Chapter 7:the chicken and the dinosaur

Julian sat in the dim corner of the library, rain drumming softly against the windows. His notebook was open, filled with scribbles of observations, failed predictions, and questions he didn’t know how to answer. Mr. Kellan wheeled his cart past, humming softly as usual, but today there was a different weight in his eyes.

He stopped and leaned on the cart, looking at Julian’s papers. “You’re trying too hard to measure yourself against others,” he said gently. “It’s not about them, Julian. It’s about what you believe you can be.” Julian frowned, unsure what the janitor meant.

Mr. Kellan walked to a nearby bookshelf and pulled down a dusty old book. He held it out with both hands and said, “Here’s the biggest lesson I can give you: a chicken stays a chicken when it believes it’s a chicken, but a chicken becomes a dinosaur when it believes it’s a dinosaur.”

Julian blinked. He stared at the old man, waiting for some hidden punchline, but Mr. Kellan’s expression was serious, almost stern. “Think about it,” he said. “A chicken has wings, claws, teeth in the past — it had power it didn’t believe in. You’re full of abilities you haven’t trusted yet. You’re holding yourself small.”

Julian chewed on the words. He thought about how he had been shrinking all his life — shrinking from bullies, from teachers, from the world — because he didn’t believe he could be anything more. Maybe Mr. Kellan was right. Maybe he had been living as a “chicken” all these years.

The janitor continued, his voice calm, steady, but sharp in its weight. “Belief changes everything, Julian. You won’t suddenly be invincible, and you won’t erase the cruelty around you. But believing you can grow, that you can rise above what others expect or throw at you — that’s how you start becoming something bigger.”

Julian wrote it down in his notebook, underlining it twice. Chicken becomes dinosaur. He imagined himself as a small, caged bird — frightened, hidden — and then pictured a massive creature, towering, unstoppable, moving through life with calculated precision. The idea made his chest tighten, but it also lit something inside him.

For days after, Julian kept returning to the lesson. Every time he was shoved, laughed at, ignored, or dismissed, he whispered to himself: “Am I acting like a chicken, or a dinosaur?” He started to notice moments where he had been holding himself back, and small changes began to appear. He walked straighter, spoke a little louder, and predicted the behaviors of others with increasing clarity.

One afternoon, Mr. Kellan leaned against the cart and said quietly, “You don’t need to be a dinosaur all at once. Small steps matter. But never let yourself believe you’re just a chicken. Never settle for the size others assign you.” Julian nodded, feeling the weight of the lesson sink into his bones.

That night, he opened his notebook and wrote a manifesto of sorts: I will not be a chicken. I will see my claws, my wings, my teeth. I will grow. I will become the dinosaur I was always meant to be. The words felt alive, pulsing with a power he hadn’t felt in years.

Julian slept that night with a strange mixture of fear and exhilaration. He was still scared of the world, still facing bullies, still trapped in his small town. But somewhere deep inside, he knew he had taken the first step toward becoming more than anyone had ever allowed him to believe. He was no longer just surviving — he was preparing to rise.