by Alyce Wilson
Chapter Two - Felix Learns to Fly
Felix's Mommy was singing him a bedtime song when he interrupted her in mid-rhyme. "What's the best dream you ever had?"
She thought for a minute, stroking his hair as she continued humming the song. He was about to repeat the question, in case she hadn't heard it, when she answered. "Flying to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower," she said.
Bumping his plush green dinosaur, Drusus, across his bedspread, Felix asked, "Why was it the best dream ever? Didn't you fly to Paris with Daddy for your honeymoon?" He knew that they had, because there was a picture of them in front of the Eiffel Tower in a silver frame on the living room bookshelf.
Her green-blue eyes opened wide as his Mommy said, "Yes, but we took a plane. In my dream, I just flew." She lifted her arms out to either side, swooping back and forth like an airplane.
"You flew? Without a plane or a spaceship or anything?" he asked. "I didn't know you could fly."
She gently bopped him on the nose with one finger. "I can't, silly. At least, not while I'm awake. But in the DreamWorld, you can do anything."
"I want to fly," he said, lifting Drusus up and sweeping him around in the air above his bedspread, which was covered with stars and planets. "How did you do it?"
His Mommy scrunched her nose up as she thought and then said, "I just believed that I could." Before Felix could ask his Mommy to explain, she added, "Remember how you were dreaming you were flying in a spaceship, and then you decided to make it bigger? Like that."
Felix nodded. He remembered how easy it had been to make his spaceship grow to accommodate his friend, Drusus the dinosaur. As soon as he'd thought about it, the spaceship had begun to grow. But he hadn't thought about the possibility of flying without any spaceship at all.
As his Mommy continued singing her lullaby, Felix flew Drusus back and forth through the air above him, closing his eyes to listen better. Her voice was soothing, and the crickets outside the window chimed in, blending their voices with hers like an insect choir. Their chirping flew into the room on a warm nighttime breeze.
Before he realized it, he was standing in the back yard, listening to the crickets. Some were small and invisible in their hiding places. Others were as large as dragons, towering over his house. They sounded beautiful, but he didn't trust them. After all, dragons are known to burn things.
"Should we be worried?" Drusus the dinosaur asked. He stood beside Felix, and even though he was almost twice as tall as him, for once he looked small. "I mean, because of the fire and all."
A jagged stream of fire shot from one of the cricket dragons, setting an old, dead tree alight.
"Well," Felix said, reasonably, "that tree was dead anyway. As long as they don't burn anything we like, I guess it's okay."
Drusus leaned his head down to nudge Felix gently on the shoulder. "Did you like your swingset?" he asked.
Whipping around, Felix saw his swings smoldering. His mouth fell open. A second fiery blast burned up his slide. "Yes, I like my swingset!" he said, nearly shouting.
"You should say, 'I did like my swingset'," Hobart the robot corrected. "The past tense is now required, since it has been burned to ashes."
Felix stomped his feet and slammed his right fist into his palm. "That's not fair!"
Always one to see the brighter things, Drusus suggested, "Maybe the dragons just think it's their turn to use the swingset? Taking turns is the nice thing to do." He clumped over to the swingset to take a better look, but there wasn't much to see.
"Taking turns and sharing doesn't mean burning something to a crisp," Felix complained. "Now no one can use it." Looking down at the ashes that were once his swingset, he jumped up and down, making "grr" sounds like a tiger or a really angry baby monster, which is what his Daddy said he looked like when he was upset.
Hobart asked, in his usual robotic monotone, "Are you having a temper tantrum? Do you need a time out?" It was the sort of thing his Mommy always said, so that's probably where Hobart heard it.
Whipping around to face the nearest dragon, Felix could see that it was facing his house. It reared back its ugly head as if preparing to release another stream of fire. "No!!!" Felix shouted, jumping into the air. He jumped nearly as high as the house, which is next to impossible to do. "I must be dreaming," he realized, and as he did, he flew even higher.
He was heading right toward the dragon's open mouth. There wasn't much time, he knew; he had to distract the dragon. At the top of his lungs, he screamed and growled, like a baby monster's war cry. The dragon closed its mouth and turned its head from side to side, as if trying to figure out what was making so much noise. Felix made all the noises that made his parents frown: He screeched at the top of his lungs and yelled as loud as he could, especially nonsense words that he made up, like "blamp" and "wadoozle!" The dragon craned its neck to try to see where the noise came from, but he couldn't seem to figure it out. Felix thought he must be too small for the dragon to see. The dragon made a move as if to shrugg its shoulders (if a dragon had shoulders), and went back to doing what it was doing. That was a very bad thing, because what the dragon was doing was preparing to burn up Felix's house!
A voice from the ground asked him, "Do you need help?" Felix looked down, and saw Drusus looking up at him. The dinosaur added, "I'd help but I don't know if I can fly."
"Of course you can fly! Just believe," Felix said. "And start believing fast! I need help!"
As Felix flew upwards to try to get the dragon to notice him, Drusus bounced once, twice, and then jumped high into the sky above the little house. Soon he, like Felix, was flying. The whole time he made very silly sounding noises: "Whoa! Whoooooaaaa! This is fuuuuun!" Drusus was much bigger than Felix, and the dragon noticed him right away, but compared to the dragon, even Drusus was tiny. Following Felix's leave, Drusus swirled and swirled in front of the dragon, which seemed to confuse the giant beast. "Woo-hoo!" Drusus said. "Hey, dragon, how are you? My name is Drusus." The dinosaur seemed to think that he ought to be polite. He was speaking the way that Felix's mother had taught him to greet someone.
"We don't have to be polite to him. He's trying to the destroy our house," Felix told him.
This new information took a while to register, but when it did, Drusus lifted up one of his heavy feet and smacked the dragon's nose full force. It made the beast cross his eyes to try to get a better look at this tiny annoyance.
"We've got to lead him away from the house," Felix said. And as he said it, he began flying in large spirals right in front of the dragon's eyes. The dragon begin waving its huge head back and forth as it followed Felix's movements. Drusus followed along, spinning in large circles until the dragon was completely focused on them.
"Now let's lead him away," Felix commanded. They zoomed away from the house, and slowly the dragon's head turned to follow. It was so huge it seemed to take the dragon forever to turn around, but finally it headed in their direction. Felix whooped and cheered, and Drusus did, too, throwing in some more "wooos" and "weees," having an awful lot of fun. But just when it seemed like they'd succeeded and the dragon was following them far away from the house, the monster seemed to change his mind. The dragon whipped around and headed straight back to Felix's home.
Felix followed, speeding as fast as he could to try to get ahead of the dragon. Drusus tried, as well: he moved as fast as he could, for a dinosaur, which wasn't very fast at all. They were no match for the dragon's large and powerful wings, which helped it fly lightning-fast. Felix feared that his house would soon be a pile of ashes. As the dragon inhaled, preparing once more to spit fire at the little ranch home, Felix shouted, "No! Somebody help!"
Just then, Hobart shot into the sky like a small silver-and-purple rocket, blasting hero music from his tinny speakers. His lights flashed red as the dragon closed its mouth to look at the flying robot. That's when Hobart aimed a laser beam right at the dragon, hitting his nostril and sending up a puff of smoke. The dragon shook its massive head from si
de to side. Although it was already red and gold, even the gold parts started to look a little red.
Hobart aimed the laser in the dragon's other nostril with the same result. The dragon snorted angrily. It shot a blast of fire right at Hobart, covering him with flames and smoke.
Felix walked breathlessly, certain that his friend had gone up in smoke. He hoped that wasn't the case. When the smoke cleared, he could see nothing. Though he searched the ground with his eyes, he still didn't see Hobart anywhere. Then, with incredible speed, Hobart slipped from his hiding place behind the dragon's knee, up its back. The robot fired once at the dragon's shoulder and made a whistling sound. The dragon spun around, trying to see what had touched him. This made Hobart laugh mechanically: "Ha-ha, ha-ha, ha ha." The dragon breathed more fire at the robot -- and missed. Hobart made happy beeping sounds and did a little flying dance, which only seemed to make the dragon madder.
By now, both Felix and Drusus had managed to catch up. They joined their friend in battling the monster. Drusus kicked the dragon's snout while Felix jumped on its head and punched it as hard as he could. The dragon twisted and shook its head, trying to rid itself of the three friends, spitting fire.
"This could be dangerous," Felix said. "If the dragon keeps breathing fire, it could still burn up the house."
"If only the