Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  “They have baby cones at McDonald’s?” I said softly. I couldn’t think of what else to say at the moment, I was so floored that my friend, an eighteen-year-old kid, had a kid of his own.

  “Sure. Kiddie cones for a buck.”

  I looked at Nick. “I guess we should film your video, so you can turn it in to your teacher and get your kidlet some ice cream before his bedtime.”

  “Yeah, my assignment’s late, but Miss Turner has been good about letting me go past the deadline.”

  “You should have reminded me earlier that we hadn’t finished your Beowulf assignment.”

  “I did, but that night, a big gray dragon was trying to kill your family.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry, you didn’t slip my mind because you aren’t important to me. You are!”

  “I know. Well, you’ve had a lot going on, too, Tammy. And if I haven’t said it for a while, thanks for doing this for me. Helping me so much.”

  “No problem. What are friends for?” I held out my hand. “Let’s see your poem on paper first.”

  I grabbed a pen and read it silently first, then aloud. I helped him make some adjustments to the meter by changing the order of a line or two. I explained about rhythm and beats and used the example of a Dr. Seuss rhyme and we laughed about it because it was from Green Eggs and Ham, which we both knew by heart. And I explained about how to stress certain syllables in iambic pentameter and he caught on, a natural poet once he knew the rules.

  He took about ten minutes to make things work better, as he wanted to revise his rap poem himself.

  I could see his lips moving as he read silently, and I knew he had reading issues, but darned if he wasn’t determined to overcome them. And when I told him to rehearse his rap poem first and then I would turn on the camera for the recording, I lied and actually turned it on without telling him. I wanted him to just do it and not be nervous.

  So, he started out with a beatbox that he did with his mouth on the mike and rapped his poem and it was great because… it was about the dragon, and the dragon was the hero of the poem, not stupid, murderous Beowulf. And in Nick’s version of Beowulf, the dragon named Thorn could have killed Beowulf, but he didn’t because he was too noble to kill his enemy and was bound by a higher power to try to make peace in the kingdom. So, the dragon tried to reason with him and explain about good and evil.

  Some of the lines were just so good and in near-perfect meter, or as perfect as Nick was going to get—I had to help him spell iridescent, preyed, and retrieval:

  The Dragon spewed flames of violet and iridescent green.

  His eyes were slits, his breath was death, his scales were coppery sheen.

  Despite Thorn’s right to rule the night,

  ‘Twas Beowulf who was evil.

  He preyed upon a sick king’s throne

  Until it was his, and his alone.

  Even stole a Grail,

  So he wouldn’t fail,

  And thus, the dragon was tasked with its retrieval.

  It wasn’t perfect, but it would do, and it wasn’t cheating because Nick was doing the work. There was more to his rap poem, a lot more. Even my mom was mentioned in the poem in her dragon form, not by name of course. Even I was mentioned. Even Fullerton was. Even the Grail was! I felt like cheering at the end when Thorn saved the Grail because I felt like Nick understood how deeply I had fallen in love with a noble, beautiful dragon-man. Who the hell knew when I would recover from my broken heart and ever want someone else to kiss me? And where was Thorn? I’d probably never see him again. Or kiss him again. Or do those other things I wanted to do with Thorn, but would never have a chance to experience them… but the world would get saved.

  By the time Nick was done rapping and asked me what I thought, I turned off the camera and told him, “You nailed it. You should get an ‘A.’ Heck, your rap poem will probably land you on some talent show if you put it on YouTube and it goes viral.”

  He laughed. “I love the way you lie to me. Flatterer. Are you going to record it now?”

  “I just did. You did it in one take. I’ll load it up into iMovie and show you how I edit out the parts of us talking in the beginning and the end, and we’ll add titles and credits and then you can take over, so it won’t be cheating on your assignment. I am helping you, remember, not doing it for you. Next time, you’ll be able to do it all yourself. So, ask your questions and I’ll teach you what you need to know to survive English X, the movie class, not the book class.”

  “You’re a little mean, like my teacher.”

  “She’s not mean. She doesn’t want you to just turn in menial work just because you’re an athlete. You gotta learn to do some stuff for yourself and do it well enough to ace your classes. College is not going to be watching a Hollywood movie and writing a one-page poem about it. It’s going to be hard, Nick!”

  “I know, I know. I admit I’ve been taking the Athlete’s ‘C’ track. And I need to have A’s to get in the colleges I want.”

  “Me, too.” I paused. “I’m glad we’re friends. We have these crazy, impossible dreams, but we get each other. And we help each other.”

  “We do,” he said quietly. “And we’re willing to work for what we want.”

  “For sure. I’m going to miss you when you get un-benched from the football team for your improved grades and some scout from a major university offers you a football scholarship. And then, you’ll be off on an adventure, probably in some other city. For years.”

  “That’s the dream. I gotta make something of myself for that little guy drooling on your pillow right now. I don’t want my son to grow up in my current neighborhood and get shot in a drive-by.”

  I shuddered. “I get that. I do. I’d be scared, too. We aren’t immortals, you know?”

  He nodded. “I’ll get us out of that neighborhood. I’ll get my mom out, too. She does so much for me. For my son, too.”

  “I’m glad. I should appreciate my own mom more. I’ve been kind of selfish lately.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Nick said. “So, what’s your dream, Tammy? What are you going to do with all your kick-ass, mind-reading skills?”

  “Help people. I didn’t know it until just now, but maybe I want to be… something like a child psychologist. Help little people with big problems.” I paused. Looking at his sleeping kid, I felt something in me twist. I realized it was compassion and empathy, which I’d rarely had for anyone.

  “That’s great, to know what you want.”

  I laughed. “It’s new, like a one-minute-old goal, but so far, it feels amazing. I think I have been acting really ridiculous about the way I have been using my mind-reading talents. Almost treating my gift like it was a game or a party trick. I read people’s minds—sometimes out of spite or out of inappropriate curiosity—but I don’t think I ever did it before for a reason that was even close to kindness or being helpful or amusing to anyone but myself.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” Nick said, ever a friend.

  “It kind of is. But then I held Charlie. And this light bulb went off over my head, like an a-ha moment! I want to make the world a better place with my freaky mind-reading powers.”

  He huffed out a big breath. “That’s big. Really big. I can’t wait to see what you do with yourself, Tammy. Whatever you decide, I’ll cheer you on. This is such an effed-up world and you can help others so much with your gift.”

  I smiled. “I hope so. I’ll cheer you on, too, even though I don’t understand football at all. I don’t even know what a ‘first down’ is. Is it a baby touchdown?”

  “No.” He laughed. “And football’s just a means to an end for me. I mean, I’m passionate about music, too, rap music, mostly the spoken word since I can’t spell anything without spellcheck and I don’t read music, but I have a better chance of making a football career than of becoming another Kanye West. If I don’t make it to the NFL, I can always do arena football or something. Or I can coach high school football and teach driver’s ed and
health.”

  I laughed. “You’re such a planner.”

  “I have to be. I plan to get a useful bachelor’s degree. I know college will be hard, but maybe I can find tutors like you to help me to learn better.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your brain, Nick. You just get distracted by the world.”

  “I might say the same of you, ‘Lady Tam.’”

  I blushed, realizing his fondness for me. “Let’s edit this movie and get it uploaded to your teacher’s drop box.”

  “Can we do some voice manipulation first?” he asked.

  “Like synthesize your voice types of effects?”

  “Yeah, with echoes and stuff? Make my voice sound stretched out and deeper, like wah-wah. Barry White-ish? Or Kanye West-ish?”

  I smiled. “Sure, let me save the original recording under another filename, in case we mess it up and have to back up to the first version.”

  So, that’s what we did. When we were done, I said, “I’m so freaking proud of you for that rap song about the dragon and Beowulf and the Grail, Nick. It’s phenomenal how you pointed out how villains are sometimes just maligned people and sometimes perceived heroes are the evil ones.”

  “You think I explained it well enough?”

  “I know so. If you get less than an A on this assignment, tell me and I will go with you to talk to your teacher. I hope you get back to playing football already, so all of your life will fall into place the way you want it to. I know that feeling of wanting something so badly that it feels like I’ll die if I don’t achieve it or get it.”

  “Do you really know the feeling?”

  I nodded once. “One word: Thorn.”

  “Right. Point taken.” Nick picked up his sleeping child and enveloped him in a gentle hug.

  I looked up at his handsome face and said, “Don’t fall for me, Nick.”

  “Excuse me?” he said huffily, but laughed.

  “I can feel we’re kind of in a bonding moment here, but you have places to go and things to do, even just a few months from now.”

  He said, “Don’t worry. I already know that I don’t want us to be each other’s rebounds.”

  “You got that right.”

  “I also know I’m no Thorn the Dragon. I can’t compete with that flying, fire-breathing, sword-wielding supernatural hero, and I have a kid already, too. And I’ve got to leave Fullerton before my neighborhood eats me alive. But—”

  “But what?”

  “I hope we’ll always be friends, Tammy.”

  “Oh, my, did you really just give me the freaking let’s-just-be-friends speech?” I smacked his shoulder lightly.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I did, but my life is complicated, and I don’t want to screw it up again.”

  “Your child is not a screw-up.”

  “Not him, per se. He was meant to be here. I just had to grow up so fast, and my dad dying, and all of this neighborhood-going-to-hell gangster shit has compounded all of my visions into a ball of extreme anxiety. I had to re-tool everything in my life, from what time I get up in the morning to working online gigs to pay child support.”

  “I didn’t know all that.”

  “Yeah, I write high school sports articles for an online blog, and I’m not that good at it. My spelling. My grammar. All atrocious, according to the blog owner who has to keep sending my articles to an editor. And yet, they keep hiring me to keep writing high school sports roundups.”

  “That’s great. I think you’ll learn that stuff as you go along.”

  “Fake it till you make it?” he asked.

  “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?” I thought for a moment. “Maybe your degree could be in sports journalism. You already have a knack for it.”

  He smiled crookedly. “Maybe. It’s just been so… awful the last year that it’s hard to think past next week. This little guy, sometimes he’s the only thing that keeps me from wishing to be with my dad. In the grave.”

  My heart hurt for him. “I didn’t know things were so hard for you. I’ve been a self-involved dolt. I’m so sorry, Nick.”

  “Don’t be. I think about the day when someday, I will look back and say, hell, my best friend has a vampire mother, a flame-thrower for a brother, and she can read minds.”

  “I’m your best friend?” I asked, truly surprised.

  “Yes. And I will think back, from some future date, about Tammy Moon and how I would have loved her, but a dragon stole her heart first.”

  “Cut it out, Nick. We’re just kids.”

  “Kids who are growing up too fast, as they say. I guess I’m being an adult when I’m scared to take my son back to my neighborhood.”

  “That’s true. You’re a parent. I can’t even… I don’t know how you deal, Nick.”

  “It’s not easy. I had to let go of childhood things when I became a father. And it’s messing me up because my dad died in a drive-by. He would have loved this little guy so much.”

  “Oh, Nick. I didn’t know. How awful. I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you for your kind words. I don’t even know what I’m saying to you right now with all of this serious relationship-type stuff. It’s just sort of leaking out. I didn’t mean for it to.”

  “It’s okay. We’re okay. Do you want me to ask my mom if you—and maybe your mom and son—can stay for a few days, until your neighborhood gets back to normal?”

  “No, thanks. That is normal, Tam. It happens a lot.”

  “Damn. The world is going to hell. Thorn better find the Grail soon.”

  “I know. Thanks for the offer, though.”

  I nodded. “Stay safe out there.”

  “We will.”

  I said, “Keep our secrets about dragons and vampires and my flame-thrower brother?”

  “Of course. I would never do anything to hurt you or your family. Or your mom’s werewolf familiar.”

  I laughed and caressed the cheek of the sleeping baby with the pink Cupid’s-bow lips and flushed cheeks. “He’s so stinking cute. A little angel.”

  Nick laughed. “Yeah, until he poops his pants and it goes all the way up his back to his neck. And he screams bloody murder when I try to clean him up.”

  “Oh, gross! Why in the hell do boys always go there?”

  We laughed as Nick and Charlie headed for the living room. He tucked the little guy into his stroller car seat thing, reclined it, and strapped him in. I followed him to the front door.

  “You want to come with us for ice cream?” he asked.

  “Not today. Thanks, though. But I’m going to talk to my mom about some stuff.”

  “Okay. Thanks for helping me with my Beowulf assignment.”

  “Sure thing. See you in Responsible Teens class?” I asked.

  “Of course, I’m your wing man,” he said.

  “Right. That class is like The Breakfast Club for millennials.”

  “Huh?” he said. “What’s that, a book?”

  “No. A great movie from the last century. Come over tomorrow night with Charlie and we’ll watch it.”

  “Okay, we will.”

  “Your mom can come, too.”

  “She doesn’t leave the house much, but I’ll ask her.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s too scared.”

  “Why is the world so terrible that adults are afraid to leave the house?”

  “I ask myself that every day, Tam.”

  I enveloped my friend and his gassy little baby in one of my squishy and rare Tammy hugs. He hugged back, and it felt good, not sexy, just comforting.

  After they left, for a good four hours, I worked on my own Beowulf assignment, did all the footnotes and bibliography and emailed it off to my teacher so it wouldn’t be late. Who knew if I would even make it to school tomorrow? But I had to turn that one in, even if the world ended tonight.

  Then I went into my mom’s office to tell her that I was ready to go to Cold Stone Creamery and start eating ice cream again.

  “It’s abo
ut time you came back to yourself.”

  “That’s just it, Mom. I’m not who I was. I’m changed now.”

  “How so?”

  “Just all the stuff I have been through. Falling for a dragon shifter and him leaving abruptly. I know he is after the Grail and that he let me go because he had to.”

  Mom smiled sadly. “You’re growing up.”

  “It’s painful, but like it or not, maturity is no longer on the horizon. It’s here and there’s no going back now.”

  “You’re never going to be too old to cuddle with me, I hope.”

  “Mom! I’m a woman now!” I protested when she tried to squish me to her.

  I pulled away. “Love bites. It sucks, too. It stinks, and I never want to love anyone or anything again, especially not a dragon-man who can just fly away to chase some lofty, noble quest.”

  “You know he did the right thing, don’t you?”

  “Yes, dammit, but why, Mom? Why did he have to choose saving all of humanity and all of dragon-dom instead of being with me?”

  “Because he’s a responsible adult. That’s why. He’s good at adulting.”

  “I noticed. I suppose some of what he is rubbed off on me in those kisses that took my breath away.”

  “I hope you won’t turn into a dragon like he thinks you will someday,” Mom said, her eyebrows rising.

  “I hope I do, someday, because if I could, I would fly with you, Mom. I would do great things like you do. Like he does. He gave up a chance to love me in order to save the world.”

  Mom’s eyes got a bit misty. “I’m so proud of you for figuring out all this by yourself. Did you know that when you sacrifice your own feelings for someone else’s health and well-being, that it truly is love?”

  “Yeah, it really was love, and is love, which is why it hurts so much that he’s chasing this noble cause instead of me. But I get it, why he didn’t choose me. If he would have backed down from his responsibilities, I guess I wouldn’t want a guy who would choose me over saving the world from ruin.” I sighed. “There has never been anyone like Thorn, and there never will be.”

  “It won’t be the last time, I’m sure, but you’ve truly had your heart broken, Lady Tam Tam.”