37 pages • 1 hour read
Fortunately, the Milk
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Pages 92-111Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 92-111 Summary
The voice warning the aliens not to move belongs to an armed, uniformed Tyrannosaurus Rex riding a space bike, who is surrounded by other uniformed dinosaurs on bikes. The police dinosaur charges the aliens with “breaking into people’s planets and redecorating them […] And then running away and doing it again somewhere else, over and over” (91). The aliens are also accused of committing crimes against “good taste.”
As the dinosaur police cuff the aliens a Pteranodon lands at Professor Steg’s feet and gazes up in awe, asking whether it is really THE Professor Steg, who invented the “Pointy Zooming-into-Outer-Space-Machine” (96), and “Really-Good-Moves-Around-in-Time-Machine” (96). The Pteranodon confuses the father by exclaiming, “MADAM, IS IT TRULY YOU?” (96). The father had assumed Professor Steg was male. In his distracted embarrassment, when he reaches to shake Pteranodon’s hand, the two milks touch. Everyone freezes. However, the Universe does not end. Instead “[t]hree purple dwarfs with flowerpots on their heads” materialize and perform a complicated dance before disappearing (98).
Professor Steg opens a small hole in the space-time continuum. The father sees himself on the other side, about to leave the wumpires. He throws the milk he borrowed back through the hole and shouts “Catch!” before the hole closes.The Space Dinosaurs are busy marveling at being in the presence of the famous Professor Steg and her “gorilla,” having read her books about the far future where “small mammals will eat their breakfast cereal with milk on it” (99). After a discussion about the difference between a gorilla and a human father (“Is it the shoes?” [100]) the dinosaurs, together with Professor Steg get ready to leave. Before they go, they treat the father to a medley of dinosaur songs, sung in six-part harmony, and take pictures of themselves with the famous milk. When the father thanks Professor Steg for saving his life, she comments: “We were both fortunate that you had the milk with you. It is not every container of milk that saves the world, after all” (102). They all disappear into a bright light, leaving the father outside their house with the milk.
The boy and his little sister look at their father, at each other, and around the kitchen. They see components of the story all around them: a calendar illustrated with hot air balloons, toy ponies and a dinosaur model, a vampire book, and a painting of a volcano stuck on the fridge. Both children tell their father that they don’t believe his story, but he tells them he has proof. With a flourish, he puts the milk on the table, and goes back to reading his newspaper.
Pages 92-111 Analysis
The children’s father takes his time-traveling story to new heights in this final section, bringing in space-bike-riding dinosaurs who never went extinct but left Earth for the stars and to explore space. The futuristic dinosaurs are clever, kind, and funny. They tie up all of the “scary” storylines by capturing the last set of villains. The time loops with the milk are also tied up, with the father throwing back the milk he “borrowed” from himself 15 minutes earlier.
The revelation that Professor Steg is female surprises the father. The father’s assumption that the professor is male is based on gender stereotypes; Steg has a deep, booming voice and large physical presence. She is also a renowned professor and a skilled inventor of time travel, likely reinforcing the father’s assumption about gender and playing into gender stereotypes that men are more accomplished and renowned than women. The father subtly teaches his children about gender stereotyping through his story and by showing that his persona within the story was wrong about Steg’s gender.
Steg does not mention being female. Her gender is not seen as being noteworthy by any of her adoring future dinosaur fans; this possibly illustrates true gender equality among the dinosaurs (both past and future). It is only the “human father” who incorrectly assumes that an inventor of time travel must be male. The father’s ensuing embarrassment over his stereotyping makes him lose focus and touch the two milks.
From the perspective of the dinosaurs, including Professor Steg, the hero of the story is not the father but the bottle of milk. This leaves the father feeling slightly dejected and underappreciated—“‘that was me that saved the world,’ I said. ‘Not the milk’” (100). Despite his objection, the dinosaurs only want their pictures taken with the milk. This shows that what makes a “hero” is relative—from the dinosaur’s perspective, the father was only the bearer of the milk, and the milk was the critical part. At the end of the father’s story, the children realize that the characters are derived from objects in the kitchen. This emphasizes that their father’s story is completely made up. When their father brings out the hero of the story to prove the adventure’s authenticity—the bottle of milk, Young’s illustration shows the children with a look of momentary confusion on their faces (before happily eating their cereal).
Ultimately, the story is about The Power of Storytelling and how it is possible to turn something mundane into a magical adventure. The father could have simply apologized for taking so long to get the milk and gone back to his paper, slipping into the stereotypical “hands-off” parenting often associated with fathers.
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