Jurassic Park Read online

  © 2018 Universal Studios. Jurassic Park is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Licensed by Universal Studios. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada, Limited, Toronto. Originally published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, in 1993 in paperback as Jurassic Park: The Junior Novelization. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  rhcbooks.com

  Hardcover ISBN 9780525580706

  Ebook ISBN 9780525580713

  v5.2

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Photo Insert

  PROLOGUE

  On a small island off the coast of South America, nighttime fell. Searchlights clicked on. Suddenly, a tropical jungle was brightly lit. A dozen workers stood guard around a section of the jungle. The area was closed off by a tall electrified fence—the kind of fence that would surround a prison. But this wasn’t a prison. It was an animal pen.

  The workers got their stun guns ready. Slowly, a large crate was lowered to the ground. A door slid open in the fence. Then the crate was pushed up against the opening, and a worker jumped on top of it. He grabbed hold of the handles, trying to lift a panel. It was stuck. The worker pulled harder. Then, all at once, the panel flew up and the worker lost his balance. He fell to the ground on the other side of the fence.

  And the crate was open.

  Roar! A terrifying sound came from inside. Quick as lightning, a claw whipped out. It reached for the fallen worker. Then it took hold and dragged him toward the crate.

  “Fire! Fire! Now!” ordered a voice. The stun guns flashed. But it was too late. The worker was gone.

  The sun beat down on Dr. Alan Grant. It was hot, and there were no trees to give him shade. There was just the dust and rocks of the Montana Badlands. But Alan Grant was a paleontologist on an archaeological dig. He didn’t care about the heat. He didn’t care how scruffy he looked with his stubbly chin and dusty clothes. He was interested in only one thing—dinosaurs.

  Alan bent closer to the ground. He was looking at a dinosaur fossil.

  “Four complete skeletons in such a small area,” he said to Dr. Ellie Sattler. “These Raptors probably hunted as a team. The Tenontosaurus bones over there must have been left over from lunch.”

  Ellie, a slim, blond woman, leaned closer to the fossil. She studied the bones, too.

  “Dr. Grant! Dr. Sattler!” called a volunteer from across the dig. “We’re ready to try the computer again.”

  Alan sighed. He didn’t want to leave the excavation site. “I hate computers,” he muttered to Ellie as they headed back to the base camp. Alan didn’t care for the camp, either. It was like a circus, with tents everywhere and grown-ups and kids running around.

  “Why do these volunteers have to bring their kids, anyway?” Alan asked.

  Ellie didn’t answer. She knew how Alan felt about kids. For some reason, he just didn’t like them.

  Alan and Ellie walked into one of the tents. Inside, volunteers were grouped around a computer screen. They were looking at a dinosaur skeleton. A radar pellet had been shot into the ground around the fossils. They could see the entire skeleton without digging it up.

  “Velociraptor?” Ellie asked Alan.

  “Yes. Good shape, too. Look at the bone in the wrist. No wonder dinosaurs learned to fly.”

  A volunteer laughed. “Dinosaurs? Fly?”

  “Obviously, you haven’t read my book,” Alan said to him. “Maybe dinosaurs have more in common with birds than reptiles. Even the word Raptor—as in Velociraptor—means ‘bird of prey.’ ”

  A boy stepped forward to look at the screen. “It doesn’t look very scary,” he said. “It looks more like a six-foot turkey!”

  Alan looked the boy over. “Not scary, huh? Try to imagine yourself in the age of dinosaurs. You move into a clearing. But the Raptor knew you were there a long time ago. It bobs its head and moves like a bird. You keep still. You think if you don’t move, he won’t see you. That would work with the Tyrannosaurus rex. But not the Velociraptor. The attack comes. Not from the front. Not from the side. It comes from two Raptors you didn’t even know were there. They slash at you with their claws. It’s like a razor cut. Fast and deep.”

  The boy backed away, his eyes wide with fear. “So try and show a little respect,” Alan said as he left the tent.

  Ellie came up behind him. “If you wanted to scare him, you could have just pulled a gun.”

  Alan shrugged. He felt a little bad, but he just didn’t like kids. They were always in the way. “You know,” he said, “me and kids…”

  “You old fossil!” Ellie said, giving him a hug.

  Ellie loved Alan. But he could be so annoying—especially when it came to kids. She wondered if he would ever change. If not, could they have a future together?

  Suddenly, a strong wind sprang up. Dirt and sand blew everywhere, and a roaring noise filled the air. A helicopter was landing.

  An elderly man got out of the helicopter. Alan was furious. Who was this man? Why had he flown in like that? Didn’t he realize there was a dig going on?

  But before Alan had a chance to say anything, the man introduced himself.

  “John Hammond,” he said. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Dr. Grant.”

  John Hammond! The name sank in, and Alan realized he was talking to the man who was funding the excavation.

  “I can see my money has been well spent,” Mr. Hammond continued, looking around. “But I’ll get right to the point. I own an island off the coast of South America. I spent the last five years setting up an animal preserve there. It’s really fantastic. Our attractions will send kids right out of their minds. But there’s this lawyer. He says I need experts to look over the park. I’d like you two to give your okay. You know, say that it’s safe. Endorse it. I’d like you to come down for the weekend. I already have a jet waiting.”

  “What kind of park is it?” asked Alan.

  “It’s…” John Hammond paused, smiling. “Right up your alley.”

  Dennis Nedry sat at an outdoor table in a restaurant, waiting impatiently. He was a large man with a big grin. But his eyes were cold and the grin was nasty. Very nasty.

  Nedry watched as a taxi pulled up to the curb and a man carrying a briefcase got out. “Over here, Dodgson,” Nedry called to him, still grinning.

  Dodgson headed over, then slid his briefcase across the table. “You shouldn’t use my name,” he whispered.

  “Dodgson, Dodgson, Dodgson,” Nedry said even louder as he took the briefcase. Nedry didn’t care if he made Dodgson mad. He only cared about the money he was going to make. Dodgson’s company wanted something Mr. Hammond already had: dinosaur specimens. They wanted to clone dinosaurs, too. And as the designer of Hammond’s high-tech security system, Dennis Nedry could help them. For a price, of course.

  Dodgson pointed to the briefcase. “There’s seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in there,” he sai
d. “You’ll get the rest on delivery. That’s fifty thousand for each specimen. And there are fifteen of them.”

  Nedry’s eyes narrowed. “I know, I know. Don’t worry. I’ll get them all. How do I carry them off the island?”

  Dodgson showed him an ordinary can of shaving cream. Then he slid the bottom open. Inside were fifteen different compartments—one for each specimen.

  Nedry nodded his approval. “I’ll meet your guy tomorrow night at the dock. Make sure he gets it right. I built eighteen minutes into the computer program so I can beat the security system. Eighteen minutes and your company gets years’ worth of research.”

  “Shh,” Dodgson said hurriedly. A waiter was coming over to leave the check. Nedry looked down at it, then up at Dodgson, smiling his nasty grin.

  Dodgson paid the check.

  A few hours later Ellie and Alan were in South America. They were boarding a helicopter that would take them to Mr. Hammond’s island. Besides Mr. Hammond, there were two other men with them. The first was a lawyer Mr. Hammond had told them about, Donald Gennaro. He seemed nervous. And even though he was wearing a safari outfit, he still looked like he’d be more comfortable sitting behind a desk.

  The other passenger was Dr. Ian Malcolm. Ian Malcolm was a mathematician. Like Alan and Ellie, he was going to check over the park. Tall, thin, and dressed all in black, he also looked out of place. But he didn’t seem nervous. Instead, it seemed as if Ian found the whole situation funny.

  “This park won’t work,” he was saying to Mr. Hammond, “because of chaos theory. In the end, everything is unpredictable.”

  Alan and Ellie didn’t know what he was talking about. They weren’t even sure what the park was about. So they kept quiet.

  Minutes later, the island rose sharply out of the water. Thick clouds covered its sheer cliffs. It looked strange and mysterious—like it belonged to another time.

  “Hold on,” said Mr. Hammond. “We’re going to land and it may be a little rough.”

  Suddenly the helicopter dropped like a stone. Then it hit the ground with a jolt. Mr. Hammond waved grandly as he opened the helicopter door.

  “Welcome to Jurassic Park!”

  Everyone piled into two waiting trucks. In one, Mr. Hammond was talking to Donald Gennaro. “Relax and enjoy yourself. It’s completely safe here. All the fences are electrified, and the full fifty miles of it are in place.”

  Slowly the vehicles wound their way along mountain roads. The island was lush with greenery. Ellie, in the other vehicle, craned her neck to look at the tropical plant life. Something seemed odd to her. She reached out for a leafy branch. As the truck drove along, she tore it off.

  This plant shouldn’t be here, she thought. It’s extinct.

  The vehicles bounced down a narrow path, then stopped at the side of a moat. Alan twisted in his seat to look around. There were some very strange trees here. They didn’t have any leaves. Alan raised his head, looking higher…and higher still. Suddenly his mouth dropped in surprise. Those weren’t tree trunks at all. They were legs. He lifted his head back all the way. And the legs belonged to a dinosaur! A living, breathing dinosaur.

  “Oh!” said Ellie, seeing it, too. The Brachiosaurus, thirty-five feet tall, stared down at the people in the trucks.

  Mr. Hammond strolled over to their truck, smiling happily. He looked like a kid showing off his new bicycle. “You want to pet it?” he asked.

  No one could answer. The sight of the giant dinosaur was too much. Ian Malcolm just stared in amazement. Then he said, “You did it! You actually did it!”

  Alan still couldn’t speak. He could only stand in his seat, trying to get closer to the Brachiosaurus. Then he noticed the other dinosaurs. There was a whole group of them across the moat, munching on leaves from the treetops.

  He let out a whoop of joy. “Ha!” he cried as Gennaro came running over.

  “Are these, are these, are—” Gennaro stuttered.

  “They’re herbivores,” Mr. Hammond said. “Relax—they only eat plants!”

  Gennaro seemed to calm down, but Ian Malcolm couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “It could still step on you,” he said smugly.

  Finally, Alan and Ellie found the words they were looking for. They both began to talk at the same time.

  “The movement, the grace—it’s not what—” Alan said.

  “—the experts said,” Ellie continued. “We can just—”

  “—tear up the rule book,” Alan finished for her. In the distance, a herd of dinosaurs ran across a grassy plain. “Look,” he said. “They move—”

  “—in herds!” said Ellie. “We were right!”

  Now everyone was chattering excitedly. But the Brachiosaurus didn’t take any notice. It had a dull, pleasant expression on its face. And as it stretched its long neck across the moat and passed right in front of the truck, its expression didn’t change.

  Gennaro drew back in alarm. But the dinosaur was just reaching for some nearby leaves. A moment later, the dinosaur pulled back, dropping branches on the hood like a dribbling baby.

  Mr. Hammond led Gennaro back to the first vehicle. The cars started up again and everyone kept talking as they drove through the park. “The dinosaurs are amazing!” said Alan and Ellie. “The park will be a wild success!” said Gennaro. All his fears were forgotten. They were going to make millions!

  The only one who kept quiet was Ian Malcolm. As the vehicles pulled into the main compound, he said one word: “Crazy!” And he shook his head in dismay.

  The main compound was a large area fenced in from the rest of the park. Inside were three structures. Walkways led from one structure to another, and workers bustled all around. They were completing the buildings—finishing walls, placing bars in the windows. There was still a lot to do. Only one structure was complete. And it wasn’t even a building. It looked more like an animal pen—or a prison.

  Mr. Hammond took everyone to the biggest building. It was the Visitor’s Center. In the lobby, two huge skeletons were under construction: a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Brachiosaurus. As the group walked past the scaffolding, Hammond started to explain the park.

  “It will be the biggest, best amusement park in the world. I’m not just talking about rides. We made living, breathing attractions so astonishing, they’ll capture everyone’s attention. Now, I bet you’re wondering how these dinosaurs got here. Well, it’s all part of the miracle of cloning. We made the dinosaurs from blood samples!”

  “Where do you get one-hundred-million-year-old dinosaur blood?” asked Ellie.

  “You’ll see,” said Mr. Hammond, leading everyone into a theater.

  The lights dimmed as everyone took a seat. Then a film came on the screen. A cartoon character that looked like two pieces of rope twisted together popped into view.

  “I’m Mr. DNA. I come from your blood. Your blood has billions of DNA strands. A strand like me is a plan for building a living thing. I’m a blueprint for how something grows.

  “Now, a long time ago there were mosquitoes, just like there are today. And just like today they fed on animal blood. Dinosaur blood! Sometimes a mosquito would bite a dinosaur. Then it would land on a tree and get stuck in the sap. After a long time, the tree sap would get hard and turn into a fossil—just like dinosaur bones turn into fossils. This fossil, called amber, would keep the mosquito exactly the way it was when it bit the dinosaur.

  “Then the amber waited for millions of years until Jurassic Park scientists came along. They took the blood from the mosquito. And—bingo! They got dino DNA! But there were pieces missing. So the scientists filled the gaps with frog DNA. Why? Because it’s so similar! Then they put the DNA into an empty ostrich egg. Pretty soon they got a baby dinosaur!”

  Suddenly bars came down on the seats and the chairs began to move. Alan and the others were taken through automatic doors into a laboratory. The
room was bathed in a strange glow—an ultraviolet light that covered dozens of ostrich eggs. Quickly, Alan lifted the bar on his seat. He ran over to a table. One of the eggs cracked open. A tiny dinosaur head popped out.

  “Look!” said Alan. The others rushed over.

  Mr. Hammond smiled. “I like being here for the birth of every dinosaur,” he said.

  “But you can’t be,” Ian put in. “What about the dinosaurs born in the wild?”

  “Oh, that can’t happen,” Mr. Hammond answered. “You see, all the dinosaurs are female.”

  Ian didn’t believe him. “How do you know? Do you go into the park and…uh…lift their skirts? Because you can’t control something like that. Life cannot be controlled. It breaks free. It grows. Life always finds a way.”

  Alan, meanwhile, was holding the baby dinosaur. It looked like a yellow lizard with brown stripes. Alan measured and weighed it with lab equipment. He counted the bones running along its back. It can’t be that kind of dinosaur, he thought. No one would take that kind of chance.

  “What species is this?” he asked.

  “It’s a Velociraptor,” said Mr. Hammond.

  “You breed Raptors?” said Alan. His voice trembled just a bit.

  The Raptors were kept in the animal pen right in the compound. Alan rushed over, the others following behind.

  “We planned to show you the Raptors after lunch,” Mr. Hammond said, trying to lead Alan back to the Visitor’s Center.

  But Alan was intent on seeing the dinosaurs. He leaned in close to the fence, making sure not to touch it. He didn’t see any Raptors. The pen was too overgrown with jungle plants and trees. But Alan did see a giant crane. It was dropping a large animal into the pen. Alan squinted. It looked like a steer.