Chapter 9: dinosaur dream

I am standing on a road in the middle of a rolling plain. Dark green cycads and tussocky ferns poke up through the red-brown earth. My head is heavy and the tips of two long horns are in my line of sight. I look down at my feet: they are round and scaly, and fringed by four hoof-like claws. I try to say something and emit a honking bellow somewhere between the sound of a donkey and a bull. I look back past my neck frill down my armoured flank to my tail. I swish my tail.

I am a triceratops.

I begin to walk, and then trot; I wonder how fast I can run with four legs. I begin to gallop.

I can run really fast. I let out another bellow.

A bell tinkles by my ear. Carmella is beside me. She is riding a bicycle.