"Perhaps we should speak to the King of Gondwanaland," he was saying.
"About what?" Nancy asked, puzzled.
"Proper respect."
"He means gratitude, as in reward," Remo called over his shoulder.
"Excuse me," Nancy said. "But why on earth do you want a leg off an Apatosaur?"
"A what?" Remo and Chiun said simultaneously.
"Apatosaur. That is the scientific name for the species."
"Lady, I had every plastic dinosaur toy ever made. That's a Brontosaurus back there."
"You should get current. Modern paleontologists call it a Apatosaurus."
"What's that mean?"
"Deceptive reptile."
Remo made a face. "I like Thunder Lizard better. Sounds more dinosaurian. Like Pterodactyl. That was another neat dinosaur I used to collect."
"Pterodactyls were not dinosaurs, I'm sorry to inform you."
"The hell they weren't."
"Listen, I don't know where you went to school-"
"St. Theresa's Orphanage. Never mind where it is. Or was."
"Fine. But knowledge about dinosaurs has changed dramatically over the last decade or so. You see, what you used to know as the Brontosaur never really existed. That is, its bones were confused with another sauropod. We now call it Apatosaur."
"It's still the biggest dinosaur that ever was, right?"
"No, there are bigger. Supersaurus. And Ultrasaurus. All sauropods like Apatosaurus. And let's not overlook Seismosaurus, the biggest known sauropod. You'd have liked him, Remo. He was known as Earthshaker Reptile."
"Your Greek is abominable," Chiun said disdainfully. "I cannot understand half of what you say."
"Dinosaurs are classified into orders, such as saurischia, which are lizardlike, suborders like sauropoda, the four-footed herbivores like our own Old Jack-"
"Can I explain this to him?" Remo asked plaintively.
Nancy leaned back in her seat. "If you can."
"Chiun, try to follow this. Back before there were humans, dinosaurs ruled the world. They were giant reptiles."
"Not all of them." Nancy said quickly. "Some were birds. "
"Like Pterodactyls, right?"
"Wrong. Like Triceratops."
Remo hit the brakes. Nancy almost landed in the front seat with them.
"Triceratops!" Remo exploded.
"Yes."
"Triceratops with the three horns? Built kinda like a rhino?"
"Yes."
"A bird?"
"Yes!"
"Since when?"
"Since they came on the evolutionary scene during the Late Cretaceous period. We now know they were Ornithischia, bird-hipped."
"They're birds because of their freaking hips?"
"Simplified for the twelve-year-old mind, yes."
"Bulldookey," said Remo. "Birds don't grow horns and run around goring other animals."
"The modern ostrich does."
"That's the bird that hides its head in the sand at the first sign of trouble? Right?"
"True," Nancy admitted.
"Then I rest my case. No way a Triceratops would hide its head if a Stegosaur trotted by. He'd bite the other guy's head off, and hide that."
"For your information, a modern ostrich can kill a full-grown lion."
"With what? His fluffy tailfeathers?"
"No, by pecking the lion into submission with his beak. Ostriches are fierce and mean-tempered, and if you place an ostrich skeleton beside an Iguanadon skeleton, you'd see what I'm talking about."
"I'd see squat, because one's a reptile and the other is a goofy bird. End of story. Where did you get this crap, anyway?"
"You can look this up in any modern encyclopedia."
"Wanna bet?"