**This story has changed a fair amount in the past 9 months and is now under contract with knowonder! for digital and print publication. It also has a new name. What you see here is the ORIGINAL manuscript.**
-KJD, 5/16/2012

I have a friend. He is a crocodragonosaur. That’s “croc-o-drag-on-a-saur”. He looks pretty much how you’d imagine him to look. Except much bigger. Much, much bigger. And fatter. He’s called Oliver. We play together a lot, but he always makes trouble.

Once, I showed him my teddy bear and Oliver ate it up, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.”

Another day I showed him how to blow on my pinwheel to make it spin. “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP,” he ate it up.

It goes on like that with most everything. My lunch, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.” My bike, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.” My hula hoop, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.”

Two days ago, I tried to send Oliver the massive crocodragonosaur back home to his cave. I tried a bus. But, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP,” he ate the bus stop. I walked him to the train station. But, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP,” he ate the train tracks. I tried the airport. But you guessed it; Oliver ate the airplane’s wings, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.”

Yesterday, I had an even better idea. I led my enormous crocodragonosaur friend to a large open field. Along the way he ate the creek bridge, two park benches, and a statue of a man on a horse, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.”

“Well, this is it,” I said. “You’ve CLOMP CLOMP CLOMPED everything.”

He tried to munch on a few grass pieces but they were too small. Then Oliver tried to eat the dirt, “CLOMP CLORPH CLORKAH.” But it was too hard and he could not chew it.

His shoulders sagged and he said quietly, “Did I really eat everything?”

“Well, not yet. But you will soon if you aren’t careful!”

He nodded his head, “I get it. From now on, I will only eat what I need.”

I smiled and gave Oliver a big hug. Actually I just patted him on one shoulder and then ran around and patted him on the other shoulder. Because it’s quite hard to hug a gigantic crocodragonosaur.

“Let’s go back to my house and play in the sprinkler!”

“OK!” Oliver shouted.

We raced back to my house. Along the way he ate two cars and my street sign, “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP.”

I glared at him and crossed my arms.

“OK, from NOW on I will eat less,” he said with a shrug and a little grin.

I smiled too and went to the side of the house to turn on the hose. When I came back, he hadn’t eaten anything!

Oliver the ever so slightly smaller crocodragonosaur was just quietly drinking from the sprinkler, “Sip, sip, sip.”

“You did it!” I said, “You learned to stop CLOMPING and start sipping.”

“Yahoo!” said Oliver. And when he talked, I could see that he was chewing up our front door.

“Oops,” he said.

I just shook my head. “Sipping is always better than clomping, Oliver! You have to keep trying, OK?”

My friend the humongous crocodragonosaur nodded his head, “I promise!”

And if you are reading this story, then he must be doing much better because otherwise I’m sure he would have eaten all the words by now with a “CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP!”


Published at the link below:
CLOMP! CLOMP! CLOMP! on knowonder.com