Pippin: tiny dino

This is a guest post from Christine Fischer Guy, a Toronto writer and journalist, admired pal and cool pet person. More details about Christine at the end of the post but you should know she gave me one of my most thriving plants, hosted my book launch two summers ago, and published the novel The Umbrella Mender with Wolsack and Wynn in 2014, a novel Small Press Bookwatch described as “A terrifically entertaining read from first page to last.... Deftly crafted characters and a complex but gripping plot.” A truly impressive human being. Over to you, Christine:

Pippin is our tiny perfect dino, one of the survivors of the Late Cretaceous. I can’t unsee that truth, now that science has confirmed it: his reptilian gaze, his stalking stride, his otherworldly lizardness. ‘You’re so sweet,’ he coos, parroting my voice and luring me in for a nice little finger chomp. Fortunately, he isn’t actually a velociraptor.

Does he dream of world domination once again? I’ll never know, but he’ll settle for Toaster territory for now. A modest goal, considering his heritage, but one has to begin somewhere.

Currently he’s stymied by a low-tech human intervention he has yet to overcome. Tea Towel has proved a formidable opponent. He’s an odd little duckie: the parakeets I’ve known (aka budgerigars) are territorial about the things they love best, full stop. This, I’ve come to expect and it translates to predictable aggression in the form of pecks, modest bites, and full-on chomps that draw blood when a human attempts to have/use/confiscate the beloved object in question. We were in years-long competition with one of the birds I grew up with for ownership of the wall phone, for instance, so we had to devise strategies for a) winning the race to get there first when it rang, and b) taking the receiver off the hook from below to avoid sustaining a flesh wound.

Pippin, however, is less aggressive overall and able to be stymied by Tea Towel. It does not throw a cloak of invisibility over Toaster, however, which not only proves that Pippin can claim object permanence but also demonstrates his patience as he waits for the moment that Tea Towel will return from whence she came and he can resume his blissful courtship.

The humans can be massively annoying, however, and though well-oiled wings will get him out of any sticky situation pronto he must concede to their size and ability to coerce him back into his home. This is not a total loss, because home is where Twirly Mirror resides (Toaster is nice but let’s be honest, Twirly is number one for reasons that will be obvious at a glance) and home is also the best perch from which to observe and catalogue daring aerial manoeuvres by his outdoor brethren. Those he has mastered he demonstrates with aplomb when he’s out, and he’s obviously chuffed when complimented by the humans on said aerial abilities. Damn straight.

Twirly is his absolute favourite, a squeeze machine and dinner date and cuddle partner rolled into one. When he first came to live with us, he started doing something to it whose intentions weren’t immediately obvious. One day, he did it. He succeeded in climbing into the space between mirror and mount. The rest is history—they’ve been together ever since.

Christine Fischer Guy is a Toronto writer and journalist. She’s a 2024 VCCA fellow and is the author of The Umbrella Mender and Before the Music (coming in 2026). Her short fiction has appeared in Canadian, American and British journals. She was awarded a National Magazine Award and contributes criticism and interviews to literary journals. More: https://christinefischerguy.com/