Charlie at the Museum

One hand holding onto his older sister, Anna's hand, Charlie kept the other one clutching to the black metal bars that encased the dinosaur display at the local museum. He looked up to his mentor with wide, glistening chocolate eyes. 

"Anna, w-will you tell me about the dinotaurs?"

The blond girl grinned at her little brother, glad to have him. The look Charlie gave her further showed that viewed her almost like a second mother.

"Of course," Anna messed with Charlie's light brown hair.

"Yay!" Charlie jumped up and down, clapping his hands wildly. He listened tentatively as Anna explained the difference between carnivores and herbivores.

"So... so d-do carbimores eat only meat and no plants? What am I? Am I a carbimore or a ermishore?" Charlie was eager to know.

"You," Anna started slowly, still grinning at her little brother as they made their way to the next exhibit. "Are an omnivore."

Charlie looked as though he had just been told the meaning of life. 

"A-a omnivore?" He stuttered. "What's that, Anna?"

"An omnivore is someone who eats both plants and meat. And although sometimes you don't want to eat your plants, and mom has to beg you to eat your broccoli, you still eat it. Which means you're an omnivore. You see?" 

"Oh." Charlie nodded his head matter-of-factly as though this was something he knew all along. Anna pretended he had.

Charlie shrugged his shoulders, still gripping Anna's hand as they sauntered over to the next dinosaur skeleton. 

"Anna what kind of dinotaur is that?" Charlie furrowed his eyebrows.

Anna was milking the feeling of being relied on.

"A T-Rex."

"What sound does a T-Rex make, Anna?"

Anna made a loud "Rawr" sound, enough to make the people around them stare. But she didn't mind.

"Now you try."

Charlie copied her.

"Good!" Anna giggled. "Now, I'm a T-Rex, I'm going to get you."

Anna happily chased her brother throughout the museum, knowing she shouldn't be running, but completely not caring.

As he was running, Charlie got caught up in escaping from the big bad T-Rex. His heart was racing, palms were sweating, and he knew he had to get away somehow. But how? That's when he saw it.

Yes! There it was! Right in front of him. A bush in front of a "Plants are cool!" display. This is where he would make his escape. Silently, he slipped into the grass bush, still breathing fairly heavily, but definitely feeling safer. That was when he heard the roar of a dinosaur right behind him. 

But when he looked behind him, it wasn't Anna. No, it was a real life dinosaur. He stood up and ran the opposite direction, the orange, red, and yellow striped Tyrannosaurus following closely behind him. He ran as fast as he could, until his legs just couldn't run anymore. But when he looked around, he noticed he wasn't in the museum anymore. Charlie knew when he saw the barren landscape, volcanoes, and caves that he had gone back in time and was in the time of the dinosaurs!

Charlie quickly found a cave to hide himself in, his heart racing as he sat down on the dirt floor. The young boy heard the T-Rex coming for him, his feet stomping wildly on the dust ground. Charlie was silent.

Luckily, the dinosaur stomped right past the cave and and past Charlie as well.

"I'm safe!" Charlie said to himself triumphantly. I'm safe.

But where was Anna?

"There you are you little booger. Now I'm going to eat you!" Suddenly, Anna emerged from the shadows of the cave behind him, and scooped him up, and shaking him wildly.

Just as Charlie was about to ask how Anna had gotten here, he realized that he wasn't in the land of the dinosaurs anymore. He was back in that museum. And while boring in comparison to the time of the dinosaurs, Charlie loved the museum; for the reason and the reason only that Anna was there with him.

Anna set him down on the carpet gently. 

"Okay you little monster. Do you wanna go look at the mummies now?"