The Tyrumposaurus and his sister, the Tyrumpmaryannebarry, nibbled noisily on their Caviaraptor legs, a dino delicacy. They dined in the exclusive Great Gloating area of the Puhl-DePlugg Reservoir. It was a time they looked forward to each month, a time when they could look back over the years on how their family had pulled a fast one on the dreaded Taxbeast and all the little dinos, many who still resolutely promised to jump off the highest cliff at a moment’s notice for the ruling T-Rump.
“Isn’t it marvelous,” said Maryanne, “that not one dino has found out that it was father Fred who provided for us all those years?”
“Yes,” the T-Rump said, spitting out a bone, “he was a lot smarter than me — a helluva lot smarter — to take his one billion moolah-moolah leaf empire and avoid giving the Taxbeast half of it by giving it all to us.”
“Father hated the Taxbeast. He had 295 different schemes to beat it.”
“Wow. I can’t even count that high. You know how many times I’ve wanted to tell all the dinos that father gave me 200,000 moolah-moolah every year beginning when I was three. He said I was a millionaire by the time I was eight. I was great! Wasn’t I?”
His sister, an 81-year-old former legal dino, one-time judge, sat in judgement of her little brother.
“Now, now, you know what father said. Keep your mouth shut and just tell them everything you touch turns to gold.”
The T-Rump nodded eagerly while she wondered what he had killed lately. He brightened.
“Remember those gifts of 10,000 moolah-moolah he’d always give us at the end of the year? I miss those.”
“Honestly, T-Rump, sometimes I think you miss his money more than you miss him.”
“You won’t tell anyone will you, sis? … Tell me how he did that thing with all the caves again.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times.”
“Yes, but you tell it so well and one of these days I might even understand.”
“Okay,” she said, knowing he’d forget it moments after she was done. “At the height of father’s fame and fortune, he owned eight large formations with 1,032 caves. Not to mention a lot of moolah-moolah too.”
“I like this part of the story,” the T-Rump said, fairly bouncing in his squatting position.
“But he had to figure out a way to give the moolah-moolah to us without the Taxbeast getting any of it. So he made up a fictitious dinosaur, the Allcountysupplystaurus.”
“What’s fictitious?”
“Make believe.”
“Right.”
“Father then used Allcounty, as we called it, as a way of marking up the moolah-moolah prices we paid for all the cave supplies. That mark-up went straight to us in the form of his huge nest egg moolah-moolah coming back to us, thereby bypassing the Taxbeast.”
“Great story. The greatest.”
“I’m not done. At one point, we were getting 2.2 million moolah-moolah each per year — and the story gets even better.”
“Ooh, ooh, tell me, sis. Tell me.”
She loved wrapping him around her claw.
“Using the marked-up costs as an excuse, father raised the rent on all the caves so those poor unsuspecting dinos never knew what hit them.”
“Hah,” laughed the T-Rump. “Take that, you little dinos!”
His sister smiled proudly.
“Father was the king dino of the mark-up and the mark-down. When brother Fred Jr. passed away, father said, under oath,” a very unjudge-like titter escaped her, “that the Briar Park Bluff Formation was worth 17 million moolah-moolah. Soon after, father told the Taxbeast it was only worth 3 million. An 83 percent mark-down in just 18 days.”
“Wow,” the T-Rump said in awe. “I love seeing the Taxbeast take it on the nose.”
Maryanne’s mood changed.
“But then when father was getting old, you came along and … sold everything.”
“I had a gut feeling,” the T-Rump said with a shrug.
“You gutted our golden goose.”
“If you want to call it that. Who ever heard of a golden goose?”
“Father worked hard for seven decades, putting it all together for us. It was his legacy.”
“Again with the big words.”
“Those thousand caves were still making a healthy amount of moolah-moolah leaves for us.”
“Not enough,” sniffed the T-Rump. “I made 236 million on that deal.”
“Do you realize that — all-told — father gave you 413 million moolah-moolah?”
“Yeah, he was a nice guy. But remember when I took that Nooyorktimesian dino on a grand tour of the Grand High-At-Caves …”
“Father guaranteed that loan.”
“… and the Hudson River Choo-Choo Yards ….”
“For which father bought the rights.”
“… the East Orangelands retirement caves …”
“Father paid for those.”
“… the Staten Island Condoplex …”
“And those.”
“… the T-Rump Village in the Brooklyn Brownstones … “
“Those too.”
“ … and the Beach Haven hideaways.”
“Father’s.”
“And I told that dumb dino I owned all of it! What a maroon!”
They chuckled at their good fortune, their laughter echoing over the reservoir, through the valley and across the land to a long forgotten footprint in the sand. A public footprint just waiting to be discovered by a well-meaning Mediacircustops.
That footprint was the million moolah-moolah leaves donation the Tyrumpmaryannebarry received from their old friend, the Allcountysupplystaurus, in her climb up the legal dino ladder. The footprint would lead all the way back to the T-Rump, the long-proclaimed self-made dino with a billion moolah-moolah leaves, exposing him for the dastardly, dishonest dino he truly was, the greatest, most fantastic fraud.
David Belisle 