04 Heller's Punishment - Heller

by JD Nixon

  “How do I get into this thing?” I asked, walking around it.

  Mabel rushed forward, showing me the very discreet fastenings at the back. Not a zip, but velcro. She split it apart and held the costume for me as I stepped into it, pushing the two sides together again when I had.

  I giggled as I found the sticks for the dino’s tiny arms. I waved them around, roaring, and stomped around the confined space, almost tripping over my new tail. And even Elton managed to crack a smile at my clumsy antics.

  This will be fun, I thought to myself, clomping after Alice around the room. She screamed with delighted terror, finding it an excuse to hide behind Elton, clutching his waist, making him chuckle indulgently. And best of all, I’d get away from Elton and his endless information for a while.

  “Now for the head,” said Mabel, hefting it into her arms. “It’s quite heavy. Tilly, you won’t be able to get out of this costume by yourself.”

  Now she tells me! Perhaps I should have made a bathroom visit before starting this?

  “What about the remote?” asked Jeffrey in a clipped crisp voice, the first time I’d heard him speak. “She’ll need that with her, won’t she?”

  “Of course! Thank you. It’s just on that table. Would you mind . . .?” Jeffrey handed it to her and she opened the velcro again to free my hand to take it from her.

  I pressed the right button and the tail of the costume swished violently, knocking Alice off her feet before swinging back to sweep everything off the small desk in one corner of the room. Something broke when it landed on the floor. I frantically pressed the button again to make it stop.

  “Whoops! Sorry,” I said sheepishly, but Alice didn’t seem too upset as Elton gallantly helped her to her feet. Mabel quickly disposed of the broken mug, a slightly worried indentation appearing between her eyebrows. Maybe she was having second thoughts about me?

  But she proceeded, with the help of Elton, in fitting the headpiece onto my shoulders. It was heavy and much taller than the top of my own head, giving me an unbalanced feel. Mabel attached the head to the costume, so that it was difficult to tell that it was a separate piece.

  I unwisely pressed the left button just as Mabel was warning me about it. The jaws of the beast opened and emitted a roar of such magnitude and with such depth and growliness that I frightened myself and I knew I was about to do it. The others of course had no such warning and all screamed in varying degrees of fear and shrillness.

  “Holy shit, that’s loud!” I shouted, trying to catch my breath.

  “That’s possibly inaccurate,” pointed out Elton, the first to recover his composure. “Some researchers believe that the dinosaurs were unable to vocalise because they appeared to lack vocal cords in their larynx. Much like common birds today don’t actually ‘speak’ because they don’t have vocal cords, instead using their syrinx to produce sound. Although this is conjecture as larynges don’t fossilise, so there’s no real proof one way or another whether dinosaurs had vocal cords.”

  It was strange inside the costume. I felt immediate sensory deprivation, Elton’s voice coming only indistinctly through the headpiece. And yeah, thank goodness for small mercies! My vision was limited to a small rectangle of mesh situated underneath the beast’s massive jaws.

  Mabel spoke into the mesh, obviously well briefed on communicating with the entertainer. “You look great. Thanks so much again, Tilly.”

  “It’s heavy.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Walk around for a while here before you go downstairs.”

  I lumbered out of the small room, careful to keep my thumb away from the buttons. I practiced walking and moving the little arms, with advice from the others. Soon enough, I learned how to compensate for the extra weight and unbalance and was stomping around like an old hand, chasing Jeffrey this time. He guffawed and swatted me away when I backed him into a corner. I accidently pressed the left button and roared at him, deafening both of us, poor Jeffrey shrinking against the wall in pain.

  “Sorry!” I yelled out, but he didn’t hear me. I guess nobody could hear through the costume unless they had their ear to the mesh. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to communicate with anyone.

  I practiced roaring and using the tail as I walked. Elton shouted out so many instructions on the gait of a real dinosaur that I was glad I could barely hear him. I was having enough trouble staying upright without worrying about whether or not I was being authentic.

  “That’s wonderful, Tilly. You’re going to be a hit,” gushed Mabel into the mesh, eager to ensure that I continued in my new role. She checked her watch. “Oh, we open in ten minutes. Let me take you downstairs in the lift.”

  I nodded to show I’d heard her, the huge head moving slowly up and down in response.

  She smiled at me. “It’s time to meet the public.”

  Sure, I thought with reckless abandon. Why not? What could possibly go wrong?

  And you’d think I’d know better by now.

  Chapter 2

  I followed her out of the display and down a corridor flanked by a glass half-wall on one side that afforded a view of the bottom floor of the museum. We eschewed the escalator in favour of the lift. I had to duck my head to fit inside.

  On the ground floor, Mabel introduced me to several museum staff. She yelled into the mesh that if I needed anything, I could contact one of them for assistance, as she would be busy upstairs in the display. That was a relief to hear, because nobody so far had mentioned breaks or free coffee. I’d had an early start this morning and free coffee would have been great right about now.

  “It’s time! I’m opening!” croaked an octogenarian volunteer, giving us advanced warning as he slid back the glass doors to the three people crowding to get inside – a woman with two young boys. “Oh, watch out, everyone. It’s real busy today.”

  “Look, Mummy!” said the younger boy, pointing at me, his eyes huge. “A dinosaur!”

  “That’s so cool,” nodded the older boy, grinning. “It’s a T Rex.” Huh, so there, Elton, what do you know?

  Thrilled to have fans already, I thudded my clumsy way over to them, swishing the tail as I walked. And while that made them even more excited, it wasn’t such a good idea as it really interfered with my balance. I stopped swishing when I realised that staggering around like that, I probably looked like a dinosaur that’d been sipping too freely on the gingko juice. And yes, Elton, I knew that dinosaurs didn’t make their own home brew.

  When I pulled up near them, I swung my tail again. But to roar or not to roar? I didn’t want to frighten the children, so I compromised and stomped away from them before I let out a mighty roar.

  The mother jumped in terror and uttered a few choice words that she probably immediately regretted letting her children hear her say. The boys screamed with happiness, chasing after me, begging me to do it again. So I turned around and roared directly at them, clomping towards them. They screamed again and ran to hide behind their mother.

  The racket attracted the attention of some more newcomers and then some more. And before I knew it, I was in the middle of an enthusiastic crowd. The next couple of hours passed quickly because the museum became surprisingly busy and I was having so much fun entertaining the crowd.

  I chased after a group of teens, roaring at them and forcing them to scatter, laughing. I ghosted people and when they noticed me following them, I stopped still and looked away innocently. I tapped people on the shoulder from behind, pantomiming a belly laugh at their reactions when they turned around to find a dinosaur standing next to them. I did a spot of moonwalking. I chased more teenagers and a couple of the braver young children. I boogied with some older dudes. I frightened more mothers into accidentally cursing in front of their kids by blasting my loudness at them. I made so many little children scream in delight that I gave myself a headache. I pulled an ‘aw, shucks’, hanging my head and scuffing my feet on the ground when a couple of young women hugged me, probably thinking I was a man. I had my photo t
aken a hundred times. I roared and I clomped and I swung my tail. I was a hit.

  A local news crew, sent to cover the opening day, filmed me for a while and, yeah, I’ll admit that I played up to the camera, secure in my anonymity. Daniel and Niq would get a laugh out of it when we watched it together tonight.

  But then I needed a break. I found one of the staff and caught their attention. They led me back to a staff room that contained a kitchenette and a bathroom. A couple of staff helped me take off the heavy head and let me out of the costume. They kindly offered me a long t-shirt to wear from lost property so that I didn’t have to sit around in my undies embarrassing everyone. I drank some water, used the facilities, sat down for ten minutes and let the sweat dry off. And then it was time to slip off the t-shirt, climb back into the costume, ready for Tilly the T Rex (Allosaurus, I imagined Elton whispering indignantly in my ear) to continue her starring performance.

  Not long afterwards I was back in the middle of the crowd again, roaring and flicking my tail around, smugly congratulating myself for finding a job that paid me to have so much fun. Judging from the amount of people circulating around the bottom floor and heading to the escalator, Mabel didn’t need to worry about the show being a success. It seemed like a sure thing to me.

  And that was when I felt it.

  It started with a small tickle on my neck. I had just enough room inside the costume to twist my hand up to scratch at the spot. And then the tickle moved down my neck. And then there was another tickle on the other side of my neck as well. And one on the back of my neck. Yet another little tickle skittered its way across my shoulder blades. I wriggled them with itchiness, but there was no way I could scratch my back in my present circumstances. I tried to scratch it against the costume, but that didn’t help and only made the dino look as if it was doing the twist (which earned me a smattering of applause).

  Something ran down my arm and I shrieked. I’m not that keen on creepy-crawly things to be honest. Especially when they’re inside a costume with me.

  I held my arm up to the mesh panel where some light streamed in. Oh boy. I had a spider on my arm. No, rewind that. I had spiders – plural – on my arm. Lots of spiders. Lots of tiny baby spiders crawling on my arms and my neck and my back.

  Oh God! I freaked. I desperately swatted at them, jerking and spinning, my body itching everywhere. To the crowd it would appear as though the dinosaur suddenly started convulsing.

  Spiders! All over me! Now I could feel them on my face. They were probably in my hair.

  I screamed and began stomping around wildly, trying at least to shake them off my body.

  “Somebody help me!” I shouted. “Please! There are spiders in here with me!”

  But nobody could hear me. People in the crowd nervously edged away from me, drawing their children to their side.

  “Somebody help! Please!”

  A couple of the museum staff, concerned expressions on their faces, rushed over to me. They attempted to speak to me as I danced about with increasingly frantic energy.

  “Are you all right?” one asked, the master of the understatement, because I very clearly wasn’t all right.

  “Spiders!” I screeched.

  “What?”

  “Spiders! Get me out of here.”

  He turned to his colleague. “What did she say? I can’t hear a word.” His helpful colleague merely shrugged in ignorance. He took me by the arm and led me to one side, away from the curious eyes of the crowd. “What’d you say?”

  I didn’t want to speak again, in case spiders crawled into my mouth. One was making an exploratory foray up my right nostril and a couple of others seemed to be building a web in my left ear. I waved the dino’s tiny arms around in what I hoped was an instantly recognisable mime for ‘get me the hell out of this costume because it’s full of spiders’. But he didn’t seem to understand. And I had to admit that mime had never been my strong point, being someone with a self-acknowledged smart mouth who liked to talk a lot.

  “Would you like us to help you out of the costume?” guessed the man into the mesh, in an insultingly slow and patient way as if I had just landed in the modern era from three hundred million years ago.

  I nodded the dino’s big head, refusing to open my mouth.

  “Okay. Hold still,” he said, his colleague reaching for the fasteners that attached the head to the costume.

  Unfortunately right at that moment, something scuttled across my eyeball and I screamed, the spiders taking advantage of my open mouth to decide that my tongue was just the spot to set up a new life. I jitterbugged in horror away from the staff members, spitting spiders out and trying to move my hand up to my eyes.

  “Hey, I said to hold still!” the male museum attendant snapped at me.

  In my panicked jiving I dropped the remote control inside the costume. Shit!

  I couldn’t lean down to pick it up. Double shit!

  And then I trod on it, activating both buttons and the dino locked into roaring, swishing mode. Triple shit!

  I lurched headlong into the milling crowd, not really registering them in my urgent need to get the spiders out of my mouth. My tail whipped back and forth, slapping people’s legs and butts, knocking over a couple of little kids. I accidently slammed into people, roaring right into their faces.

  “Someone help me get out of this thing!” I yelled to no avail. Nobody could hear me over the constant roaring. And let’s face it; a raging dinosaur is the last creature you want to listen to patiently to find out exactly what’s up its butt. So most people did the sensible thing when faced with a dinosaur entertainer suddenly gone berserk in a large crowd – they screamed and fled. It was pandemonium.

  Elton! I thought in wild desperation. He’ll know what to do. He knows everything about everything. He’ll help me. I have to get back upstairs to him. And it was honestly the only thought in my mind as I ploughed my way through the crowd, roaring and whacking people left and right with my tail. All the while still convulsing madly as the spiders found new crevices to investigate.

  I headed for the lift. A couple of burly fathers, deciding that I’d terrorised enough small children in my dino rampage, closed in on me, their intent to bring me down in any way possible clear on their faces. So I sidelined the lift and virtually sprinted towards the escalator, roaring at everyone, people either scattering in my path or risking a beating with my tail. A major headache pressed against my forehead. Heller sure wasn’t going to be happy about this.

  I glanced around and saw the burly fathers coming after me. Hurry! Hurry! I told myself, flinging myself onto the first step of the escalator. Elton would not only know what to do, but he’d also protect me from the angry mob.

  The tail continued to swing sideways, banging into the glass half-panels of the escalator, causing me to overbalance. One of the fathers ducked under the tail and at the right time, grabbed it and yanked on it. I tumbled backwards, down five or six steps, well-cushioned by the costume. Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for the fathers who I bowled over, and not in the good, romantic type of way either.

  The three of them fell, banging into each other like dominos, to end a crumpled heap at the bottom of the escalator. Righting myself as fast as I could, and keeping them at bay with my tail, I scrabbled up the escalator. I was moving too quickly and tripped as I reached the end, falling face first onto the moving steps, no arms to save myself.

  The big head protected me from crunching my face onto the metal treads and one mercy was that the impact finally stopped the roaring. I was almost at the top and closer to Elton, when the entire escalator came to a shuddering halt. It didn’t take me long to realise the reason for the breakdown. One of my tiny puppet dino hands had become trapped at the top tread of the escalator where it disappeared into the metal landing. I tried to yank it free, but it was caught fast.

  Oh great! I thought, anxiously looking over my shoulder at the three fathers advancing on me. My sole consolation was thinking about how
flipped out were they going to be when they hauled me out of the costume for a beating, only to discover a sweaty young woman in underpants with spiders in her mouth.

  And then the most miraculous thing happened. Elton appeared.

  He came strolling down the corridor, hands in his pockets, whistling some operatic ditty that – obviously! – I didn’t recognise. He was off duty to have his break.

  “Elton,” I called weakly, on the verge of spidery tears. But of course he couldn’t hear me. The fathers clamoured over me to wrest the head off me (literally and figuratively).

  Elton assessed the situation quickly. “Whoa, you guys! Back off the Allosaurus. Now.”

  The fathers looked at each other in puzzlement. “Do you mean this T Rex?”

  “It’s not a T Rex,” he explained with an impatient sigh, rolling his eyes. “Look, it has three claws and . . . Oh, never mind. Just get away from the dinosaur. There’s a young lady inside there. What are you thinking climbing all over her like that? Get off her. You’re probably hurting her.” And he’d never sounded more logical and calm. I could have kissed him . . . well, maybe just a small hug of appreciation. With one arm. Or maybe just a pat on the back in gratitude?

  “A chick? Really?” asked one of the men, letting me go. “Are you sure? I thought it was a man inside there. It was clomping around like a man. It has a man’s build.” The other two men murmured in agreement.

  “Hey! That’s the costume, not me!” I yelled out from inside, but nobody heard, and sure, I’d just invited another neighbourhood of spiders to move into my mouth. I started twisting and spitting again, terrified that even though they were only babies, they’d lay eggs inside me and then they’d hatch and burrow into my brain and lay eggs and then they’d hatch . . . and hadn’t we all heard that terrible story?

  “There’s something wrong with her. Help me get her out,” Elton ordered and surprisingly the angry fathers obeyed.

  I was unceremoniously freed from costume, my delicates drenched with sweat. Everyone looked embarrassed. Even I did, and I was hysterical by then.