“Did the Nothosaurus attack them?” Sam asks excitedly.
“No, Sam. It dove back into the river before the boys got a good look. One of them—a kid named Bart Matthews—saw part of the tail. He started screaming that it was a river monster. I tried to explain that it was a Nothosaurus. He didn’t believe me. No one did.”
“Not even Gram and PopPop?” I ask.
“I told them about it when I got home. They wanted to believe me,” Dad says. “We went back to the river dozens of times. I never saw it again. As I grew older, I worried that I imagined the Notho.”
“You didn’t imagine it, Uncle Brian. If Peanut is real, I bet your river dinosaur is real too,” Sam says.
“That’s what I was thinking.” Dad smiles.
“What about Bart Matthews?” I ask. “Did people believe him?”
“Bart always claimed it was a river monster. He drew a two-headed beast and told everyone in school that’s what we found. So I drew my own picture. I didn’t want to forget.” Dad takes his paper back.
“Wait!” A thought hits my brain. “Is Bart the guy from the TV? Bart’s River Monster Tours?”
“That’s him,” Dad says.
“He’s a friend of yours?” I ask.
“We aren’t exactly friends,” Dad explains. “I haven’t seen him in twenty years. But tomorrow I think we should visit him.”