In a lush and vibrant place known as Dino Valley, a little dinosaur named Dino lived among his friends. Dino was known throughout the valley for his kindness and big heart, but there was one thing that everyone knew about him: he was rather lazy. While his friends eagerly prepared for the annual Dino Festival, Dino preferred to take long naps and bask in the warm sun, thinking, “I work hard enough throughout the rest of the year!”
One sunny day, just a week before the Dino Festival, Dino’s best friends, Dmey, Ben, and Dingo, came up to him with an excited glint in their eyes.
“Dino! Come and help us pick some delicious spicy wood nuts for the festival!” chirped Dmey.
But Dino just sighed, stretched out his limbs, and replied, “Do I have to? They might spoil in the sun if we pick them too soon.”
“We can take them home to keep cool in the shade,” suggested Ben.
“Yes! And they will taste all the better for being fresh and ripe!” added Dingo.
But Dino just couldn’t be bothered that day. “Let me have today to think about it,” he said lazily.
The next day, Dmey, Ben, and Dingo each brought a fine basket of food very early in the morning and set off to the lake where the festival was to take place. They gamboled up and down the banks, amusing themselves till lunch time, and then, after their meal, they had lots and lots of fun swimming, splashing, diving, and chasing one another about. They were all on the lookout for a sight of their friend Dino, but he never came.
On the day of the festival itself, it started to rain, which ended in a bright, warm rainbow. But still, Dino failed to join his friends with all the delicious food he’d promised to bring. So they sat down to the meal and nothing stopped to be cooked or done except take off the shells. Still, Dino did not come.
But when the festival was nearly over and everyone else was returning home, who should arrive but lazy little Dino, laden with the baskets and bags he had stayed behind to pack!
“Have you had a good meal?” he called out cheerfully as he drew near.
“Oh, lovely! But it is all put in here now for you,” said Dmey, shortly, handing him the big basket with a leg of warm meat in it, as what they could not finish they took home to eat at leisure.
Dino was a little put out at such a cool reception after his kindness. “I never expected you to have finished it all,” he exclaimed. “Never mind, I shall enjoy my food just as much as if you had eaten it, have I not a good appetite?”
“Oh, yes, so have we,” replied Dingo, and that was all they said.
Dino sat down in a shady place by himself and very soon finished the meat in the shell, and looked round for something else, but all the rest were joined by many boys and girls and their parents. Nobody seemed to want his shell, but it brought the stuff down, and soon a neat little pile lay beside him. Very reluctantly he went up to the long rest of the meat and offered it round, but not even his shell was required to bring it down. “Tastes vary,” Dino observed, and wandered about by himself wondering how long a time had passed since he had eaten and all the rest and looked at the other boys and girls enjoying one another’s company.
At last he approached the holidaymakers, who were all sitting under the shade of some tall trees when one of the little wooden cups went bobbing through the air and the pieces of wood fell down like rain.
This was the last straw. Dino sat, or rather lay down and did not take the interesting water instruments his friends had so cleverly made to make the pools out of even shells of nuts. But at composed his mind, got himself up briskly and went to where all his friends were, and sat down quite simply without taking either hand or fishpiece straight to them or playing drums with the drums, simply talking to Dmy or B, his best friend.
“But you never ate anything, Dino!” they all observed at last.
Dino’s bright eyes shone. “Oh, I shall some day have a stomach of iron, when my mind can keep up with it,” he said simply and still more simply.
Lazy little Dino, in fact, after all he had eaten, sat with bated breath, just waiting for the time to come for him to enjoy the company and strong minds of his friends, and he was very happy and contented he knew with all of them.
“If only I could get them all to take very much interest in other things,” he muttered in his mind. Even Dmy and Ben weren’t very much frightened when he was there to have a genuine tank of fish put on his head, but took it off again with no loss of time for all to enjoy.
In the evening lively music was started by fish horns, and turtles drummed, and trotters made the whole ground, and funny close wooden slippers some were playing. Everyone enjoyed it as much as each.
“But it seems so strange that perhaps we could get each of other sort of instruments too,” muttered lazy little Dino to himself plaintively when he noticed what Jollyo called the rest of them trying to hunt him up for the festival with.
The festival of the Dino Valley is a day to remember, and in after years the big happy family would often say looking backward that our Dino is certainly changed for anybody could see he eats but the best.
It is a splendid place and a splendid party and we should remember it was splendidly kept too, or it would have been soon spoiled and out of all other existing holidays in the world it is the best of all others because Longa saw gates were at both ends of it.