Crumpled Home

(An unfortunately chirpy RJ appears at the counter ready for breakfast, with a dinosaur entourage.)

Dad: (blearily rubbing eyes) What is this? RJ and the breakfast full of dinosaurs?… Okay, what do you want to eat?

RJ: This dinosaur wants flies. You’d better get to work; they’re hard to catch and he needs a lot of them.

Dad: Okay. I’ll see what I can do. How about the others?

RJ: Meat. Lots of meat.

Dad: And you?

RJ: Just rice bubbles…

(half an hour later, RJ wanders past, arms still full of dinosaurs)

Dad: RJ, wouldn’t it be easier to carry them in something? A bag or a basket or something?

RJ: (yelling back) No! I don’t need to. They all get around on rocket boosters.

Dad: Wow! That’s so cool. Dinosaurs with rocket boosters.

RJ: No. It’s not really great, because they don’t have legs. That’s why they had the rocket boosters put on.

LR: Look at the picture on the dog shampoo bottle. The dog is washing itself like it’s a human. It even has human hands!

Mum: That’s called anthropomorphising. When you make an animal seem like a human… Like by making it talk or making it look like it’s having a bubble bath.

RJ: Yeah… Because it has a robot inside it to make it move.

(LR and  mum look at him in puzzlement)

RJ: Like at the museum. The dinosaurs in the exhibition move because they’re anthropomorphitronic.

(mum and LR still confused)

Mum: (has a sudden thought) Do you mean the animatronic dinosaurs?

RJ: Yeah… Animatronic. They move like people.

(at the Western Australian Museum)

RJ: I want one of those. It would make a good pet.

Dad: A carnotaur? I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

RJ: No. A hypsilophodon. We could keep it in the back yard.

Dad: That’d be fun. It would probably eat some of the plants in mum’s veggie patch, though.

RJ: Maybe we should get two then.