By me, with art by the great Sam Messerly.
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I talked with Warbell for some time about the job possibilities in Final Pumpkin. Most of his listed jobs—policeman, librarian, psychiatrist, doctor—I told him would be impossible for many reasons, from practical concerns to a lack of training and education to federal laws. I did not have a lot of time to chat. I was already behind on wiring the library, and so I left Warbell after a relatively short yak session.
We didn’t really say goodbye, though we acknowledged I would check up on him around lunchtime.
As I pedaled, I thought through everything one more time. It was still difficult to trust Warbell because there was so much I didn’t know, and he also seemed to be deliberately hiding something. Maybe a lot of somethings. How can I know what a dinosaur’s hidden motivations might be? How can I know that I can trust a dinosaur at all, especially a flesh-eating one? How do I know I can believe anything he says?
Yet I also couldn’t help but see that he was honestly trying. That he did save that kid. That he really was worried about something going on in the city. And I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe what Warbell was worried about might be the rash of bizarre health incidents that had been occurring for some time across the nation. Many people had been afflicted, seemingly at random. No coherent cause had ever been identified, and it was difficult to know which incidents were connected to the phenomena in the first place. But Murdock Gargle was almost certainly just the latest victim.
Yet why would Warbell be concerned about that? Surely a dinosaur wouldn’t come to live with humans in order to research human health concerns?
That day and the rest of that week we ironed out our routine. Every morning, lunch, and evening get together I would check up on Warbell and go over his schedule and help him with any problems and try to answer any questions he had. We would discuss his job-hunting efforts, and I would try to give him some tips. Later, often in the middle of the night, I chased away rubberneckers and paparazzi from the lawn. I also tried to get my truck back from Charlie a few times, but he was conveniently not home whenever I went over to his place.
Conversations with Warbell were formal. Dry. I tried not to show whatever I was feeling because I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. Warbell, so far as I could tell, did the same.
And sometimes in spare moments I would get out those rocks or eggs or whatever they might be, and I would look at them, poke at them. I was tempted to even take a lick and see what a dinosaur egg might taste like. But mostly I waited. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions or do anything rash with the “eggs” until I had met with Colander on Saturday. Maybe meeting with her, talking with her, just blowing off steam with her would help me to figure out what I was supposed to do. And of course if these really were eggs, then the problems with Warbell were really only just beginning.