Tevun-Krus #118 - A Very Merry Lost World Christmas

Super Dinosaur Fun All Day Long! - A Short Story by @johnnedwill

Super Dinosaur Fun All Day Long!

By johnnedwill

The children came bouncing into the bedroom at six o'clock in the morning, waking their parents with screams of joy. "It's Christmas! Wake up! Christmas! We want out presents!"

Jared Smith pulled the covers over his head, hoping that his children would take the hint and leave him alone. However, they were not going to be thwarted. Leah, his partner, rolled next to Jared and whispered into his ear, "Better do something before they get out of hand."

"Before they get out of hand?" Jared whimpered. He knew that Leah was right. They would not have a moment's peace unless he gave their children something to occupy them. Resigned to his fate, Jared sat up and, with a sweep of his arms, gathered the children close. "Alright! You're excited, aren't you?"

"Yes!" the three children chorused.

"Come on, then!" Jared rolled out of bed, glad that Leah had not given him his 'Christmas present', and dragged the children with him. They landed on the floor ion a giggling heap.

"What is it, daddy?"

"Is it our present?"

"Can we have it now?"

Jared got to his feet and led the children in a procession down the hallway. "You'll see," he said with mock-aloofness.

"It's going to be good!"

"Is it a big present?"

"Can we see it now?"

"Hush," Jared told his children. "And wait. You'll find out." The group stopped at the door to the children's playroom.

"It's old," Jonathan, the eldest of the three complained. The playroom had originally been built for him, some five years ago.

"Not fun," Maria pouted. As the middle child, she was always trying to be more grown up than Jonathan.

"It's for babies!" the youngest of the trio, Carla, whined.

Jared held up his hands in a gesture of parental surrender. "I know! that's why your mother and I have made it your Christmas present - a new playroom. It's got all new modules built in. It's going to be fun again." I hope, Jared thought. It had cost him a lot of money to buy the necessary upgrades.

"How?" Carla stared intensely at her father, her curiosity fuelled by childish suspicion.

"Why don't you see for yourselves?"

Jared flung open the door to the playroom and ushered the children inside. In its current, quiescent state, it was just a room with plain white ceiling, floor and walls. The nature of the new smart-matter mechanisms played tricks with perception and made it difficult to judge the room's actual dimensions. To Jared, it looked like he and the children were suspended in an indefinite void.

Jonathan folded his arms. "It doesn't look fun to me."

His father smiled at him."Oh, just you wait. Hey, Jeeves!"

A sparkling pillar of smart-matter grew up from the floor. "Yes, Mister Smith?" The light from the terminal pulsed in time with the plummy, British accent.

"Initiate playroom, please Jeeves."

"At once, Mister Smith." The pillar morphed into a thin slab with a screen in its centre. "Which simulation would you like?"

"Go on, kids," Jared said. "You can pick."

The three children crowded around the terminal, arguing amongst themselves about what they wanted to do. It took a few minutes for the squabbling to die down.