“Professor Giggles is just getting inspired,” Leo interrupts smoothly. “He needs complete silence to summon his creative genius. Everyone, let’s give him some quiet so he can prepare.”
The children fall silent immediately. Twenty-two pairs of eyes are fixed on me. Waiting.
Leo folds his tiny arms across his inflatable chest. I can see his expression through the mesh. It’s the expression of a man who has just checkmated his opponent and is thoroughly enjoying watching them realize it.
Well played, Leo Brennan. Well played.
But the thing about being a children’s entertainer is you learn to improvise. You learn to roll with whatever chaos the universe throws at you, whether that’s a clown with food poisoning, a bouncy castle that deflates mid-party, or a seven-year-old who announces loudly that Santa isn’t real.
I take a breath.
“All right, little paleontologists,” I say, leaning into it. “You want a rap? Professor Giggles will give you a rap. But I’m going to need your help. When I point at you, I want you to roar as loudly as you can. Can you do that?”
“Yes!”
“Let me hear your practice roar!”
Twenty-two children roar. It’s deafening. It’s perfect. It buys me approximately four seconds to come up with something.
“Beautiful! Now, this rap is called…” I pause, my brain scrambling. “‘The Dinosaur Stomp.’ And it goes like this.”
I start to beatbox. It’s not good beatboxing. It’s the kind of beatboxing that would get you laughed off any street corner in London. But six-year-olds have low standards, and I commit to it with everything I have.
Then I start to rap.
“My name is Professor Giggles, and I’m here to say…”
Terrible. Absolutely terrible opening. But I’m committed now.
“We’re hunting for dinosaurs every single day,
We got T.rex, Triceratops,Stegosaurus too,
And a big green Snugglesaurus standing right in view!”
I point at Leo. The children roar on cue.
Leo’s expression flickers. I don’t think he was expecting me to actually do it.
I keep going, the words tumbling out faster now, finding a rhythm.
“He’s got tiny little arms and a great big tum,
When he does a dino dance, everybody wants some,
He stomps to the left and he stomps to the right,
Snugglesaurus is an incredible sight!”
The children are bouncing now, getting into it. A few of them are trying to mimic my beatboxing, creating a chaotic backing track of spit and enthusiasm.
“Now everybody stomp if you love dinosaurs!”
Stomping. So much stomping. The floor is shaking.
“Everybody roar if you want to hear more!”
Roaring. My eardrums may never recover.
