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“Exactly.”

Five minutes later, Biddy has a fresh cone, Sprout is still shooting me wounded looks because I refused to reward this morning’s sandwich theft, and I start thinking we’ve survived the worst of the afternoon.

Then I notice Babs isn’t beside me. “Babs?”

“I’m here!” Her answer comes from a picnic table where she’s standing in front of a man holding a takeout coffee and explaining dinosaurs with the confidence of someone who fully expects to be quoted in textbooks. “So the triceratops wins.”

The man catches sight of me and smiles. “Oh, good. A parent.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize yet. Settle this.”

Babs folds her arms. “He thinks the T. rex wins.”

“It does,” the man says. “It’s enormous.”

“It has tiny arms.”

“It also has giant teeth.”

She pokes two fingers toward his coffee. “But the triceratops goes…” She makes a little stabbing motion. “Boop.”

He laughs. “I don’t think ‘boop’ appears in the science books.”

“It should.”

He shakes his head. “I only wanted somewhere to drink my coffee.”

I grin apologetically before steering Babs away, only to find Biddy has started her own conversation a few feet along the promenade.

Three children have gathered around her to hear her explain that dinosaurs couldn’t live in houses because they’d squash the sofa, eat everyone’s dinner, and probably chew the television if nobody was watching them.

“My dad would stop one,” a little boy says.

Biddy studies him seriously. “Maybe.”

“My dad’s really fast.”

She thinks about it. “He could probably save the TV.”

One of the parents snorts into his drink, and another pulls out his phone to check whether a T. rex could actually outrun a person.

Sprouts ears twitch as he slips beneath a picnic bench anyway. “Oh, don’t…”

I’m a step too late.

He trots back out with half a turkey sandwich hanging from his mouth to find the family around the table staring at him in complete disbelief.

The owner blinks. “I’ve just been robbed.”

“He’s been practicing,” I admit, taking the sandwich before Sprout can finish it. “He’s convinced unattended food is part of the public domain.”

The man’s wife laughs. “He looks proud.”

“He usually does after committing a crime.”

“I was going to give him a treat.”