Fleegle and I are driving through Forest Park on an empty stretch of road when two coyotes emerge from the brush on one side and disappear into the trees on the other.

Fleegle lets out a yowl of fear. “Dire wolves,” he shouts.

“Nah, too small. Those are coyotes. Dire wolves were the size of ponies and are extinct. Those coyotes weigh less than you.” I reassure him with a pat on his back. “But who knows what a coyote would weigh if it got to eat as much as you do.”

“How much do I weigh?”

“80 pounds.”

“How much is that?”

“Two and a half of the big bags of kibble.”

“What about timber wolves? They’re not extinct and they’ve been reintroduced in Yellowstone. How much do they weigh?”

“A little over three big bags of kibble. But they haven’t reintroduced timber wolves in Forest Park.”

“They roam, you know, hundreds of miles,” he says. “Is it lunchtime yet? I need to eat more if I’m going to stay bigger than those coyotes and be as big as a timber wolf.”

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