Big Feelings
It Isn’t the Rocket
There is a package under the tree with MILO on it, in Grandma’s wobbly capital letters.
Milo carries it over and plops down on the rug, right by Grandma’s feet.
White paper. Red dots.
“That one’s from me,” says Grandma, tucking her slippers out of the way.
Since November, Milo has wanted one thing: the rocket kit. You build it, you press the button, and its little doors pop open. Ffft.
This package is exactly rocket-sized.
He feels for the corner of a box.
His finger sinks into something soft.
Rrrrip.
Out comes a green head. Then a yellow triangle. Then another yellow triangle, and another, all the way down a knitted back.
Milo lifts it up by its middle. Four short legs dangle over the torn paper.
It is a dinosaur. A woolly one.
“I had to undo that tail twice,” says Grandma. “It kept curling up.”
Milo turns the dinosaur over. No button. No doors. He runs his thumb along the yellow triangles. Bump, bump, bump.
Grandma leans forward a little. Tess comes around the table to see.
“Do you like it?” asks Tess.
Grandma is still leaning forward. Milo opens his mouth.
He looks at the dinosaur’s green face. He looks at the torn paper on his knees.
Tess reaches for a short knitted foot — and stops, just before she touches it.
Grandma is looking at Milo. Tess is waiting for an answer. The dinosaur is in his hands.
What does Milo do?
Every choice costs something. Let’s see what.
Tell her about the rocket.
“I thought it was going to be the rocket,” says Milo.
Grandma sits back. “Oh,” she says. “I didn’t know about a rocket.”
Milo squashes the dinosaur’s feet flat against his knees. “The one with the doors.”
Tess peers at the dinosaur’s tummy, in case there’s a door in there.
“Can this one have doors?” asks Tess.
“No. It’s wool.” Milo turns it over to show her.
Grandma reaches across and smooths the dinosaur’s tail with two fingers. The tail she undid twice. For a moment she doesn’t say anything.
“You can show me the rocket sometime,” she says.
Milo nods. Nobody reaches for the next package yet.
Milo stands the dinosaur on the low table. It topples straight onto its nose. Flump.
“Its head’s too heavy,” he says.
Grandma holds the tail while Milo fixes the feet, and between them they get it sitting up against the fruit bowl. Tess puts a clementine next to it.
“That’s its egg,” says Tess.
“Dinosaurs don’t lay oranges.”
“This one does.”
Grandma reaches for the next package. Milo stays by the table, looking at the woolly dinosaur and its orange egg.
He still wishes for the doors that pop open. He catches the clementine just before it rolls off the edge.
Make the dinosaur talk.
Milo lifts the dinosaur up to Tess’s face.
“I EAT WRAPPING PAPER,” it says, in a very deep voice.
Tess holds up a scrap with red dots. The dinosaur bumps it with its nose. Nom nom nom.
“Not that piece,” says Tess. “That piece has my name on it.”
“A bow, then,” says the dinosaur.
Tess drapes a loose ribbon over its head. It slides down over one eye.
Grandma laughs and leans back into the sofa cushions. “He looks hungry,” she says.
Milo makes him inspect the fruit bowl, very carefully. Nobody says anything about a rocket.
Tess sweeps torn paper into a little pile on the rug. “His dinner.”
Milo walks the dinosaur over on its stubby legs. It has to hop to get across his knee. Hop. Hop.
Grandma opens her own present while Tess makes a second pile. That one, she says, is dessert.
“He’ll need somewhere to sleep,” says Grandma.
Milo opens his mouth to answer, but Tess has already spread the empty wrapping out flat on the rug.
“There. Paper bed.”
She looks at Milo. She is waiting for the voice.
Milo lowers the dinosaur onto the paper.
“Crunchy,” it says.
Sit by the tree a minute.
“I’m going to sit over there a minute,” says Milo.
He puts the dinosaur on the rug next to Grandma’s slipper and goes over to the tree.
“Watch the paper,” says Grandma.
He peels a red-dotted scrap off his sock. It has followed him all the way across the rug.
From here, Milo can see one green foot by the sofa.
Grandma picks the dinosaur up and sits it on her lap.
Tess turns around. “Are you opening another one?”
“In a minute.”
She picks up her own package instead. He hears the tape come off, slowly. Zzzzip.
Milo looks into a shiny red ornament. His nose is enormous in it. He leans closer. Now he is almost all nose.
Behind him, Tess rips her paper. “Look!”
He turns around, but Grandma’s shoulder is in the way. He sees the empty wrapping. He doesn’t see what came out.
Tess slides across the rug to him, holding a small yellow flashlight.
“It came with batteries!”
She shines it on her sock. Milo puts his red sock next to hers, in the little circle of light.
“Do the ceiling,” he says.
Over on the sofa, the dinosaur is still sitting on Grandma’s lap.