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

  This time the cheers rolled across the hilltop like thunder.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Expect your pet to do the unexpected.

  I slept very late the next day, and I imagined that Winnie had also. I didn’t see her or hear her knocking at my door, which was just fine with me. I needed time to restore myself with a good book, some tea, and more than a little quiet.

  After dinner, I placed my new tiara in the cedar chest along with the others I had won over the years. This one was quite delicate, with rows of brilliant red tourmaline. Clipper had selected well. It had looked quite charming against my flame-colored scales. In the lamplight, all the tiaras gleamed, reminding me of many happy conquests.

  But I was in the mood now to tidy up, not reminisce, after the challenges of the past week. I tried to shut the lid, but the chest was very full. I had to rearrange the tiaras before I could close it. Perhaps I would ask Silana if she knew where I could buy a larger chest.

  I was still imagining Silana’s expression when I noticed that Winnie had left her precious sketchbook behind. That was a surprise. I flipped through it quickly just to make sure that everyone was still in its proper place, and the magic intact, when I saw something unexpected.

  Two pages had been ripped out. I was sure they had been there before the contest, and maybe even after it. But they were missing now.

  I could feel my heart racing like a Roman charger. Who had stolen them? Was it done at the Fair? But how?

  Questions whirled around in my mind. But my heart knew the answer before my head did.

  Winnie!

  There wasn’t time to lose. I had to find out what she was planning before she stumbled into a worse disaster. But why? Why? WHY? Winnie knew the trouble she could cause with those pages. What would make it so worthwhile that she would risk the magic again? What secret wish was tempting her now?

  Oh no, my pet! I suddenly realized what she could be planning and knew I had to stop her … before it was too late.

  “Oh, Winnie,” I whispered as I stepped out of my rooms with the sketchbook. I set it down on the floor and shrank myself to the size of a parrot. “Be careful what you wish for.”

  With the sketchbook in my claws, I sped through the basement and up the stairs. The kitchen was dark, but I knew the placement of every hanging pot, so I darted between them.

  Why did I keep trying to raise humans as pets? It was always the same. They knew they shouldn’t do something, but they did it anyway. Try as I might to guide them, I was never really able to train them to do what was best and safest for them.

  So often all I could do was clean up the mess afterward. All the aggravations and disappointments had surely stolen centuries from my life. I should never have taken on Winnie as a pet. She was proving to be the most challenging one yet.

  But dipping around the dining room chairs, I remembered all the candlelit dinners where Fluffy and I had discussed so many wondrous things of past and present. And I knew that I couldn’t help myself. I still wanted to believe in Winnie and her promise … with a bit of dragon help. So clean up the mess, I would.

  I darted along the center hall and up the stairway to the bedrooms on the second floor. Her door was slightly ajar, and I zigzagged through the doorway into what had once been Fluffy’s private retreat. Oh, I remembered this room so well—the high ceiling, the view of the bay. Even when I was my own size, this was a delightfully spacious place to be.

  Fluffy’s favorite patchwork quilt was still on her bed when I flew over it and then her desk, but the pages were not in sight. Neither was Winnie. Perhaps I had been wrong.

  Then I remembered the alcove—Fluffy’s secret spot. Tucked at the back of a deep closet was a seat along a bay window, where one could sit and watch the ships sail into the harbor. It was a good place to hide, undisturbed and unseen.

  I glided between the rows of dresses and coats and saw my Winnie, curled up on the seat.

  The two pages were lying on the cushions by her feet, and her pencils were on her lap. She was staring out the window as if she was trying very hard to see or imagine something … or someone.

  I grew as large as I could to comfortably fit in the space. “Winnie,” I called. “I think we need to talk.”

  “Oh,” she said, turning to me as if she was coming back from some place or time far away.

  “Are those pages from your sketchbook, Winnie?” I asked. “You haven’t drawn on them yet, have you?”

  “I did,” she said softly, “but then I erased them, or most of them.”

  She stared at me, and her face was etched with sadness. “I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself,” she said, and she began to cry.

  If I were a human, I might have hugged her, but it is not easy for a dragon to show compassion, except to be nearby and listen.

  “It will be all right, Winnie,” I said, softening my voice. “Whatever is wrong, we can fix it.”

  What did you wish for? What did you draw? I wondered, afraid of the answers.

  I took a step so I could see the drawings. Even erased, I could recognize the features she had drawn. On one, there was a jolly-looking man, young and tanned, Winnie’s father. And on the other was, oh my, Fluffy, drawn from a photo but as real as I could remember her.

  As I understood what she had done, my eyes filled with tears and my heart filled with compassion for the girl. She had wished to have her father alive again and to have Fluffy back for me.

  Magic is like that sometimes. It takes your dearest wish and tempts you to play with it. But capricious and unfeeling, it is simply playing with you to see what you will do. To see what you are made of. Everyone who ever deals with magic faces times of testing, and this was ours.

  For as much as Winnie was yearning to bring her father back, I suddenly realized how much I would love to have Fluffy in my life again. Oh, how I had missed her. And with my magic, I could help Winnie make her sketches close to the originals, and full-size to boot. I knew it would be a challenge, but I thought I could do it. A child should have her father.…

  “I just wanted him to hold me,” said Winnie, sobbing now. “I miss him so much.”

  “I know, Winnie,” I whispered, moving closer to her. She slid from the bench and wrapped her arms around my neck, our heads touching. We both sobbed until there were no tears left; we were worn out, and pearls bounced and scattered, clicking on the parquet floor.

  And that made us laugh.

  “You are a messy crier, you know,” Winnie said, snuffling.

  “Well, at least something good comes from my tears,” I answered back.

  But something good came from that cry besides pearls. We had both released much of the sadness that we were feeling, and the sadness we shared bound us together even more.

  “You know you shouldn’t bring your father back,” I said. “Just as I know I shouldn’t bring back Amelia … no matter how much I would like to. It would be selfish of me and a dishonor to the person she was.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s why I erased my sketches … just as soon as the edges started to glow. I needed to think it over more.… I figured if I changed my mind, I could always redraw them.”

  “And now?” I asked her.

  “You better put them back in the sketchbook,” she said. “Before I do change my mind.”

  “I have a better idea,” I told her. “Let’s give all the sketchlings a fond farewell and a moment of glory.”

  We left the closet, and I asked her to close the drapes and turn out the lights. I grew to my full size, motioned her to sit beside me, and placed the sketchbook between us.

  “It’s time to release these creatures in a way that will do no harm yet will set their spirits free.”

  I had been working on this spell off and on through the years, refining it, and I thought I could add something that would be lovely too.

  I began by chanting the spell that would make what was magic no longer so. I suspected that this book had once b
een very, very powerful, more powerful than the one who was using it. Removing magic has to be done very carefully, and I felt that someone had tried to do so in haste. The book had been drained of much of its power, but not all.

  Now was the time to complete the task.

  I moved my paws back and forth as if I was sweeping away dust instead of magic. As I spoke the last words of the spell—“Aikare! Aikare! Aikare!”—the book rose in the air and the pages began to flutter. But rather than a golden glow, the book glowed red. I continued the chant until the color changed, fading, and the draining of power began. I waited as it floated between us, and then I began another chant, lighter and more carefree. The book turned to the page where a blue dragonet was on guard.

  “Release and return,” I said, and the page flared and crumpled as a blue streamer of light shot upward to the ceiling. Just below the chandelier, the light burst into a thousand smaller lights, painting the tiny dragon’s picture above our heads in a mosaic of colored sparks. It raised its head and spit flames, revealing the spirit every dragonet should have, and then … the lights showered down over our heads like a shimmering fireworks display. The dragonet was gone.

  “Ahhhh,” said Winnie. “It was so beautiful.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It had a magnificent spirit, and now it is free.”

  One by one, I called the creatures’ names and the book released them, and as it did so, it lost a bit more of its power and its magic. Each soared high, glowed brightly and colorfully, and then vanished in a shower of fluttering lights.

  The lizards, sirens, moths, and dragonets were freed in a display that took our breath away again and again.

  The mini-pteranodon stretched its wings across the entire ceiling, as large as any ancient pteranodon that ever sailed the skies. And just as the gigantic beast glimmered and faded, a tiny bright meteor streaked downward and hit the wooden floor with a sharp clink.

  “My medal!” cried Winnie, and she scooted over to scoop up her great-grandfather’s medal, once lost and now found.

  I couldn’t help thinking, with some pleasure and a touch of sadness, too, how much Fluffy would have enjoyed seeing her study filled with such an amazing spectacle.

  It took us some time, but finally the book was blank again. There was hardly any glow left. All the characters inside it had been freed.

  Winnie was holding the last two pages. She didn’t say anything but gave them to me. I placed the one with her father on top of the book, and let her call his name as I recited the releasing spell.

  The page glimmered red and then turned into a sparkling flare that sped up, brighter and faster than the others. It spread across the ceiling, and her father’s shining face grinned merrily at Winnie. I could sense so much of Winnie in him and saw the cleverness, stubbornness, courage, and curiosity in him that she loved. And then, with a wink of his eye, his face dissolved into a lovely shower of green and yellow lights. Winnie stood, arms held high, letting the lights shine over her face, smiling a smile I hadn’t seen before.

  I was a bit selfish in saving Fluffy for last, but if so, who could blame me? As I placed her page on the book, the faint indentations of Winnie’s drawing began to glow pink and yellow, the color of the petals of tea roses, Fluffy’s favorites.

  A bright pink spark soared high, and her face glimmered over our upturned ones. She smiled, or so it seemed, at both of us before gently rippling and then dissolving into a cascade of pale pink petals, like cherry blossoms drifting on a windy spring day in Golden Gate Park.

  When I finished my chant, the book turned dark and dropped, with a thump, on the floor. As I touched it, I felt no tingling, no sensation at all. The magic was gone now. It was a sketchbook like any other, but with a prettier cover—and with fewer pages than before.

  “That was the right thing to do,” said Winnie. “Wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It was the right and loving thing to do.”

  We sat in the dark room for a moment or two, remembering and savoring the presence of our loved ones and their spirits, which would always glow inside us.

  Then I pulled open the drapes so we could see in the dark room, but not be seen. The real lights of the city drew us back into the everyday world again.

  Winnie was good about picking up all the pearls and putting them in a little bag.

  “That should pay for quite a lot of tea and crackers,” she said, giving them to me.

  And some tuition, I thought, but now wasn’t the time to be talking about school. Not on a special night like this.

  Instead, I rose and whispered her a good night, wishing, “Sweet dreams, Winnie.”

  In three shakes of a dragon’s tail, I was the size of a bee, whizzing through the dark rooms I knew so well and into my own home and my own bed, myself again.

  And whether it was my wish fulfilled or simply the release of the magical ones, we both slept better than we had in a long time, full of pleasant dreams with the ones we loved.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Is a pet worth the trouble? Absolutely! When you bond with your pet, she will love you despite your warts—and if you’re lucky, sometimes because of them.

  “Do you want this?” Winnie asked the next day, tossing the sketchbook on my sofa. “It may be safe now, but I don’t want to use it anymore.”

  “I’ll trade you,” I told her, offering her my new tiara. I had decided that after last night she deserved it. With a little adjustment here and there, the delicate crown fit her perfectly, and she twirled around so I could see it from all angles.

  “Stunning,” I told her. “Simply stunning.”

  When she stopped spinning, she put her hand in her pocket and looked surprised. “Oh, I forgot, this is yours,” she said. “I found it inside a shoe.”

  The pearl was an especially lovely one, reflecting the depths of sadness and affection I had felt the night before. It would bring an exceptional price. As large as any Tahitian pearl, this gem of mine was blue-black with a rainbow luster. The highlights opalesced from green to purple to pink as I rolled it in my paw.

  “I think you should keep it,” I told her. “You were wise and brave last night, and I would like you to have it as a gift from me.”

  “Thanks,” she said, pausing. “My dad would have loved painting the colors in this.”

  It was a gift freely given, yet one I might one day regret. I was feeling too carefree this morning to be as cautious as my elders taught me to be.

  “What are we going to do today?” Winnie asked brightly, as if she was expecting me to amuse her with my latest trick.

  “Well, we could race the djinn on a flying carpet in Samarkand. Or we could go to Venice and ride with the Cat Doge as he sails his sky gondola just above the fireworks,” I told her. “But I think today we’ll get your school supplies. Remember, classes start next week.”

  She tried to make the best of the situation. “At Clipper’s?”

  “No, at stores that naturals run,” I said, and I could see her slump with disinterest. But I knew she would soon get out of her little snit.

  Since my favorite stationery store was in Sausalito, we could take the California Street cable car and then walk over to the Ferry Building and catch the ferry across the bay. So I planned a fun outing I knew she would enjoy.

  Yesterday was summer, foggy and overcast. Today, you could feel fall ready to make its appearance. As soon as all the pesky summer tourists left, San Francisco paid back the natives with the finest weather of all.

  Sun and light surrounded us, and the bright blue sky seemed to leap from the deep gem-blue waters of the bay. Though it was warm enough on land, there is always a good breeze on the ferry, so I had suggested Winnie wear an extra sweatshirt. I put on a herringbone jacket with a design that reminded me of interlocking scales. Yet not even the gusty West Wind was going to force Winnie to take off her tiara. She wore it proudly, with a hand holding it firmly in place.

  Her other hand fingered the medal hung once again aro
und her neck. “There’s a dent here where the pteranodon bit it,” she said, lifting it to show me.

  “I can fix that,” I told her, “with a few strokes of a goldsmith’s hammer or a bit of magic, if you like.”

  “No thanks,” she said. “This way when I touch it, I won’t ever forget what happened—even when I’m old.”

  “Well, we’ll stop by a jeweler I know and pick up a silver chain for it.”

  “A cord’s fine with me,” she said with a jut of her chin.

  I was sure it was, but some of the girls at school, especially the privileged naturals, might not agree.

  “Of course, cord has character,” I said, “but your great-grandfather’s medal is too much of a treasure. It deserves something finer.”

  And we found just the perfect chain at my friend Felisa’s boutique near the ferry landing in Sausalito. Sweet Felisa cooed over the old pendant, warming Winnie and delighting her with a woven silver necklace, comparable to the finest any elfin craftsman could make.

  “It does look nicer now,” Winnie said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome,” I said. “Now for those school supplies.”

  At the stationer’s shop, Anthony helped us find everything we needed, including a new, blank, and decidedly unmagical sketchbook that Winnie carefully selected. When the total was rung up, Winnie tugged at my arm and whispered, “You don’t have to buy me all this school stuff. How are you going to pay for it—in pearls?”

  “No,” I told her, “with my bank debit card.”

  I may be old-fashioned in some things, but I can be au courant when necessary. “And I know I don’t have to buy your school stuff, but I want to.”

  On the way back, we stood in the bow of the boat, wordless and windswept, so we could enjoy the view of San Francisco growing closer and closer—the tall skyscrapers lining downtown, the hills of the city behind them, so many lovely buildings and places I loved and wanted to share with Winnie. I thought I could see even the three dragons rampant swirling from our turret just as the boat touched one of the docks outside the Ferry Building.