Chapter 14 #2
“All right, paleontologists in training!” I call out, and twenty-two heads swivel toward me. “Welcome to the Natural History Museum’s most exclusive dinosaur expedition! I’m Professor Giggles, and I’ll be leading today’s adventure. And this”—I gesture grandly toward Leo—“is Snugglesaurus.”
I give the children a moment to take in the full majesty of a six-foot-two man in an inflatable T. rex suit.
“Now, Snugglesaurus looks tough, but here’s a secret.” I drop my voice to a stage whisper. “He actually has to do whatever you tell him.”
Leo’s head swivels toward me.
“That’s because of this.” I pull out my secret weapon.
A plastic bone, painted gold, approximately the size of my forearm.
“This is the Golden Bone of Command. Whoever holds the Golden Bone gets to tell Snugglesaurus what to do. And Snugglesaurus has to obey because that’s the ancient dinosaur law. ”
Leo’s eyes narrow.
“Let’s start with some basics. Snugglesaurus, can you show us your scary dinosaur face?”
Leo bares his teeth through the mesh window. It’s actually quite intimidating.
The children shriek with delighted terror.
“Very good! Now, Snugglesaurus, can you do a dinosaur stomp?”
Leo stomps. The inflatable suit wobbles magnificently. Several children fall over laughing.
“Wonderful work, paleontologists! I think Snugglesaurus is ready for some more advanced commands. Now, who wants the first turn with the Golden Bone?”
Every hand shoots up. I select Thomas because it’s his birthday and because the customer is always right, even when the customer is six and has cake frosting already smeared on his face, even though we haven’t served cake yet.
“Thomas, what would you like Snugglesaurus to do?”
Thomas considers this with the gravity of a tiny emperor deciding the fate of nations.
“I want Snugglesaurus to dance!”
I glance at Leo. His expression, visible through the dinosaur’s mouth, is resigned.
“You heard the man,” I say. “Snugglesaurus, show us your moves.”
I hit play on my portable speaker. The Jurassic Park theme blares out because I have a sense of occasion.
Leo starts to dance.
And he’s actually really good.
Not good in a “this is competent” way. Good in a “this is genuinely entertaining” way.
He’s incorporating the limitations of the costume into the performance, using the wobble of his inflatable body as part of the choreography, and turning the useless tiny arms into a comedic element rather than an obstacle.
He does a body roll that sends ripples through the inflatable suit. He does a move that I can only describe as a prehistoric robot. He drops into a pose like he’s a T. rex surveying his domain, all swagger and predatory confidence.
The children are transfixed.
I’m transfixed.
There’s something about watching a man who’s usually so controlled deliberately let go for the entertainment of children that melts something inside me. It makes my stomach do a weird little flip every time our eyes meet through the mesh of his dinosaur mouth.
The music ends. Leo holds his final pose.
Twenty-two children erupt into the most enthusiastic applause I’ve ever heard at a birthday party, and I’ve done a lot of birthday parties.
“Snugglesaurus! Snugglesaurus! Snugglesaurus!”
Leo straightens. Through the mesh window, I can see him smiling.
Twenty-two children are chanting the name of a man in an inflatable dinosaur suit, and Leo Brennan is smiling like he’s just discovered something he didn’t know he’d lost.
I need to look away.
I don’t look away.
“Well!” I say, finally clapping my hands to regain control of the situation. “Snugglesaurus is clearly an excellent dancer! Now it’s your turn. The Golden Bone passes to everyone—show me your best dinosaur moves, and Snugglesaurus will choose his favorite dancer to receive a special prize!”
The children scatter across the room. I start the music again. They stomp and roar and wave their arms.
But something happens that I didn’t anticipate.
The children keep looking at Leo for approval. When he bobs his enormous head in their direction, they beam. When he mimics one of their moves, they glow with pride.
Somewhere in the last five minutes, the power dynamic in the room has shifted.
The children don’t care about Professor Giggles and his Golden Bone anymore.
They care about Snugglesaurus.
The song ends. The children collapse in giggling heaps, exhausted from their dinosaur exertions.
“Wonderful dancing, everyone!” I announce.
“And now, while you get your breath back, it’s time for some more entertainment,” another voice speaks up. It’s Leo a.k.a. Snugglesaurus.
I snap my head to look at him.
“What you don’t know about Professor Giggles is that he’s exceptionally good at talking in rhyme. And do you know what happens when you put rhyme to music? It turns into rap!”
I freeze.
Twenty-two faces swivel toward me with the kind of eager anticipation usually reserved for Christmas morning or the announcement of extra playtime.
“Rap?” I repeat, my voice coming out slightly strangled.
“Rap!” Leo confirms, his voice carrying that boardroom authority even through the mesh of a dinosaur mouth. “Professor Giggles is famous for his dinosaur raps. He’s been saving it as a special surprise.”
“I don’t know if special surprise is the right term for my rapping,” I say faintly.
“He’s modest.” Leo addresses the children now, and I watch in horror as he works the room like he’s pitching to investors. “But I’ve heard him practicing. He’s incredible. Aren’t you excited to hear Professor Giggles rap?”
“Yes!” twenty-two voices scream.
A little girl in the front row starts chanting. “Rap! Rap! Rap!”
It spreads like wildfire. Within seconds, the entire room is chanting. Parents are filming on their phones. Thomas’s mother is looking at me with an expression that says, “This better be good because I’m paying you two hundred pounds.”
I am going to kill Leo Brennan.
I am going to deflate his dinosaur suit and use it to smother him in his sleep.
“I don’t actually…” I start.
“Professor Giggles is just getting inspired,” Leo interrupts smoothly. “He needs complete silence to summon his creative genius. Everyone, let’s give him some quiet so he can prepare.”
The children fall silent immediately. Twenty-two pairs of eyes are fixed on me. Waiting.
Leo folds his tiny arms across his inflatable chest. I can see his expression through the mesh. It’s the expression of a man who has just checkmated his opponent and is thoroughly enjoying watching them realize it.
Well played, Leo Brennan. Well played.
But the thing about being a children’s entertainer is you learn to improvise. You learn to roll with whatever chaos the universe throws at you, whether that’s a clown with food poisoning, a bouncy castle that deflates mid-party, or a seven-year-old who announces loudly that Santa isn’t real.
I take a breath.
“All right, little paleontologists,” I say, leaning into it. “You want a rap? Professor Giggles will give you a rap. But I’m going to need your help. When I point at you, I want you to roar as loudly as you can. Can you do that?”
“Yes!”
“Let me hear your practice roar!”
Twenty-two children roar. It’s deafening. It’s perfect. It buys me approximately four seconds to come up with something.
“Beautiful! Now, this rap is called…” I pause, my brain scrambling. “‘The Dinosaur Stomp.’ And it goes like this.”
I start to beatbox. It’s not good beatboxing. It’s the kind of beatboxing that would get you laughed off any street corner in London. But six-year-olds have low standards, and I commit to it with everything I have.
Then I start to rap.
“My name is Professor Giggles, and I’m here to say…”
Terrible. Absolutely terrible opening. But I’m committed now.
“We’re hunting for dinosaurs every single day,
We got T. rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus too,
And a big green Snugglesaurus standing right in view!”
I point at Leo. The children roar on cue.
Leo’s expression flickers. I don’t think he was expecting me to actually do it.
I keep going, the words tumbling out faster now, finding a rhythm.
“He’s got tiny little arms and a great big tum,
When he does a dino dance, everybody wants some,
He stomps to the left and he stomps to the right,
Snugglesaurus is an incredible sight!”
The children are bouncing now, getting into it. A few of them are trying to mimic my beatboxing, creating a chaotic backing track of spit and enthusiasm.
“Now everybody stomp if you love dinosaurs!”
Stomping. So much stomping. The floor is shaking.
“Everybody roar if you want to hear more!”
Roaring. My eardrums may never recover.
“Thomas is the birthday boy, give him a cheer!”
“Thomas!” the children scream.
“He’s turning six years old, everybody say, ‘Yeah!’”
“Yeah!”
I’m sweating now. The pith helmet is slipping. I have no idea where this is going, but I can’t stop because stopping means admitting defeat, and I refuse to let Leo win. Then I have a moment of inspiration.
I point at Leo again.
“But wait, what’s this? Snugglesaurus wants a turn?
Does he have some sick rhymes we need to learn?
Come on, everybody, let’s hear what you think,
Should Snugglesaurus rap? Everyone blink!”
Twenty-two children blink furiously at Leo.
It’s a terrible rhyme. Blinking doesn’t even make sense in context. But I’ve just turned the tables.
I watch as the realization that I’ve just volunteered Leo for a rap battle in front of twenty-two children and their phone-wielding parents dawns on him.
“Rap! Rap! Rap!” the children start chanting again, but this time, they’re looking at Leo.
“I don’t…” Leo starts.
“Snugglesaurus is just getting inspired,” I say sweetly, echoing his words. “He needs complete silence to summon his creative genius.”
The children fall silent. Waiting.
Leo stares at me through the mesh.
I smile. It’s a smile that says, “Your move, dinosaur man.”
For a long moment, nothing happens. Leo stands there, inflatable and immobile, and I wonder if I’ve actually broken him. Is this the moment where the great Leo Brennan admits defeat and surrenders to the chaos of children’s entertainment?
Then he clears his throat.
And Leo Brennan, Fortune 500 consultant, TED Talk veteran, starts to rap.
“Yo, my name is Snugglesaurus and I’m here to say,”
His delivery is stiff. Wooden. Like a man reading a quarterly report aloud.
“That Professor Giggles thinks he runs this day,
But I’ve got news for him, check out these moves,”
He does a little wobble. The suit jiggles.
“Even with tiny arms, I’ve got nothing to prove.”
It’s objectively terrible. His rhythm is off, his rhymes are predictable, and he’s rapping with the natural flow of a GPS navigation system.
The children love it.
“I came from the past, sixty-five million years,
I’ve seen meteors fall and conquered my fears,
Professor Giggles thinks he’s the king of the scene,
But everybody knows that green is supreme!”
He strikes a pose. The tiny arms flap triumphantly.
The children erupt. They’re screaming, they’re cheering, they’re chanting “Snugglesaurus!” like he’s a rock star and not a management consultant in an inflatable suit, delivering the worst rap in recorded history.
I’m laughing. I can’t help it. The whole thing is so absurd, so completely ridiculous, that laughter is the only appropriate response.
Leo catches my eye through the mesh. He’s laughing too. I can see it in the crinkles around his eyes, the way his shoulders are shaking.
For a moment, we’re just two idiots in stupid costumes, laughing at the absurdity of what we’ve created.
The laughter fades, but the warmth doesn’t. It stays lodged somewhere behind my ribs, settling in like it plans to stay there permanently.
“I think,” I announce, once the chaos has died down to manageable levels, “that we can all agree both Professor Giggles and Snugglesaurus are equally talented rappers.”
“Talented is one word for it,” Leo mutters in a low voice as he comes closer to me.
I shoot him a look. He shoots one right back, and there’s a glint in his eye that I haven’t seen before. Something that looks almost like…mischief.
Oh.
Oh, this is interesting.
“That was a dirty trick,” I say, keeping my voice low enough that the children can’t hear.
“I learned from the best.”
I manage to hide my smirk. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Sure you don’t,” he says.
He adjusts his tiny arms with what can only be described as menacing calm. “You didn’t think your game would go on indefinitely, did you?”
The words hang in the air between us.
I widen my eyes in innocence. “Game? What game?”
“The one you started.” His eyes glitter through the mesh. “The one I’m just joining now.”
I should be concerned. I’m sure Leo Brennan didn’t become a leading figure in the tech industry by playing nice. If he’s decided to turn his considerable strategic intelligence toward the goal of embarrassing me in return, I could be in serious trouble.
But concern isn’t what I feel right now. What I’m feeling is something much more dangerous.
Excitement.
It’s been a long time since someone challenged me like this. Most people don’t play back. They don’t look at me with calculating eyes and hint at retribution in a tone that sounds almost flirtatious.
“Children! Cake time!” Patricia calls out, saving me from examining that thought too closely.
Leo holds my gaze for one more moment. Then he turns and waddles toward the cake table, all wobbling green dignity.
So my little T. rex knows how to bite, does he? That thought makes my pulse quicken in a way that has nothing to do with fear.
If he thinks I’m just going to surrender without a fight, he has severely underestimated me.
Game on.