Working In Spite

By the time he returns to the museum, it looks like it has been completely remodeled.

The tropeos that he met earlier take him to a different wing of the museum to the one that he is used to called the Aerospace wing. Raoul never felt the need to be in there most of the time, but his usual patrols means he has a good memory of what each wing looks like.

However, currently, it seems to be completely taken over by a certain oviraptor. Inexplicably, some of the models even seem to have been moved from where they were. Not to mention the entire wing was now covered in banners and stalls were surrounding the place.

Once Raoul steps through the door right after the tropes, he slowly drags his eyes to the back of Cheron's head. The oviraptor seems to be standing on a large model of a spacecraft located in the middle of the room. He is shouting, very loudly, saying things like "Come on come on! Step right up and win a HUGE range of prizes! Every 100 tickets gets an EVEN BIGGER prize!"

Yeah, right. What big prize could you get? Cheron should win the "breaking and entering" prize.

…Could I win a huge fish?...

What am I saying…

"Hey, you! Oversized turkey!"

Completely ignoring the presence of other dinosaurs in the room, Raoul starts to yell at Cheron, who is completely turned away from him. "I told you to get out! What are you still doing here? What have you done to this wing?"

The oviraptor stops crowing and turns around to look at him. He does nothing but stare at Raoul smugly, and it makes the tropes thoroughly amused.

Sasha has taken to hanging from the chains that attach to the spacecraft model to stare at Cheron, while Jack has taken residence on Raoul's shoulder.

"Raoul please! Be nice to the ringmaster!"

He winces. That was right in my ear. "Why should I? He took over my home!"

Sasha stops whispering to Cheron to yell, "Raoul, you don't even live in this wing. C'mon, why don't we play some games instead?"

In an instant, Raoul thrusts his face right into Cheron, making the ovi squeak. He takes great care not to actually touch the model the ovi is standing on.

"You better not have messed with my wing, turkey…"

The oviraptor has no option but to speak now, "Ha ha! Hahaha. It is you my dear sucho friend! Don't worry. I hardly touched those drab boring models. We've only moved them slightly to make space for our carnival, as you can see!" Cheron is moving his wings as he speaks, articulating his words. "What about this, my dear sir…If you win 100 tickets, we'll leave!"

"A hundred tickets? …You're on!"

Why did I say that? How am I gonna win 100 tickets?? He's never gonna leave!

Whatever doubt he had in himself, it dissipates once the tropeos erupt into joy. "Yay! You can totally do it Raoul!" Sasha says before Jack cuts in,

"Let's go here first! I'm REALLY good at ring toss!"

…

Once the gang make their way over to the aforementioned 'ring toss', Raoul suddenly realises that he has the perfect team for this game. My teammates can fly! They can just drop it right on those poles!

It takes him a few tries to get any points, but he manages to get atleast two rings. It's pretty hard to accurately throw especially since Raoul doesn't throw things with his arms often. It starts to tire quickly. Luckily, the fliers are having an extraordinary amount of fun trying to fly in circles and drop the hoops at the right time.

"No! Nooo, I missed it." Jack, who earlier said he was really good at ring toss, seems to be lacking. Sasha however ends up getting the most points.

Once their round ends, the giant sign reading RING TOSS starts to flash and make a loud BEEP BEEP BEEP. Cheron scuttles over quickly to congratulate them. It seems he runs over every time someone wins - how exhausting! 

"Well done! You win…20 tickets!"

The expression on the sucho's face plummets. Only twenty? How many games of this am I going to have to play? Someone save me…

Sasha and Jack stop circling in the air to each land on one of his shoulders. Sasha is the one to console him while Jack preens feathers he doesn't have.

"Don't worry buddy, there are so many more games that give more tickets. We were actually really good on that one to get twenty." 

"Sasha's right. I know there's one that gives fifty!"

"Perfect, let's do that one then!"

Jack looks guilty all of a sudden, almost like he's broken something. "Oh, yeah sure. It just takes a long while so I hope you have the patience."

Having not much idea what she's going on about, the sucho follows him as they move towards the next game. Sasha takes that time to fly around the room for a second. When they get to the next game, she lands right on a seat in front of the stall, almost like she's done it a million times.

"Let's get to it! This game lasts twenty minutes. You can thank Jack for that extra ten minutes."

The other tropeo flies over to her, immediately looking guilty again. "Hey, okay. So I might've gotten angry and tried to destroy its insides a little bit. It still works just fine! It's just…slower!"

How many times have they played these…Enough for them to get angry enough to break it?

Raoul stares at the game that they have decided to play, and it's…fake ducks?

"What is this?"

"This, my dear Raoul, is a game where you fish…for ducks."

"Oh, great, so I'll be good at this! I love fishing!"

Sasha gives an amused clack of her beak. "Aha! Unfortunately, you have to use your claws. More specifically, your claws on this stick." She reaches down and grabs three sticks that were tucked in under the stall. Each of them are about a foot long and have a string at the end connected to a hook.

I'm supposed to hook them with this stick? Okay, this can't be too bad. I guess I gotta try. Raoul and Jack each take one from her beak and position them correctly. The sucho can hold it in front of it's chest, but has to tilt its head to look down properly. Both tropeos have firm grips on it with their small hands, but use their beaks to stabilise. This can't be how they play. That looks so uncomfortable.

It is an agonising twenty minutes. After five he has captured a single duck, and each tropeo five. Raoul wonders how many count to how many points. They all look the exact same - yellow, and made of something that smells weird. I just have to focus on getting as many as possible. Not a single beast was speaking, everyone really focused on the game.

After ten minutes, everyone had already gotten really sick of the sound that keeps playing over and over. It's a grating sound and it sounds muffled, as if it's coming from under the stall. I hate it. The tropeos have about twenty ducks between them. 

Raoul has about five.

"I wish you broke it in a way so that it couldn't speak."

Jack makes that same noise Sasha did the day before that sounds like a laugh. They are both still very focused on winning the game.

Just as Raoul was about to scream outloud about how long it's taking, a loud DING rings out and the game stops moving. Suddenly, they hear pitter patter and Cheron is peeking over at them from atop of a large red and white loose structure.

"Oh wow wow wow! Lets see what you got here…"

The oviraptor jumps down and starts to inspect every duck to look at the bottom. Raoul realises that theres things on the bottom of the duck that probably detail how many points you get! If that's true…Please let us get fifty!

In the end, the sucho managed to grab atleast 8 ducks. The mound that was once both piles for each tropeo looks to be definitely over twenty each. Cheron is going to look at each one…

After a long moment, the ovi looks up and spreads his wings out wide. He begins to dance, balancing on each foot before rapid switching.

"Youuuuu…got FIFTY tickets!"

Raoul has never felt as much joy as he does in this moment. Not even at his own hatching, or the first time he found a suitable home, or the first time it caught a fish. This was definitely way more fun.Totally.

Cheron keeps talking.

"Well done, my sucho friend! It looks like you were the one who got the GOLDEN duck! Catching that means you get the maximum points automatically!"

The high praise from the ringmaster makes both of the tropeos practically blush.

"Nice game, Raoul!" Sasha flies up and lands on his shoulders, Jack following.

"We have seventy tickets now! What do you want to play next?"

Before he responds, he realises something. Since both of these guys have played this game a lot, doesn't that mean they'd have LOTS of tickets?

"Um, yeah, if you want. Hey, Sasha, how many times have you guys played this game?"

"Oh, LOTS of times. All of these games are really fun. Plus the tickets make great nesting material."

What did she just say?

"What? Sasha, if you have extra tickets, can I have them? I really don't want to play any more!"

Both of the tropeos make a face like they're both about to speak, but none of them do. One beak opens, then closes, and the other beak then opens and closes.

"Oh. I didn't think of that. We have tons of them at home. I could bring you thirty more, I guess!"