The tingle in Rebecca’s fingers grew at the thought of Thomas riding a gigantic scaly monster through her neighborhood. She wondered where she would fit into the picture.

“I’d let ‘im eat anything he wanted… ‘cept for me, Mummy, Daddy, Nanny …and you too, I guess.”

Somehow that didn’t make her feel any better about the situation. Her stomach was still in knots a sailor would have trouble untying. For just a moment she recalled why, and her eyes darted to Thomas’s feet. As he shifted his weight, his hard little leather heels ground into the crumbled bits of the concrete balcony where the paint had cracked and chipped away. Despite the warm Spring sun beating on them and the layers of her dress, she hugged herself tighter and shivered.

“We’d go ev’rywhere together, gobbling up nasty boys and snotty girls and yapping little dogs, ruining posh garden parties and thrashing the men in their striped suits and straw hats. We’d race horsies and eat the loser! I’d have Daddy buy me a diving suit and we’d swim the Thames. Oh, what fun! King Edward would be so impressed with me and my crocodile, he’d dub us knights, and give me a suit of armour and a sword. I’d give my crocodile a fancy plume to wear, and ev’ryone would be so honoured to meet us they’d offer their pets for ‘is supper. He’d even eat that old lady’s kitty and we’d sack its house like proper vikings! The whole city would be at our beck ‘n call. Dukes and Counts and Barons and Lords, all our servants shall we choose.

He’d get so big he wouldn’t be able to live ‘ere, though. They can grow up to six metres you know… we’d ‘ave to leave Mummy and Daddy and go somewhere better for ‘im. Maybe the country. There are lots of cows and sheep to eat in the country. But when we visit Auntie Agatha in Yorkshire it’s so dreadfully dull. I much rather like the city. Oh! We could live in the sewer, away from prying eyes, and fill our underground cave with treasure we loot’d from the world above. Yes, he’d like it very much down there, nice and wet. We’d get around faster too, running through the pipes, avoiding all the traffic above. Crocodiles can go as fast as an automobile! Wherever we wanted to go, we’d just take off, through the sewers, and pop out a manhole at our destination. The men from the city would have to make bigger manholes though. They might even make crossing signs with our shadows on them, um… sillo-wets. Yeah! People would come from far and wide jus’ to see us. Forget Bucking’m Palace, they’d say, we want to see Thomas and, and… well I guess he needs a name. I ‘aven’t the faintest idea what to call him.”

Thomas turned to face Rebecca.

“What do you th—