“You ever read books?” I twist sideways so I can see the little boy in the back seat.

“I read books,” says Corbin. “That’s how I learned about Helicoprion. That’s how I learned how all this used to be under the sea. All the way to Wyoming. All the way to Kansas.”

“Was that back in the dinosaur times?”

“Before the dinosaurs. There were lots of things before dinosaurs.”

“And lots of things after.”

“Maybe not.”

“Well, we’re here. And that’s after the dinosaurs.”

“Not after. Dinosaurs are still around. They’re just being birds now.”

“Birds?”

Two ravens cross our path, their shadows are a moment on the hood of the car, and then they are gliding into the past behind us. And we are in their past, too, from their perspective. “Turn left at the next road,” I tell Eric. I don’t say, Turn because of the ravens, the gliding, guiding ravens.

I turn back to Corbin in the back seat and say, “I don’t think I’d want to meet any dinosaur bird big as a tree so it could just peck me up like a bug. But you don’t believe that, do you? You don’t believe in dinosaur birds.”

“Not like that. That’s stupid. They turned into birds. They laid eggs. That’s a thing they’re alike. And there’s other things. Things about their bones and feet.”

“Did they caw like ravens? Did they sing? Like meadowlarks?”

“We don’t know that. Songs don’t leave fossils. There’s no bones in noise. Why don’t you know that? What kind of books do you read? Did you read any useful books?”

“I didn’t have any books about dinosaurs. I like books with stories in them. Like Tarzan. I read Tarzan lots of times.”

“I saw a cartoon movie about Tarzan. It wasn’t very scientific.”

“Hey, Bro, stop bugging her. Check in the pocket of my sweatshirt back there. My game’s in there — and some headphones. Why don’t you plug in and play? You can even play on my files — I’m totally cool with it. You can see levels you never saw before.”

“Sweet!” Corbin starts pawing around in the pile of clothes on the seat. “Got it.”

“You can do me a solid sometime,” says Eric, but Corbin is already connected to the machine, already gone; his body is already a husk in the backseat; all that’s left behind are his twitching thumbs and eyes.