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CHOMP! CHOMP! CHOMP!

by Kevin J Doyle

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, “CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP.”

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

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

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

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

“Well, this is it,” I said. “You’ve CHOMP CHOMP CHOMPED everything.”

He tried to munch on a few grass pieces but they were too small. Then Oliver tried to eat the dirt, “CHOMP CHORPH CHORAKH.” 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, “CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP.”

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 water. 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 CHOMPING 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 chomping, 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 “CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!”