A Tyrannosaurus on my Doorstep, Chapter 7

Story by Nicholas Driscoll (natch).

Art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I asked Mayor Pilky to wait a week for my decision. She agreed on the condition that “King T-Rex” was willing to wait that long as well. To my surprise, he was.

“I’ve never lived in a garage before,” said the tyrannosaurus. “I don’t mind living under the stars for another week. But it’s kind of uncomfortable in this society if you don’t have a place to call home.”

I was glad he didn’t ask me why I wanted a week to think things over. Of course I wanted to think about where to put my vehicles if a big old lizard moved into my garage (the street or the driveway or the backyard were my big choices—if the latter, I would need to make sure I didn’t park them too close to that big boulder out back). But there were other issues I was thinking about, too.

Why did the tyrannosaurus want to live in my garage so much?

I performed some garage-reconnaissance over the next few days, and quickly found out that while my garage was pretty sizable, there were much bigger ones in town. And some of the bigger garages were not very far away from my own. Why didn’t the tyrannosaurus consider those garages? My garage didn’t have the biggest square footage inside. Nor did it have the biggest doors. Nor did it have the most windows, or the most comfortable flooring, or any other rubric I could think of that might affect the lizard’s decision to want to take over my stuff.

Now, many of the garages, like many of the buildings in town, were under repair. For whatever reason, a number of buildings in Final Pumpkin had fallen apart recently, some unexpectedly collapsing under their own weight, and so every building was being inspected and rebuilt or reinforced around town with new materials. Mine was not an exception in this regard. I had just had the place redone a few months prior.

Anyway, meanwhile, within that week the big old lizard had become a huge celebrity. Hundreds, thousands of people were visiting Final Pumpkin City just to catch a glimpse of the dinosaur. Famous rock stars, actors, even the President of the United States came personally to talk with him. I guess it was a gesture of international relations, in a manner of speaking.

And “King T-Rex” was eating up all the attention. That winning smile was plastered across his face at all times now. He had even started giving out autographs, written in sometimes stuttering, uneven letters by gripping a fountain pen between his two fingers. Sometimes I saw him pinch the pen between his incisors. I understand that he broke the fountainpen he was using on several occasions, but his fans were just as delighted to have a blotch of ink as his often surprisingly legible autograph.

Which is all to say it took me a long time before I could talk with the lizard one-on-one again. I caught him by climbing one of his favorite munching trees (yes, he ate vegetation, believe it or not) and waiting for him to stick his head inside for a big bite. When he did so, even though there were crowds around his feet, I was able to talk with him in relative privacy… though I think I startled him, as he hit his head on a large limb.

“Oh, ow,” he said. “What are you doing in here?”

I was clinging to the trunk of the tree like a slightly overweight ape. I didn’t say that, though.

“I want to know why you are all hot to live in my garage specifically,” I said. “What’s the big deal? There are many other garages that are as good as mine, if not better.”

The tyrannosaurus picked at his teeth with a twig.

“Because it’s mine,” he said. “As I told you before.”

“But now you are a king,” I said. “You can choose any garage!”

“Excuse me,” said the old lizard, pulling his head out without taking one bite. “My public awaits.”

Immediately he started talking with someone I couldn’t see from where I was awkwardly hanging in the branches.

“Yes, what’s that?” he said. “Oh, you want me to sign your beer belly? Certainly.”

I frowned and climbed down as the tyrannosaur chattered on, slathering ink across some idiot’s hairy navel.

My frown deepened.

I still did not have my answer.

Read the next chapter.