Every night, a new adventure.
Starring your child.

The morning it all started, Lily was eating her second piece of toast — the one with the most butter — when Biscuit began barking at the backyard fence.

Not his usual bark. Not the one he saved for squirrels or the mail carrier or his own reflection in the sliding glass door✦ From Part 2: "funniest things your pet does". This was a different bark entirely. Lower. More urgent. The kind that meant: you need to come see this right now.

Lily put down her toast. She pulled on her boots — the yellow ones, the good ones✦ From Part 1: "top 3 favorite things right now" — and went outside.

There, wedged between the old oak tree and the garden hose, sat the biggest egg she had ever seen in her life. It was the color of a thundercloud, speckled with gold, and it was shaking.

Biscuit looked at Lily. Lily looked at the egg. The egg shook again — harder this time — and a tiny crack appeared right down the middle.

"Okay," said Lily, in the calm, serious voice she used when something very important was happening. "Okay. I can handle this."

She knelt down in the grass, right next to the egg, and put both hands on its warm, humming surface. Biscuit sat beside her, pressed against her leg the way he always did when he was trying to be brave✦ From Part 2: "what is your pet's relationship with your child like?".

The crack grew longer. A second one appeared. Then a third.

And then — with a sound like the world's largest hiccup — the egg split open.

What tumbled out was small and scaly and completely covered in bits of shell. It blinked two enormous amber eyes, sneezed so hard it fell sideways, and then looked directly at Lily as if she were the only person in the entire world.

It was a baby dinosaur. A real one. And it had the longest neck Lily had ever seen — even longer than her arm — which it immediately stretched out to sniff her hair.

"You're a brachiosaurus," Lily whispered. She knew this because dinosaurs were her specialty✦ From Part 1: "what does your child love most?". "You're not supposed to be here."

The dinosaur sneezed again and wagged its neck the way Biscuit wagged his tail.

Lily thought for a moment. She thought about what Mia would say — probably something careful, like we should tell a grown-up — and what Connor would say — probably something wild, like let's ride it — and she decided that the right answer was somewhere in between.

"We need to find out where you came from," she said. "And we need to do it before my mom finishes her coffee✦ From Part 2: "what does a typical Saturday morning look like?"."

Biscuit barked once — a short, agreed bark — and the baby dinosaur made a sound like a very small foghorn.

Lily stood up, brushed the grass off her knees, and looked at the sky. It was the kind of blue that meant anything could happen.

She took one step toward the back fence. Then another. The dinosaur wobbled after her on its four stumpy legs, its long neck bobbing with each step, Biscuit trotting alongside like a very fluffy bodyguard.

When she reached the fence, Lily pushed open the gate — the one her dad always said led to nothing but the old field — and stopped.

The field was gone.

In its place stretched a valley so wide and so green she couldn't see where it ended. The trees were the size of buildings. The flowers were the color of sunsets. And in the distance, moving slowly through the morning mist like giant gentle ships, were more dinosaurs than she had ever dreamed of in her most spectacular dreams✦ From Part 1: "if your child could go on one amazing adventure...".

Lily felt her heart do that thing it did sometimes — that big, full, fizzing thing — when she knew she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

She looked down at the baby dinosaur. "I think we found where you came from."

It stretched its neck up and nuzzled her cheek, warm as a sunbeam.

Biscuit sat down, tilted his head, and then — very slowly — wagged his tail.

This, thought Lily, as she stepped through the gate and into the most incredible morning of her entire life, is going to be the best adventure yet.

And she was absolutely, completely, one hundred percent right.