grandfather was walking down the hill a little way, waving for them to follow him. ‘Your mother should never have taken you from here in the first place. But I’m grateful that she has brought you back to the Abbey so you each may learn what it means to be an Animare the way she did, and, depending on how your powers evolve, so that you may learn to use whatever Guardian abilities you have the way your father—’
    Renard didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he walked to the other side of the outcropping of rock at the pinnacle of the hill. ‘Enough questions. Let me see what you can do.’
    Handing each of them a chalk pastel, he passed Em the sketchpad he had picked up in the Abbey kitchen, open at a clean sheet of paper. Then he pointed up to the peak, known as Lion’s Rock.
    ‘Please animate this for me.’

FIFTEEN
    E verything went terribly wrong as soon as the twins put pastels to paper.
    First of all, no one had told Matt or Em the rock was supposed to look like a lion. They stared at the cliff formation carefully for a few beats and then decided it was something else entirely.
    Secondly, the twins knew a test when one was placed in front of them. Their grandfather had the authority to say whether they remained on the island or not. Matt and Em wanted to impress him.
    And so the twins set the sketchpad on the flattest surface they could find and, with their grandfather hovering behind them, began to draw.
    ‘I’ll take the front,’ whispered Em, as her fingers whipped across the page. ‘I’m better at heads than you.’
    ‘Fine,’ smarted Matt. ‘Anyway, I’ve a great idea for the tail.’
    The twins were fast. Within seconds, a tremor rumbled up from inside the peak. As their grandfather watched, the huge rock started whipping from side to side. Mighty jaws burst from the rock face – but not lion’s jaws. Reptilian jaws. The curve of what Renard had always thought was a lion’s mane was suddenly and shockingly the thick slate scales of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
    The monster thrashed its head back and forth, trying to free itself from the face of the hill. Before Renard could respond, think, yell or even kick the sketchpad away from the twins, Matt finished the creature’s tail, which blasted from the rock with a spinning saw blade at its tip. The creature was massive: part dinosaur, part Transformer.
    Intuitively, the twins kept a section of their drawing attached to the hill, to prevent their creation from escaping its source. Sitting back on their heels, they grinned proudly at the powerful beast lurching and lunging and roaring into the heavens as it attempted to tear itself from the hillside.
    But the power of their drawing was no match for the geology of the hill. The saw-tail ruptured from the rocks and ripped into the ground inches from where their grandfather stood. He threw himself down the hillside, screaming to the children: ‘Stop drawing!’
    But it was too late. The creature was fully animated.
    The twins’ pride in their success quickly turned to terror as they understood what they’d created. Especially when the dinosaur thrashed its steel-bladed tail at them both.
    ‘Tear it up!’ yelled Matt, dodging out of the way.
    The T-Rex thrust its huge,