Title: D is for Dinosaurs
Summary: Dinosaurs. No, really. Roar.
Rating: T
Classification: General/Humor, Chapter/Drabbles (One for each letter of the Alphabet)
Disclaimer: I do not own it. I just play in it.
Author's notes:
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the past chapters, I really appreciate feedback! I am alive, I promise, and I will be finishing this story, just one chapter at a time. Please continure to review, I love to hear any thoughts relating to the story.
Tanaka&yamada: I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter, if my cat questioned my sanity, I would question it as well. In response to your question about cooties, here is a definition from wikipedia: "Cootie is a slang word in American English, used by children, referring to a fictional disease. Cooties are believed to be a highly contagious disease or condition, generally carried by members of the opposite gender. One supposedly catches cooties through any form of bodily contact, close proximity, contact with an "infected" person's possessions, or third-party transmission. In prepubescent children it serves as a device for enforcing gender separation. An older person may jokingly refer to cooties when talking about awkwardness toward sex and relationships."
Chapter Four
D is for Dinosaurs
It was a sunny Thursday morning at the Little Ninja Sitter Center. All the bright-eyed future ninja of Konoha huddled in the far corner of the room, momentarily quiet. Some of the more fidgety in the group teased the fraying edges of the worn, once fluffy, blue rug upon which they sprawled. And, in the center of the little monsters sat one very animated, very orange, and very loud Naruto Uzumaki.
Oh, and one Sasuke Uchiha, who had the privilege of grudgingly sitting next to the bouncing ball of "joyous youth."
Unfortunately, Sasuke knew this was about as calm as his day was likely to be. This temporary peace would soon be shattered as story time was drawing to an end.
In confirmation of this fear, Naruto slammed the book (which Sasuke was not entirely sure was being read correctly in the first place) shut and waved it in the air, dramatically delivering the (supposed) final line to his wide-eyed audience.
"AND—that's the most terrifying creature in the world, the great white shark!"
Little heads bobbed up and down earnestly, "Ooooh, ahhh!" A small splattering of applause followed a chorus of appreciative squeals.
"Nuh-uh." One voice boldly broke out from its peers.
"Huh?" Naruto blinked at his unexpected opposition, a little boy with shaggy brown hair and crooked glasses who barely reached Naruto's waist in height.
The child adjusted his glasses and crossed his arms. "Its not the most scariest."
Sasuke watched the exchange with growing amusement. Naruto's grip tightened on his beloved shark book and his eyes narrowed, annoyed. He engaged the child in true Uzumaki fashion—by matching his opponent's level of maturity. "Yes it is!!"
"No its not!"
"Yes it is!"
"No its not!"
"Yes it—," Naruto shook his head mid-squawk, abruptly realizing the fallacy of this argument. "Fine then!" Naruto opened the book and pointed aggressively to a rather gory picture of a large grey and white fish happily chewing on something that looked like it was, at one point in time, of the human species. Naruto shook the picture in the child's face and ignored the fearful squeaks of some of the more "squeamish" children in the class. "What's more scary than this thing, huh, huh?"
"A spinosaurus!" The boy smiled triumphantly.
Naruto blinked. "Eh?" The children at his feet also gazed at their comrade in confusion.
"Its a dinosaur." Sasuke found twisted amusement in the fact that the little boy rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation with such force he dislodged his glasses. Again.
"Eh?" Naruto looked at the kid, whose glasses began to slip slowly down his nose. Naruto looked back at his book, slightly forlorn. "A what?"
"A Spinosaurus! Duh." The boy straightened his glasses, again, and adopted a lecturing tone that vaguely reminded Sasuke of Naruto's dear Iruka-sensei. "Its name means spine lizard. Its a genus of theropod dinosaur which lived in North Africa, from the Albian to early Cenomanian stages of the Cretaceous Period, about 95 to 93 million years ago. The distinctive "spines" of Spinosaurus, which were long extensions of its vertebrae, grew up to 6.6 ft long, that's 2 meters for those used to metric system, and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure, although some paleontologists suggest that they were covered in muscle and form a hump. According to recent estimates, it is the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs — even larger than Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus; these estimates suggest that it was 52.5 - 59.1 feet long, 20 feet tall, and weighed 21,825.763 pounds."
Naruto looked a bit lost. "What the heck?"
Sasuke watched as the brat fervently declared, "That means it could eat this entire class in one bite, Sensei!"
Naruto jumped a bit and scratched his head, "Oh! Er, uhm—well," overwhelmed by the revelation of the existence of such a creature he turned toward his silent comrade, "Gawd, Sasuke, why haven't we ever seen one of those?"
Sasuke's head snapped toward Naruto and his lips thinned.
Naruto simply gazed back with wide eyes, earnestly seeking an answer.
Sasuke grabbed the shark book and hit Naruto upside the head.
"Dinosaurs are extinct, Moron!"
Next Time at the Konoha Sitter Center: Egg Monsters. From Mars.