“Uh,” said Jake, “does anyone notice anything unusual?”

They all did. The dusty museum smell was gone. Instead, it smelled like grass, and dirt, and wind, if wind had a smell. And, things looked different. The painted sky wasn’t faded anymore, and those spots in the background had started moving a lot closer.

“Wow,” said Ann Marie. “They really went all out; these special effects are amazing.”

The kids turned to look back at the Science Hall, but it was gone, and so was the rest of the museum. The kids stared, too stunned to speak. They looked back toward the diorama, but it wasn’t there. In its place were large gathers of wild, short grasses and dusty patches of hard dirt. It was a tapestry of red-tinged earth, and green-flecked, golden grass. The grass stretched all the way to the distant brown-humped hills, near where a river flowed.

This grass and dirt landscape was alive. The black dots in the diorama had turned into great beasts. A mighty herd of bison was moving slowly across the land, pulling up big chunks of “buffalo” grass as they ate their way across the prairie.

At a nearer distance a group of prairie dogs was busy nibbling at the grass while one prairie dog stood guard next to a hole in a mound of dirt. The guard prairie dog was sitting up on its haunches, looking around, sniffing for danger. It did not like what it smelled or saw and gave a few short yips to warn the other prairie dogs that it was time for a swift retreat back inside the burrow. Perhaps there was a hungry golden eagle circling in the clear blue sky. In the view were also pronghorn antelope moving nimbly through the grass up ahead, either unaware or uncaring that their landscape had just been joined by four newcomers.