The Fairy Princess and the Dinosaur

She nodded, but seemed to be waiting for more. "Sometimes I ride my bicycle around the Test Valley—mostly the flatter roads—but not as often as I should, I suppose." He stopped, letting his voice drop to indicate the end of a conversational turn.

When she didn't respond, he gave her what he hoped was a rakish smile. "Now it's your turn. I think it hardly fair that you know my full name and half my life story..." She raised an eyebrow at the hyperbole. "...but I don't even know your first name, let alone anything about you."

She laughed. "Why, it's Catherine, of course." She kept talking, not giving him a chance to ask whyof course. "Let's see...something you don't know about me...ah. I'm more observant than you credit me. For example, I know that you watched me, thinking you were being surreptitious, the first time I rode by through the trees and spied you up here. Men have about as much chance of watching a woman surreptitiously as they do of an ace on their first try at Old Course St. Andrew's."

She smiled enigmatically again, this time with lowered lashes. Now it seemed more clear to Hal that she was mildly flirting with him. "You saw me the second time, too, when I had Annie with me. You really need to practice your sidelong ogling, Mr. Hal Prince." This time there was no mistaking her flirtatious look.

Hal was about to ask her what she meant byof course her name was Catherine, but Annie came back, chores accomplished. She and her Grandmama walked back to the horses—Catherine a bit reluctantly, Hal thought.

She lifted Annie to Esmerelda's back, then mounted herself. With a small wave she turned the horse and they headed back down Barking Tor. Not long after, Hal packed up and did the same.

The following day, as he worked on the next installment of Princess Anastasia's story—and the dinosaur's, how could he forget?—he again felt his writing turn from purgative to pleasant. Shifting his palette from the purples and browns that permeated his previous works to the pastels in which he painted Annie's tale was like taking off a heavy rucksack after a long, uphill hike. The writing wasn't easier, just happier. It took just as long to craft a paragraph or page, but the effort left him invigorated, not enervated.

One afternoon, after he had finished a scene he'd struggled with, he switched from coffee to tea and just sat watching the world go by—blessedly slowly—out the window onto the High Street. A customer came in, and he couldn't help overhearing the conversation. He knew Birdie was an educated woman, but as usual she sounded like a rustic shopgirl.

He carried his empty mug to the counter when the customer left. She spoke without looking up from her volume ofBrave New World. "'Nother cuppa, Guv?"

"No, I'm awash already, Birdie, but thank you. May I ask a question?"

Her voice turned suspicious. "Depends on'na question, dun'nit?"

"Birdie, I've been told you have a master's degree in Philology and Linguistics from Cambridge. Why do you talk like a fishmonger's wife?"

Her head snapped up as if she'd stepped on a live wire. Or a snake. "I've been told you like little boys and girls. Why do you talk like a human being?" She fixed him with a stare that would stun a honey badger, and he did his best to imitate a grouper out of water.

She finally let her face relax into a smile. "That was a shit question you asked, Henry, so I asked one back. I don't have to ask how you liked it." He shook his head, still too shocked to trust his voice. "I lead my life as I choose, and try to let others do the same. So should you."

He nodded and drew breath to speak, but Birdie plowed on. "Besides, you wouldn't know a fishmonger if one slapped you with a sculpin, and you haven't the faintest fucking notion what a fishmonger's wife sounds like." Her grin reassured him that he was forgiven. "And you're one of my best customers. You must spend at least a fiver a week on coffee and teacakes."

He spent at least 20 quid a week, and she damn well knew it. Again he drew breath, and again she usurped the floor. "Friends?" She held out a bony Birdie fist. It took Henry a moment to suss out her intent, then he reciprocated and they knuckle-bumped. "Now sit'cha doon 'nI'll bring ya cuppa."

"Birdie, you're a charlatan. You must've mixed at least three dialects there." He returned her grin as he retreated to his table, chagrined at his offense but relieved she'd shrugged it off. She brought his tea without comment, and he returned to his writing.

ON THE THURSDAY, Hal carefully tucked his laptop, some napkins, three small bottles of lemon squash, and a box with three of Birdie's teacakes into his rucksack, then set out for Barking Tor. When he saw Annie and Catherine approaching on separate horses—Catherine on Esmeralda, the bay, and Annie on a dapple gray he assumed was Tillie—he spread the napkins on the writing table, then added the teacakes and bottles of squash.

Annie ran over, thrilled. "Did you see, Mr. Hal? I'm riding Tillie by myself! Oh, and look, Grandmama, look! We're having a tea party!"

Hal wasn't aware that Annie would be riding Tillie by herself, but knew it was a major event, and improvised. "It's a celebration, Annie, because now you're old enough to ride Tillie all by yourself." He figured that Catherine was ready for a small celebration, too. It must be much more comfortable to ride without a squirmy four-year-old sitting in front of you. Even if she was almost five.

And so they celebrated. After they ate their teacakes and drank their lemon squash and carefully brushed the crumbs off the table for the birds to find, Hal put the napkins and empty bottles back in his rucksack. When he sat back without speaking, Annie lost patience.

"The rest of the story! I want to hear the rest of the story!"

"Don't be rude, Anastasia. Mr. Hal will read the next part when he's ready."

"She wasn't being rude, just excited because it's such a special day. Right, Annie?" Catherine appeared to give a disapproving look at Annie's nod, but the involuntary curls at the corner of her mouth siphoned the heat from her frown.

"And you're ready for the next part of the story?" Annie nodded even more vigorously as Hal opened his laptop.

"Remember, Princess Anastasia had just crawled through the garden wall..."

The forest looked even more interesting than the garden. She went back for the basket and returned to the hole in the wall, that was just big enough for her. She crawled to the other side of the wall, picked up her basket of teacakes and biscuits, and walked into the forest.

She was excited, hoping to see the rabbit and maybe even some more interesting animals. As she walked deeper into the forest, she started hearing strange sounds. Just as she decided to turn around and have her picnic back at the edge of the forest near the garden wall, a BEAR walked out of the bushes! She stopped, too frightened to move—

Annie leaped up in fright. "She should run away! The bear might hurt her!"

Hal hastened to reassure her. "It's going to be okay, Anastasia. After all, this is a happy story, not a sad one. Just listen."

Anastasia looked dubious—or whatever the almost-five-year-old equivalent of dubious might be—and once more settled down, albeit still uneasy.

She stopped, too frightened to move. Princess Anastasia thought that perhaps the bear might be happy to eat a teacake and leave her alone long enough to get back to the garden. She took one out of the basket and held it out, her hand shaking a bit. The bear sniffed it, took it in his paw, and gobbled it in one bite. He had very, very large teeth. She started backing up in fear, hoping that the bear wouldn't notice, but he stood up and roared.

She dropped her basket and backed up much faster without looking where she was going, and backed right into the river. Now she was frightened even more, because she didn't know how to swim. The river was flowing swiftly and started to carry her away.

Hal saw that Annie was even more frightened. Her lips started quivering, her eyes welled with tears. He looked apologetically at Catherine, who just smiled and made a twirling motion with her forefinger, telling him to keep reading.

Just as she was about to sink underwater, she felt two strong arms pluck her from the water and hold her far above the river. She turned to see who had saved her. It was a dragon! He had a huge head and mouth, with teeth even larger than the bear's, but his arms were tiny compared to the rest of his body.

Before she had time to be frightened by this new happening, the beast spoke. "Don't be afraid, Princess Anastasia, you're safe now. I chased the bear away and told him to never come back. You can have your picnic without worrying about him ever again. Perhaps I could even join you, even if you don't have any tea. I'm quite fond of teacakes and biscuits."

This was so interesting Princess Anastasia forgot to be frightened that she was being held by a huge dragon. "How did you know my name and that I was going to have a picnic?"

The beast laughed, which could have been frightening since he had such very large teeth, but the sound of his laughter made Princess Anastasia feel like laughing, too. "Of course I knew those things. We know everything."

This made sense to Princess Anastasia. "Yes, I've heard that dragons are quite intelligent."

The beast shook its great head. "No, I fear you are mistaken, Princess Anastasia. I'm not a dragon, I'm a dinosaur."

Hal closed his laptop. By this time, Annie knew that she couldn't change his mind and she'd have to wait until the next Thursday to hear more of the story. Instead of complaining, she asked Grandmama if she could feed Esmerelda and Tillie. Catherine gave her a larger bag than usual of apple quarters, then turned to Hal as Annie left to tend the horses.

"Tell me, Hal Prince, do you ever let anyone read those other stories you've written?"

Hal hesitated before answering. "...No, the stories aren't meant to be seen by anyone else, nor ever published. I write them for myself, for my own reasons."

Though Catherine could see the subject was painful, she thought it would do him good to talk about it. "But you invest so much time and effort in them. Surely it would be better not to hide them away."

His immediate reaction was to shrink from the notion of revealing to her that he wrote them as catharsis, trying to purge the sorrow and pain that seized him when Helena, his wife of 24 years, finally succumbed to the cancer that took her breasts, then her spirit, then finally her life.

But he'd seen how much love Catherine held for Annie. He hadn't let himself even think about love for years, and liked the warm feeling he got when he was with Annie and her Grandmama. Maybe it was time to take a risk.

"They're...awfully personal. My wife died of breast cancer five years ago. I miss her terribly, we'd been married almost 25 years." He paused to control his emotions. "I have trouble dealing with it, so I try to purge the pain by pouring it out in stories, but..." He trailed off, not sure he wanted to say that he still couldn't understand how the world somehow kept functioning.

Catherine urged him to continue talking, and slowly he revealed himself to her, tried to explain why he'd chosen to invest much of his life in the imagined world of his stories. "After Helena died, I was pretty much alone. Helena and I couldn't have children, and both my parents were gone. My only sister lives in a tiny lumber town in far north Maine, almost in Canada. We haven't spoken in 15 years." He rushed through the rest of his story, explaining that after Helena died there was nothing to keep him. Fleeing sad memories had great appeal, but other parts of the U.S. didn't attract him.

Then one evening he thought back to the summer he spent studying in England the year before he met Helena. Those fond memories prompted him to look into emigrating. "And here I am."

He stopped abruptly to let that be the end of his tale, at least for the time being, then decided it was Catherine's turn. "Annie never speaks of her mother or father. Why is that?"

As he had, Catherine hesitated before answering. "...Her father was killed in Afghanistan four years ago, so Annie never knew him. Her mother..." Her face collapsed into such anguish that Hal was struck with guilt.

"I'm sorry I asked, Catherine. Please, let's talk of something else."

She composed herself. "No, no, you're obviously fond of Annie, you should know these things. Annie's mother, Margaret...Meg, couldn't deal with Paul's death. She fell into a deep depression, withdrew completely into herself, stopped taking proper care of her baby and little boy. I had to step in, but Meg didn't get better. She..."

She stopped again to get control. "Meg has been in a private sanitarium since Annie was five months old. Annie has never known either her father or her mother." She continued before Hal could ask how she managed. "My husband died of a heart attack ten years ago. I have help. My older cousin Cynthia moved in shortly after Meg...went away.

"Cynthia is also a widow." She grinned ruefully. "It seems to run in the family."

Hal didn't know what to say. Compared to Catherine's life, he had suffered but little. The silence grew oppressive. Both were relieved when Annie came back to announce that the horses were ready to go home, and so was she.

THE NEXT WEEK seemed to fly by. Hal never missed his morning coffee at Birdie's, but did most of his writing on Barking Tor, where his muse seemed to have taken residence. He found himself getting increasingly impatient to see Catherine and Annie ride up, and arrived at his writing table atop the hill quite early the next Thursday. The two equestriennes showed up at their usual time.

As usual, Annie rushed over after tending to Tillie without taking off her helmet. As usual, Catherine admonished her to take it off and return it to its holder on Tillie's saddle. Completing her usual hat trick, Annie complied only after delivering a heartyhmmph, then returned to sit beside Hal.

Hal opened his laptop. "Now, where were we?" He squinted at the screen a moment. "Oh yes. Annie had said she knew dragons were quite intelligent..."

The beast shook its great head. "No, I fear you are mistaken, Princess Anastasia. I'm not a dragon, I'm a dinosaur."

Princess Anastasia didn't believe him. "A what? Of course you're a dragon! I've never heard of a...a dinasour."

"Sahr, not sour.di-no-sahr." He turned from side to side. "D'you see any wings? Dragons have wings."

"No...I don't see any wings." She looked thoughtful, then hopeful. "Maybe you're a special sort of dragon, one that can't fly."

He sighed, creating an impressivewhoosh! that rustled the leaves of nearby trees. "No, I'm not a dragon, I'm a dinosaur. Our job is to save foolish little girls—"

Annie shook her head. "She isn't a foolish little girl, at least it doesn't sound like she is."

Hal tried pouring oil on the troubled waters. "Foolish means that she didn't always choose the right thing to do, like when she went into the forest even though she knew her mother and father wouldn't approve."

The waters remained a bit troubled. "Sometimes I do things I know Grandmama won't like. She gets upset, but never stays that way." Annie looked over at Catherine to see if she had given away a secret, but Grandmama just smiled, so Hal returned to the story.

By this time the dinosaur had returned to where Princess Anastasia had dropped her basket. "I've been watching you ever since you crawled through the garden wall. You couldn't see me, because we can make ourselves invisible." With that, he disappeared, and Princess Anastasia seemed to be floating in midair. When he spoke, his voice had an echo, like he was at the bottom of a deep well.

"Now, why did you come into these woods by yourself? What would your father, the King, and your mother, the Queen, say if they knew you came out here alone? I'm sure they would not approve."

"I don't care if they don't approve! They never let me do any interesting things! What fun is it being a fairy princess if you can't do interesting things?" She wriggled, trying to get out of the beast's arms, forgetting how far she was above the ground. "And it's not fair that you know my name but I don't know yours!"

"Well, dinosaurs don't have names...but you can call me Rex." Suddenly she could see him again. He put her down next to the picnic basket, then tried to sit down himself. His tail got in the way, so he sort of knelt and leaned back with his tail bent on the ground.

Princess Anastasia still had hopes. "Are yousure you aren't a dragon? You really do look sort of like one "

"Nope. Can't fly, can't breathe fire. Well, sometimes, if I eat too much garlic or too many onions, I'm told that my breath smells terrible, like something awful burning. But trust me, I'm not a dragon. I'm a dinosaur. You'll get used to it."

Annie didn't agree. "It would be much more interesting if you were a dragon." She was so disappointed she stamped her little foot and tried to think of something mean to say. "Well, I suppose it's just as well you aren't a dragon, you have such very tiny arms—"

"The princess shouldn't argue with him so much. And she definitely shouldn't make fun of his arms. There's probably a good reason they're so small."

Hal didn't point out that Annie herself was pretty good at arguing. Catherine's smile and gently shaking her head revealed she thought the same. Annie appeared to be through commenting, so he continued.

That hurt the dinosaur's feelings. "My arms are plenty big for what I need, thank you very much. They certainly were big enough to save you from drowning in the river, weren't they?"

Princess Anastasia had to admit that, but said she still thought it was too bad he couldn't fly or breathe fire. He rolled his eyes, not an easy feat for a dinosaur.

"I...Am...Not...A...Dragon. Live with it. Dragons don't save little girls, they eat them. What if I hadn't come along and scared away the bear? Would it have been more interesting if he ate you for his picnic?" It frightened her even to think about that, so she didn't. Besides, it was time to get back to the garden before Cook started looking for her—

"She should stay and talk with the dinosaur some more. He's much more interesting than the cook."

"Yes, but what if Cook found out that Princess Anastasia had left the garden and gone into the woods, where she wasn't supposed to go? Wouldn't that make her mother and father unhappy?"

Annie finally agreed that it was better for Princess Anastasia to go back, but insisted it wasn't as interesting.

She gathered her picnic things in the basket and stood to leave. "I must go back now. Goodbye, Dinosaur Rex. It was nice meeting you, even if you aren't a dragon. And thank you for saving me."

Just to prove that dinosaurs were always kind to little girls, Rex made himself invisible, picked her up again, and quickly carried her back to the garden. He set her down where she had seen the rabbit, then sat awkwardly beside her.

Princess Anastasia couldn't see him, but knew he was beside her. She was sad that her adventure was over. "I wish I could tell everyone about all the interesting things that happened, the rabbit, the hole in the wall, the bear, falling in the river, you saving me, but I'm afraid they wouldn't believe me."

Rex nodded his great head, though no one could see it. "You're right, they wouldn't believe you. Besides, they don't know anything about dinosaurs." He yawned, which would have been an impressive sight. "Yet—"

"Didn't they have any museums? We saw dinosaurs in a museum on my last birthday—" Annie hastened to fix any incorrect conclusion. "That was a long time ago. My next birthday will be very soon, and then I'll be five."