Luna (standing before a carefully arranged learning area): I have prepared an age-appropriate, evidence-based curriculum for Princess Tartirexy.(On the floor: flashcards, a tiny whiteboard, a plush dinosaur, and a book titled “DINOSAURS: FACTS, NOT FEELINGS.”)
Charlotte (from across the room): This will end in tears. She has the attention span of a popcorn kernel.
Luna: Not if everyone cooperates.
Charlotte: *eye roll*
Tartirexy (sits for exactly 1.3 seconds): I READY.
Luna (beaming): Excellent! Lesson one: What is a dinosaur?
Tartirexy (without hesitation): ME.
Luna (pause): …Close, but…
Charlotte (laughing): She’s already ahead of you.
Luna (holds up flashcard): This is a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Tartirexy (narrows eyes): NO. That me’s uncle.
Luna: Dinosaurs don’t have uncles.
Tartirexy (deeply offended): EVERYBODY HAS UNCLES.
Luna (regroups): Okay. New approach. Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago…
Tartirexy: YESTERDAY.
Luna: No. MUCH earlier.
Tartirexy (thinking hard): …Before cookies?
(Charlotte snorts.)
Luna (softly): Yes. Before cookies.
Tartirexy (gasp of horror): THEN BAD TIME.
Luna (trying visuals): Dinosaurs were reptiles.
Tartirexy (gasps, clutches chest): I AM WARM. REPTILES COLD. YOU LYING.
Charlotte (sipping imaginary tea and enjoying the lesson): She has you there.
Luna (desperate): Some dinosaurs had feathers.
(Dead silence.)
Charlotte (slow, lethal turn): Luna, no…too late.Tartirexy (eyes light up): FEATHERS???
(She immediately grabs a pillow, shakes it violently, feathers explode everywhere.)
Tartirexy (screaming): I EVOLVE.
Luna (coughing, covered in fluff): THIS WAS NOT PART OF THE PLAN
Charlotte (standing): I tried to warn you! Abort. Abort immediately.
Luna (raising voice): NO. Lesson two: extinction events!
Tartirexy (ears perk up): PARTY???
Luna: No. A meteor hit…
(Tartirexy launches herself at the whiteboard.)
Tartirexy: METEOR ME.(She knocks it over. Marker rolls away. Civilization ends.)
Luna (voice cracking): Dinosaurs did not survive!
Tartirexy (points at herself): LOOK.
Charlotte: She wins.
Luna (scribbling on a fresh whiteboard): Okay, deep breath. New day, new lesson. “Triassic. Jurassic. Cretaceous.” (Pauses, glares behind her) NOT a law firm, Tartiflette.
Tartirexy (wearing a stegosaurus tail backwards, wielding a half-eaten crayon): I AM CRE TAYSHUS. And this is my kingdom. (Licks the whiteboard.)Charlotte (sipping tea from a mug that says “Queen of Sass”): It’s 8 am and she’s already licking history.
Luna: Today, we learn about fossil records. (flips to a fossil chart) These are bones. From the past. They tell us things.
Tartirexy: I HAVE BONES! (Puts on a skeletal Halloween costume, gets stuck, falls over face first.)Charlotte (to no one): And yet, no extinction event has wiped her out.
Luna (ignoring everyone with the calm of someone absolutely not okay): Right. Moving on. Let’s simulate evolution using these clay models.
Tartirexy (smushing the clay): I MADE A SPAGHETTISAURUS!!! (Holds up a pasta-covered lump. Names it “Frank.”)
Charlotte: Why does she always name everything? Frank the Spaghettisaurus, the Smithsonian will love this.Tartirexy: NEXT CHAPTER: CATCANOLOGIC ERA! (Hurls the textbook across the room) All mammals were CATS and we RODE METEORS like JETSKIS!
Charlotte (on the floor laughing): I want this on a mural, in space.Luna (staring at a crayon drawing of a T. rex eating cookies labeled “Karenosaurus”): I need a sabbatical.
Tartirexy (cuddling the fossil chart): I learneded SO MUCH! Bones are past cats! Meteors are spicy! Frank is our god now!
