Chapter XI
Oriental Lapdog
A face emerged from the wall and said, “Autumn’s sleeping over—you need to clean up this room.”
To his father’s disembodied visage, Snapdragon responded, “Last time she was here, she got angry that I put the plant-eating dinosaurs with the meat-eating ones. I don’t wanna get anything wrong.”
“We don’t want her to go home and tell Mrs. Tannstein that our place is messy, do we?”
“She’s a tattler,” said Snapdragon, sighing.
“You’ll get ice cream if you make it look clean.”
“With the peanut elephants?”
“With peanut elephants,” confirmed his father. “But don’t tell Mommy.”
“Deal.”
Below the man’s round face, a broom clutched by a disembodied hand emerged from the wall.
“Use this.”
Snapdragon took the broom from his father and swept his spongy dinosaurs int
