1.

Laura's eyes opened wide as dinner plates as Dad guided her by the hand underneath the suspended skeleton.

'Diplodocus' said Dad, 'the length of three London buses. But don't be scared, you won't bump into one of these in Bishop's Wood any time soon - they're not around anymore: Extinct.'

Later, after a trip to the gift shop and a reassuring ice cream, they left the echoes of the Great Hall, and as they emerged from the heavy revolving door, three disturbed jackdaws fanned upwards and out of reach, settling onto the old gaslight and the new security camera. Silently and sideways they eyed Laura and Dad as they passed below, buttoning up coats against the wind. 'E-X-T-I-N-C-T' Dad was helpfully spelling out as they headed for the bus stop.

2.

Mary wiped her sweating brow with her handkerchief and refastened her wide brimmed sunhat with the hatpin she'd balanced on the rocks. The wind along the bluffs had dropped to nothing since she'd ventured out after lunch, and as the tide crept in, the breaking waves had reduced to shallow repeated reaches up the pebbly beach.

Mary set aside her basket of the day's haul; some great samples, and other suspect rocks that had enough patterning to suggest some careful hammer work by candlelight tonight might produce more fossils to sell in the shop.

It was around here last month, underneath that nesting site, that she'd seen what appeared to be an oversized eye socket in the foot of the cliff, just staring at her, in her ankle length skirt and long-sleeved blouse. Just staring at her, quite the lady in this unusual setting. It was like one of those optical illusions at the travelling fair.

She couldn't see it close-up, but from five or six yards back the frame of the eye revealed itself; a depressed section at the east end suggesting the hollow of an eye socket. Look away, and it was lost again. It had been late and the end of a productive day, so with both a fading light, quickening tide and a full basket, she hadn't spent more than a few minutes amusing herself before dropping her head into the wind to return and find the cliff steps.

She hadn't forgotten it though and had found herself once or twice idly thinking of the eye, intrigued. Now she was back and close to the same site, she scanned the cliff features, knowing it was around there somewhere.

Mary's slim, leather ankle boots climbed with experience over the rockfall to see if she could find it and recapture the illusion.

As she rounded a particularly large boulder, a scene revealed itself that stopped Mary in her tracks, dropping the basket to the ground. Someone had painted the outline of a bird's skull, in profile, in the cliff face near ground level. Quite a sizeable picture of the rounded skull of a Snipe, or perhaps an Oystercatcher, with a long, curved beak, ideal for breaking into seashells and dipping in pools. From her own extensive collection of skulls, Mary could see this had been created with some expertise in the subject, and her thoughts following the initial surprise were of indignation and concern that someone else had been here. On her beach. Working her beach. Or perhaps goading her? Perhaps another man down from the Royal Society trying to ridicule her again?

Mary approached with care to investigate it in finer detail. Her lips parted in silent exclamation as her outstretched fingertips brushed what on closer inspection revealed itself not to be a blunt outline painted on the sandstone, but instead a facsimile in relief, of the largest bird skull she had ever seen. By a very wide margin.

The eye socket that had teased her a few weeks earlier had been joined now by the clear outline of the head, past visible nasal cavities, to a long, curving and pointed beak. This was not the work of anyone else. Around Mary's feet was evidence of fresh rockfall, the regular cliff erosion that had provided for her passion and a modest living. This wasn't a picture or representation in any sense. Like her other findings, this dead creature's head was as real as her father's horse, the pig in the backyard, the geese on the green.

Contrary to the reputational slurs spread by the so-called gentleman palaeontologists, Mary knew her field well. Years of experience fuelled her knowledge of the fossils she discovered, their links to modern day creatures and the landscape where they had fallen and been preserved for what surely must be thousands of years.

Everything else she had uncovered here on this beach, exposed through rockfall, were sea creatures. Deep sea creatures; squid like, snail like, crab like. So what on earth was a twenty-foot bird doing swimming in the depths of an ancient, tropical ocean?

As Mary stood transfixed, pondering this new paradox, heart beating just a little faster, she took no notice of the Sand Martins high above, swooping in and out of their nest holes, returning with insects plucked from mid air, as they skilfully swam with the air on the warm evening's currents.

3.

Ethan played with his T Rex while the grown-ups talked. Most Sunday afternoons were like this; roast chicken dinner, then off to Grandad’s. Boy, it would be boring if it wasn't for Grandad's toybox, dragged out from behind the sofa.

'I used to play with that when I was your age' Grandad said every Sunday like it was the first time. 'Then, so did your Dad. It glows in the dark.'

Mum had told Ethan he had to pretend it was always the first time.

‘It's not fibbing if it's being kind’ she said. Ethan still didn't have a clue as to what any of that meant.

The plastic T Rex was his favourite; bright red and much bigger than most of his toys at home. A hand on one of its scrawny little arms had been lost sometime in the past, but that was easily overlooked as the huge teeth in its oversized head were Ethans favourite bit. T Rex picked up the metal cars from the toybox in one, easy mouthful, and casually discarded them before searching out more prey. Ethan had had a full tummy of chicken dinner, but T Rex was always hungry. The thick, powerful tail killed the rubber King Kong next, in a single blow. T Rex devoured him from the head down, then looked up for his next meal.

Just before Christmas, Ethan had discovered the fixed, massive hind legs actually moved. He heard a big crack as he accidentally sat on top of T Rex and at first was really worried that he'd broken him. He couldn't begin to think what Mum and Dad would say, let alone Grandad. But it turned out the legs moved in their sockets - they'd just been stuck solid for years. Now T Rex sprinted after its prey with Ethan moving the muscled legs from behind. Once the toybox prey was all devoured, T Rex jogged into the kitchen, stopping off to kill the brass monkey doorstop, sinking deadly teeth into monkey's flanks with ease. Scanning the kitchen, through the chair legs under the table, T Rex spotted a herd of wellybootosauruses grazing over by the back door. Ethan moved T Rex's legs into the pounce position. This was going to be bloody.

Later, back home, Mum was boiling the chicken leftovers for stock as she did every week, and the house started to fill with the lovely chicken aroma again, which also signalled it was time for bed. As Ethan snuggled down, he felt a little silly when he asked Dad if he'd ever seen a real dinosaur.

Dad laughed, 'They're extinct, little guy. Not been around for a very long time.'

'Oh. What about Grandad?' Asked Ethan innocently.

Dad laughed again, louder. Then patted Ethan on the head.

'Grandad might be old, but not 65 million years old.' With that he clicked off the big light and slipped out the door.

Ethan's eyes slowly adjusted to the nightlight, and his sleepy thoughts focussed on those bright red, powerful hind legs. Three massive, splayed toes with thick long claws were connected by slim but super strong shins to those back-to-front knees, meaning T Rex was always ready to pounce. And the huge, rounded thighs delivered the power and deadly speed to make him the king of the dinosaurs.

Ethan slipped further into semi sleep. Those massive thighs. Tasty. Yummy. Ethan's room smelled of chicken stock. As he drifted off the big red thighs in his mind morphed into his Sunday dinner. Both him and dad had a leg now, as Dad said the leg's the best bit. Those massive, muscled thighs...

In Ethan's dream, a huge, headless roast chicken crashed through the jungle, in search of the prey.

And as he dropped off to sleep completely, Ethan whispered quietly 'Winner winner, chicken dinner.'

4.

Dennis had only a small window of opportunity to get to the dock while the electric security fences were down.

Poor timing meant it was also the same moment the island was drenched in one hell of a tropical storm. This was unexpected this early in the season. Visibility through the overworked Jeep wipers was down to next to nothing, but too much was riding on this transaction, and now he'd finally confirmed everything with those hardball buyers, and found the guts to steal the vials, this was seriously a one-way street. No backing up, no backing out. He just needed to get to the East Dock by 4.

'Come on, man' he coached himself. It was about time his luck changed. All his life Dennis had been treated badly by his employers, and any so-called friends. It turned out no one else was as interested in birdwatching or coding as he was. No one Dennis knew anyhow. And worse than not interested, they'd bullied him relentlessly. Twit Twitcher someone had written in the frost on his windscreen once. He'd never forgotten that.

And this employer with their island of stupid, pretend dinosaurs was just the same.

The old man had been downright rude when Dennis had proposed adding a carefully curated portfolio of the world's greatest birds.

'Oh, I think we have something much more ambitious, thank you', he'd condescendingly said, smiling as he handed the folder back to Dennis in front of everyone, adding 'let's all stay in our lanes, shall we?'

Well one and a half mil in untraceable US dollars will change all that he thought, Now, nearly there....

Gripping the steering wheel tightly as the Jeep sped through the pouring rain, Dennis took his eyes off the wet jungle track for a split second, a fraction of a split second even, just to check the time on his wristwatch. But it was just enough to misjudge the fast-eroding edge of the mud track, and the Jeep's front wheel lost its footing, skidding sideways down off the road. Before he could react, the rest of the vehicle followed suit, lurching off and bumping down through dense, soaking wet leaves and bushes.

The car came to sudden stop with a loud crunch.

'God dammit' Dennis cried out. But checking himself over quickly, all seemed okay. He was not so sure about the Jeep though, but at least the engine was still running.

The windscreen was enveloped in a single, wet, huge, green leaf, obscuring sight of how far he’d crashed into the undergrowth, so he crunched the gears into reverse and gunned the accelerator. Opening the door a crack, all he could hear was the wheels spinning and the thundering rain drenching the jungle around him. ‘God dammit’ he repeated. He struggled into his bright yellow storm coat and taking a big breath, stepped outside and straight into big, hot splashes of rain, driving into his face and glasses.

Shielding his eyes as best he could, he saw two of the wheels were axle deep in mud. Bad, but recoverable at least, as he knew he could probably winch it back out onto the road. An unusual owl-like hooting caught Dennis' attention and as he turned, he thought he saw the jungle foliage move as something big, moved unseen, but silently and fast.

Checking his watch again, plus another muttered God Dammit, Dennis headed back to the cab and the winch isolator switch. Swinging the door open and with one foot on the footplate, he hefted his weight up and into the cab, and suddenly came face to face, literally nose to nose, with a very large toothy beak, and two black beady eyes. It stared for a split second, then let out a piercing shriek and released a bright yellow frill of thick skin all around its leathery head, filling the inside of the cab.

'I'll be dammed', was Dennis' last conscious thought, 'now that's the biggest Yellow Dutch Frilled Monarch anyone has ever seen....'

Just as he felt its teethy beak lock onto each side of his head..