She took a deep breath. Her father used to mention that after getting an A on his homework she would be able to read everything, not just textbooks. He’d even let her skip math and science homework as long as they did their own. She set down the book with a little more force than necessary. It was full of equations.
Her father was a genius, but some of his inventions were more advanced than others. She’d heard about one of her classmates who had asked her father to get the chance to be in the new discovery that was to be announced at the end of the year, only to have it expunged from existence when her father saw her handwriting. It was part of the reason her father kept her a little under the radar.
Some of her classmates were on her father’s payroll, but he had better access to their homework, often being able to get their parents to let them study at home late. That was something not even her best math and science teacher could do. She’d also been in hospital more times than she could count. Her mother had mentioned something about it being a “good distraction.” She used that excuse for everything, including skipping school, daily.
She ran her fingers along the dusty pages, feeling the roughness of the old paper. She was doomed to win the reading contest again. She’d won it the first year she’d enrolled in the school. Her mother had been delighted; her father had not been. She remembered his response: “I have no daughter. No daughter who will read a book!”
She looked back at the first page. Arokert. “Raptor. Good. The book is raptor,” she said. “No, Raptor.” That was the scientific name of the dinosaur; a predator of meat and bone. A rip raptor. She wondered if her father knew about raptors. Maybe he could help her with reading this. Well, not really. If he knew, he’d probably call the class “a waste of a golden opportunity.” Still, she was here, so it wasn’t a complete waste. She kept reading.
It was like going to school, only there was no one to teach her anything. She could skip the actual lectures as long as she solved the homework. The result of that was bad enough, but it was worse when her father tried to help her. She couldn’t usually understand his explanation enough to be able to do the homework. Maybe he’d try again.
“Okay,” she said, as she read the next few sentences. “Arokert is a flying dinosaur, which means...” She paused and looked at the drawing on the left. “It looks like it walks on four legs. It’s a carnivore dinosaur,” she added, “so that will eat meat.” She tried to imagine it eating meat, but it was sort of hard. The book didn’t describe how it attacked. Did it attack with its four claws? It didn’t have any other claws on its hands.
So she wrote “no claws” as a reminder. Maybe it tore the meat apart with its teeth. The picture didn’t have teeth, only the picture of the head of the dinosaur. It was a lizard, so it must taste like meat? She didn’t think of it as a lizard. She thought of it as a dinosaur, so it could eat meat. She knew the word “carnivore.”
She’d seen a movie with a 12” dinosaur at the meat-eaters’ zoo. It was almost a good substitute for class, even though she didn’t understand half the words. She couldn’t really feed the meat-eater. It was just a name. She’d put a triceratops there. She didn’t know what a triceratops was, but it looked like a dinosaur with a three-pronged horn on its head, almost like a corndog from her grandparents’ favorite restaurant. She’d put it there to fill up the space. It didn’t really have a meat diet, she realized.
It followed it’s nose to get food, even though it couldn’t smell with such a small nose, so it was a good dinosaur for the space. She didn’t really know about these dinosaurs. She didn’t usually notice them when she visited the meat-eaters’ zoo. She only noticed the two main dinosaurs. She preferred the carnivores. She also didn’t really know what a triceratops was. It seemed like a word she should recognize.
“Eh, the book doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”
Her father often talked about his second invention, but she had no idea what it was. She didn’t think it was anything to do with the book. It was probably more like the meat-eaters’ zoo. That wasn’t anything to do with her. The first invention was related to books, right? He needed more money, she could tell.
She dropped the book and got up, stretching. The book slid off the ground and dropped to the floor. She picked it up and put it back on the table. The cover was dusty; it was old, just like the book. She wondered how long it’d been abandoned in this house. She hadn’t made such a mess, yet. She’d learned to clean up after herself since she was a girl. Her father didn’t like it when she left her own messes. He’d complain about their house.
She turned the page. She hadn’t been able to go very far, she realized. She picked up the book. “Raptor? I’ll make a new choice. Okay, I can tell this is going to be an action novel.” So she could think about the book while she read it. “Raptor, action novel, dinosaurs. I get it. I should be able to read this.”
She put the book down and it looked at her. That reminded her of one of her friends. Ilja was a bluish-green girl. Her mother was always cleaning up after her, and she always seemed to have a rag or potholder in her hand. It made her look like a cleaning fairy. When the girl got a new toy, she’d immediately try to get it to clean the house, with varying degrees of success.
As she started to read the next sentence, she heard an engine. She went to the window to the backyard. “It’s six already,” she said. “Oh, no. I’m ten minutes late!” She ran down the stairs and out the door. She ran down the street, hearing the engine fighting to go. “I can do this,” she reminded herself. “I’ll just run at the right moment and then jump on and start pedaling.”
She ran along the sidewalk to the sidewalk on the other side. As she got there, she looked at the road. The truck was almost in the bend. It was going slow, but she didn’t have time to walk. It wasn’t going fast enough, though. It would come too fast with her waiting. “Pranaya!” she remembered her father’s favorite Hindi prayer meaning go slow, go fast or go fast that means go slow. Her father’s preferred method was to tell people to go slow and make them want to go fast.
She stretched, tucking in her shirt. She wondered it a her friend was still playing. Maybe she’d be able to go to Ilja’s house. She could tell their parents that she had pizza in her backpack. It worked when she’d done it before. She smiled, imagining herself on the bike.
She looked at the truck again. It was still going slow. It was only a block away. “Oh, I guess I can start running now,” she thought, as she turned around and started off again.
She ran along the road, seeing the truck up ahead. She heard it start to go faster. It was coming fast. She hoped it wouldn’t run over her. Maybe it would slow down.
She ran on the soft grass of someone’s yard. “Yeah, Pranaya,” she said, and stuck her tongue out at the truck. “Okay, Pranaya, slow down,” she said to herself, slowing down to a jog. It was probably only her imagination that the truck sped up when she slowed down.
She sighed hard, staring at the truck. It was far behind her, but she wanted to ride it. She didn’t like walking. It was the way most people got where they were going. Some people even liked walking, but she didn’t.
She heard a squealing engine sound. Maybe the truck was returning to try again? She turned around, coughing. She ran into the street to catch a bus. They almost never stopped at her stop, but it could happen.
She saw another truck coming. What was this driver doing? Was he trying to run her over? Well, she wasn’t going to let that happen. She might be late, but not until a reasonable hour. She might get into trouble, but at least she’d still be alive. She ran faster.
She passed the first intersection. The truck went around the corner and almost kept going. “Oh,” she thought, as it stopped. The truck stopped. She realized it was the same truck that almost ran her down. It had been in the same neighborhood. It wouldn’t be hard to catch up to it. She ran to the corner.
She saw it turn the corner. It started to go faster. That was weird, but maybe it was going out of the neighborhood. She was already there. She almost reached the corner where the truck went around. The truck wouldn’t turn around to go where she was. It was too late to keep up with it. “Oh,” she sighed, as she watched it turn in front of her.
She turned around the other way and nearly ran into the wall. She jumped back and cursed. It was too late. The truck was getting ready to go the other way. “No, no, no,” she said, as it turned. She ran as far as she could, then jumped back.
It was going to go around. That was good. It would go out of the neighborhood. She had no idea where she was anyway. She tried to remember if the first was going to go around the corner she was going to try. Whatever happened, her turn was near the end of the block. She turned around.
“Oh, no,” she thought, as she realized the truck was gone. She was too far. It had turned around. She was too far to run to the corner of the next block to try the next neighborhood. That wasn’t going to help her. She wanted to see what the truck was doing. She didn’t know if it was going to run her down, but she doubted it. It was probably a delivery truck. She could remember seeing one in the night sometimes when she was looking out the window.
“Whatever,” she said, when she stopped running. She started walking again. She had the book. She could read it while she walked.
She waited for her stop. She glanced at the book. She couldn’t really read it. There was no dog. How was she supposed to read the book? She wasn’t thinking about it. She figured she could make up her own story for the pictures. It was just for a few minutes, anyway.
