Rex

My sister wanted a dinosaur for her sixth birthday. A T-Rex, to be more specific. I know it sounds a little unlikely, but compare that to these 600 pound gamer dudes nowadays who scratch lottery tickets in their moms basements all day thinking they’ll somehow get richer than Warren Buffett, and it’s really not too impossible. Plus, Molly believed in dinosaurs no matter how hard we tried to convince her they’d kicked the bucket. So who were we to tell her she was wrong?

When Danny and I finally convinced her that the dinos were dead as disco, or as far as the human race knew it, Molly told me she’d be fine with “just a skeleton” instead of an alive T-Rex.

“Just a skeleton.”

Danny and I were eleven at the time and had just started middle school the previous August. And while we’d do a lot for our sister, we didn’t really have the twenty million bucks or whatever it would cost to buy one from a museum. So we weren’t really sure what to do for a while. 

Then in early November, we found something that was possibly even better than a dead dino. Danny and I just gotten home from school and were bored as hell.

“Damnit!” Danny tossed his backpack on the floor of our room and opened a cream soda from the fridge. “I totally bombed the Tuck Everlasting quiz.” 

"You BOMBED it?" I took the last cream soda and opened it. "You've been glued to that book like an old man at a slot machine all week!"

Danny sighed and took a sip. “It wasn’t that I didn’t study, Charlie, it’s just that I ran out of time. Like, you know the character called the man in the yellow suit?”

“Yeah. In the movie Ben Kingsley plays him. And Rory from Gilmore Girls plays Winifred. Oooooh.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “I kept having to write down his name over and over. Even though I had an answer I just kept writing his long ass name. THE MAN IN THE YELLOW SUIT said this. THE MAN IN THE YELLOW SUIT said that. And before I knew it Mrs. Rimm was grabbing my paper off my desk and telling me time was up.”

“Danny, I can show you the way of the genius,” I said.

I took out my Tuck Everlasting paper from my folder, which I still hadn’t cleaned, and pointed. “Look. You see this word here?”

“Who the hell is TMITYS?”

“That’s what you write instead of the man in the yellow suit. TMITYS.”

“TMITYS,” Danny muttered, “you think Mrs. Rimm could let me retake it?”

“You could ask her. But just tell her what happened, the man in the yellow suit screwed you over as much as he did the characters, and that if you retake it you’ll be sure to get an A like you always do.” I took another sip. “Anyway, do you wanna go outside and look for snakes before it gets too dark?”

Danny shrugged. “Sure. But could we not do anything that gets us killed? I need to be alive to get the A on this retake.”

“Danny, you know what they always say, snakes are more scared of you than you are of them. Just like mailmen and cops.”

Danny sighed. “I guess the best thing to do to take my mind off that quiz is a little snakesearching,” he said.

So we went outside to the woods across the back yard, leaves crunching under our shoes. By now the trees were half naked and half covered in orange and yellow leaves that looked like a huge fire.

“Charlie, I don't think there’s gonna be any snakes out here,” Danny said. “It’s already November. Haven’t they all gone to Mexico or something?”

“I don’t think snakes are migratory. I think they just bury themselves.”

“Well then we probably won’t find any.”

“Who knows, Danny. I’m sure it’s boring being in the dirt like that. Hey, you wanna go into those other woods over by the pond?”

“Thats Mr. Grimsley’s land.”

“Yeah, so? It’ll be fun.”

“Fun? Charlie, we don’t wanna get in trouble or anything.”

“We won’t. He’s never outside. I bet he hasn’t even gotten off his toilet in a year.”

“Alright sure,” Danny said, “but if we get caught it’s on you.”

We walked down along the brook in the forest and past the pond in the clearing to where the rusty barbed wired fence divided our woods from Grimsley’s woods. 

I put my shoe in the fence which was damp from the wet leaves and almost slipped. “Damnit!” I muttered.

“Charlie, this is a really bad idea.”

I hopped over the fence. “Danny, it’s not like Grimsley will hold us prisoner or something if he sees us, which I’m sure he won’t. At most he’ll tell us to git the hell off my damn properdy or something.”

Danny slowly crawls over the fence and hops down. “Shit, this is so wrong,” he whispers, chuckling. “You think he’s gonna hear us?”

“Nope, he's probably inside that there house over yonder watchin Nascar and drinkin a twennyfour packa Bud Light.”

We tiptoe through the forest, trying not to be too loud, as the leaves were crunching under our feet like a bear crunching a human skull.

Suddenly, we hear a meow, and look down to see a cute little tabby kitten sitting there by itself.

“Ohh look, a little cat,” I said, doing this Shrek voice.

Danny chuckled and went along with the scene. “LOOK OUT SHREK, HE GOT A PIECE!” he said under his breath.

We both laughed. I knelt down to pet the cat and stroked it’s soft ears. The cat meowed and nuzzled against my arm.

Suddenly I heard a roar, and one that definitely wasn’t from Danny or from the cat. I looked up and in front of me I saw a BLACK BEAR.

A BEAR.

I froze in place, too stunned to even piss myself. Then the bear roared again, twice as loud for twice as long, and I was so freakin terrified that I just swooped up that kitten and ran as fast as I could. 

I could hear it chasing me so believe me I was running at a speed that would make Usain Bolt look like a wizened granny. I crawled jumped over the barbed wire, then ran down past the brook and all the way to our house, still with the thudding of the bear’s footsteps and heavy breathing behind me.

When I got to the front door I opened it and when I turned around to close it I saw it wasn’t the bear behind me, but Danny. And as soon as he got in the room he slammed the door as hard as he could and locked it.

"Holy SHIT," he yelled, shuddering. 

“ITS OK KITTY” I cried out, hugging the cat.

We looked at each other and suddenly laughed, still shuddering like shit, but laughing out of relief that we weren’t dead.

Suddenly Dad bursted in. “What’s all the commotion about? Is there a new Governah?”

“Dad, do not go outside,” Danny said.

“Why? What’s goin on out thehh?”

“Dad, there is a freakin black bear outside.”

“A big one,” I said, “A real, live, morbidly overweight teddybear. We saved this cat from a chubby teddy.” I held up the kitten.

Dad laughed. “A BEHH?”

“Yes. And believe me, it looked ready to kill.”

“THEHH??” Dad pointed towards the woods. “There’s no bears out theh. Thou shall not BEAR false witness, kids. Get it? Aheheheeth.”

“No, Dad I mean... the other woods,” I said. “Like, the one wayyy out there."

"THEHH? Behind the pond? That's Mr. Grimsley's yahd. You shouldn't be goin thehh."

“Yeah ok, we’re sorry,” I told him. “We briefly trespassed his property and potentially saved what looks to be a stranded kitty from a wild beast.” 

“Okay, okay, whatevah. But what if that’s his cat theh?”

“First of all, he’s never mentioned having a cat, and even if it is his kitty, he’s not getting it back.”

“This guy is an irresponsible cat owner,” Danny yelled. “We’re keeping it no matter what.”

Dad sighed. “You really think it was a behh you saw out thehh? And not just one of those sweaty redneck guys that does yahdwork for him sometimes?”

Danny shook his head. “Redneck guys don’t roar like that, Dad.”

“Yeah,” I added, “and they don’t have TEETH like that either.”

“Hmm. That’s a good observation, Charlie. All the dip they chew, they don’t usually have any teeth whatsoevah. Ya know what, I’ll call Mr. Grimsley and ask him about this cat. And maybe warn him not to go outside if he doesn’t wanna get his hitlers chomped off by a wild blackbehh. Ahehehehth.” 

He walked out and a few seconds later Mom came in. 

“Hey guys,” she said, doing her Mom-ish smile, “Dad said one of Mr. Grimsley’s yardworkers scared you or something?”

“No, Mom, it was a BEAR.”

“And a cat,” I held up the kitty, who meowed. 

Mom put her hands over her heart and gasped. “That has to be the cutest little cat I’ve ever seen.” She knelt down and petted up the cat, who meowed. “You think this is Mr. Grimsley’s cat?”

“Well it’s our cat now,” I said. 

Mom smiled and checked the cat. “I think it’s a girl.” 

“It’s a cute cat right?”

“Yes.”

“So can we keep it?”

“Well...” Mom sighed. “How about this: we’ll call Mr. Grimsley, and maybe ask if anyone’s missing a kitten, then maybe put up a flyer or something. And if nobody calls us about a cat by Molly’s birthday, it can be her birthday present.”

“Molly would love a cat!” Danny said. “Plus, unlike a T-Rex it’s not going to eat us alive.”

Mom smiled. “Only one condition. If we keep it," she points, "which is pretty darn unlikely, then I get to name her.”

“What names are you thinking?” Danny asked.

“Well, Molly wants a T-Rex, and if she’s getting a cat instead, I think we should name her Rex. That’s a good name for a cat, don’t you think?”

I grinned and petted the cat. “Okay, Rex. You like that name?”

She meowed. We all laughed.

“I think that’s a yes.” 

“Yeah, I don’t speak cat but I think that kind of meow means yes in cat.”

“I agree,” Danny said. “Molly’s gonna love having a Rex, even if it’s a cat.”

So we kept Rex for those couple weeks- in our room, so Molly wouldn’t have her present spoiled. But Rex liked all of us, and when she finally met Molly on her birthday, Rex loved Molly too.

I think I lowkey expected something horrible to happen after that day- either the bear would come back and chomp us all, or Mr. Grimsley would come and ask for his cat back and we’d have to give her back to him- but none of that happened. The cat stayed with us, and the bear stayed away. And best of all, Molly was so head over heels in love with Rex that she never asked for a dinosaur skeleton again.