Nicholas doesn't remember the chocolate winds. But I remember them. I remember that one too. We came back to our block and before we got to the front hall we heard shouting and a door slamming. Mary Economou ran down the stairs. She shouted "I hate you" in a new voice that sounded like scraping a tin roof. She didn't mean me, though. She didn't mean Dad, either. She hated someone upstairs. I knew Bill Economou would tell me everything the next day so we let her run out into the street and I went to bed really happy and sleepy.
I don't think anyone really knows for sure exactly why the dinosaurs disappeared. I know I don't. The books shirk it a bit really. It seems that about sixty-five million years ago they have just disappeared. I was thinking of maybe being the first dinosaur scientist to know for sure what happened.
It's hard to know where to start trying to figure out something like that. You would probably have to work out a whole new code or way of thinking, maybe something combining maths and the dictionary. Between maths and the dictionary, you've pretty much got it all covered. I was thinking about the dictionary a fair bit. I think there's a trick to it that no one every tells you. When you look up a word, like dinosaur, you get "Reptile (Freq. huge) of Mezozoic era." Where does that get you? More words. So you look them up and you get more words. Well, sooner or later you have to be lucky enough to already know at least one of the words you've looked up or you'll never understand anything. No one ever says anything about this.
One theory says the dinosaurs disappeared because of a great catastrophe which affected the whole world. Perhaps they all choked from dust in their throats as the earth passed through a swarm of comets or from bits of rock and sand from an exploding star. Some people think the earth might have been hit by a giant meteorite. Sometimes I think that might've happened. It's hard to explain these things. A great catastrophe.
I had nearly finished the writing part of my project. Even though it was his idea, Dad kept forgetting to bring home the shoeboxes he'd promised me. I asked him every day and every day he forgot. I had to change my plans. Dad wasn't cooperating. It was about this time that Mrs. Nesbitt and I started having discipline problems. I had told her that she was really going to like my dinosaur project and that she might even think of gold stars when she saw it. (She keeps them in a tin in her desk drawer.) But I had also told her that it was going to be a bit late. She asked me why. I didn't want to tell her. I told her that I couldn't say because it would spoil the surprise. I didn't want to tell her about Dad's box idea. She said that she was already surprised that my project was late. I asked her if she would hang on. She gave me three days. (Bill Economou had asked for three more days, too, and he'd already handed his in. It was on "Fish of the Sea.")
I knew I would just have to change my plan. I tried to explain it all to Dad but I could tell he wasn't listening. He was all silent. He'd been that way for a while. Mum was silent too. She only said what she had to say, about things like washing or peas. On the third day I came to school with my project, but it was different now. I had two sheets of paper with writing about dinosaurs from the books and a big model of a megalosaurus, a two-legged meat-eater. Since the writing was just stuff, all my hopes for the gold pretty much rested on the model megalosaurus. I had taken two wire coat hangers and threaded them through seventeen beer cans Dad had. (They were empty, so I didn't even ask for them.) The can at the head was flattened for a snout and the whole thing could bend so I could show how dinosaurs had walked. (I kept the movement part of the first plan.)
Bill Economou loved it. Mrs. Nesbitt was angry. I was surprised. She was angry in front of the whole class. She asked if I had needed the extra three days to get enough beer cans. The class laughed when she said that. She looked at them and said that she was disappointed with my project. Then she went down the aisles between the desks asking to see other projects. She'd already seen all of them three days before. She was just doing this to make me feel bad. It worked and I felt bad, really sick. I thought maybe I'd caught an epidemic, a throat one.
At lunchtime I went home without asking. I just wanted to get away from school for a while. Mum had given me a pear in my lunch. I'd told her not to but she didn't listen and put it in my bag anyway. When I got to the front door, I felt inside my bag for the door key. I felt the pear all squashed up. The megalosaurus must have done it. I really wanted to be home with a peanut butter sandwich, some milk and maybe some TV. I opened the door and Dad was there. This was my third surprise in half a day if you count the pear. He was watching TV on the couch.
Dad stayed home in the days now and looked after Nicholas. It's what his work had told him to do. He told me that they'd asked him if he could stay home with Nicholas for a while and not make shoes. That's all he said and then he went back to the TV show about hospitals. I wanted to know who was making the shoes now but didn't ask. I had my sandwich and milk. Then I started to scrape the pear off the inside of my bag. Dad forgot to ask why I was home at lunchtime.
After that, everything seemed different. Mum and Dad would be all quiet when I was in the room with them, but then they'd shout when I'd gone. I couldn't hear the Economous. Dad made plenty of cans but I didn't need them. Things were different at school too. It was like Mrs. Nesbitt was always thinking about my Megalosaurus. I just couldn't get back in her goo books and I got sick of trying. Bill Economou got a silver star for "Fish of the Sea." He kept showing that to me.
I suppose that's why I did it. It all happened so fast like it wasn't really me and I got caught. Mrs. Nesbitt caught me at her desk, in her gold-star tin. She shouted. It hung in the air and made my sweat jump. Everyone looked. She held my fingers out and showed the class. There were gold stars on my fingers. My face got very hot. She started writing a note to Mum. It was about me. I didn't let her finish it. I left. I ran all the way home again. It still wasn't me, though, not really. My bad was still on the pegs.
The front door wasn't locked and I pushed it open. Dad was in the lounge room. His shirt was off and he was puffed like I was, out of breath. He said he'd just been for a run. Mary Economou was there too. Her face was red and her hair was messy. I was confused. I stood there looking at them Then I cried, first in yelps. I felt really strange. She'd never seen me cry before.
Dad took my face and pressed it into his chest. He put his fingers in my hair. He told me nothing was wrong and that he and Mary Economou had just been for a run. He kept telling me not to be upset. He asked me to tell him that nothing was wrong. He told me there was nothing wrong with going for a run. Then he squeezed me so hard it hurt. He smelled of sweat. Then he cried and told me nothing was wrong. His chest moved up and down. It slapped me. I couldn't see anything past his chest. He told me he was sorry.
Two days later I came home from school and Mum was there, not Dad. He had gone. He wasn't coming back for a while. They'd swapped again. Mum would be home with Nicholas, and Dad had gone to look for another shoe factory where he could make shoes again. I asked her where he was. She said he was looking for work in a level playing field. I asked her where that was and if I could go there. She said I would never find it. Bill Economou had borrowed an atlas from the library for "Fish of the Sea" and went to the map of Australia to look for Level Playing Field. We couldn't find it. Bill Economou said she must have meant the Souther Tablelands. When I asked her, she said yes, that was it. I tried to imagine Dad living on a huge flat table, making shoes and writing me letters. She said we would get letters.
If the Earth was hit by a giant meteorite it would've made so much dust that the sunlight wouldn't have been able to get through and the dinosaur food chain would've been wrecked. Without the sunlight they would've frozen too. Even the biggest of them would've needed protection from the cold. Everyone does. It's just theory. No one know for sure about the meteorite. If you don't know something for sure, you might as well just dream it.
Bill Economou dreams all the time. He dreamed Dad was outside one night, outside our flats in the wind doing nothing; leaning against the wall of the empty chocolate factory, staring at our flats. At first, he tried to tell me he actually saw it. Mum said there aren't too many letter boxes at the Southern Playing Field.
Nicholas dreams but he doesn't remember. When we shared the same room I could hear some of his dreams. I told him I heard them all. I've got our room to myself now. He's been sleeping in Mum's bed since he started wetting his bed again. He says he doesn't wet the bed. He says it's mum. I wanted to check this out because he lies much more than me now. I went in and checked one night when they were both asleep. I wasn't sure about him, but Mum's side of the bed was wet. Her pillow. Nothing surprises me much anymore, not really. It's because I'm growing up, I suppose. That's my theory.
I don't think anyone really knows for sure exactly why the dinosaurs disappeared. I know I don't. The books shirk it a bit really. It seems that about sixty-five million years ago they have just disappeared. I was thinking of maybe being the first dinosaur scientist to know for sure what happened.
It's hard to know where to start trying to figure out something like that. You would probably have to work out a whole new code or way of thinking, maybe something combining maths and the dictionary. Between maths and the dictionary, you've pretty much got it all covered. I was thinking about the dictionary a fair bit. I think there's a trick to it that no one every tells you. When you look up a word, like dinosaur, you get "Reptile (Freq. huge) of Mezozoic era." Where does that get you? More words. So you look them up and you get more words. Well, sooner or later you have to be lucky enough to already know at least one of the words you've looked up or you'll never understand anything. No one ever says anything about this.
One theory says the dinosaurs disappeared because of a great catastrophe which affected the whole world. Perhaps they all choked from dust in their throats as the earth passed through a swarm of comets or from bits of rock and sand from an exploding star. Some people think the earth might have been hit by a giant meteorite. Sometimes I think that might've happened. It's hard to explain these things. A great catastrophe.
I had nearly finished the writing part of my project. Even though it was his idea, Dad kept forgetting to bring home the shoeboxes he'd promised me. I asked him every day and every day he forgot. I had to change my plans. Dad wasn't cooperating. It was about this time that Mrs. Nesbitt and I started having discipline problems. I had told her that she was really going to like my dinosaur project and that she might even think of gold stars when she saw it. (She keeps them in a tin in her desk drawer.) But I had also told her that it was going to be a bit late. She asked me why. I didn't want to tell her. I told her that I couldn't say because it would spoil the surprise. I didn't want to tell her about Dad's box idea. She said that she was already surprised that my project was late. I asked her if she would hang on. She gave me three days. (Bill Economou had asked for three more days, too, and he'd already handed his in. It was on "Fish of the Sea.")
I knew I would just have to change my plan. I tried to explain it all to Dad but I could tell he wasn't listening. He was all silent. He'd been that way for a while. Mum was silent too. She only said what she had to say, about things like washing or peas. On the third day I came to school with my project, but it was different now. I had two sheets of paper with writing about dinosaurs from the books and a big model of a megalosaurus, a two-legged meat-eater. Since the writing was just stuff, all my hopes for the gold pretty much rested on the model megalosaurus. I had taken two wire coat hangers and threaded them through seventeen beer cans Dad had. (They were empty, so I didn't even ask for them.) The can at the head was flattened for a snout and the whole thing could bend so I could show how dinosaurs had walked. (I kept the movement part of the first plan.)
Bill Economou loved it. Mrs. Nesbitt was angry. I was surprised. She was angry in front of the whole class. She asked if I had needed the extra three days to get enough beer cans. The class laughed when she said that. She looked at them and said that she was disappointed with my project. Then she went down the aisles between the desks asking to see other projects. She'd already seen all of them three days before. She was just doing this to make me feel bad. It worked and I felt bad, really sick. I thought maybe I'd caught an epidemic, a throat one.
At lunchtime I went home without asking. I just wanted to get away from school for a while. Mum had given me a pear in my lunch. I'd told her not to but she didn't listen and put it in my bag anyway. When I got to the front door, I felt inside my bag for the door key. I felt the pear all squashed up. The megalosaurus must have done it. I really wanted to be home with a peanut butter sandwich, some milk and maybe some TV. I opened the door and Dad was there. This was my third surprise in half a day if you count the pear. He was watching TV on the couch.
Dad stayed home in the days now and looked after Nicholas. It's what his work had told him to do. He told me that they'd asked him if he could stay home with Nicholas for a while and not make shoes. That's all he said and then he went back to the TV show about hospitals. I wanted to know who was making the shoes now but didn't ask. I had my sandwich and milk. Then I started to scrape the pear off the inside of my bag. Dad forgot to ask why I was home at lunchtime.
After that, everything seemed different. Mum and Dad would be all quiet when I was in the room with them, but then they'd shout when I'd gone. I couldn't hear the Economous. Dad made plenty of cans but I didn't need them. Things were different at school too. It was like Mrs. Nesbitt was always thinking about my Megalosaurus. I just couldn't get back in her goo books and I got sick of trying. Bill Economou got a silver star for "Fish of the Sea." He kept showing that to me.
I suppose that's why I did it. It all happened so fast like it wasn't really me and I got caught. Mrs. Nesbitt caught me at her desk, in her gold-star tin. She shouted. It hung in the air and made my sweat jump. Everyone looked. She held my fingers out and showed the class. There were gold stars on my fingers. My face got very hot. She started writing a note to Mum. It was about me. I didn't let her finish it. I left. I ran all the way home again. It still wasn't me, though, not really. My bad was still on the pegs.
The front door wasn't locked and I pushed it open. Dad was in the lounge room. His shirt was off and he was puffed like I was, out of breath. He said he'd just been for a run. Mary Economou was there too. Her face was red and her hair was messy. I was confused. I stood there looking at them Then I cried, first in yelps. I felt really strange. She'd never seen me cry before.
Dad took my face and pressed it into his chest. He put his fingers in my hair. He told me nothing was wrong and that he and Mary Economou had just been for a run. He kept telling me not to be upset. He asked me to tell him that nothing was wrong. He told me there was nothing wrong with going for a run. Then he squeezed me so hard it hurt. He smelled of sweat. Then he cried and told me nothing was wrong. His chest moved up and down. It slapped me. I couldn't see anything past his chest. He told me he was sorry.
Two days later I came home from school and Mum was there, not Dad. He had gone. He wasn't coming back for a while. They'd swapped again. Mum would be home with Nicholas, and Dad had gone to look for another shoe factory where he could make shoes again. I asked her where he was. She said he was looking for work in a level playing field. I asked her where that was and if I could go there. She said I would never find it. Bill Economou had borrowed an atlas from the library for "Fish of the Sea" and went to the map of Australia to look for Level Playing Field. We couldn't find it. Bill Economou said she must have meant the Souther Tablelands. When I asked her, she said yes, that was it. I tried to imagine Dad living on a huge flat table, making shoes and writing me letters. She said we would get letters.
If the Earth was hit by a giant meteorite it would've made so much dust that the sunlight wouldn't have been able to get through and the dinosaur food chain would've been wrecked. Without the sunlight they would've frozen too. Even the biggest of them would've needed protection from the cold. Everyone does. It's just theory. No one know for sure about the meteorite. If you don't know something for sure, you might as well just dream it.
Bill Economou dreams all the time. He dreamed Dad was outside one night, outside our flats in the wind doing nothing; leaning against the wall of the empty chocolate factory, staring at our flats. At first, he tried to tell me he actually saw it. Mum said there aren't too many letter boxes at the Southern Playing Field.
Nicholas dreams but he doesn't remember. When we shared the same room I could hear some of his dreams. I told him I heard them all. I've got our room to myself now. He's been sleeping in Mum's bed since he started wetting his bed again. He says he doesn't wet the bed. He says it's mum. I wanted to check this out because he lies much more than me now. I went in and checked one night when they were both asleep. I wasn't sure about him, but Mum's side of the bed was wet. Her pillow. Nothing surprises me much anymore, not really. It's because I'm growing up, I suppose. That's my theory.
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