The Basque Dragon

by Adam Gidwitz

  Professor Fauna was covering his eyes with his arms.

  The forest on the side of the mountain was getting very close, very fast. Uchenna yanked on the yoke with all her might. Nothing happened. She smashed some red buttons with her palm. Nothing. She kicked the control panel.

  The plane shuddered and stopped spinning. She grabbed the yoke again and pulled back. The plane’s nose rose into the air again.

  “Hey!” shouted the professor. “What happened?”

  “I’m flying the plane!” Uchenna crowed.

  Just then, their wings clipped the tops of a clutch of trees, and the whole plane went careening, nose over tail, downward.

  Everyone screamed.

  “We’redyingwe’redyingwe’redying!” Elliot shouted.

  And then, with a horrifying shudder, everything went still.

  Elliot, Uchenna, and the professor fell silent. Jersey let out a whine. Smoke rose from the engine. The airplane’s propeller was bent like a boomerang.

  “Everybody out!” Professor Fauna commanded.

  They slid out of their seat belts, opened the plane door, crawled over the white painted metal, and lowered themselves, one by one, to the ground. All three of them were sweating and breathing hard. But they were uninjured. Jersey chirruped in relief.

  “I can’t believe we’re alive,” said Elliot.

  Uchenna inhaled. The clean mountain air was mixed with the smell of burned engine oil. They were in a grove of tall evergreen trees near the edge of a pasture. Professor Fauna removed a handkerchief from his tweed suit jacket pocket and wiped his brow. “Well,” he said, “welcome to the Basque Country!”

  POP!

  His eyes went wide.

  “What was that?” said Elliot.

  POP! POP!

  “If I am not mistaken—” Professor Fauna said, his head cocked to one side, his eyes wide.

  POP! POP! POP!

  “Those are gunshots.”

  POP!

  “Hit the deck!” Uchenna cried.

  They threw themselves to the ground.

  “We’redyingwe’redyingwe’redying!” Elliot whimpered.

  “Keep calm!” Professor Fauna said. “I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding!”

  POP! POP! POP!

  “I understand gunshots pretty well,” Elliot replied. “I think they’re intended to kill us.”

  “Or maybe just scare us,” Uchenna said. “They don’t seem to be hitting anything nearby.”

  “Can we just tell whoever it is,” said Elliot, “that if their intention is to scare us, the gunshots are working, and I am sufficiently terrified?”

  “Good idea!” the professor exclaimed. He started to get to his feet.

  “What? I was kidding! Don’t stand up!” Elliot cried.

  But it was too late. The professor was standing. Another shot rang out.

  “Hello!” the professor called. “You have succeeded, whoever you are! We are afraid!”

  The gunshots stopped.

  The children waited, unable to breathe.

  There was no sound in the forest but the creaking of the trees.

  Elliot braced for another round of gunfire.

  Then, a voice called out.

  “Defende Fabulosa?”

  “Protege Mythica!” Professor Fauna cried. “Mitxel? Is that you?”

  A man stepped from the nearby woods. He had a long straight nose, a wispy black mustache, big ears, and he wore a black beret. “Mito!” he cried, throwing up his arms. In one hand, he held a very old-looking rifle. “Kaixo! Thank the heavens, it is you!”

  “Kaixo, Mitxel! It has been too long.” (The Basque greeting sounded like KYE-shoh.)

  The two men embraced.

  Uchenna and Elliot stared. Jersey, who was cradled between Elliot’s body and the ground, growled menacingly.

  But Professor Fauna turned around and said, “Children, may I introduce my dear friend, Mitxel Mendizabal, representative of the Unicorn Rescue Society in the Basque Country!”

  Elliot said, “And the man who, just thirty seconds ago, was trying to kill us? How nice to meet you.”

  “It is nice to meet you, too,” replied Mr. Mendizabal. And he sounded like he meant it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I am sorry about the shooting,” Mr. Mendizabal said as he led them through the woods, away from the plane. He walked like an aging military commando.

  “Oh yeah,” Elliot replied. “No problem. Anytime.”

  “You must be very careful trespassing in the lands of the Euskaldunak. We don’t take kindly to it. Just ask the Romans.” The grizzled man with the black beret chuckled and hefted his rifle over his shoulder. “But, personally, I have never seen so many trespassers as these days!”

  “Trespassers?” the professor asked. “Here?”

  “Yes! People are snooping around my property, day and night. Mysterious vehicles drive up the mountain and then, when they catch sight of me, turn around and drive back down. And then my dear herensuge goes missing!” The tough Euskaldun sniffled hard and cleared his throat. Uchenna wondered if he was crying. She’d never seen a man cry while carrying a rifle.

  “But what is this?” Mr. Mendizabal suddenly asked, gesturing at Jersey.

  The professor told his friend all about Jersey—his flying and his ability to turn invisible in shadows in particular—as they made their way up the mountain. Finally, they came in view of a large farmhouse. “Welcome,” said Mr. Mendizabal, “to my baserri, my home. It is called mendizabal, which means ‘house that is close to the wide mountains.’” He gestured at the peaks all around them.

  “I thought your name was Mendizabal,” said Uchenna.

  Elliot said, “The Euskaldunak take their names from their family homes. Isn’t that right, sir?”

  “Indeed it is,” agreed Mr. Mendizabal. “This is our ancestral home, and so this is what we are called.”

  From the outside, Mr. Mendizabal’s baserri was a strange-looking place, like someone had stapled together a bunch of unrelated buildings from totally different time periods. The ground floor was made entirely of stone, and above it was another level made from wooden beams joined with plaster. Above that was a high, sloped roof covered in red tiles. There was a rusty yellow pickup truck parked outside.

  Mr. Mendizabal led them through the front door into a spare living room, decorated with wood and sheepskins. The air was thick with the scent of baking bread and grilling fish. “Are you hungry?” Mr. Mendizabal asked. “I have made pintxos!”

  “PEEN-chohs! My favorite!” exclaimed the professor.

  Mr. Mendizabal led them to a large wooden table in his kitchen and invited them to sit. On the table was a platter of tiny slices of bread, some piled high with bits of sausage, some with grilled fish, and some with roasted peppers. They were held together with toothpicks.

  Professor Fauna and Uchenna dug in, making sure to try every kind of pintxo on the platter. Jersey liked the fish ones, but didn’t bother with the bread part.

  Elliot spread a napkin on his lap and eyed the pintxos nervously. “What’s on these noodles?” he asked as he tentatively helped himself to a bowl of stringy white things flecked with chunks of red and white.

  “Ah, that is a local delicacy called txitxardin.” It sounded like CHEE-char-deen. “I cook them in olive oil and garlic, with a bit of hot pepper.”

  “Mmm!” Elliot said, scooping them into his mouth. “Good!”

  “Yes, they are. But they are not noodles. They are baby eels.”

  Elliot, his mouth full, stopped chewing. His eyes bulged. Uchenna laughed. A moment later, when no one was looking, he managed to take the eels out of his mouth and deposit them in his napkin.

  Jersey crawled down into Elliot’s lap and ate the half-chewed eels. Elliot tried not to throw up.


  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After the pintxos, Professor Fauna asked Mr. Mendizabal to tell them of the herensuge.

  “Legends of dragons have been told throughout this land. But each region tells its own version of the dragon story. Here in Euskal Herria—the Basque Country—we told stories of a dragon with seven heads: Sugaar, the god of the storms. Nearby, in Cantabaria, they tell the tale of a dragon called the cuélebre, who lives in a cave overflowing with treasure. In every town, they tell tales of their own kind of dragon.”

  Professor Fauna cut in, “It is my belief, children, that all of the dragon legends of this coast are about the same dragon species. But each time the story of the dragon is told, it changes. Suddenly, you have ridiculous things like seven-headed dragons, like in a child’s game of broken telephoning.”

  “Wait, you don’t think there’s a seven-headed dragon?” Uchenna asked.

  “No, I do not,” said Professor Fauna.

  “I disagree,” Uchenna replied.

  The professor laughed. “On what evidence?”

  “That seven-headed dragons are awesome, and I want them to be real.”

  “That is not the basis for a scientific theory, Uchenna.”

  Mr. Mendizabal shrugged. “I agree with the girl.”

  “But what about the herensuge?” asked Elliot. “You haven’t told us about the one dragon we’re here to save.”

  “Ah!” said Mr. Mendizabal. “I was just getting to her! The legend of the herensuge has been intertwined with the history of my family for generations. It begins more than a thousand years ago, with my ancestor, a sword-smith named Teodosio.

  “Tay-oh-DOH-see-oh lived in Bizkaia, the region of the Basque Country where we are right now. He was a true Euskaldun: a proud man, but also a man of honor. He made a guarantee to each person who bought one of his swords that the weapon would never fail in battle. And they never did.”

  “Wait, does your family still make swords?” Uchenna asked.

  Mr. Mendizabal frowned. “My brother, Íñigo, runs the family steel foundry in Bilbao, but I do not believe he has many requests for swords these days. His steel is used to build buildings and boats and railroads and other such businessy things.”

  “Well, if he did have any swords, I might know someone who would want one,” Uchenna said, pointing at herself with both of her thumbs.

  “Uchenna,” said Professor Fauna, “this is no time for talk of swordplay. That part of your training may come later, but only if you pay attention to these valuable lessons. Please continue, Mitxel.”

  Instantly, Uchenna sat up as straight as she could, crossed her hands in her lap like a model student, and turned to Mr. Mendizabal. He went on with his story.

  “One day,” Mr. Mendizabal went on, “a knight’s squire burst into Teodosio’s workshop. ‘Your blade failed,’ the squire said, and he tossed a broken sword onto the floor. ‘My master was escorting a noblewoman through the mountains. He heard of a dragon living in a cave nearby, so he set out to prove his courage and defeat it. My master fought bravely, but your sword could not pierce the beast’s scales. The dragon killed my master and took the lady back to his cave.’”

  Professor Fauna threw his arms in the air. “What is this with people attacking dragons all the time? Why can’t they just leave them alone?”

  “Exactly!” exclaimed Mr. Mendizabal. “Just like the Euskaldunak. We live in the mountains and we just want to be left alone. We need no one!”

  Uchenna and Elliot glanced at each other. Who needs no one? But they weren’t about to question this tough old soldier. He went on:

  “Teodosio said, ‘I promised that my blades would never fail, and now your master is dead and a noble lady is in danger. Take me to the cave, and I will rescue her!’”

  Uchenna raised an eyebrow. “Hold on. Why do the boys have to go and rescue the girl? Why don’t they give her a sword so she can rescue herself?”

  “This story is very old,” said Professor Fauna. “In that time, it was considered wrong for women to fight. I am sure that if you were captured by a dragon, you would not need a boy to save you.”

  “Especially when I get my own sword.”

  “You know,” Elliot said, “it just occurred to me that we actually might be captured by a dragon. Like, in real life. Like, maybe today.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mr. Mendizabal assured him. “This herensuge would never capture you.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “She would just kill you.”

  All the blood drained from Elliot’s face.

  Mr. Mendizabal continued with his story. “So Teodosio took the strongest and most perfect blade he had ever made and followed the squire to the cave of the herensuge. There he found the dragon, its scales glistening in the fading daylight, its brown leathery wings outstretched, perched on an enormous pile of treasure. The terrified noblewoman was trapped in the cave behind it.

  “Teodosio stepped forward once. He was afraid, but what could he do? He stepped forward again. The dragon watched him come. Teodosio stepped a third time.

  “Which is when the dragon lunged.

  “Teodosio swung his sword.

  “And the greatest blade of the greatest sword-smith in Euskal Herria . . . shattered. It shattered like glass.

  “A roar of flame enveloped Teodosio. He fell to the ground, fire covering his body. The floor was damp, though, and there were scattered puddles. Teodosio rolled to a puddle to extinguish the flame. As he did, he felt wings beating the air above him as the dragon flew out of the cave. A moment later, the noblewoman was beside him, bathing his burned skin with water from the puddles. It was blissfully cool. And then, right before their eyes, the burns healed.

  “‘What water is this?’ Teodosio asked.

  “‘It is the dragon’s saliva,’ said the noblewoman. ‘It is marvelously powerful.’”

  “What?!” Elliot exclaimed. “She washed him with dragon spit?”

  “But of course! Teodosio and the noblewoman escaped the cave and were married. Together they built a home for their new family. That home grew and changed over the years—but still it stands. In fact, you are sitting in it right now.”

  “Whoa,” murmured Uchenna. “Is that really true?”

  Mr. Mendizabal smiled and tugged on his mustache. “My ancestor Teodosio was a real person. He built this house, and his sword-smith trade grew into a large steel business, which we still own. For generations, though, my family believed that the story of the herensuge was merely a fable.

  “Until we learned the truth.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Eighty years ago,” said Mr. Mendizabal, “a great villain came to power in Spain. He was called Generalísimo Francisco Franco, and he banned the traditional Basque laws—our foruak—and even outlawed our beloved language, Euskara.”

  “He outlawed your language?!” Uchenna exclaimed.

  “Indeed. We were not even allowed to teach our children what it meant to be Basque. I was born during Franco’s rule, so my legal name is Miguel, because to name a child Mitxel, a Basque name, would have been a crime. You take it for granted that you can speak your language and celebrate your heritage. But for two generations, we were not allowed to be Basque. If not for people like my parents, who continued to speak Euskara in secret, it would have vanished forever.

  “We Basques, and people all over Spain, fought a war against General Franco and his supporters, the Nazis. My grandfather was in charge of the family steel foundry in Bilbao, where they made military supplies for the Basque troops. One afternoon, my grandfather was driving a truck of these supplies into the mountains when the Nazis began dropping bombs from the sky. The rumble of the explosions rocked the road and shook his truck. They toppled a giant tree, blocking his path.

  “He got out of his truck, shook his fist at the Nazi airplanes overhead, and we
nt to push the tree out of the roadway. But as he approached the fallen trunk, it began to stir, and he realized its surface was not covered in bark, but in scales like tiny tortoise shells, shiny and dark, and as thick as a man’s thumb. The scaly body rolled over, and my grandfather was face-to-face with the shining yellow eyes and razor-sharp fangs of the herensuge.

  “My grandfather recognized the beast immediately as the dragon from our family legend. And he was terrified. The beast pushed herself up. My grandfather stumbled backward. The dragon shook herself, caught sight of my grandfather, and then raised herself to her hind legs. She extended her leathery brown wings, and suddenly she was as tall and broad as the house we are in right now. My grandfather turned to run.

  “But just then, another wave of bombs fell. The ground trembled. The great herensuge fell to the ground. To my grandfather’s astonishment, she was whimpering. She was frightened and disoriented by the falling bombs. At that moment, all fear left my grandfather, and he felt only pity for the mighty beast.

  “He remembered that the dragon in the legend loved treasure, so he took out his pocket watch—the shiniest thing he owned. He made soothing sounds and waved the watch in front of the dragon. She was mesmerized.

  “My grandfather took a step backward, and the herensuge followed, her eyes locked on the glittering watch. He took two more steps, and the dragon stayed right behind him.

  “My grandfather got back into his truck and drove away, dangling the watch out the window the entire time. The herensuge followed my grandfather all the way here, to our ancestral home, then up the mountain to a cave where she could be safe from the war and the falling bombs.

  “Since that day, my grandfather kept the dragon safe, and he passed that job down to my father, and my father passed it down to my brother, Íñigo, and me. But Íñigo has never liked taking care of the herensuge. I believe he resents that our father paid so much attention to her. So I look after the herensuge, and he looks after the family business.” Mr. Mendizabal scowled. “I must admit, he is very good at running the company. He is always making new deals. Now our family doesn’t only make steel, but also laboratory equipment and even medicine. But Íñigo doesn’t have much use for things like the dragon that don’t earn him a profit.