The giant crocodile guards the mote. I take comfort in that.

Still, I have been betrayed by the two youngsters.

Only moments before I, the former queen, had taken the royal noodle and knighted them. I addressed them formally, calling them “Sirs”, then watched as they leaped into the concrete pool, both with smiles on their young faces.

Pleased to have done my duty by making two boys happy, I settled upon my noodle horse.

“It’s a great stallion,” I said, peddling my legs in the water.

Sir Paddy, the younger one of only 5 years, scoffed. He threw an invisible something my direction.

“Now,” he said. “You are riding a snail.”

The nerve of that rascal!

“How could you?” I demanded.

Laughter.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, Sir Paddy wasn’t finished with me yet. “Whoosh. And you are now a chicken.”

How quickly one can be thrown from greatness into insignificance.

I bwok, bwoked in a pitiful and timid display as I tread the water at a snails pace.

Seven- year-old Sir Russ (the one who taught me what a sarcosuchus was in the first place) had another idea. Poof. “You are now a dragon chicken.”

Things were looking up.

I flew off my snail, flapped my wings with enough force to swell the pool. My bwoks roared. Fire erupted from my beak with enough heat to put the ninety-seven degree Texas heat to shame.

Quickly, before the two tricksters had any more ideas, I flapped out of the pool toward my water bottle and for a bit of respite.

Because, occasionally, grandmother dragon chickens need their rest.