Dinosaur Boy (3 page)

At the end of the day, just before the final bell, I received a note that I was wanted in Principal Mathis's office.

When I entered the administration building, I shivered at the excessive air-conditioning. And the first person I saw was Ms. Helen.

I'm not sure what Ms. Helen's actual job was. She never seemed busy. But every time I walked into the administrative office, there she was. Wearing a sleeveless top and sitting perfectly still right beneath the air-conditioner vent. The only things on her desk were a huge fan, which was always aimed directly at her face, and a small model solar system. And Ms. Helen couldn't have known that much about space, because her model was totally out of date; there were nine planets in it.

Nobody had ever seen her get up from her desk. Not even to go to the bathroom.

Ms. Helen nodded gravely at me as I passed her. She didn't seem alarmed that a half-dinosaur had just walked into the office. She must have known I was coming.

Principal Mathis met me at the door of the office that, until this summer, had belonged to Principal Kline. I was still a little bit confused about what had happened to him. The school had sent around a letter telling us that he had won the Oregon Lottery and retired. I had always liked Principal Kline, and I had thought he liked us too, but the letter had also said that the good-bye note he had left behind had been “inappropriate to share with the students.”

Even in her extremely tall shoes and with her very poofy hair, Principal Mathis was only about an inch or two taller than me. I didn't have to crane my neck to look up at her, the way I did with most adults.

Which was a good thing. Because now that I had bony plates sticking out of my neck, craning of any kind was really out of the question.

“Hello, Sawyer,” Principal Mathis said, shaking my hand and giving me a smile that showed all of her teeth. She kept a grip on my hand and pulled on my arm so that I did a half turn, allowing her to look at me from the side.

“My, my,” she admired. “What lovely plates.”

“They're very rare, you know,” said a familiar voice from inside the office.

Principal Mathis stepped to one side, and my mom smiled at me from one of the two chairs in front of a large desk.

“Less than 0.008 percent of the population has the dinosaur gene,” my mom added, giving me a small wave.

“Yes, I know,” Principal Mathis said, gesturing for me to enter and take the empty seat next to my mom, as she walked to the other side of the desk and sat down in a large swivel chair. “And only 0.15 percent of that number actually manifests any external dinosaur traits. We at Jack James Elementary School consider ourselves
extremely
lucky to be one of the only schools in the country to have such an extraordinary student among us.”

My mother beamed.

I stared hard at the nameplate on Principal Mathis's desk and tried not to die.

“That being said,” Principal Mathis said, clearing her throat as she sat forward in her chair. “We can't pretend, Mrs. Bronson, that the change in Sawyer's appearance has gone unnoticed among his peers.”

“Of course not,” my mother agreed.

“I was hoping to avoid having this meeting, but given the events of earlier today, I thought we should all take a moment to discuss the situation.”

“I agree,” my mom said gravely. I got the feeling that Principal Mathis had already told her all about what had happened in the computer lab. I wondered if she had also told her about the Butt Brain chant. Suddenly, I felt very small in my chair.

“I think we can expect that Sawyer will continue to attract a great deal of attention from the other students. At least until everybody gets used to it,” Principal Mathis continued, pushing her thick glasses farther up her nose. “And not all of the attention will be positive.”

My mother waved off the principal's concern with a flick of her hand and gave a resigned laugh.

“Boys will be boys.”

Principal Mathis's eyes narrowed.

“Not at this school, Mrs. Bronson.”

She turned to me. The lenses in her glasses were so thick they made her eyes look huge. That, along with her weirdly poofy hair, made me think of a not-so-nice nickname for her: Mathis the Mantis.

“Sawyer,” she began. She smiled a little bit, which just made her look even more bug-like. “This school has always had a zero tolerance policy regarding bullying. But until now, it has been enforced…well, let's just say sporadically. I intend to change that. As an educator, a safe and cruelty-free learning environment is my top priority. Therefore, any student who harasses, belittles, or threatens another student will be removed from his or her classroom and expelled. No warnings. No second chances. No exceptions. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I mumbled.

“I can't always expect to catch a bully in the act, so I'm going to need your help. If
any
student
,
anywhere
,
at any time
gives you trouble, I want you to come straight to me. And I will deal with the problem immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said again. Even though I knew that I would never, ever rat out one of my classmates. I wasn't stupid. Not being a tattletale was like Rule Number One of elementary school.

Principal Mathis's big bug eyes held mine for a long moment, as though she knew what I was thinking.

Finally, she nodded.

“Wonderful. I'm glad we understand one another.”

She turned back to my mother.

“Well, that's all for today. I certainly thank you both for coming in.”

“Of course.” My mother stood and shook Principal Mathis's hand again. “I'm so happy to know that you'll be looking out for Sawyer.”

“It is my privilege,” Principal Mathis assured her, walking my mother to the door and showing us both out.

I was less than a foot away from her office when Principal Mathis called after me.

“Sawyer?”

I turned around.

She nodded to the tennis balls on the tips of my spikes and smiled.

“A nice touch, those.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed again.

“Sharp objects that can be used as weapons are prohibited under the school's code of conduct. See that you keep the tennis balls on during school hours.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

The next morning, the desk next to mine was empty. Parker's things had been removed, and the whole thing had been cleaned out and scrubbed. With bleach, from the smell of things.

I guess Principal Mathis had been serious about that zero tolerance policy thing.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Had Parker actually been expelled? Because of me? I wondered if that would make things better or worse.

Wednesday morning was pretty quiet. Allan didn't say a single word to me. Nobody else made fun of me, or sang any songs, or recited any stupid dinosaur facts where I could hear them. The four periods before lunch went by so smoothly that I started to wonder if maybe Principal Mathis was a genius. And maybe Parker's empty seat was serving as a warning to Allan and the others to lay off me, or else.

Then came lunch.

My mom had sent me to school with a large plastic bowl full of salad greens, mandarin oranges, and sliced-up avocado. I was so hungry that I dug right in and gulped down several mouthfuls before I felt the first, sickening
crunch
between my teeth.

Crunch? There wasn't supposed to be anything crunchy in my salad.

Whatever it was, it was stuck between my teeth. I picked it out and examined it. Elliot leaned over to take a look as well.

My stomach lurched when I saw that it had wings, tiny legs, antennae, and an oval-shaped body that I had almost bitten in half.

“Ew! Is that a cricket?” Elliot asked, making a face.

Instead of answering, I gingerly prodded my salad with my fork. I moved aside a couple of pieces of avocado and found more crickets, at least a dozen of them, crawling around the lettuce leaves.

“How did a cricket get into your lunch?” Elliot exclaimed, then paused to double-check that his sandwich was insect-free.

I wondered the same thing, until I remembered that Allan had a pet lizard.

A pet lizard that probably ate crickets.

Elliot gave me the apple from his lunch, but I was still hungry for the rest of the day.

Thursday was even worse. Someone hung a sign that said “AND DINOSAURS” on the door to the girls' bathroom, right underneath the stick figure of the girl. After lunch, another someone tripped me and I fell so hard that one of my plates almost bent in half. And I don't even know when someone attached a pair of pink underwear to one of my tail spikes, because I didn't know they were there until Elliot stopped me in the hallway and ripped them off.

On Friday, the janitor had to bring in a new desk for me, because someone had smeared maple syrup all over my old one, let it dry, and then scratched “BEWARE OF TAR PIT” into it. And that afternoon, a group of kids wearing T. rex masks and carrying water guns followed me home from school. I recognized Allan's enormous head behind one of the masks, and I'm pretty sure Cici was there too. I ran the last three blocks to my house, dragging my sopping wet tail along behind me and wishing I had never even
heard
of fifth grade.

• • •

When I finally got home, I ran inside and slammed the door to my house as hard as I could. I half-hoped it would make one of those little rectangle panes of glass in it shatter, but it didn't. It just made the wall shake a little.

Apparently, I didn't get to have super-stegosaurus strength. Only the stupid plates and the tail. Just my luck.

“Hello, dear,” came my mom's voice from the kitchen. “How was school?”

I stomped upstairs without answering her. Hadn't she heard the slam?

I threw myself into bed, not carrying that I was all wet. I curled up on my side with my legs pulled underneath me and my tail curled around my front. It was the only position that was remotely comfortable. I usually slept like this, with pillows wedged on either side of me to hold me in place. I had read somewhere that
Stegosauruses
had probably slept standing up. But that didn't sound comfortable at all. And anyway, those were
real
Stegosauruses
. Not hybrid freak dinosaurs, like me.

Fanny, who had been sleeping on the other side of my bed, woke up and started wagging her tail at the sight of me. She shimmied her little brown and white self over so that she could rest her head on my damp leg and continue her nap.

At least
she
didn't care what I looked like. Not now that she had gotten used to me. A big part of me wanted to pet her and tell her all of my problems, the way I had when I was little. But a bigger part of me was not in the mood to cuddle.

Besides, she was probably only snuggling up to me so she could get a chance to steal another one of my tennis balls.

I spotted my laptop on the floor. I reached down to get it, dumping Fanny off me as I did. She whined, quickly righted herself, and then headed back to her original nap spot.

I winced as she scrambled over my tail. The underside was all scraped up and raw from being dragged around all day. The asphalt of the school playground, to say nothing of the sidewalks on my way home, were a lot rougher than the smooth wooden floors at the cabin. Or the carpet in our house. Something a
real
stegosaurus would never have to worry about.

I opened a search engine on the computer just as I smelled my mom come up the stairs. Well, not my mom, precisely, but the fruit salad she was carrying. My tail twitched with excitement at the promise of food.

Fanny opened one eye and watched my tail suspiciously.

My mom opened my door without knocking, holding the bowl of fruit in front of her like a peace offering.

“So, today wasn't any better?” she asked.

I shook my head, not taking my eyes off the computer.

Mom set the bowl of fruit beside me. Still not looking up from the screen, I grabbed a handful of chopped-up apples and stuffed them into my mouth.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I swallowed.

“Looking up how to make it go away,” I said, angling the computer so she could see the search results for “dinosaur gene cure.”

Mom sat on the edge of my bed.

“Sweetie,” she said gently. “There is no cure.”

I grabbed another handful of fruit.

“There
has
to be something,” I muttered.

“There isn't,” she said. And she sounded so sure that I looked up at her questioningly. I had a sinking feeling.

“You've already checked, haven't you?” I asked.

Mom nodded, looking a teeny bit embarrassed.

“Back at the beginning of the summer when this first started, your father and I looked into it. Just to see what our options were. And it didn't take us long to figure out that there were no options.”

“That's not true,” I said. “What about surgery? Can't I just get all of this stuff cut off?”

“No,” my mom said. “Species-reassignment surgery is unethical. Any doctor who performs it would lose their medical license.”

“What about the lab that created the stupid gene in the first place?” I pressed her. “Can't they figure out a way to turn it off ?”

“Gene therapy for dinosaur hybrid DNA is still in the testing stages,” mom informed me. “They won't reach the human trial stage for at least another five years.”

Five years. I'd be in high school by then.

I grabbed another handful of fruit, and Mom put her hand on my shoulder.

“There is no cure, Sawyer, because what you have is not a disease. It's simply who you are.”

“No.” I shook her hand off, determined not to let her last sentence settle into my brain. “That can't be right. It can't be!”

“Sawyer—” Mom began.

“
I
HATE
IT!”
I exploded, nearly knocking the computer off my lap. “
I. HATE. IT
.”

I picked up my tail by one of the tennis-balled spikes and threw it off the front of my bed. As though I could make it go away that easily. As though it wasn't attached to me. The sore underside of my tail screamed with pain, but I ignored it. “This can't be who I am! I'm not a f-f-f-reak!”

My chin wobbled and my eyes filled with tears. All the humiliation of the entire week came down on me at once. The stupid movie. Butt Brain. The crickets. The underwear. And the staring. All week long, there had been the staring. A million questions behind a million staring eyes. But nobody actually talked to me (except Elliot). They'd all rather talk
about
me. Like I wasn't even a person anymore.

My mom set down the fruit bowl, moved my computer out of the way, and tried to put her arms around me. But I pushed her away and moved to the other side of the bed, over by Fanny.

“I don't want to go back to school,” I said, wiping my eyes.

“You have to go to school,” Mom said quietly. “It's the law.”

“So? Homeschool me!”

“I work, Sawyer,” she reminded me. “And so does your father. You'd be alone in the house all day.”

“Fine.” Actually, that sounded pretty great. “I'll teach myself! Just get me some books or something.”

Mom shook her head.

“Our only option is to learn to live with it,” she said, standing up. “I'm sorry the first week was hard. But it's bound to get better. You're going to figure this out, Sawyer.”

“Sure,” I said sarcastically.

I leaned over, grabbed the bowl, and started stuffing fruit into my mouth with both hands.

Mom walked to the door and paused in the doorframe to look over her shoulder at me.

“At least it isn't boring,” she tried. “Never a—”

“If you say, ‘never a dull moment,' I will attack you with my tail spikes,” I growled.

My mom pursed her lips. But she knew I didn't mean it.

I didn't. Not really.

“For what it's worth, Sawyer,” she said, “you've been part dinosaur since the beginning of the summer, but you never asked me about a cure until today. Do you think this might have more to do with how your classmates feel about it than with how you do? Maybe it's good you can't make any hasty decisions about surgery or gene therapy that you might regret one day. Maybe it's good that you have some time to get used to it.”

I didn't answer her.

Mom sighed.

“How about your grandfather? Maybe it would be helpful for you to talk with someone else who has gone through this? He hasn't responded to any of my messages—you know how he is—but you could try emailing him. He still works for that lab, so maybe he has more information than I do.”

I didn't say anything. I just chewed, swallowed, chewed, swallowed, chewed, and swallowed until my mom left and there was no more fruit.

Get
used
to
it?

Was she kidding?

She
could get used to it.
I
was going to find a cure.

I retrieved my computer and opened up my email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dear Grandpa,

This is Sawyer, your grandson. I don't know if Mom told you, but I'm part dinosaur now. And I need to know how not to be.

Please help me. I don't mean any offense. I know you're part stegosaurus too. But you didn't become part dinosaur until you were an adult. It's much harder to do it when you're a kid. School is hard enough.

I really need to find a cure. And you're the only person I can think to ask. Please say you can help me!

Love,

Sawyer

P.S. The underside of my tail is getting scraped up from being dragged around on the ground all day. Does that happen to you too? What do you do about it?