by Unknown
Which meant that eventually she would take up that old Nikon “F” series SLR again. Her Grampa’s other lost photos still waited for her in College Junction.
DINOSAUR STEW
by Chuck Rothman
Kevin Nagle picked up the plate from the table and licked the last of it clean.
“Kevin!” said Toni. “You know better than that!”
He set down the plate, gravy on his nose. “Mom, that stew was great!”
Toni was startled. She couldn’t remember the last time one of the boys had complimented her cooking. “Well, thank you. But that’s no excuse for—”
“Yeah, mom. It’s great,” said Colin.
She hadn’t had both boys praise her cooking since they’d learned how to talk. “It’s just the usual crockpot stew.”
“Dinosaur stew,” said Colin.
People say that dinosaurs lived in the Jurassic period or the Cretaceous age, but they certainly thrived at the age of seven. Colin had dinosaur sheets, dinosaur underwear, dinosaur LEGO, and dinosaur Halloween costumes. Kevin, older by five years, had outgrown all that and was more interested in dinosaur games for his computer, dinosaur figurines, and posters of Tyrannosauri eyeing him hungrily while he slept.
Toni hated dinosaurs, even as a child. She remembered going to Dinosaurs Alive and coming back terrified. “It’s not dinosaur,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“It tastes like beef,” said Toni. “Dinosaur tastes like chicken.”
“How do you know?” Kevin asked. It was his favorite question.
“Everything tastes like chicken,” said Toni.
“It’s not chicken,” said Colin, “but it’s really good.”
oOo
The pot roast was a simple recipe: chuck roast, onions, and cream of mushroom soup. She had made it dozens of times before.
“It tastes different,” Kevin said.
“Better?” Toni asked hopefully. “Like the stew last week?”
“Dinosaur stew!” said Colin. He had taken to using the phrase and then giggling as though it were the funniest joke in the world.
“Well, at least this time—” She paused. There was something in the meat that her fork couldn’t spear. Gingerly, she pulled it out.
It was a tooth, sharp and about four inches long.
“Dinosaur tooth!” said Colin.
“Not everything has to do with dinosaurs,” Toni snapped.
Kevin gave her a funny look, then took it. He examined it closely, rubbing the meat and gravy off with a paper napkin. “It can’t be from a dinosaur,” he said with the gravity of his age. “It’s made of bone, not rock.”
Toni looked at her bowl. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“It’s been in the pot all day,” Kevin pointed out. “Any germs are dead.”
“That’s not comforting,” said Toni.
Kevin turned the tooth over.
Toni didn’t like it–too sharp, too big. She was sure it wasn’t there when she put it in the pot. And she didn’t want to see the creature it belonged to.
“Dinosaur tooth!”
“Colin!” snapped Toni. “That’s enough.”
“I’ll show you,” said Colin and walked away.
“Come right back here! You weren’t excused!” Toni shouted after him, glad to have something else to think about.
Kevin kept examining the tooth. “Did you see this before?”
“No! It wasn’t there when I put everything together.”
“Well,” said Keven thoughtfully. “If it wasn’t the meat, it must have been the crockpot.”
“For Pete’s sake, Kevin. How could it be the crockpot? It only cooks what’s inside it.” A suspicion snuck up on her. “Did you do anything with it?”
Kevin didn’t look her in the eye. “What could I have done? I wouldn’t waste a perfectly good dinosaur tooth in a stew!”
“Well, someone had to have done something to turn chuck roast into brontosaurus.”
“Apatosaurus, not Brontosaurus,” said Colin, who loved correcting her on that point. “It’s Brontosaurus again,” said Kevin.
Colin ignored him. He had returned with one of the dozens of dinosaur books he had on his shelves. “And look at this.”
It was a photograph of a tooth, looking just like the one that lay on the kitchen table. The caption spelled out everything, the ink on the page leaving no doubt.
“Tooth of a velociraptor,” it said.
oOo
“I’m not using it again,” said Toni.
“Ah, mom!” said Kevin. “It’d be cool.”
“Cool? The last thing I want is to put in a chicken and have a pterodactyl take its place!”
“Pterodon,” said Colin.
Toni ignored it. “I’m not going to eat million-year-old meat!”
“We already have,” piped up Colin.
“Colin,” Toni said. “Please go to your room.”
“I want more dinosaur! I liked it.”
He hadn’t taken more than four bites, but, to be honest, that was more than he usually ate. “We can discuss it later,” she said. “Go to your room. Look up … I don’t know … what sort of dinosaur you want to eat next.”
“I can choose?” said Colin.
Toni knew enough not to give him a blank check. “We can discuss it. Now go.”
Colin hurried off.
“We can buy a hamster,” said Kevin thoughtfully.
“We’re not cooking hamster!”
“Ah, mom,” said Kevin in his “you’re no fun” voice.
“You stay away from that crockpot,” Toni said, unplugging it and putting it up in the highest shelf. “And that’s final.”
oOo
The next day was a hard one: working, picking up Colin at school, spending far too much time getting groceries. She was beat when she got home.
The crockpot was on.
“Kevin!” she shouted.
He came out of the living room. “What, mom?”
She pointed at the crockpot. “Who did this?”
He scrambled over, ignoring her question. “Cool!”
She set down her bag and peered through the glass lid. She saw one pale gray oval the size of her fist. It pulsed slightly as she watched.
She glanced at the controls. It was on the “Keep Warm” setting, not hot enough to cook anything.
“What did you do?”
“You never said I couldn’t,” said Kevin.
He’s going to grow up to be a lawyer, isn’t he? Toni thought. “How did you set it up?”
He looked at her with the level of disdain only a twelve-year-old could give to his mother when she didn’t understand. “I’m not a baby, mom. I can plug things in.”
She made a mental note about not thinking of him as a two-year-old, then asked, “What did you put in there?”
“An egg,” said Kevin proudly.
“An egg? Like from a chicken?”
“What other eggs do we have? I wanted to see if it could hatch. I thought that ‘keep warm’ would make it an incubator.”
“You can’t—” She let her protest die. Where this crockpot was concerned, she wasn’t sure what it couldn’t do.
There was a tapping sound from the pot.
“It’s hatching!” said Kevin. “We can see it soon.”
oOo
Colin returned from soccer practice at six. “How long does it take for a dinosaur egg to hatch?” Kevin asked as soon as he got in the door.
“I don’t know,” said Colin. “How long does it take a dinosaur egg to hatch?”
“It’s not a riddle, Colin.” Toni had spent the past few hours watching Kevin staring at the crockpot like it was the best TV show in the world. “There’s an egg in here.”
“What do you mean?” Colin asked, moving for a better look.
Kevin filled him in.
“This is great!” said Colin.
“Having a prehistoric creature running around the h
ouse is not my definition of ‘great,’” said Toni. “What if it tries to eat us? It might be a tyrannosaurus!”
“Oh, mom,” said Kevin, filling the words with a boatload of scorn. “It’s too small.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Toni said.
“Look,” said Kevin. “We can show it to people. It’d be neat.” He peered into the pot. “It’s hatched!”
Toni looked. The creature standing blinking in the pot was the same size as a baby chick, but instead of down, there was dark brown leathery skin. The head had a bony crest that it wore like a hat, and instead of wings, there were two forward-placed arms, tipped with claws. It looked up at them through the glass lid with curiosity, then made a sound like a pleading “meep.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Kevin. He reached for the lid.
“Don’t let it out!” Toni said.
Kevin ignored her, removing the lid and picking up the creature. “If he stays there, he might cook.”
“It might bite you, Kevin.”
Kevin cradled the tiny dinosaur in his hand. “Doesn’t look like he has teeth. He’s cute.”
“Can we keep him, mom?” Colin asked.
“Are you crazy?” Toni asked. “This isn’t a stray cat! This is … well, I don’t know what it is, but we’re not keeping it.”
Kevin couldn’t take his eyes off the creature. “Come on, mom. He’s harmless. See?”
He held it up to her. She shied away, and the creature gave a little screech like something out of a cartoon. It cowered into Kevin’s chest. “Oh, you scared him.”
“I’m not concerned about its feelings right now.”
“I think he bonded to me. Birds do that. Maybe dinosaurs do, too.”
The little creature looked Toni right in the eye and gave a pleading little “meep.”
oOo
Toni watched the little dinosaur exploring the kitchen, pecking at pieces of dirt with its beak like a chicken in a barnyard. She wondered what would happen once it started to poop.
“I think he’s a Microceratus,” said Kevin. He had gone to the computer and searched with Colin for the past half hour.
“I don’t care if it’s Michael Jackson,” Toni said.
“That’s a great name for him!” Colin said.
“That wasn’t a suggestion! We can’t keep it. We need to get it out of here.”
“Oh, mom,” said Colin, his tone colored gray with disappointment.
“I don’t think he’ll be any trouble,” Kevin said.
“Kevin, we discussed this. We had to agree if we got a pet.”
“But Mom, these are dinosaurs! They’re herbivores, too. Not dangerous at all.”
“How big does it get?”
“Maybe the size of a duck.”
“If you’re right about it.”
“Then I can e-mail the college. They probably have paleontologists there.”
“I don’t want it here,” said Toni.
Kevin tore himself away from looking at the animals. “So what do you think we should do? Kill him?”
That was going too far. She didn’t trust the little creature, but she didn’t want to kill it. “I don’t know.”
“So it’s the college.”
“They’re not going to believe you.”
“They will when I send pictures.” He had his phone out in a moment, snapping merrily.
Michael pecked at Toni’s foot. She knew she had lost this battle. Maybe the paleontologist would be on her side.
oOo
The next day was Saturday. It wasn’t Aaron’s weekend with the kids, but she still hoped to be able to sleep in.
The doorbell rang at 8:00 a.m.
They’d set up the boys’ old playpen in the sunporch, covering it with newspapers. Kevin put down a head of lettuce, and Colin added a bowl of water. Its squawking kept Toni up, so when she heard the sound of the bell, she wasn’t in the best of moods.
Two men were in the doorway. They were they type of person that she would call “burly”—about six feet tall and built like a sumo wrestler. They each wore a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat, sandals, and shorts. Neither was her image of a college professor.
“Mrs. Nagle? We saw your son’s e-mail. Please let us in.”
“And your name is?”
“I’m Darley Goldolphin.” He nodded to his friend. “He’s Turk Byerly.”
“‘Turk?’ How does a college professor have the name of ‘Turk?’”
“It’s a long story," said Darley. “Now, may we see the Compsognathus?”
“The what?”
“The dinosaur.”
“I thought they were micro-somethings.”
“Microceratus. It’s a common mistake.”
“Common? People see these things often?”
Darley exchanged a glance with Turk that shouted “We’re up to something.” “Well, just at paleontological conferences.”
She didn’t have to see his nose grow to know he was lying. “What’s the difference between the two types?” Toni asked.
“Compsognathus are meat eaters.”
“What!” Damn Kevin and his assurances. “Come in! It’s that way,” she pointed, not wanting to get any nearer than she had to.
“Who are they?” came Kevin’s voice. He had come down the stairs.
“From the college,” Toni said. “And as for your herbivores—”
“That’s not Dr. Hayes.”
“Hayes?”
“The guy I e-mailed. His picture was on the website. Where do you think—?”
He was interrupted by the sound of screeching, like a crow spotting a stalking cat. Kevin and Toni looked at each other, then rushed to the porch.
The two men were grabbing for the dinosaur like lobsters grabbing a butterfly: badly. Turk held up a metal hamster cage and held the door open. Michael kept skittering away to the opposite side of the playpen.
“What are you doing?” Kevin asked.
“Protecting you,” said Turk, not looking up. “She’s cute now, but can be pretty nasty when she get bigger.”
“She? How did you know that? And how did you find out we had it?” Toni asked.
“Well,” said Turk. “It’s not like we read every e-mail sent to paleontologists just to check it out.”
“You don’t?”
Turk looked panicked. “Darley?”
Darley sighed at Turk’s word. “All right. No use being coy. Yes, this has happened before. We’re from—well, I can’t tell you and it doesn’t matter anyway. But we’re protecting you here. Let us do our job. Aha!” He said, finally grabbing Michael by the tail.
It screeched.
Toni may have hated having the little creature, but she couldn’t stand the sound of pain. “Stop that!” she said, and, surprising herself, jumped on Darley’s back.
He was startled for a moment, then shook her off. “Look, lady, she may be a pet to you, but she’s a danger to us all. Do you know what sort of diseases she might have?”
“Do you?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
“So you don’t know?”
Darley sighed. He dropped Michael into Turk’s cage. “Just let us do our job. Now, where did she come from?”
“The Cretaceous,” Kevin said.
“You’re being cute, kid. I’ll ignore it this time and ask again. Where did she come from?”
Toni may not have liked the dinosaur in her house, but she liked these two troglodytes less. “The food processor.”
Turk shut the door of the cage. “Is she telling the truth?” he asked Darley.
Darley considered. “Probably not. There was that case in Kansas City, but it’s more likely the crockpot. Where is it?”
“I’m not telling you,” said Toni.
“Why bother asking?” Turk said, lifting the cage, Michael still screaming. “It’s in the kitchen. Take care of it.” He headed toward the door, Darley for the kit
chen.
“Are you going to let him do that?” Kevin asked.
“What can I do?” said Toni. “They’re probably going to wipe our minds and make us forget all about this.”
“No,” said Darley, returning with their crockpot. “Talk all you want. Who’s gonna believe you? But that reminds me,” he reached into his shirt pocket. “Here,” he said, handing her a card.
“What’s this?”
“Gift card for Wal-Mart,” Darley said. “$39.95. You can get a really nice replacement that doesn’t have any factory defects, if you know what I mean.”
“Shit!” it was Turk outside. “Darley! Get here now!”
“Sorry folks. Sounds important. But, really, you’re better off without it.”
“Now!” Turk shouted. “And kid, when I get my hands on you—”
“Kid?” said Toni. “Colin!”
She rushed out the door. Turk was on the front walk, being attacked by a tyrannosaur. Toni recognized the previous year’s Halloween costume.
Colin only growled. He flashed the teeth (realistic, of course; Colin had insisted) in Turk’s face, looking ready to bite him.
Turk raised a hand to fend him off and tried to move the cage as a shield.
Kevin had taken action, too. He knocked the cage away from Turk. It fell to the walk and he was on it, stomping on the cheap metal like he was Godzilla.
He may not have been a giant Japanese monster, but a hamster cage doesn’t know that. The metal bent under the onslaught, breaking just as Turk pulled Kevin off it.
Colin had crouched down behind the man as though the attack had been planned. Turk tripped over him, then fell back and toppled into Darley, who dropped the crockpot with a crash.
The cage was open.
“Run, Michael, run!” shouted Colin.
The little dinosaur either heard his words or was scared to death by the ruckus. She darted off, vanishing into the woods behind the house.
“Shit,” said Darley. “We’d better find her, or the paperwork will be ferocious.”