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By me, with art by the great Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

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.

Read the next chapter.

By me, with fine art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

As I didn’t pipe up anything right away, Warbell nodded and said, “You may get dressed and ready for your day. We have some time. I would appreciate the opportunity to talk over my list when you have finished your breakfast.”

With that, Warbell turned back to the tree and tore off several more leaves with his lips, then gummed them awkwardly for a few minutes before trying to swallow them. This was followed by violent coughing as the dumb lizard choked on the leaves, but he straightened up again after regaining his composure and then ripped several more leaves off the tree.

I went back inside and shut the door, and I was thinking hard as I went through my morning ablutions. I found I had little appetite for breakfast, so as I chewed on a lone piece of toast, I made a few phone calls and printed out a few documents from my computer. I then folded up the collected pages, straightened out my shirt, checked my hair one last time, and stepped outside again.

Warbell was still standing next to the tree. A morning jogger was busy taking a selfie with him, for which Warbell gave a close-mouthed smile. I walked over to Warbell, shooing away the jogger with my eyes. The man made a rude gesture towards me and took off.

“Warbell,” I said. “I really don’t know what kind of a job a tyrannosaurus rex can do in this town. But there are a few things you should know about job hunting in the United States. Number one, and this is just a basic one: It helps to have a nice smile. I don’t know if you can, but if you are able, it’s a good idea to put your teeth back in. The, err, plant-eating teeth.”

I was looking down as I spoke, though I sensed a change in Warbell’s posture as he stood beside me.

“Also,” I continued. “Usually for most jobs you need to have some kind of resume. I printed out mine so you could take a look at it. I have it here. A resume lists any previous jobs you have had, or other experiences or education or certificates that would make you qualified for the kinds of jobs you are interested in. If you, I don’t know, have some job experiences in the dinosaur world from which you came, it would be a good idea to write them in a resume format for your job search. It’s a little difficult to explain all the things that go into a resume, and I don’t have time to give you guidance in that this morning, but I called in to city hall and asked them to send someone over to help you put something together.”

I took a breath.

“Really, it also helps to wear a nice shirt and a tie, too, but I don’t think we have any in your size,” I said, and looked up.

Warbell was looking down at me, and his teeth were back, shining in the early morning sun.

“It’s easier to talk with teeth,” he said.

Read the next chapter.

By me, with art by the great Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

I received a tongue lashing that evening from Mayor Pilky over the phone, but a few excuses about my electric work at the library placated her a little—but only after I listened to Pilky preach about the importance of “our dinosaur king” to the future of our fine city and his standing as the reigning king and a litany of other reasons why I need to take my role more seriously. And I listened and I nodded and I said “yes, yes” and eventually I hung up and went to bed in a fog of frustration.

I didn’t sleep well that night. The eggs from beneath the house rolled through my dreams. The idea of dinosaurs secretly visiting the human world “all the time” introduced a million monster movie scenarios in my head, as did the idea of the “Kingdom of Eternity” (or whatever it’s called). Where was this kingdom? In the center of the earth? Somewhere in South America? On a mysterious island with a giant ape? In an inexplicably tropical land hidden near the South Pole? On the moon? In North Korea? Where?

And of course Warbell with those teeth, those grinning killer teeth. It made me weak at the knees just thinking about them.

I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom. I slept in a guest room in the basement that I hoped Warbell didn’t know about. Or at least I tried to sleep. Mostly I tossed and turned all night long.

The next morning I awoke to my alarm—not to the sound of a dinosaur at my window. It was six am. I bumbled blearily out of bed, but images of Warbell assaulting the neighborhood drove me to dress quickly and dash upstairs and out my front door.

“Good morning, Walter,” said Warbell.

The tyrannosaurus was standing placidly next to the large oak in my front yard, and was lipping the leaves.

It took me a while to realize just what was going on, and when I did realize, I did a double-take. Warbell was lipping the leaves because he had no teeth at all!

“Now I’ve made a list,” said Warbell with a strange lisp, “A list of all the companies in town. I have been working through said list, trying to find the sorts of jobs which I think I will be able to use to get to know my subjects most effectively. I am curious to talk over the options with you before you must go and take care of your electrician’s work.”

I was quiet long enough that Warbell turned from his lipping of the leaves to look at me.

“Well? If you are worried about my breakfast, I have already eaten. Today, leaves. Mostly maple. Cheap.”

“What happened to your teeth?” I asked.

“I removed them,” Warbell said. “You are my subject, and my teeth obviously make you very uncomfortable. Not just you, either. There were others at the park yesterday who were very frightened to see my teeth.”

“But so what?” I asked.

Warbell drew himself up to his full height.

“So it is the duty of a true king to take into account the needs of his subjects,” he said. “And if those subjects are scared of my teeth, a king should be glad to make the sacrifice of a few ivories.”

Read the next chapter.

By me, with beautiful art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

By that point in the evening I was pretty tired, but that didn’t stop a huge barrage of questions to dance and surge through my mind like a murder of crows released in a cramped elevator. The thoughts that emerged were uncomfortable, they were scary, they were loud, and they felt like they were out of a horror movie.

“I shouldn’t talk about the kingdom from which I came,” Warbell said. “I left that place. I am actually a kind of defector, in a way. I am not supposed to be here. I chose to come for my own reasons, and not out of loyalty to… well, the name of our land also is not in English, but it translates to something like the Kingdom of all Eternity and Perfection of our People and the Future. Dinosaurs are fond of long names for things sometimes.”

“How do I know that the dinosaurs aren’t going to try to conquer all of humankind and reign again or something?” I asked. “What do you mean they have always visited? You mean like Nessie?”

Warbell worked his mouth into a grumbly frown, then nimbly extracted the garage remote from his pants and punched the “open” button by slapping it with his other hand. He then returned the remote to his pants and looked back up at me.

“Dinosaurs are not interested in living here, Walter,” he said. “Most don’t want to visit. Not really. They are scared to come because it’s dangerous, even with our technology. When we visit, most try to leave as soon as they can. Nessie… is a famous rebel. But I am not going to stand outside in the open and discuss the inner workings and the secrets of where I have come from with a cowering flea on a rooftop. I suggest you gather your courage and answer the phone ringing in your house. Maybe it is your employer. She was pretty disappointed in you because you did not meet with me tonight for our scheduled evening rendezvous. When you do reach a point in which you feel like fulfilling your duties as my official ambassador, please take note that I have cancelled all appointments for tomorrow in order to more actively investigate job opportunities in Final Pumpkin. Good night.”

Warbell then turned away and ducked into the garage. I felt the roof shake as his spine bumped up against the doorframe and there was a terrible grinding noise as the dinosaur’s thick hide raked against the wood. Moments later I heard the garage door rumbling closed. I waited around nervously until the door was all the way down, wondering who uses landlines to call anymore and grumbling about luddite mayors, but also feeling a little nervous about my position as dino-ambassador. I didn’t want to lose my job. I still wanted to keep an eye on Warbell to make sure he didn’t swallow everyone in town.

Well, maybe Charlie would be okay. Warbell could eat Charlie. I still didn’t have my truck back, after all.

I slid a ladder down off the roof, then clambered down, painfully aware of each clanking footstep, then took down the ladder and started for the garage to put it away. I stopped when I remembered I had a dinosaur living in my garage that I didn’t really want to talk with right at that moment. I just dropped the ladder on the lawn and opened my front door, my mind a cloud of frustration that suddenly cleared when I noticed something.

When I looked closer at my front door, I noticed there were several small patches in the wood that were in the same strange condition that had affected the wood at the library. The same strange web-like disintegrated areas, in three small patches that broke and fell away when I touched them.

I gritted my teeth, shrugged my shoulders and went inside. I would have to keep my eyes on that. That sort of weird phenomenon had been going on for years all over the city, but sometimes it could be really dangerous, and it could seemingly affect any kind of material—not just the wood. Not just houses. Furniture and machines and more.

Nobody knew what caused it, nor the limits of the damage it might eventually wreak. But what could we do but keep an eye on it for now?

By me, with art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

Everyone at the park was pretty surprised when Warbell showed off his new, sleeker, more aerodynamic teeth. As usual there was a crowd. A number of people just wanted to take pictures or record the spectacle of a dinosaur eating an enormous beef lunch. Many in that crowd, when they saw Warbell’s killer bananas, shrieked and ran. However, I also heard a chorus of oohs, ahhs, and someone whispered “that’s so cool.”

I didn’t stick around long to chat with the locals or to listen to the barrage of questions (I heard somebody ask, “What is it like to eat a triceratops with THOSE teeth?”). I had more pressing issues at hand. For one, I realized in the hubbub of the day I had ripped my jeans something good. Thus very discreetly I drove home and left the gawkers and the rubberneckers behind.

I didn’t see Warbell for the rest of the day. Though I was supposed to meet him for supper (Warbell wanted to try to eat like a human, even though he said dinosaurs generally do not have three meals a day), I conveniently forgot and instead actively worked on the library wiring and passively worked on my tan. If roofers and construction workers can sometimes work shirtless, I have always figured that I could, too—especially as I had been so consumed with taking care of Warbell that I had forgotten to do the laundry all week.

When Warbell came back to the house, I was sitting on the roof watching movies on my cell phone. It was already past dark. We looked at each other, and I scooched a few more feet away from the edge.

“What are you doing on the roof?” asked Warbell.

I was relieved to see that his teeth had returned to abnormal and he no longer appeared to have a set of murder-tools in his mouth.

“Since when do dinosaurs have dentists?” I asked. “I want you to explain what you are.”

“Everyone was asking questions about my teeth today,” Warbell sighed. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t it obvious that I had had some work done on my teeth from the start?”

“Yes, but nothing made sense about you from the start!” I said. “Why can you just change your teeth like that? Why can you talk? Did you really sleep for millions of years?”

“I told you, I don’t know how long I slept,” Warbell said. “Time doesn’t have the same meaning for me. And I am wearing pants. Was that not a clue for you that there was a greater dinosaur civilization? Of course dinosaurs also have dentists. But I left that place. I am living here now, because Final Pumpkin is my home and my land.”

“That place?” I about yelled. I was standing on the roof now, holding my cell phone as if I was going to throw it at the big beast standing before me. “Where did you come from? Are the dinosaurs going to invade?”

“No, they are not going to invade,” Warbell said. “But they visit and have visited many times.”

Read the next chapter.

By me, with art by Sam Messerly.

Click here to read from the beginning.

Well, what do you think my response was? That’s right, I floored it. I pedaled as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast with all my stuff crammed together on my bike. I dreamed of flying all the way to Alaska and hiding in an igloo far away from every dinosaur in the world (or at least the one standing next to me at that moment).

As I was frantically pedaling down the street at an embarrassingly slow speed, Warbell matched my pace with a nonchalant stride and noticed that something was wrong.

“What’s your problem?” Warbell asked. “Yikes, I need to be careful with my tongue. It’s tricky speaking in English with these teeth.”

And it was true, Warbell’s pronunciation changed markedly just with the introduction of a different and more lethal set of dentures. And it was in that moment I realized that Warbell wasn’t chomping my body in half in a frenzy of blood and guts and carnivorous slobbering glee.

And since I hadn’t lost my guts yet, I gathered my guts up and asked a question. Albeit in a quivering, quavering little girl whimpering whine.

“Your, your, your teeth,” I said. Well, it was almost a question.

“Yes,” said the tyrannosaurus rex carefully. “These are the teeth I use when eating meat. You have a fork and a spoon, I have two sets of teeth that I can switch between. Are you ready to go to the park, because it’s in a different direction.”

“You, you, you could’ve eaten me! Bitten me in half! Chomped me to hamburger hash!” I blathered in a chunky spew of vocabulary stew.

“You could bite off your index finger if you really wanted to,” Warbell sniffed. “I am not in the least bit interested in eating you. That cow, on the other hand, sounds fantastic, so let’s go. My stomach is growling more than your neighbor’s dog every time I pass the house.”

“But how!” I said. “Your teeth, I mean!”

Warbell looked at me with a dino-expression of utter exasperation.

“We dinosaurs take our dental work very seriously,” he said. “You have to when you possess teeth the size of bananas. Shall we go?”

On the way to the park, with Warbell jogging placidly beside my bike, images of dinosaur dentists pranced and frolicked and pronounced “Say ahhhhh” in my mind. People say dentists are scary. They just got a lot scarier. And I don’t think they would have to ask me to say “ahhhhh”. I’d already be screaming in that dentist chair.

“I am working on a list of jobs I might be able to do,” said Warbell. “I would appreciate your opinion. Especially for a job in which I could converse with a wide variety of people.”

“Oh,”I said. “Talking to people.”

“What do you think about a policeman?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I would like to call the police right now.”

“I mean as a job for me,” said Warbell. “As a member of the police, I could talk to many people whether they wanted to talk to me or not. Why do you want to call the police? And isn’t the park over that way?”

I had missed my turn because I was thinking too much about calling the police and wondering about the utter terror of a dinosaur dentist and the horror of a banana-sized root canal. The way to the park felt like the longest single bike ride in my life.

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