The Dinosaur Keeper

Chapter 17

The kettle started to hum gently on the stove and Rex reached for the tin through bleary eyes.

A tired sigh leaked from the side of his mouth before deciding to tackle the lips, eventually winning over the jaw into an outright yawn, arms aloft, clicking a well worn back into place.

As the tin whizzed over his right shoulder, Rex remembered that no beans were left, all being used in yesterday’s fruitless offering to the Dinosaurs.

The kettle whistled now and Rex was convinced it was mocking him.

Tightening the belt on his dressing gown Rex decided to pour himself a glass of milk and settle on the cold start to the day.

Marching over to the front door, trying to spy a Dumdum through the front window, Rex was starting to get quite perturbed at the beginning of what was bound to be a long day.

Empty glass in hand he cursed the Velociraptors for no other reason than his own bad mood, hoping to return to form when his mouth was less dry.

Flinging the door open, for the first time unhappy with the amount of bolts and latches it had taken to get to this point, Rex charged out into a new day and promptly fell over, slightly bloodying his nose and spraining his ankle.

Rex hobbled into the kitchen and flung open the refrigerator door, stubbing his toe on the kitchen table in the process. Grabbing some ice from the top compartment he squatted down and pressed the cubes against the swollen left foot, water dripping down the sides and fingers going slightly numb.

Crouched in this peculiar manner and deep in thought, the pain quickly subsided. But it wasn’t because of the coldness that his ankle was currently playing host to.

What on Chunk had he just fallen over?

In no time flat he was at the front door looking at a large wooden crate, that a more awake Rex would have noticed instantly a few seconds earlier.

‘Waits and Spencer - Delivering Chunk’s finest at reassuringly expensive prices’, was helpfully stencilled in large curly letters on the top.

There really was nothing else to do but stare at it goggled eyed, warily scanning every centimetre of the large box for a good few seconds.

Beside the crate was a crow bar, which Rex decided to grab and turn over in his hand, knowing what to do but not entirely convinced he wanted to.

Looking into the distance, his eyes narrowed and focussed in on the Diplodocus’ snoozing on the plains and a second later decided he had time, ramming the up turned end of the crowbar into the lid’s edge and prizing the top off with a reassuring squeak and pop.

Rex returned to his previous pose of bewilderment and stood looking at the contents of the box. Items like this had been seen before but certainly not in this quantity or variety, every square centimetre of the box was crammed full of groceries.

Sealed in their own jackets of many colours, carefully lined up in jutting rows so that every part of the crate was bursting with goodies. Rex grabbed one which was labelled ‘Jammy Dodgers’ tearing its pink wrapper off in one swoop.

He cast an eye over the circular object that was now in one anticipating hand, lovingly for a moment and appreciated the wonderful swirls that made up a perfectly round biscuit sighing slightly as his eyes met with a red heart in the centre, before popping it whole into his mouth.

“Delicious” he mumbled to himself, through great shards of broken biscuit and enthused started to grab at packets, reading the labels quickly before stacking them at the side of the box carefully.

Delighted at the results of the last packet that had ‘biscuits’ stamped on it, Rex was overjoyed as he bit into a ‘Fig-Roll’ and was reassured at its tastiness by feeling the weight of one plunge to the bottom of his stomach.

It was with some sadness, and good dose of regret, that he stopped chewing half way through something called a ‘Garibaldi’, deciding then and there that not everything labelled ‘biscuit’ could be trusted. He presently had something in his mouth that tasted like a floorboard and one that had been heavily varnished at that.

Spitting the contents of his mouth out on the patio, was the only enjoyment Rex had got from said Garibaldi and running both hands briskly over his tongue to squeeze out any memory of the foul biscuit, frantically searching for a carton he had seen that said ‘Orange Juice’.

As quickly as it could be located, he ripped open the top and half of the carton was promptly swilling around a much relieved mouth.

Looking at the packets Rex couldn’t help but smile, there was enough food to last a good few weeks, and closing his eyes hoped that the day would go as fast as possible so that he could sample the new delights.

There was something called ‘Spotted Dick’, a pudding apparently, that suggested on the label that it should be served with custard, something he noticed he had a small carton of elsewhere in the box.

A ‘Steak and Kidney Pudding’ was just to the right of that, and Rex breathed a sigh of relief, happy that he had spotted that next, as he was sure he would need to save some of the custard for it also.

But it wasn’t all deserts and biscuits, oh no!

Holding a small square, tray like object in front of him, he caressed the edge and felt a tingling cold response. There were four, yes four! ‘Shepherd Pies’, which initially disgusted Rex, as he quite liked what he had read about shepherds and didn’t think they deserved to be smothered in gravy and topped with something creamy looking called mashed potato. But as he was grimacing and reading the contents noted that it was made with ‘mince steak’, which was slightly confusing as this was meant to be a main meal, not a pudding like the Steak and Kidney pudding, but surmised that it must be like cream cheese that made fantastic desserts and was just as good on toast.

There were also four pizza’s, which looked like cheese on toast with green flecks dotted around, something called a Chilli, which was almost as confusing as the steak debacle as it proudly displayed ‘Chilli caution hot’, to which Rex stared at puzzlingly, wishing that people would make their minds up and say what they mean, and all manner of tins, packets, bags and boxes. Including drinks and the odd ointment or relaxing bath foam here and there, enough food to make a skinny Keeper quite plump if, but at least he would smell nice.

But his favourite packet, the best thing in the whole of Chunk, was what was making him dash to the kitchen as fast as possible.

As the kettle started to whistle again, in unison with Rex’s joy rather than laughing at him, there, stood right next to the stove with a spoon pointing out the top, was a large bag of coffee.

Rex had never seen anything like it, it was in a shiny metallic packet with a swirling pattern on it and a crisp brown picture of a coffee bean, glowing from the front.

The words ‘Top’s Best Ground Coffee’ were displayed just above this and Rex decided that it must have been gathered by the same people that had procured the Bee’s honey. Top’s really must be the nicest company in Chunk, thought Rex, everything so willing to give itself up to them and be packaged in such nice wrappers and labels.

‘The Top Coffee from the Top!’, it carried on and Rex decided to open it up, a bit bored of this weird wording again, having just enough time to notice ‘Air sealed for quality’ before grabbing it either side and attempting to pull them apart.

Attempt, Rex concluded, was the best choice of phrase, as he couldn’t get the chunking thing open!

But just as he was about to give up, deciding to try and find what had happened to the scissors, he had heard a pop and a hiss, the bag had burst into life, splitting down the side through it’s seam.

Two further silver packets had shot across the kitchen and startled a previously dozing Pooetesleap.

Seeing Rex’s shocked expression the ginger dog unquestionable left Rex to his new game, thinking that sleeping was a much better one for this time of day.

Having picked up the packets and placed one near the stove, the Dinosaur Keeper was prepared to accept that he would have to locate the scissors, less the same thing happen and he lose all the coffee.

Opening the drawer the kitchen scissors beamed brightly up at him.

Which brought him to where he was now, the kettle shouting its shrill tune and Rex quickly taking it off the boil, to pour the water carefully into a small glass cafetiere.

A minute was a long time to wait for a thirsty Dinosaur Keeper, especially one that had been deprived of his morning cupper, so after about thirty seconds he had pushed the plunger firmly down and hurriedly poured the first harvest from the silvery foiled Top‘s coffee.

Swilling the hot, milky liquid round his mouth it was, well to be perfectly honest, average.

So Rex studied the half ripped package to see if ‘foil fresh’ coffee was prepared any differently to normal coffee. Reading the serving instruction, he noticed it wasn’t and the second swig wasn’t so bad if a little metallic tasting.

“Hello”, came a voice from the front door and Rex quickly turned round, spotting Rupert coming through to the kitchen. In his hand was a small bag that was quickly thrust towards Rex, only to retract it again when spotting his mug, putting it firmly behind his back.

“What’s that?” Rex asked unsure as to why his scaly friend would choose to be doing arm exercises with a small cloth bag in his kitchen.

“Oh nothing”, Rupert replied going slightly red in the face, “Just well, I got some coffee beans yesterday whilst watching Bob and roasted them on a shovel in one of the perimeter fires last night, thought you would have run out after yesterday. But I see you have provisions already”.

With this Rupert eyed up all the packets that were strewn around the room and led a little path all the way back to the front door.

The coffee in Rex’s mouth began to taste a little bitter and as an awkward silence started between them, Rex’s uncomfortable feeling informed him that he knew very little about his scaly friend.

“No, actually to be honest, and to put it in a nutshell”, he began making what should be a short sentence unnecessarily long, “It’s not very nice”.

He promptly pulled what could be seen as an over exaggerated appalled face, tipped the mugs contents down the sink and reached out a hand.

Rupert seemed to be quite pleased about this and happily turned over the bag so that Rex could start his coffee making again, properly this time.

Filling the kettle with fresh water and swilling out his cafetiere, Rex clicked the hob on and in one clunk placed the kettle on top of a bright blue flame.

Turning round to face his guest again Rex thought they should chat about idle things, there was enough time for work later, but stopped before he actually began.

His head swam for a bit and frowned hard determined to push some topic to the front of his brain, raising his gaze to look at Rupert and finally accepted the inevitability of uneasiness. For all the years that he had been on Chunk, Rex had never been what you would call a ‘hit’ with the Dinosaurs.

In fact they had never spoken to him at all, save the odd ailment here and insult there, until last Sunday’s meeting.

No, he would have to accept that even though he had made some progress in the art of communication, the Dinosaur Keeper was a long way from becoming what he would describe a talker. Even with one of three dinosaurs he could think of that had offered if not a hand but certainly a clammy claw of friendship, he had no idea of how to start a conversation.

Max only appeared when he had something to say and Pooetesleap merely barked every now and then. So Rex could honestly say he had never started a conversation in his life, apart from his almost rousing speech a couple of nights ago.

With Rupert it was slightly different, he had obviously become a little friendlier, when they had began the process of getting Bob. It was going above and beyond information, embellishing Rex with a little idle banter, proved this morning by the gift of coffee that Rex was more than thankful for. But still he couldn’t think of one topic to casually pass back and forth whilst the kettle decided to boil.

Mercifully there was a slight hiss from its spout and although not as hot as normal Rex decided it was warm enough and grabbed at the handle, pouring the contents over his newly crushed beans.

“Lovely”, Rex remarked, and closed his eyes slightly, grinning from ear to ear.

Looking back at Rupert still nothing entered his head and he began to feel slightly nauseous at the anxiety in the room.

“Shall we talk about what to do today?” Rupert eventually inquired, cutting through the tension and causing Rex to spring forward as if turned loose from his invisible ties.

“YES!” he screamed a little louder than expected, “I mean, yes that would be a good idea”, some modicum of composure returning.

“Well I thought to proceed pretty much the same as yesterday,” Rupert continued, “I’ve woken Ruben up, it’s a good couple of hours until the whistle goes, so we can be at Bob’s before you all get into action, in case he decides on an early visit”.

With the conversation less strained and easier for both of them to find common ground on, Rex spent a pleasant half an hour or so discussing how he thought things had gone so far, pleased with Rupert’s encouragement and even happier that once they got going they could go off at tangents and talk about complete rubbish, before eventually reigning it back to what they needed to do.

He had even remembered to offer his guest some refreshment, presenting Rupert with a carton of milk he had got from the crate, a handy four pint container that seemed the perfect size for a thirsty Velociraptor. Rupert had refused at first of course, but Rex had reassured him that as pushed for time as they might be, he could manage a couple of minutes of head pumping a Dumdum should he want another drink.

There was slight awkward pause and both of them looked around the room hoping that a memory or thought would come back to get them talking fluidly again. Rex had all but decided just to go over the plan once more, or talk about how yesterday went again, when suddenly an idea sprang into his head and he couldn’t help but blurt it out.

“You know yesterday when Bob looked at you?”, he began at some pace, jolting Rupert back into conversation who had been eyeing up a packet labelled fisherman’s pie and wondering what a fisherman had done that was so terrible to be smothered with white sauce and baked for half an hour.

“Oh my, yes!” replied Rupert eventually forgetting all things fish related, “Not likely to forget that in a hurry I can tell you”

“Well”, Rex shot by hardly acknowledging the reply, “If he does it again, can you wink at him?”

Rex couldn’t believe he was putting a Dinosaur that he liked in such danger, but had to know the intention of Bob‘s actions yesterday.

“Wink at him?” Rupert questioned, having taken a few seconds to ponder the request.

“Yes just wink,” Rex stated, “Oh and sort of lean your head slightly, make sure you do that, you know like this”, Rex promptly leant his head to one side and over emphasised an elaborate wink.

A little bit stunned Rupert watched as Rex repeated this motion a couple more times, questioning why he had decided after sixteen or so years to start talking to such a strange chap.

“Alright,” he eventually said, “If you really think it will help”, and slurped the last of the milk, eyeing up the other packets residing over the various counter tops and shelves.

“They look nice”, Rupert said as more of an enquiry than a statement, “Any of them as delicious as the milk?”

Rex was completely oblivious to the tone and simply replied,

“I should expect that some of them are even better! Got them this morning, a bit of a treat”

Rex looked around the many coloured packets and boxes, deciding on what he should have tonight, plumping for the not actually made of shepherd, pie, probably finished of with a bit of custard covered steak and kidney pudding.

“Must be nice to have treats,” Rupert said with a slightly sad tone, “You enjoy them Rex”, and with this promptly got up to leave, placing quite a lot of emphasis on the word you.

Finally Rex understood what his new chum was hinting at and quickly shouted after him,

“Hold on, please hold on!” and grabbed a half opened packet , thrusting it toward Rupert.

“No, no I couldn’t” Rupert feigned, “They’re for you”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, you know now that we’re…” Rex gulped at the thought of the next word, saying it quietly and making it sound more quizzical than he had hoped for, “Friends”.

“Well if you’re sure”, was the reply and although an acknowledgement of Rex’s statement was absent, a refute was not forthcoming either.

“No, no, of course not”, reassured a slightly embarrassed Rex, “Garibaldi?” he offered.

Not wanting to let his friend go, for reasons Rex wasn’t even sure about, he had asked Rupert to wait whilst gathering up the various boxes and packets and then promptly jumped in the shower determined that if he was going to sweat and toil all day then it was going to be done with the freshest start possible.

Racing down the stairs, Rex had to admit to being a little surprised that Rupert was still there and broke into a broad grin, which was obviously replaced with complacency straight away, not wanting to show his enthusiasm for friendship just yet.

“Are you ready?”, Rupert enquired as Rex nodded and they left the house together, “I’ll be off then”, he finished and with this joined Ruben who had been patiently waiting outside, disappearing behind the undergrowth a second later.

Rex welcomed this further awkwardness with open arms, reddening as he acknowledged that he had delayed the Velociraptor so that they could walk about two metres outside the house together and in all honesty thought about letting embarrassment stay for good in one of the nicer rooms in his head.

Still it was new to him this ‘friend’ concept, and the mortification soon decided to embark onto pastures elsewhere some minutes later. Although Rex did make a note to himself that he really should think what he asks of others, and the consequences, before instructing them to do something that makes him feel good, but is nonsensical to anybody else.

This reminded him of the task he had asked Rupert to undertake, the winking.

Knowing that it would appear to be a simple request, Rex also assumed the consequences of this seemingly innocent errand.

Standing on the porch the Dinosaur Keeper looked at the wooden crate, the splintered top disjointing the words and breaking them into paraphrases of their former glory.

‘Waits and Sp’ said one, ‘reassuringly expensive’ said another, and with this Rex slapped himself on the forehead leaving his hand there to rub for a few seconds.

Of course! This was going to cost him a fortune! Picking up the splintered plank he ran his finger over the lettering, mouthing the words as he went, until he felt something plastic on the back.

Turning it over he read the familiar word that came when he occasionally ran out of something he couldn’t grow.

Inside a little plastic bag, with smallest amount of tape securing it to the reverse side, was housed a folded bit of paper, the back of which brightly displayed a seven letter word that filled Rex with dread.

Invoice.

Whipping it out of the protective sleeve, quite bravely he leapt right in, tracing the items listed with the tip of a finger nails, feeling sick as he looked at the last right hand side column that was headed ‘Total’.

‘Shepherds Pie’ it started, ‘Unit cost £2.50, quantity 4’, and a few centimetres later the horrific final column, ‘£10.00’.

There was no time for such scrutiny and he skipped to the bottom, a double underlined box waiting for him with ‘£467.79’ deciding this was the best place to be.

Rex honestly thought he was going to throw up.

Certain, for the first time ever, he would actually make no money this month whatsoever, he started to take great pleasure in screwing the paper into the smallest ball ever, thinking later to burn it in a fire and should anything remain tomorrow, bury it at the bottom of the great pit when it was finished.

But as he started, he quickly stopped and smoothed out the paper again.

Below the final total was a line that wasn’t normally there.

‘Credit’, it began ‘£467.79’.

Further on was pleasing exhibited, ‘Left To Pay £0.00, Future Deductions £0.00, Have A Nice Day and Thank You For Shopping With Waits and Spencer, Number 1 on Chunk For Home Delivery’.

Rex jumped up and down for a good ten minutes. He had no idea why not having to pay for something made him so overjoyed, but happy he was and jumpy he remained.

Deciding on a little twirl, ill advised for somebody recovering from a swollen ankle, he winced and looked at the land in front of him.

The plains really did look spectacular.

The mist was there again and Rex decided to take a moment to appreciate it, this event that happened infrequently in his home.

The rest of the Dinosaurs were asleep and noted that his watch was showing that they had a good hour to go before the working day would start.

Before actually aware of doing it, Rex was almost at the top of the great wooden pole, which braced the whistle at the top.

The chain went down he remembered, seeing this on the few occasions he had made it out early for work. The chain went down and a thin gasp of steam came out allowing a whistle to be released in the process.

Suppressing a chuckle he tugged at the chain and became decidedly less chuckleful, falling backwards alarmed at the volume of the shrill noise when so close.

Fortunately for Rex he landed on some soft moss and high grass, which cushioned an otherwise painful fall.

Shaking his head Rex stood up and brushed himself down, pleased with the sight he saw.

The Dinosaurs were slowly waking up and Rex was thanking Chunker that none of them had watches, stealing an extra hour of work without them knowing.

The Diplodocus’, begrudgingly it had to be said, had at the last moment the previous evening bundled as many thick logs as possible into a sort of pyramid in the centre of the plains.

Rex had then instructed every other animal to throw on some smaller sticks as they passed by on the way to bed.

Then just after Rupert had told Rex of his desire to return back to Bob’s lair, he had walked down to this, head buzzing with what Rupert had disclosed, and set light to it.

The Dumdums had been good to there form and even more of them had hurled themselves to their warm tragedy than Rex had managed to collect yesterday.

It was a strange notion, that the bigger the fire, the bigger the yield of Dumdums, but Rex was thankful for this knowledge as he pointed at them and ordered,

“Quickly now, we must get started, you’ve got fifteen minutes for breakfast”.

Rex shoved a bit of Dumdum in his mouth, even though still full of biscuits and rolled it around his cheeks for a bit.

It really was bland, but as it sank to his stomach, he felt a better kind of fullness than after his earlier sugary snack. Upon eating the odd biscuit or twelve this morning he remembered having a rush of energy, having a shower in record time, but upon bounding down the stairs felt a little lethargic, yearning for another Jammy Dodger.

It was quite strange but the more he ate the Dumdum the better he felt. It certainly wasn’t as flavoursome as say a Fig Roll, but there was something wholesome about it that made him feel right.

Still he couldn’t help but look forward to a readymade dinner, a new experience seldom passing his way all these years on the Plains, deciding that he would definitely opt for the flock watchers supper, after making sure again that there were no actually Shepard’s involved.

As the day rolled on, the entire Dinosaurs making the same lines as yesterday, Max appeared just after midmorning and Rex knew that no matter what he said, and he wasn’t renowned for compliments, that he was impressed, shocked even.

Having shouted ‘Only Me!’ on his approach, thankfully turning it down to a dull roar by the time he had got to the group, Max had stood for a good few seconds dumbstruck.

Much to Rex’s surprise there wasn’t the usual display of cooing from the other Dinosaurs normally reserved for these occasions. Max did look a bit crestfallen at the herds nonplus attitude towards him this morning and said ’Only Me!’ a couple more times before eventually shutting up. They did stop work for a bit once Henry had thrown the last trailer full of soil over the fence, choosing to stand where they were when they stopped, thankful of the break and breathing in and out quite hard in the fullness of the Sun.

Rex had noticed today that everyone was a little bit slower than yesterday, him included, and presumed that like him they had realised that this task would take sometime and better to pace themselves now if this backbreaking work was to continue.

The digging wasn’t nearly as far forward as the previous day and the removal of the soil was much slower, but Rex knew there was no hurry and was happy with the progress so far.

Having wandered in and out of the waste disposal line and forcing the Velociraptors into a quick chat with him whilst in the middle of their wide hole, Max gave up after a minute or two of one syllable answers and came over to Rex who was sitting in the tractor.

Still parked on the plains from yesterday, he idly dusted the dashboard with his sleeve, whilst keeping an ever watchful eye on his Tyrannosaurus friend through a sideways glance.

“Well I can’t conceal it”, Max finally said, “I’m very impressed”, Rex’s chest bulged with pride and he readied himself for further compliments.

“Of course”, Max continued, as Rex’s chest deflated a little, “I thought you would have got further with the digging, but solid improvement I suppose”.

So that was it! One compliment swiftly followed with a quick poke in the ribs, metaphorically speaking of course, although Rex thought he would have taken the actuality jab if it had meant he would have forsaken the dig about the digging.

“Besides”, Max chirped up again, “Even if it takes a couple of months, at least it’ll be done, better late than never eh!”

With a wink Max, plodded off towards the undergrowth and eventually disappeared behind a tree, minutes after his just as quick appearance.

A couple of months, thought Rex, surely it wouldn’t take that long! Jumping out of the tractor and making the short distance toward the hole in a trice, he looked at it and then at his watch. Three hours they’d been at it and the soil looked like they were about a centimetre lower than yesterday.

This could take a couple of months, three even.

It wasn’t that they weren’t doing the work it’s just that it was so wide, and with five Velociraptors in there already, there was little room to move about.

“It’s not going to take that long is it?” said one of the Velociraptors to Rex, making the production line suddenly grind to a halt.

“Of course not Rupert”, he replied for the first time seeing the sense in all of them being called that, even if he would from now on reserve the title for his friend’s use,

“But we must keep at it, as quick as possible, see if you can squeeze another one of you in there!”

With this a nearby Velociraptor sprang about two metres into the air and wedged himself firmly in a hurriedly opened gap.

Everybody’s speed doubled shortly after, even the Stegosaurus’ seemed to drag the trailer a little faster, but by the middle of the afternoon, having stopped for another break, they had dug about as much as the same time yesterday.

As everybody stood, aching and a little disheartened Rupert and Ruben broke through the bushes on the other side of the Plains, closely followed by Bob.