Dinosaur Pox

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘I don’t want to be on telly. Do you think I want the whole world to see me like this?’

  ‘Well, you changed into a dinosaur, so why don’t you just change back?’

  ‘Got a magic wand, have you?’ snorted Jodie.

  ‘Who’s a grumpy guinea pig?’ Mark muttered and turned his back on her.

  Sometimes there was no pleasing his sister. On the other hand he didn’t want it to end like this. He turned round again. ‘I wish you were back home, I mean not as you are now, you know, as you were.’

  ‘Mark, you didn’t like me as I was. We were always quarrelling.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but …’ He struggled for words. ‘It was OK, wasn’t it? I mean we quarrelled, but everyone does that. I never wanted you to be a dinosaur.’

  ‘Snap!’ grunted Jodie

  ‘… and I wish you weren’t. I just want you back home.’

  ‘We all want you back, just as you were,’ added Mrs Bolton.

  Jodie lifted her heavy head and looked at her family, gathered together on the other side of the bars.

  Mr Bolton forced a smile. ‘We’ll come and see you first thing in the morning. Shall I bring some more carrots? Courgettes maybe, or turnips?’

  ‘I’m OK,’ mumbled Jodie. She slumped down on to one side and stretched out her wrinkled neck. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to sleep. See you tomorrow.’

  The Boltons walked away and left her there, half asleep, but still thinking to herself: I want to get out of this. I don’t like being a stegosaurus any more. I want to be Jodie. I don’t mind freckles. I promise I won’t complain about black, curly hair ever again. I just want to be me. I’ll even be nice to Mark – well, sometimes, possibly, now and then, if I remember in time.

  When the Boltons reached home they went about things very quietly, each one lost in their own thoughts about Jodie.

  Mark sat on the edge of his bed with his hands in his lap, feeling nervous and embarrassed. He wasn’t at all sure whether he believed in God or not. He had never made a private prayer before and now he looked vaguely upwards as if God might be hovering invisibly round his ceiling somewhere.

  ‘Dear God, if you’re there, please listen, and if you’re not then you won’t hear anyway so I don’t suppose it matters, but will you please help Jodie? She’s in dead trouble right now. She doesn’t want to be a dinosaur any longer. If you can change her back to herself I promise I’ll be nice to her and I won’t call her “Spotty”, or quarrel with her ever again – at least I shall try not to, but you mustn’t mind if I forget sometimes because she really can be dreadful to live with. I’m sure you couldn’t put up with her for long, but please help her even if she is horrible to me.’

  He paused a few moments and then added: ‘Oh yes, if you can change her back, could you give her long, straight hair this time? She’d like that. She’d prefer to be blonde, but I don’t suppose she’ll be too fussy. Thanks.’

  Mark climbed under his duvet and drifted into a fitful sleep, dreaming about evil doctors and dinosaurs. He had gone to sleep worrying about Jodie, and he was still worrying about her in his dreams. He wished that he could think of some way to rescue her, change her back, and get her away from the odious Pinkerton-Snark.

  He was woken at three in the morning by pebbles rattling against his window. He struggled out of his covers with a pounding heart, rushed to the window, flung it wide, and received a face full of grit for his trouble. He blinked angrily as a tall dark shape emerged from the shadows.

  ‘Mark?’

  ‘Jodie! Is that you? I mean the real you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me. Who else were you expecting – Father Christmas? Four times I’ve thrown pebbles at your window. I thought you’d never wake up.’

  ‘But what happened? How did you –?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later. There’s no time now. Hurry up and let me in, I need some proper clothes. I’m wearing a carrot sack, and it’s smelly and not terribly fashionable. Come on, let me in.’

  Mark opened his bedroom door as silently as possible and hurried down to the kitchen. He unbolted the back door and let Jodie in. She was grinning from ear to ear. ‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘Look, I’m back to normal.’

  ‘But how did you do it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was lying in that cage thinking about everything. It wasn’t much fun being a dinosaur, and I was thinking about what was going to happen and Pinkerton-Snark and the TV stuff, and I remembered what you said.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You said that if I managed to change into a dinosaur then why didn’t I just change back. So I did.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘Don’t ask me – I’m not a magician! All I can say is that I did it bit by bit. I thought about my fins and I thought about them getting smaller and smaller until they shrank away to nothing – and they did!’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘Yeah, so when that worked I thought about all the other bits and changed them too.’

  Mark suddenly had a thought and he

  glanced at his sister’s hair. ‘It wasn’t God then,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Wasn’t God? What do you mean?’

  Mark explained about his prayer, turning a shade red in the process. ‘I asked him to give you long, straight hair, preferably blonde.’

  ‘Really?’ Jodie looked steadily at her brother. ‘I never thought of thinking about long blonde hair.’ She chuckled. ‘Oh well, never mind. It’s good to be back and hey, listen …’ Jodie frowned. ‘Thanks for your help. No, I mean it. You were there looking after me and all that stuff … thanks.’

  Before Mark could say a word she had whirled round and vanished up the stairs to get changed out of her sack.

  Mark followed quietly, trying not to disturb their parents. Jodie changed quickly and came across to Mark’s bedroom. She wanted to know how Mum and Dad were.

  ‘They’ve been going frantic,’ said Mark. ‘They’ve been really worried. I don’t think Mum’s eaten since you, you know …’

  ‘I turned into a stegosaurus,’ Jodie finished for him. ‘Yeah, I know, but I’ve got something important to do first, something to do with Mr Pinky-Winky. I need to sort him out.’

  ‘We need to sort him out,’ corrected Mark and Jodie grinned.

  ‘OK, both of us. I’ve been thinking and I’ve got a pretty good idea about what we should do …’

  9 Boo!

  Smug, thought Jodie. Smug is by far the best word to describe Mr Pinkerton-Snark. She was watching him from the safety of the large crowd that had gathered at the Animal Quarantine Hospital to see the dinosaur revealed. Pinkerton-Snark was helping the TV crews set up their cameras and lights. He was beaming from ear to ear and his gold teeth flashed and twinkled in the hot, bright glare of the lamps.

  Reporters, both TV and press, kept hurrying across to him to have a word or to ask questions. Pinkerton-Snark waved them away imperiously.

  ‘Don’t fret, my friends,’ he cried. ‘All will be revealed in good time. I shall give you all the information you could possibly wish for then.’

  Jodie’s cage had been covered with a large tarpaulin so that it was impossible to see the dinosaur inside. Mr Pinkerton-Snark was hurrying about with an enormous smile, preparing for his grand moment.

  Mark gazed out of the office window with his parents, trying to catch a glimpse of his sister, but she was well hidden in the crowd, and it was probably just as well, thought Mark. ‘Miss Gatling’s out there,’ he said, ‘and Mrs Farouk. Everybody’s come to see Jodie today.’

  ‘She always did like a lot of attention,’ sighed Mrs Bolton. ‘Oh, I do wish this wasn’t happening. I don’t want a dinosaur for a daughter. I want our Jodie back, with all her moods and everything.’ Mr Bolton slipped a comforting arm round his wife’s shoulders.

  Outside, a TV interviewer approached Miss Gatling. ‘I gather that you were Jodie’s headteacher?’

  ‘Indeed, yes.’

  ‘Could I ask you a few questions?’ Miss Ga
tling drew herself as tall as possible and smiled at the camera. ‘OK, here we go, cameras roll … This is Tamsin Plank reporting live for CBTV News, on the extraordinary case of Jodie Walton – the nine-year-old girl who –’

  ‘Bolton,’ corrected Miss Gatling, still maintaining her stiff smile.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Jodie’s surname is Bolton, not Walton.’

  ‘Cut!’ cried Tamsin and took a deep breath. ‘OK, ready, roll …’ And she began again. ‘This is Tamsin Plank for CBTV News, reporting live on the –’

  ‘And she’s ten,’ added Miss Gatling, with a curt nod to the camera.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jodie’s not nine, she’s ten. You said she was nine.’

  ‘Cut!’ Tamsin shot daggers at the headteacher. ‘Anything else?’ she hissed.

  ‘There’s no point in feeding the public misinformation,’ said Miss Gatling airily.

  The glamorous reporter took another deep breath. ‘Tamsin Plank for CBTV News, reporting live on the amazing case of Jodie Bolton, the ten-year-old girl who has turned into a dinosaur. I have with me Jodie’s headteacher, Miss Gatling.’ Tamsin smiled at Miss Gatling. ‘What kind of pupil was Jodie?’

  ‘Absolutely charming,’ sighed Miss Gatling. ‘I never had a cross word with her. She was my star pupil. This is such a terrible tragedy. If only she hadn’t turned into a stegosaurus – I was about to make her school captain you know, but I’m afraid animals aren’t allowed on the school premises.’

  Obviously it was all right for Miss Gatling to feed the public misinformation, even if the TV reporter wasn’t allowed to do it. It was a good thing that Mark couldn’t hear any of this from inside the office. He would most likely have interrupted himself and spoilt Tamsin Plank’s interview for the third time, but Mark’s attention was taken up by Pinkerton-Snark, who was making his way to Jodie’s cage.

  ‘I think they’re ready,’ Mark pointed out to his family. ‘Come on, let’s go outside.’

  The Boltons crept out of the office and stood to one side where they could see what was going on without being part of it. The last thing they wanted was to be pestered by the press.

  Pinkerton-Snark had taken a position close to Jodie’s cage. He stood smiling at the cameras through his half-moon spectacles, clasping the edge of the tarpaulin cover with his pudgy fingers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I have asked you all here today to bear witness to one of the most extraordinary events in our entire history. Even the youngest babe in arms knows that dinosaurs ruled this earth millions of years ago and then became extinct. A living dinosaur has not been seen on this earth for many hundreds of thousands of years – until now.’

  ‘Mr Shark!’ Tamsin Plank was shouting from the bunch of reporters. ‘Mr Shark! Are you kidding us? Have you really got a real dinosaur?’

  ‘Snark – Pinkerton-Snark,’ bellowed the specialist. ‘Yes, behind this cover there is a real dinosaur – to be precise, a stegosaurus. A week ago, Jodie Bolton was an ordinary nine-year-old girl –’

  ‘Ten!’ chorused Tamsin and Miss Gatling.

  ‘And then she changed, overnight. In the morning she found she was a stegosaurus.’

  ‘You’re having us on!’ cried a newspaper man. ‘Nobody can change into a dinosaur. Tell us how it happened.’

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, please,’ said Mr Pinkerton-Snark with an expansive movement of both arms. ‘You have my word. Do you think I wish to be made a laughing stock? Of course not! In a few moments you will see for yourselves – and this is no trickery – a real, living stegosaurus, the first new stegosaurus to walk this earth of ours for eons.

  ‘And of course I shall tell you how this came about. I ran hundreds of tests on Jodie Bolton. I spent many hours trying to locate the source of this mystery. Eventually I realized that what we had on our hands was no more and no less than a completely new disease – Dinosaur Pox.’

  ‘Dinosaur Pox?’ The TV crews crowded forward, bombarding the specialist with questions.

  ‘Can anyone get Dinosaur Pox?’

  ‘Is it infectious?’

  ‘What if the dinosaur escapes? Will we all turn into dinosaurs?’

  ‘Gentlemen!’ cried Pinkerton-Snark. ‘Calm yourselves, please. You are quite safe. It is very unlikely that anyone else can catch it. And now, if you could just move back a little so that everyone can see, I will remove this tarpaulin and you will behold the stegosaurus for yourself.’

  More TV spotlights flashed into life. The tarpaulin was glaring with intense light as the world’s eyes focused on the cage. Pinkerton-Snark moved forward, grasped the cover with both hands and yanked it away.

  A hundred flashbulbs popped and a great gasp went up from the crowd. They stared in astonishment, leaning forward to see. And then they began laughing and pointing.

  The cage was almost empty, but not quite. Hanging from the ceiling was a huge piece of white card. There was one word written right across it in huge black letters:

  FRAUD

  Immediately beneath the card, and looking very, very tiny was Mark’s little plastic stegosaurus. A small piece of paper was stuck to its jaws, like a speech bubble. It said:

  Boo!

  Laughter gripped the crowd. They were clutching themselves. Some were staggering round in convulsions. Others were rolling on the ground. Some clung to each other, with tears rolling down their cheeks.

  Pinkerton-Snark had turned the whitest white, staring down at the little toy dinosaur. He dashed round the back and entered the cage himself. He searched every square centimetre with the desperation of a madman. He bent down, seized Mark’s stegosaurus and held it cradled in his hands, staring at it in disbelief. He gazed out at the sea of laughing faces, then he grabbed the bars, rattled them furiously and roared.

  ‘Rraaaaaaaarrrggghhhh!’

  It was not like Jodie’s roar at all. It wasn’t wild and magnificent and spine-tingling. It was a sad and floppy roar, and it died to a whimper as the world’s cameras photographed Pinkerton-Snark in his cage. There he was, foaming at everyone as he held the little dinosaur. Jodie and Mark’s sign was hanging above his head.

  There were some people who weren’t laughing. Mr and Mrs Bolton could not believe what they were seeing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Mr Bolton. ‘Where’s Jodie?’

  One small hand slipped into Mrs Bolton’s, and the other hand clutched Mr Bolton’s arm. ‘I’m here,’ said Jodie quietly, and a moment later she was almost crushed to death between her parents as they hugged her silly.

  ‘How? Incredible! I mean … What? Where? And the …!’ Mr Bolton had too many things to say at once, and they jammed in his brain.

  ‘Jodie, Jodie, Jodie,’ Mum kept repeating.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ laughed Jodie. ‘Come on, I want to go home. I want to see what’s on the telly.’

  ‘After everything that’s happened you want to watch telly? Oh Jodie!’ cried Mrs Bolton.

  On the way home, Jodie carefully explained how she had managed to change back, and also all about the trick that she and Mark had played on Mr Pinkerton-Snark.

  ‘I never did like him,’ muttered Mr Bolton. ‘I’m very proud of both of you.’

  As soon as they reached the house, Jodie rushed in and switched on the television so that they could all watch the news. There was

  Tamsin Plank, flashing her perfect white teeth at the camera and interviewing onlookers.

  ‘That’s Miss Gatling!’ cried Jodie, and she listened with mounting astonishment (and anger) to her headteacher’s comments. ‘Star pupil? School Captain? Ooh, the old –’ For once Jodie was lost for words and Mark filled the gap.

  ‘Dinosaur!’

  ‘Dinosaur!’ everyone chorused, and then Pinkerton-Snark appeared on the screen, standing under the card sign and gazing hopelessly at Mark’s stegosaurus.

  ‘Serves him right,’ muttered Mr Bolton, and switched off the television.

  ‘Anyone hungry? I’ll make some lunch,’ suggested Mum
.

  ‘Got any daisies?’ asked Jodie.

  ‘You haven’t changed a bit,’ laughed Mrs Bolton.

  But she had changed. Jodie might have seemed the same on the outside, but she was forever different inside. She knew now for certain just how much she meant to everyone in the family. Mark was still a pain, and her parents were still hopeless, but they loved her, even when she was a dinosaur.

  When at last it was bedtime, she went and sat in front of her mirror. She didn’t grunt at herself this time. She smiled, and she watched how her smile made her nose wrinkle up and she thought it looked quite nice. Shame about the hair – that was still awful.

  Jodie looked into the dark, mysterious eyes that gazed back at her from the mirror. They seemed as deep and dark and uncharted as the universe itself, full of hidden promises and strange secrets. Looking into those mirror eyes, Jodie knew that she could go back to being a dinosaur if she wanted – if she wanted – at any time.

  She smiled at her reflection and whispered, ‘Hello, Jodie.’ Then she climbed under her duvet and lay there, feeling the warmth of her own bed surround her. If she could be a dinosaur, she thought as she drifted to sleep, why not … anything? Maybe things were only just beginning now.