Once upon a time, a little girl and a little boy went to the museum with their parents. They walked through the main doors and saw a big lobby with doors to other rooms. The first door they walked through was the Egypt room. It had a model of a pyramid and sand on the floors. They stopped in front of a glass case that had a real mummy inside. Spooky.
The next room was long and skinny and the walls were covered with paintings of all different colours and shapes. Some of the paintings were as small as postage stamps, while others were as big as billboards.
The next room was the dinosaur room and it was full of... bones! Some were little chicken skeletons and others were big, T-Rex skeletons. In the middle of the room was even a giant brontosaurus with a long neck that reached all the way up to the dark ceiling.
Everyone was getting tired and decided to stop and have a little picnic. They were now in a big room full of animal statues with little velvet ropes around them. The family sat down on a bench and began to eat their peanut butter and jam sandwiches. While they ate, the kids looked at a crocodile statue behind them. It had a long scaly tail. It had a rough, bumpy back. It had a long snout full of shiny white teeth. It had small black eyes. It had - wink. What? The kids looked at each other. Did they really see what they thought they saw? It looked like that statue just blinked at them. They sat very still and watched it for a long time. Just when they started to think they had imagined it - wink - it blinked again. This time they were sure they saw it.
They told their mom and dad what they saw. "That crocodile's real... it will move, just watch!"
Their dad turned around and patted them on the heads, "ya, sure is scary isn't it?"
The kids were frustrated that their parents didn't believe them. They looked back and saw that now the crocodile's mouth was curled up like it was smiling, or like it was laughing at them!
They stopped the museum curator as she walked past. The sister, who was the oldest and the bravest, said, "excuse me, but that's a real crocodile. It holds real still most of the time, but we saw it blink." The lady smiled at them, then turned to their parents and said, "boy, they sure have quite the imaginations don't they? I think that's just great." And with that, she walked away. The kids looked back at the crocodile, and this time the tip of its tongue was sticking out at them!
The brother marched up to the crocodile and stomped on its tail as hard as he could.
ROOOAAR!
The angry crocodile jumped out of the exhibit and snapped at the two kids. Everyone else in the museum started screaming and running out the front doors. Snap! The crocodile chased the boy and girl down the isle, snapping at their heels.
The crocodile knocked over skeletons as it chased them through the dinosaur room.
The crocodile's swishing tail ripped paintings in the painting room, and turned the mummy to dust in the Egypt room. Snap. Snap. The crocodile was getting closer.
The boy and girl ran back into the animal room and hid behind a zebra statue. Smash. The crocodile broke right through the statue and snapped at them again. They hid behind a giraffe. Smash. A buffalo. Smash. Just as the crocodile was about to catch them, they hid behind an elephant statue. They thought the crocodile was going to smash through and gobble them up any second.
Thunk!
They waited, their eyes shut tightly...
Nothing.
They peeked around the side of the elephant and saw the crocodile lying still on the floor. They crept a little bit closer and saw that it was actually squished flat - like a pancake. The kids looked around but there was no one else in the room.
Just then, their mom and dad ran in and scooped them up, "oh we were so worried about you." Their parents hugged and kissed them and began to carry them towards the front doors. The boy and girl were still looking around, trying to figure out what had happened to the crocodile.
They looked down at the squished crocodile. Then they looked up at the big elephant statue. They looked at its big, heavy feet, at its big grey ears, at its big brown eyes - wink. Brother and sister looked at each other in surprise. They briefly considered telling their parents what they'd seen, but in the end they just waved their thanks and headed home for a treat.
- C
