My Pet Indoraptor

Chapter 5

It was now later that day, and Ripper was not excited as he watched Lucy's car pull up outside our house. I gave him a little prep talk before she knocked on the door. I told him not to be worried, and that it would all be fine. He nodded, but you could see rage filling up as Lucy came closer to the door. She knocked on the door and Ripper snarled, I gulped and i think Lucy was smiling. As I opened the door, Ripper ran upstairs. "Hi" I said to Lucy as she came in. She said hi to me and we went to sit on the sofa. I asked "can i get you something to drink?" and she joked "why not make the dinosaur do it?" I laughed with her then said "in all seriousness though, he is here." Her smile dropped instantly but she didn't shake or anything.

We had a nice roast dinner and had a fairly serious discussion while we ate. "so.." she asked, "what are we going to do with the dinosaur if I'm going to live with you?" She thought that through quick. I was going to ask her in a nice romantic way about living with me, but I suppose having Ripper around made this a very serious situation for her. Understandable. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to condition him to living with you. I've conditioned him to a lot in the past though, so it should be fine." I replied to her. "How do we condition him?" she asked, and I said "basically you just start living with me."

With that, we finished the meal and we went to sit on the sofa. We watched some TV, as Ripper came walking through. Lucy held her breath, but I reminded her that it's all ok, and to just let him do his thing. He looked at her and rolled his eyes, but took no futher action against her. He passed through in to the kitchen and left us alone. Then, in typical Ripper fashion, he jumpscared the two of us. I was used to this cruel game of his, so I just jumped but remained seated. Lucy, however, legged it. She ran and hid in the under stairs cupboard in the hallway. Ripper smiled at me and I had a right go at him. I told him to leave, to run in to a forest and never come back. He didn't understand this, as it was new to him, so he simply stared at me. I opened the front door and said "go." This he did understand, and left.

I went to the under stairs cupboard and opened the door slowly. I said in a calm voice: "it's gone now, promise" and she looked up at me. She said nothing, but nodded and came out from under the cupboard. After a while of sitting with her, she finally spoke: "You didn't have to make him go away" and I replied "no, I did. That was very cruel of him, and even though he's an animal, he does know better." Then what she said next genuinely surprised me. "Look. He was just being playful, most animals do that. Except of course with something smaller and cuter, that might be them jumping up on your lap. I jumped and ran away because he's large and has predatory features. But now I know what his being playful looks like, I know that it isn't a genuine attack. Now, I'm going to find him and you're coming with me." I said "ok" and nodded, then we left the house and headed to the first place on my "checklist of places Ripper is likely to go if he goes missing". Yes, I have one of those. Anyway, location number one was Asda.