Winx Thinks - Dinosaurs!

By Katie O Engen

Twelve-year-old Winx Muller is stuck at his great-aunt's house while his parents are away. Poking around a giant dusty closet packed with junk, Winx finds a pair of very old, very stinky socks. Socks that sing promises of time travel.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Katharine O. Engen
• Release date: Jan 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9798986724256

Book preview

Winx Thinks DINOSAURS!

Katie O. Engen

Copyright © 2024 by Katie O. Engen.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations in critique articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover by RedHen Design.

For more information, visit https://katieengen.com/

ISBN Paperback: 979-8-9867242-3-2

ISBN Hardcover: 979-8-9867242-4-9

First Edition: January 2024

For siblings who look out for each other.

No matter how tricky it may be

to navigate time and space.

Wink Thinks - DINOSAURS!

STINKY SOCKS

TIME TRAVEL SHOCKS

A FIERCE PALEONTOLOGY PARADOX

Contents

1.PA-BUMP

2.HAMMER TIME

3.ZKRREEEEEET!

4.RULES

5.SNOUT DRIPPINGS

6.HE DIDN'T SAY DINOSAURS

7.TWO CONDITIONS

8.MISGUIDED

9.WATER-STAINED

10.MOCASSINS

11.IN DEEP TIME

12.EVENTS & DISCOVERIES

13.PAY-LEE-WHATS-ITZ?

14.WORD CRIME

15.POO FOSSILS

16.MODERN MEDICINE

17.GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY

18.DINOSAUR DENIERS

19.SIR RICHARD OWEN

20.99% SURE

21.NAKED

22.AND AFRAID

23.SONIC BOOM

24.CHUUU-HU-UUFFFF

25.MESOZOIC MUCK

26.ENOUGH PALEONTOLOGY?

Think Like Winx

Book 2 Preview: Winks Thinks PLANTS!

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

PA-BUMP

Winx Muller leans out of his bedroom doorway and checks the hall. All is quiet. He moves down the hallway, placing his feet carefully to miss the creaky spots in the old wooden floor. He stops at the door to his great-aunt’s giant storage closet. With a glance toward the still-empty staircase at the other end of the hall, Winx turns the doorknob and nudges the door. It swings open on silent hinges and Winx steps inside. Grit crunches under his sneakers. A musty stench wafts past him into the hallway. Winx snorts the stink out of his nose then steps deeper into the shadowy space.

The closet is crammed with old furniture and junk-tiques. Dust coats everything. Winx squeezes between two waist-high stacks of beat-up cardboard boxes. He bumps the shade of a grimy floor lamp with his shoulder. The shade tilts and spider webs tangled in the fringe glom onto Winx’s chest. The sticky mess covers the words, ‘If History Repeats Itself, I Think I’m Getting a Dinosaur.’ Winx yanks a red bandana from his back pocket and wipes off his shirt. He leaves the sticky mess on a nearby dresser.

Winx moves left to a rickety card table stacked with tattered books. Light from the hallway catches the lettering on the book spines. Winx leans over to read the titles, "The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. He raises an eyebrow and mumbles, Somebody had a theme." His breath raises dust bunnies that scamper across the table. Winx shifts a few books, and another stack topples. Dust buffaloes stampede for his face. Winx back pedals for the hallway, coughing and wiping his eyes.

He rushes to his sister’s room but stops just short of the half-open door. He peers around the doorjamb then enters the empty room and slides to his knees in front of a giant toolbox labeled ‘Marta’s Fix Me Kit.’ Its gaping lid can’t close over the gaggle of prescription bottles and other medical stuff piled on the top tray. Winx’s school photo is taped on the underside of the lid. A big red X crosses out his face, but Winx ignores his sister’s warning. He plucks a pair of latex gloves from the supplies, runs back to his great-aunt’s closet.

A hanging rod stuffed with moth-eaten coats, rumpled suits, and faded dresses spans the back wall. The rod dips in the middle from all the weight. Winx cranes his neck and shifts from tiptoe to tiptoe to see what’s on the shelf above all the clothes. He shakes his head and grumbles, Too short, as usual.

Winx drags a once-fancy wooden chair to the back wall. The seat’s cloth upholstery is gone, but the frame holds as he climbs up. To help balance himself, Winx clutches the shoulder of a thick wool coat hanging on the rod. With his other gloved hand, he reaches above the rod then quickly sweeps his arm as far as he can along the shelf. Crack! His knuckles smack something hard. Winx blurts a curse Aunt Lena doesn’t know he knows. He shakes out his fingers, then reaches back up and with only his pointer traces the shape of whatever he just hit. Just a wooden box, murmurs Winx. The chair wobbles under his feet, so he eases back to stand straight.

Winx grabs a rusty golf club hanging by its head from the shelf. He hooks the box with the club and pulls it towards him along the shelf. It’s so heavy, he can tug it only a few inches at a time. He stops tugging when the box is right in front of him. A sliver of the box’s bottom hangs off the shelf’s edge. Winx drops the club and grabs both sides of the box. He slo-o-owly tilts it towards him until the front side thuds onto his chest. Winx grunts even though the back edge of the heavy load still rests on the shelf. Dirt scraped off the shelf rains onto his dark curls and splatters his face. Winx jerks his head hard enough for the chair to tip backwards. He snaps his head forward, leans into the box, and pushes down hard with his feet to steady the chair.

You almost took me down, Winx laughs as he pretend-glares at the box. His eyebrows shoot up when he sees his own face staring back up from the box’s clean and very shiny lid. Gray freckles now speckle his cheeks, nose, and forehead. Winx twists and tilts his neck to swipe the grit onto his shoulder. His upper body shifts, and the box judders a few inches down his chest. Winx braces his behind on the top rail of the back of the chair. But he still can’t keep the box from tipping the rest of the way off the shelf. It thuds onto his thighs. Snap! The back of the chair gives way. The supporting spindles tilt back, back, back as Winx clutches the box and pleads, No, no, no . . . Gravity pulls him back and down. The busted chair shoots out from under Winx. Bam! He hits the ground. The heavy box pins his legs to the dirty floor. He blurts, Sugar honey iced tea! It’s the only curse Aunt Lena allows.

Winx shoves the box with his hands, shimmies his behind, and waggles his feet. Nothing budges his captor. He leans his torso way back and throws himself forward as far as he can without bashing his chin on the box’s shiny lid. He tries again. And again. Pumping and panting like an Olympic rower, Winx finally heaves back hard enough to bend his knees then shove his feet forward. The hefty box tilts left and slips off Winx’s thighs onto the floor. It lands with a surprisingly gentle pa-bump.

He glares at the box’s shiny lid then sticks out his tongue at his reflection and laughs. He runs a palm along the box’s sides then asks, Why’s your lid so shiny if the rest of you is seriously old, dinged up wood? Winx pokes the latch and rubs the hinges. And NASA could’ve made these. Tapping gently on the lid, he asks, What’s inside you, Shiny Box? Old pirate’s treasure or gear for exploring Mars?

As if to answer, Shiny Box starts humming.

Chapter 2

HAMMER TIME

Winx crouches low and leans his ear close to Shiny Box. Yep . . . humming. He knocks lightly on the lid and says, Nice tune. But a little more information, please. Instantly, thin gold lines start squiggling across the shiny surface. Yanking back his hand, Winx watches with wide eyes as the glowing lines quickly loop into fancy script. It reads ‘Timeless Toe Covers for Time Travel.’ Winx strips off his latex gloves and lightly traces the flowy words a few times with one finger. He sits back on his heels, then shakes his head and says slowly, Time travel. With, um . . . Toe Covers. Ri-i-i-ight.

He scans the dark storage closet then cranes his neck to see into the hall and calls, Are you pranking me, Marta? The only sound is the box’s simple melody.

Okay, Shiny Box, let’s say I believe these Timeless Cover thingies actually work. Winx traces the glimmering words again and asks, "Where