A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans Read online

  “We can’t catch it if the book can’t see it,” I whispered. “So look in the bag for some fruit.”

  Laying the net on the ground, Winnie rummaged through the lace bag and found a big box of raisins.

  “Got it,” she said softly, and tossed a few raisins on the driveway.

  The lemur poked its head through the screen of leaves and sniffed the air. Catching the scent of the raisins, it glanced down at them. In the end, hunger won out over fear.

  The lemur leapt from the tree and approached warily. Winnie tossed a few more raisins. The lemur stared at them and then at her, all the while singing a complicated little tune. With a run and a pounce, it went not to the raisins but to Winnie, climbing up her leg. Even as her eyebrows began to rise in surprise, the lemur’s small leathery black paw grabbed the whole box from her hand.

  “Hey, you!” Winnie cried in surprise. “Stop, thief!”

  The furry felon had hopped to the ground and was already dashing beyond her reach, back up the tree, where it sat on a low branch and busily started gobbling up raisins.

  “The book!” I said as I began the spell.

  Winnie snatched the book and got into position.

  Frightened, the lemur began to scrabble higher toward the cover of the leaves. Fortunately one forepaw was holding the box, so it couldn’t climb as fast, and I finished the enchantment just in time.

  The lemur was zapped back into the book, where the greedy little crook was captured on the page with its mouth full.

  “Glad we stopped that clever one before it ate its way through San Francisco,” I said.

  “It’s so much bigger than the pemburu, though,” Winnie said. “Why was it scared?”

  “Maybe it picked up the fear from the smaller sketchlings,” I suggested.

  “Well, how many do we have now?” asked Winnie.

  “Thirteen,” I told her, “and I see another in the bottlebrush.” I pointed at an amphibious warbling dove. Its drab speckled feathers told me it was a female.

  “I’d better stay out of its sight till the last second,” Winnie said, slipping behind me. As I started to murmur the words and move my hands and fingers in the mystic signs, I heard her flipping the pages of the sketchbook until she found a blank one.

  It was amazing how quickly we were meshing as a team. By now, she could recognize when I was nearing the end of the spell, and she moved beside me with the pages spread. The next instant, the bird zipped from the bush into the book.

  “There should be a pair,” Winnie said. “A male and female.”

  “This is all that’s left of the male.” I picked up a pile of brilliant orange and blue feathers. “Those doves mate for life. I’m afraid our little sketchling is going to be alone from now on.”

  “A dove is too big for a pemburu to eat,” Winnie said sadly. “It must’ve been a cat.”

  Taking a break from all the excitement of the chase, I sensed something that perhaps I had been too busy to notice before. I had a strong feeling that we were being watched—almost as if we were not the hunters but being hunted instead.

  When a large shrub shook, Winnie aimed the book at it. “It’s a sketchling—maybe the pemburu!”

  I felt the breeze against my cheek as I tested the air. I smelled only the usual scents. “The pemburu’s much too small to shake a whole bush. It’s just the wind.”

  If I had trusted Winnie’s hunting instincts instead of my snout, I could have saved us so much grief later. But I ignored them and put us both in peril.

  CHAPTER NINE

  There are clever pets and unselfish pets, but treasure most the pet who is both.

  We continued to search under every bush and in every hole, but our luck seemed to have run out. Frustrated, I stopped and cleared my head. “Oh, how foolish. We’ve been thinking like groundlings and looking down rather than up. You should find some binoculars in that bag, Winnie.”

  Winnie was surprised when she pulled out a pair of green binoculars. “They weren’t in here before.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes the bag forgets what it has until you remind it.”

  She stared at the binoculars and then at the lace bag. “Where did you ever get it?”

  “From a wise and powerful woman in Belgium named Sefa Bubbles. She gave me the bag after I helped her out of a spot of trouble.” I smiled when I remembered how I had to singe a few rich burghers before they saw things my way.

  As Winnie slowly scanned the trees, I inspected the roof, gutters, and turrets. At the tip of the tallest turret, I saw the bright banner Winthrop had designed for our home. It was whipping back and forth in the breeze from the bay. “Well, that’s reassuring. The three dragons are aloft and well,” I said, satisfied.

  Winnie tilted the binoculars up and squinted. “I count four.”

  “No, there are three dragons,” I told her. “One red, one gold, and one blue. Bold dragons rampant.”

  “Well, I see two blue ones today,” she said, passing me the binoculars.

  I readjusted the binoculars for my eyes and saw the creature perched on the finial of the turret. “That second blue one is no dragon. It’s the mini-pteranodon.”

  “Poor thing,” Winnie said, sensing the beast’s loneliness. “I bet it mistook the dragons for cousins.”

  I clicked my tongue in annoyance. “How could you mistake a dragon’s noble snout for a pteranodon’s gnarly beak?”

  But it did look rather sad. Perhaps it was a young one, too, looking for its mother. If it should leave here and fly about, I could see the headlines in the Chronicle about the sighting of an extinct flying reptile in the city. We would be in big trouble then.

  “It’s out of range of my capture spell,” I said. “We have to draw it down to us.”

  Winnie rummaged around in the bag. “No more raisins.”

  “They wouldn’t help,” I said. “It eats fish.”

  Winnie searched through the bag. “Not even a tuna sandwich.”

  “That bag can be persnickety about wet and smelly items,” I told her. “That’s the one drawback to Sefa’s creations. She likes to give them personalities as quirky as hers.”

  “Hmm, Dad and I always stopped to visit the pteranodon at the museum. We’d stretch our arms wide and compare them to its huge wings. He even helped teach me to read dinosaur names and the signs describing them.” Winnie was squinting as if trying to see an exhibit’s plaque. “Cousins to dinosaurs … flying reptiles … like birds, fly by flapping wings … good eyesight … Yes!” Suddenly she dived into the bag. “I’ve got to find something shiny in here.”

  “You’ll probably feel some coins at the bottom,” I said. “I always do.”

  Winnie dug down deep. “Got ’em.” She showed me some copper coins that the Belgians of Sefa’s time called double mites.

  Then, using her left hand to hold the book open behind her back, she waved the coins in her right hand overhead. “Hey, hey!” she shouted until the pteranodon turned its head toward her. “Catch!” Winnie flung the double mites high in the air.

  Even on such a cloudy day, the copper winked and flashed as the coins fell onto the patio.

  The pteranodon launched itself from the turret, and I began the spell, but before I could finish, it settled in a palm tree, hiding among the fronds.

  “Birds like shiny things,” my clever pet explained. “I thought it might too. But maybe copper isn’t shiny enough.” She rummaged around in the purse for more coins. “Nothing,” she said. “So let’s try this.” She undid the clasp of her medal’s chain with her right hand and wound it around her fingers tightly, just in case the pteranodon was as big a thief as the lemur. Then she raised her arm and dangled the medal, letting it swing back and forth as its polished silver gleamed brightly.

  The pteranodon’s head moved rhythmically from side to side as if it could not take its eyes off the medal. Suddenly the flying reptile dived from the palm tree, stretching its great beak wide to snatch at it. Winnie tried to jerk the medal d
own, but the beast caught the disk in its beak. Instantly its mouth clacked shut. And twisting its head, it snapped the chain.

  Winnie lunged after it desperately, the open sketchbook still in her left hand while her right hand reached for the creature. “Give that back!”

  The leathery bandit was soaring beyond her reach, but not mine. I said the spell, and the next moment, the pteranodon was trapped on paper again. But there was no sign of the medal.

  Winnie fell to her knees, hands probing the page for the stolen medal. “Do you think it swallowed it?” she asked, and I could sense her voice was one quiver away from a sob.

  “I don’t know, Winnie,” I said, feeling helpless. Perhaps losing her father’s gift was like losing him all over again. “I know how much your great-grandfather’s medal meant to you. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too,” she said, running her sleeve against her nose. Then she straightened her shoulders. “But as my dad would say, it was for a good cause.”

  I suppose she had learned to make sacrifices living as a fugitive from her grandfather. But this went far beyond that. She would set her grief aside so we could continue the task at hand. “Definitely,” I said, appreciating her even more.

  Well done, Fluffy, I praised her silently. You made the right choice when you selected Winnie.

  I promised myself that I would find a way to make up for the lost medal somehow. But not at this moment. We were still a few creatures short of our quota.

  I looked at the sun in the sky—or rather, at where it was hiding behind the clouds. “Almost time for elevenses,” I said, missing my midmorning treat.

  As if Sefa’s bag could read my mind, I heard Winnie shout, “Look what I found inside!” She placed two bottles of ginger beer and a petite English fruitcake on a napkin. Just what two weary beast hunters needed.

  “This is pretty tasty,” Winnie said after breaking off chunks of cake for each of us. “I wonder how old it is.”

  “It’s fruitcake,” I said, happily munching my share. “Who could tell?”

  Without a moment for adequate digestion, I saw the puffs of smoke rising from the house next door.

  It was red and green angry smoke, and I knew we had to put out those fires before anyone, especially another magical, noticed.

  Fortunately our neighbor Mr. Perrone was visiting relatives in Italy, and no one seemed to be watching from the nearby houses, so Winnie and I walked up his driveway and behind his house.

  Two of them were together … and that was the problem. Small male dragonets never get along, and they were in the middle of a fight above Mr. Perrone’s prize dahlias. Circling, then chasing each other in midair, the three-inch dragonets darted among the bushes like bossy hummingbirds—but dangerous, fire-breathing ones.

  “I got them,” Winnie said. Holding the book in her left hand, she swung the net down with her right.

  The next instant, the mesh net disappeared in a small fireball.

  “Whoa!” Winnie said as she dropped the shaft of the netless hoop.

  Alas, now the dragonets had discovered a common enemy.

  “Run, Winnie!” I said, and waved her over to me.

  I didn’t need to warn her not to move in a straight line. The clever girl already knew that would make it easy for them to hit her with their fire. Instead, she dodged to her left, then her right, all the time working her way back toward me.

  When she ran past me, I darted forward, snatching first one angry warrior and then the other by the back of their necks. While I crossed the yard to the birdbath, I was careful to hold them at arm’s length and face them away from me. As they angrily spit ribbons of flame into the air, they wriggled, trying to hit me with their fiery breath.

  “Get ready,” I told Winnie, and she crouched slightly with the book open, like a softball player catching a ball in her glove.

  “Sorry about this, cousins,” I whispered softly as I dunked them in the birdbath, dousing their flames. Wisps of smoke drifted skyward, and their damp wings splashed the water as they tried in vain to take to the air.

  I drew the signs, and with a quick chant, they were restored to the book—not as they had been in the birdbath, but in all their glory in midflight … and midfight.

  It had been a tiresome morning, to say the least. Winnie flopped on the grass. “What did I get us into?”

  I felt my pet needed a little boost. “You did a marvelous job with their wings. When you take the time, you do lovely scales.”

  “Thanks,” Winnie said with a sigh.

  I counted our captured sketchlings—eighteen. Perhaps we were only missing one—the pemburu. I was confident it was hiding nearby like the others, and that if we put out a little magical something as bait, we could catch it easily. All in all, it had been a good morning’s work—thanks to my partner in the hunt, Winnie.

  It was nearly noon, and a pot of tea and something more substantial than a snack would be nice. “Let’s take a short break for a proper lunch.”

  “I’ll make sandwiches,” Winnie said, grateful for a rest. She stood and picked up the remains of her net, and we walked back home.

  “There should be some nice aged cheddar still in the icebox,” I said. “Meet me downstairs in my apartment. I’ll make a sweet currant tea to refresh us.”

  We parted ways by the kitchen, but before I reached my door, I remembered I hadn’t told Winnie that I hated mayonnaise. So I went to the basement shelf where Fluffy had kept her homemade chutney and brought a jar upstairs.

  I was walking down the hallway when I heard myself say from the kitchen, “Winnie, let me hold the sketchbook while you make lunch.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  A pet who knows you and comes when you call is both valuable and beloved.

  As quickly as words could work their magic, I was my dragon self again, and I rushed into the kitchen to see Winnie slipping the bag with the sketchbook from her shoulder. And reaching for it was my identical twin.

  I had to admit that Winnie had done a very good job of capturing my alluring likeness. No sloppiness on my wings and scales and paws either.

  No wonder Winnie had been so uncomfortable when I had asked her about sketch number twenty.

  Winnie, oh, Winnie, what have you done? Did you really forget what the last sketch was, or were you simply afraid to tell me?

  “No, you don’t.” I threw the chutney jar at the second Miss Drake and then leapt after it. The impostor was able to duck the jar … but not me.

  The mansion’s kitchen was large because Winthrop had loved to entertain anyone who interested him—and that was pretty much everyone. A gold prospector with mud still on his boots might be seated at dinner next to a wealthy banker from Germany or a diplomat from Abyssinia.

  My twin and I crashed to the tiles and rolled back and forth, paw to paw, tails trying to lash the other, heads darting about as we lunged to bite the other’s throat. I thought my experience at fighting would have given me the advantage. But as new a fighter as my twin was, we seemed to be evenly matched.

  Then I heard the rumbling from my twin’s body—not the rumbling of a hungry stomach, but the deeper noise of methane building in that special chamber before a dragon begins to spit out flame and destruction.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Winnie yelled, and I heard a bell begin clanging.

  I twisted away from my twin to see a scared Winnie frantically beating a ladle against a huge metal lid. My bag and the sketchbook were once again on her shoulder, swaying with every thump and clang.

  My twin got into a crouch. “Hurry. Open the book, Winnie, and I’ll say the spell,” she urged before I could.

  How did she know the spell? Had she been hiding and observing us to see how we caught the other sketchlings? I remembered now the long shadow, the rustling bushes. I hadn’t been able to detect her before because her scent was identical to my own! But could the sketchbook capture the original as easily as the copy? I didn’t want to find out.

  “Yes, open the book, but p
oint it at that impostor,” I said, nodding at the second Miss Drake. Now that Winnie could hear my voice, I hoped she’d notice my double’s was a touch shaky from lack of practice.

  “I’m the real Miss Drake,” my twin insisted.

  Winnie swiveled her head back and forth between my double and myself like someone watching a tennis match. “You both look so real.” She pointed at me. “Are you my Miss Drake?” Then she turned. “Or are you?”

  “I bought you a scarf at the same time as the sketchbook. Remember?” the faux Miss Drake wheedled. “Would the sketchling know that?” She spoke rapidly, reminding Winnie of other nice things that my pet and I had done together.

  How had my twin learned all that? Did she have copies of my memories too?

  The more my twin talked, the more confidence she gained and the more mellifluous and lilting her voice became—just like mine. She was sounding so convincing, I would have said she was me!

  “Now please open the book, Winnie,” my double finally said. “I’ll say the spell, and we’ll get rid of this sorry copy of me.” Her wheedling voice grew sugary. “Be a dear.”

  Winnie took the book from the bag, but she didn’t open it. Instead, she jerked her head at me. “Well, what do you say?”

  I wasn’t used to having a pet toy with me. “Don’t be a goose. I am the one true Miss Drake.”

  Winnie smiled slyly as she flipped the book open, turned it so the open pages faced my double, and called to me. “Okay, do your stuff.”

  My twin panicked. “No! I know you’re planning to trap the pemburu in there again. It’ll get me when you do. Putting me back in the sketchbook is like putting a sheep into the same pen as a wolf.”

  “You’re too big for it to eat,” I said, beginning to move my paws in the magical passes.

  “You weren’t in the sketchbook with it, but I was, so I know its secret,” my twin said urgently. “It’s why all we sketchlings are afraid of it. That pemburu could even destroy San Francisco. Set me free and I’ll tell you how.”