“It’s really big,” said a childish voice behind me.

I turned around and saw this smiling round-faced little girl with slanting eyes behind thick, pink-framed glasses, adorable freckles all over her face, long hair with bright red curls and a light cotton dress with a multi-coloured floral print. Her plump little legs ended up in white cotton stockings stuffed into shiny black patent leather shoes.

“It’s really, really big,” she said again, this time stuttering slightly.

She was about eight years old and nonchalantly exhibited that innocence of her age coupled with her obvious genetic condition. She kept smiling at me. She must have found it interesting that a sixty-year-old man who could be her grandfather was standing in a museum in front of a dinosaur skeleton.

“It’s the largest dinosaur ever discovered,” I told her, validating her earlier statement.

The girl stepped forward and stood beside me. Her eyes widened as did her smile. She extended her chubby little arms upward and outward, as if to embrace the enormity of the specimen on display.

“It’s gigantic!” she exclaimed, tremendously happy.

“It’s a Patagotitan mayorum. It lived in the Cretaceous, a long time ago, a hundred million years ago. That’s what it says there,” I added, pointing to the small sign on the pedestal.

“Pa-ta-go-ti-tan-mayonnaisorum,” she read very slowly, laughing at the end. “I like mayonnaise. And ketchup, with my French fries. And hamburgers, especially with melted cheese. They call them cheeseburgers. I like cheeseburgers with lots of mayonnaise, but Mum says they’re fattening.”

I imagined her lovely face smeared with ketchup, matching her red hair.

“Did dinosaurs eat meat? Did they eat hamburgers or were they vegans?” she asked me, chuckling.

“It depends. There were dinosaurs that ate vegetables and dinosaurs that ate meat, that were carnivores. This giant dinosaur ate vegetables. It was a vegetarian.”

“I’m sure it ate a lot of spinach and broccoli. I like spinach, but I don’t like broccoli. Mum says broccoli is very healthy, but Dad doesn’t like broccoli either. Dad is not much of a vegetarian. I think he’s more of a carnivore. Mummy challenges daddy because she says he doesn’t set a good example for me.”

She blushed like someone who had carelessly revealed a secret.

I gave her a knowing smile and she giggled.

Then she became serious and looked me up and down.

“Are you as old as he is?” she asked, pointing to the dinosaur.

“Not that old. Just a little younger.”

“My mum is old. She’s older than Miss Regina. But she doesn’t like to tell her age. I don’t know how old my mother is, but she always complains that she is no longer young and that when she got pregnant with me, she was already old, which is why I was born special.”

“We are all special. Each one has their abilities and their flaws. Everyone has their abilities and defects, which are given to them at birth and can be modified by upbringing. We all have latent potential for both virtue and sin. Amen.”

“Amen,” she said by reflex in a respectful voice.

She lowered her head, as if she were praying.

She stayed like that for a few moments.

Then, she looked me in the eye.

“You speak very funny,” she said, giggling.

“I mean that we are all a little good and a little bad. You seem like a very good girl, though. A wonderfully good girl.”

Then, the girl grinned from ear to ear and the freckles on her face became even more adorable.

“Mama tells me that I am the apple of her eye, that she is grateful to have me, that it is good for us to live alone together, that men are bad. But you are a man, and you are not bad, aren’t you?”

I froze, unable to say anything. Suddenly, my granddaughter Zoe’s smiling face and her mother’s condemning gaze appeared to me. Some things are hard to explain to a mother, especially when that mother is your own daughter.

I looked around me and for the first time I became uneasy. The museum seemed deserted, except for a security guard at the entrance.

I bent down with some difficulty and looked the girl in the face.

“Where is your mother? Did you come with her?”

“No! I came with Miss Regina! And with the other kids. There are a lot of us.”

Following an impulse, I slid my hand through her hair. My bony fingers tangled for an instant in her luscious ruby-coloured ringlets. I gently stroked his scalp and was overcome with a surge of excitement. The girl smiled at me, and her slanted eyes sparkled behind her thick glasses.

The two of us stayed like that for a moment that stretched into a glorious eternity.

Just then, a young woman came running into the room, visibly agitated and with a dismayed expression.

I clumsily removed my hand from the girl’s hair, not knowing where to place it next. I got up and remained silent, watching that human steamroller arrive.

“Isabella! Where were you? We were just leaving! Did this man do something bad to you?” she said to the girl, grabbing her by the shoulders.

I took a few steps back.

“I was asking Isabella who she had come with,” I managed to tell the young woman. “I suppose you are Miss Regina. No one here has done anything wrong. I suggest you don’t take it out on her and do your job better.”

“I will report you!” said the young woman. “And don’t meddle in other people’s business!”

Then she grabbed Isabella and dragged her towards the exit. Isabella obeyed without saying a single word. At the last moment, she briefly freed herself from the grip and turned to me, with a riot of flashing red curls, and she waved at me with her chubby little hand, smiling the most innocent smile in the world.

I waved back and stood alone in the dimly lit room, with my usual doubts and regrets.

I looked at the time on my watch: it was still early.

I could continue to admire that magnificent dinosaur without being disturbed.

Marcelo Medone (1961, Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions Award nominee fiction writer, poet, essayist, journalist, playwright and screenwriter. He received numerous awards and was published in multiple languages in more than 50 countries, including the UK.
Additionally, he is a paediatrician trained in the management of children with disabilities and children who have suffered domestic abuse, working alongside the courts to relocate them to safe homes.
He currently lives and works in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Facebook: Marcelo Medone / Instagram: @marcelomedone