Dinosaur Pox

by Jeremy Strong

  ‘This really is too much, Jodie. You’ll have to go back to the classroom.’

  Jodie stomped off sadly. She barged around the classroom for a while, getting bored and hungry. She ate all Mrs Farouk’s pot plants and then went outside to the school garden. There were plenty of delicious bushes to eat out there. She happily munched away until the garden had been reduced to a ragged mass of chewed branches and thin twigs.

  At break-time, things got worse. Everyone wanted to play with Jodie, which made a nice change, but they wanted rides on her back. Children kept trying to clamber up her sides and sit on top of her. Jodie found it very tiresome and eventually she lost her temper. She lifted her head, shook it angrily and roared.

  ‘Raaaaaaaaargh!’

  Everyone froze. They stared at Jodie. Her eyes flashed. She snorted down both nostrils, and she began to move. Her huge feet stamped on the hard ground and her body rocked backwards and forwards. And then she charged, bellowing and shaking her head wildly from side to side. Round and round the playground she went, roaring and galloping like a rhino having a major temper tantrum.

  Children scattered in every direction, screaming. It was a stampede. The teacher on duty watched in astonishment as the playground emptied of children in just a few seconds.

  As the children vanished Jodie slowed down and stood in the middle of the playground, panting and feeling very pleased with herself. Mr Grant, the teacher on duty, approached carefully.

  ‘I think you had better come with me and explain yourself to Miss Gatling,’ he said. But there was no need, because at that moment Miss Gatling and Mrs Farouk both came hurrying out of the building. They were wondering why the school was suddenly full of whimpering, scared children.

  ‘What’s been going on?’ demanded the headteacher. Then, before Jodie or Mr Grant could answer, Miss Gatling saw the state of the school garden. ‘Our lovely garden! It’s ruined! Is this your doing, Jodie Bolton?’

  ‘I was hungry,’ Jodie explained.

  ‘Hungry? You’ve eaten our entire garden!’

  ‘My stomach is bigger than it used to be,’ Jodie pointed out, with great logic.

  Miss Gatling, however, was not the least bit sympathetic. ‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, young lady. Why is the whole school in tears?’

  ‘Jodie roared at them,’ said Mr Grant.

  ‘Roared at them? What kind of behaviour is that for a pupil at this school? What kind of roar?’ enquired the headteacher, turning to Mr Grant, who shifted his feet, feeling rather embarrassed. He turned a delicate pink colour.

  ‘Well,’ he began slowly, ‘it was a sort of Rrrrrrr!’

  ‘A sort of Rrrrrr! That doesn’t sound too frightening,’ Miss Gatling remarked. ‘Did it scare you, Mrs Farouk?’

  ‘No – not really.’

  ‘It was louder,’ Mr Grant said lamely. ‘More a sort of RRRRRRR!!’

  Miss Gatling took two steps back and clutched Mrs Farouk.

  ‘Sorry,’ muttered Mr Grant, and the three adults fixed their gaze on Jodie.

  Miss Gatling took a deep breath. ‘Did you roar like that at the children?’

  Jodie was silent. She stared sullenly at the ground.

  ‘Perhaps you can do it again,’ said Miss Gatling icily, ‘so that we may have the privilege of hearing it for ourselves.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Jodie answered through clenched teeth.

  Miss Gatling fixed her with a steely glare. ‘I am trying hard to understand a very unusual event in the playground, Jodie, so please oblige me by roaring.’

  Jodie coughed and cleared her throat. This was quite ridiculous. ‘Rrrrrrrrr.’

  Miss Gatling raised one eyebrow. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘It was louder,’ Mr Grant put in, folding his arms.

  ‘Roar again, louder.’

  Jodie rolled her eyes. ‘Rrrrrrr!’

  ‘Louder!’ cried Miss Gatling. ‘Make it louder, girl, and don’t you roll your eyes at me!’

  Something deep inside Jodie snapped. This was too much. What was wrong with everyone today? She threw back her head and opened her mouth.

  Miss Gatling almost jumped on top of Mr Grant and she clung to him, her long, bony arms wrapped tightly round his rather portly chest. Mr Grant couldn’t have moved even if he had wanted to. His arms were pinned down each side of his body, and Miss Gatling was staring over his shoulder at Jodie, stupefied.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jodie, a shade too cheerfully.

  ‘Where’s Mrs Farouk?’ Miss Gatling croaked, slowly letting go of Mr Grant and searching round. A frightened squeak came from halfway up a nearby tree.

  ‘Is it safe yet?’ Mrs Farouk gingerly poked out her head from among the leaves, while Miss Gatling turned to Jodie and shook her head angrily.

  ‘Don’t you ever, EVER do that again!’ she snapped.

  This seemed most unfair to Jodie, who angrily banged her tail on the ground. ‘You told me to do it!’

  ‘I’m ringing your parents,’ Miss Gatling said severely. ‘I will not have a stegosaurus wandering about my school scaring everyone and eating the gardens. You should be in a zoo, not in a school.’ The headteacher strode to her office, leaving Jodie gazing after her.

  ‘This really is going to be a bad-hair day,’ muttered Jodie, and she began chewing the grass on the school field.

  3 A Visit to the Doctor

  Mrs Bolton had to walk Jodie home at lunchtime. ‘She’s being excluded until she’s normal,’ were Miss Gatling’s parting words.

  ‘Normal?’ muttered Mrs Bolton. ‘Jodie’s never been normal.’

  ‘I heard that,’ snorted Jodie as they walked down the road.

  ‘Well, it’s true,’ sighed Mrs Bolton. ‘Even when you were a baby you were awkward.’

  ‘Babies are always awkward,’ Jodie grumbled.

  ‘I know they can be difficult, dear, but you did seem to be extra-difficult.’

  ‘Oh? Like how?’

  ‘When you’d only just been born and you were still in hospital, do you know, you wee-d all over the nurse when she was about to give you a bath. You slept all day and cried all night.’

  Even to Jodie it seemed a bit extravagant and they didn’t talk again until they met old Mr Parkinson, going off to the shops. Mr Parkinson stopped and gazed in awe through his thick glasses.

  ‘My word, Mrs Bolton, that’s some creature you’ve got there. What is it?’

  Mrs Bolton gave an embarrassed cough. ‘Um, it’s a dog.’

  ‘Woof,’ said Jodie.

  ‘There!’ Mrs Bolton patted Jodie’s back. ‘Good dog.’

  ‘What breed is it?’ asked Mr Parkinson.

  ‘Big,’ Mrs Bolton replied quickly, and she hurried off with Jodie trotting beside her.

  ‘You’re ashamed of me, aren’t you?’ said Jodie. ‘That’s why you told him I was a dog. I bet you wish I really was a dog too.’

  Mrs Bolton stopped short. She crouched down and held Jodie’s head in her hands, looking straight into her eyes. ‘Of course I don’t, Jodie. How could you even think such a thing? I love you even when you’re grumpy. Just because we argue and get cross with you doesn’t mean we don’t love you. Anyhow, you joined in too. I thought it was very funny when you said “woof” – just like that – “woof”! We fooled Mr Parkinson.’

  Jodie smiled. At least she sort of leered. She found that it was quite difficult to smile if you were a stegosaurus. Jodie thought that perhaps stegosauruses didn’t have much to smile about. After all, as far as she could remember they had spent most of their time being chased and eaten by Tyrannosaurus rex. Maybe Mum was right. They had fooled Mr Parkinson, and it was funny.

  When Mr Bolton got home in the evening, he told Jodie that he had made an appointment to see the doctor and after tea (more daisies) he took her down to the local surgery. It was strange in the waiting room though. The other people sat and stared at her, as if she’d made a nasty smell or something. Jodie ignored them and tried to concentrate on reading Hello ma
gazine.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked one lady, a bit sniffily.

  ‘Mumps,’ said Mr Bolton.

  ‘Funny mumps,’ muttered the lady.

  ‘That’s what they are,’ Mr Bolton snapped back. ‘Funny Mumps. There’s an outbreak of them. Haven’t you heard?’

  The lady turned to the man sitting next to her. ‘I’ve never seen mumps like that, have you?’ The man shook his head and carried on reading his newspaper. ‘That’s not mumps,’ insisted the lady. ‘That’s chickenpox.’

  Jodie bristled with indignation. ‘Chickenpox! Do you think I look like a chicken?’

  ‘It’s chickenpox,’ the lady repeated.

  Jodie raised her head, drew back her lips and growled, loudly. ‘Raaargh!’

  ‘It’s mumps,’ the lady hastily agreed, shooting out of her seat, ‘and I suddenly feel a lot better. I think I may as well go home.’ She hurried out without a backward glance.

  Mr Bolton smiled and whispered into Jodie’s scaly ear. ‘That was a wicked thing to do.’

  ‘She was being so stupid.’

  Luckily they were saved from any further awkward encounters because they were called to the surgery. Jodie liked Doctor Singh, who had looked after her on several occasions when she had been ill.

  ‘This is very unusual,’ murmured Doctor Singh, as she listened to Jodie’s heartbeat. ‘I’m not sure if you should be here, or at the vet’s! How do you feel, Jodie? Do you feel ill?’

  ‘No, I feel fine. Actually in some ways it’s quite nice being a dinosaur, but I’d prefer to be myself.’

  Doctor Singh nodded. ‘I’m sure you would, but I’m afraid I’ve never come across anything like this. I think you ought to go to the hospital and see a specialist – Mr Pinkerton-Snark. He’s an expert on rare diseases. Take this letter of introduction with you.’

  So Mr Bolton and Jodie trailed up to the hospital, where Mr Pinkerton-Snark saw them at once, because it was such a peculiar case. In fact Mr Pinkerton-Snark was very excited by the whole business. He was a shiny man with a chubby, shining face and a shiny bald head. He even had two shiny gold teeth, and his gold-rimmed, half-moon glasses sparkled with pinpoints of light. He wore a dark suit, a striped shirt and a yellow bow tie. Jodie thought he looked more like an opera singer than a doctor.

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark poked and prodded Jodie all over until she began to feel like a pincushion, while Mr Bolton watched and waited nervously. He kept asking what was wrong with his daughter, and at length Mr

  Pinkerton-Snark announced his findings.

  ‘She’s a dinosaur,’ he said.

  ‘I would never have guessed,’ Jodie grumbled darkly.

  ‘We know that, but why is she a dinosaur?’ said Mr Bolton.

  ‘Huh!’ squeaked the specialist. ‘Why do children do anything? They’re a complete mystery to me, but I have to say it is quite fascinating. Most fascinating indeed. A real dinosaur – a throwback to prehistoric times, a link with our distant past. This is going to be big news.’ Mr Pinkerton-Snark was muttering quietly to himself and walking round Jodie, peering at her from all sides.

  ‘Can you cure her?’ asked Mr Bolton.

  ‘She’ll have to stay here.’

  ‘What? Surely not? Can’t I take her home?’

  ‘Mister Bolton, your daughter has turned into a dinosaur. Suppose it’s something catching? What if it’s infectious? Do we want the streets full of dinosaurs? I don’t think so. She will have to stay here so that I can run some tests and find out what is wrong with her and how to cure her.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ growled Jodie, who had taken an immediate dislike to Mr Pinkerton-Snark.

  ‘You do want to be cured, don’t you?’ snapped the specialist.

  Mr Bolton looked helplessly at Jodie.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘You’ll be well looked after. We’ll come and see you first thing in the morning. Is there anything you want us to bring? Pyjamas? Toothbrush?’

  ‘Dinosaurs don’t wear pyjamas, Dad, and I don’t think they brush their teeth either. I would like my teddy though.’

  Mr Bolton nodded. ‘You will look after her?’ he asked Mr Pinkerton-Snark, who was already hustling Jodie’s father from the room.

  ‘Jodie will be fine. You go home.’

  Mr Bolton gave Jodie a hug and left, feeling a bit sad and guilty that he didn’t have Jodie with him, but it was surely for the best? Little did Mr Bolton realize what Mr Pinkerton-Snark was already planning.

  As soon as the specialist had set eyes on Jodie, he knew he was on to something big. A girl who had changed overnight into a stegosaurus? This was going to make medical history! He’d be famous – rich even! This was a story worth hundreds of thousands of pounds!

  The first thing he had to do was make sure that he had Jodie safe and sound somewhere, away from the public, so that nobody else could get hold of the story. Then he could alert the newspapers and television and they would come swarming round like bees round a honey pot, with their cameras and microphones … and big fat wallets.

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark led Jodie down endless corridors, until they reached a large room. On one side there was a little desk where a nurse sat on duty, wearing a crisply starched uniform. She looked more like a security guard than someone who was there to help the sick. In the middle of the room was a plastic tent, at least that’s what Jodie thought it looked like.

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark pushed back the heavy plastic flaps. ‘This is your new home,’ he announced.

  ‘Lovely wallpaper,’ said Jodie, staring at the banks of machines lining each side.

  ‘It’s an Isolation Unit, that’s all. It’s where we keep patients who might be very infectious. Keep still while I fix these to your body,’ snapped Mr Pinkerton-Snark.

  ‘What are they? What are you doing?’

  ‘They’re electrodes. They monitor your heartbeat and your brainwaves and generally keep an eye on how you are.’ The electrodes had coloured wires trailing from them into the machines, and the machines blipped and bleeped with a hundred and one dials and little flickering screens. There was a constant hum of electricity.

  Jodie was overcome with lonely gloom and she sank to the floor. Mr Pinkerton-Snark smiled down at her and rubbed his hands

  together. ‘That’s right, you settle down for a good night’s sleep. I have a lot of work to do.’

  He chuckled quietly to himself. ‘I’ve got big plans for you and me. Do you think I like looking after people with horrible spots and nasty runny noses and spitty-sputtery coughs? You must be joking! But you! You’re something quite special, and you are going to be my goose that lays the golden egg.’

  Jodie was puzzled. Why did chubby-chops think she was a goose all of a sudden? But she was too weary and miserable to comment.

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark pushed his way out of the tent. He was going to be famous! He would go down in history as the first doctor to treat this astonishing new disease. ‘I shall call it Dinosaur Pox,’ he smiled to himself.

  Jodie listened to the specialist’s footsteps as they receded down the corridor. She lay slumped in the corner, in a nest of trailing wires. She had hated her hair and she had hated her freckles, but surely that was better than being a stegosaurus? A small tear began to well up in her left eye.

  Dinosaurs couldn’t smile, but they could cry.

  4 Mark to the Rescue

  The Boltons went back to the hospital that evening to deliver Jodie’s teddy. Mark came with them. He was shocked when he saw the condition his sister was in, surrounded by bleeping machines, and with wires stuck all over her.

  ‘Wow!’ he breathed. ‘You look like Frankenstein.’

  ‘Thank you, Mark. It’s so sweet of you to say so,’ Jodie answered, a trifle coldly.

  ‘No, I mean – weird!’ Mark shook his head in disbelief. ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘All for her own good,’ said Mr Pinkerton-Snark with a cheerful smile.

  ‘When will they let you come home?�
�� asked Mark.

  ‘That’s a stupid question,’ snorted the specialist.

  ‘He is only nine.’ Mrs Bolton was apologetic.

  ‘And he’s not stupid either,’ growled Jodie, which pleased Mark mightily, since she had never, ever admitted such a possibility before.

  Mr Pinkerton-Snark folded his arms and looked down at Jodie’s brother. ‘Look at the condition she’s in. She’s a menace to the general public. There is no question of her going home.’

  ‘You can’t keep her here for ever!’

  ‘And since when have you been a doctor, young man?’ This stinging rebuke silenced Mark for the time being, and the specialist drew Mr and Mrs Bolton to one side to have a private word with them.

  Mark stepped closer to the plastic tent. ‘Are you all right?’ His voice had dropped to a secretive whisper.

  ‘I’m bored. There isn’t even a telly here.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘You?’ Jodie gave a choking laugh. ‘Like what?’

  ‘If you’re going to be like that …’ Mark said moodily. ‘I was only trying to help you.’

  ‘Thanks for nothing.’

  Mark gave up. Obviously Jodie was going into one of her most grumpy moods, and if that was the case it wouldn’t be worth speaking to her for hours. All the same, he was appalled at the way she was being kept, all wired up, like some hideous experiment.

  ‘I wish she could come home,’ said Mark, on the way back to the house.

  Mrs Bolton gave him a ghost of a smile. ‘You and Jodie are always quarrelling. How come you want her back home?’

  Mark shrugged. ‘I suppose I miss her. I mean, we liked to quarrel. That’s what brothers and sisters do, isn’t it? I bet you quarrelled with Uncle Nick when you were small.’

  Mark was right. Mrs Bolton had spent half her childhood arguing and fighting with her older brother. Mark went on. ‘Anyway, I miss her, and I don’t like to see her in hospital like that. We ought to go back and rescue her.’