In the sidelines |Zach Mitchel|

2

Crowds of people fill the street leading towards the Innovation Center. Gray is running enthusiastically up the steps of the building with his brother and Zara trailing behind. I manage to keep up with him, seeing he's dragging me. "Come on!"

"Relax."

"Come on!"

"Dude, chill." I laughed catching Zach off guard making him smile. The boys push open the double doors and enter. Zara, trying to keep up, almost doesn't make it through before the doors swing shut. The interior of the building is a flurry of activity. A statue stands tall toward the back of the building. I looked at the place with amusement.

"Welcome to the Innovation Center, where technology meets prehistory. Join us on an exciting journey 65 million years into the past."

In the center of the lobby is a holographic platform, currently displaying a life-size projection of an which roars, seemingly at the boys. Announcements over the P.A. from both male and female speakers continue as we see the various exhibits the lobby has to offer, including Digging For Dinosaurs, a recreation of a paleontological dig where children use brushes to uncover bones.

"...literally meaning "three-horned face." Three. Triceratops is half as tall as T. rex..." There is a theater where children and their parents are watching a documentary about the extinction of the dinosaurs. "...as one-hundred trillion tons of TNT. We see an asteroid strike the Earth in an enormous explosion. The children give various exclamations of amazement and fright. Elsewhere, we see a holographic projection of a globe of the Earth, showing where various dinosaurs lived during prehistory. "...can turn its head back to look over its shoulder, to better aim the swing of its dangerous tail." Gray rushes over to the Mr. DNA Show, where visitors are quizzed about genetics. After a quick scan of the screen he immediately begins pushing buttons and reciting the answers.

"Cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine. The same four things in everything that ever lived." In response, a 3-D representation appears on screen.

"Test your knowledge!" It said for the next person, Gray sure is excited, unlike Zach who sidles up to him, grumpy.

"Hey, don't wander off, all right? Mom's not paying me for babysitting."

"No. She's paying me." I said standing beside Gray. "I got him, okay?" I gave him a puppy look making him crack a smile.

"Fine." Yes, ha!

"...the building blocks of life! When John Hammond discovered a way to bring dinosaurs..."

"Gray, is that you?" We turn and see a woman descending the stairs on her phone.

"Aunt Claire!" Gray ran over to her. She continues down, still talking on her phone, but in a hurry to finish the conversation.

"Okay, yeah. No, I'm gonna have to go. My nephews are here." As she hangs up and reaches the bottom, Gray runs up and hugs her. She is clearly overjoyed but unsure of how to respond and awkwardly hugs him back. The holographic projection has now changed from an Apatosaurus to a Parasaurolophus next to them. Zach ambles up, still looking moody and emotionally distant as usual, hands stuffed into his pockets.

"Hi!" She laughed, making me look at Zach, he looked back at me and gave a half smile. "Oh, oh, my gosh, you're so-- you're so sweet!" She turns and looks at her other nephew as Zara joins them, having finally caught up to the boys. "Whoa, Zach! Last time I saw you, you were like..." She holds a hand at about roughly Gray's height. "That must've been, what? Three, four years ago?"

"Uh, seven. Seven years. But, you know, close." I can tell he would rather be anywhere but here.

"So I see you already got your wristbands and this is for food." She hands Gray an envelope with the Jurassic World logo on it. "And Zara here is going to take great care of you until I'm working tonight, okay?" Zara glances up from her cell phone, looking uninterested. Gray suddenly looks gloomy at this revelation.