Warren & Dragon 100 Friends

by Ariel Bernstein

  Dragon follows me out of the kitchen. We find Dad picking up shoes and jackets from the hallway where Ellie’s friends left them.

  “Dad, can I go see Michael again?” I ask.

  “That means you’ll be out of the house? Yes,” he says, and waves me off.

  Dragon and I run next door. Michael and Addie are playing with colored chalk in their driveway, while Paula talks on the phone nearby. Michael looks up at me.

  “Do you like marshmallows?” I ask him.

  “Sure,” he says.

  “Do you like playing games like soccer but with other rules that don’t include goals?”

  “I guess so,” Michael answers. “But I like regular soccer, too.”

  “Friends compromise,” Dragon whispers to me.

  “I can like regular soccer,” I say. “I just have to learn a little more about it.”

  “Jayden said he’ll give me a lesson tomorrow after school,” Michael says. “He’ll teach you, too, if you want.”

  “Okay,” I say, and nod my head. “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So Warri-Boo,” Addie says, and giggles.

  “She’s so cute,” Dragon says.

  “So do you want to be friends?” I ask.

  “Oh. Yeah!” Michael says, and smiles.

  “Okay, I’ll be right back,” I tell him, and run back into my house with Dragon.

  I find Ellie in the family room with her friends.

  “Psst!” I say to Ellie, but everyone ends up looking at me. “I need my sister,” I say, and pull Ellie to the hallway.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “Two,” I say, and hold up two fingers.

  “Two what?”

  “I have two friends.”

  Ellie smiles. “You mean three.”

  “Addie doesn’t count!”

  Ellie rolls her eyes. “I mean me, you loony.”

  “Oh,” I say. I smile. Ellie’s right. Sometimes we are friends.

  “Wait right here!” Dad says suddenly from behind me. “Keep smiling! Let me get my phone so I can get a picture for Mom.”

  “For the record, I did make sixty-four friends so far,” Ellie says.

  And sometimes Ellie is wrong and we aren’t friends.

  “Yeah, but most of them smell like rotten cabbage,” I say.

  “Dad!”

  “Okay, okay,” I say. “Some of them smell like rotten boogies.”

  “So close,” Dad says with his phone in hand.

  “I’m going over to Michael’s,” I tell them, and quickly get out of there.

  “You know, you basically have one hundred friends,” Dragon says to me as we walk back to Michael’s house.

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m worth at least ninety-eight friends. I’m extraordinarily fun, sporty, agile, handsome, adorable, and fierce. And modest, too.”

  “With Michael and Ellie that makes one hundred!” I exclaim. Turns out I was listening during some math lessons at school.

  “We should celebrate with marshmallows,” he says.

  “And chocolate-covered bananas,” I add.

  “Marshmallows melted onto chocolate-covered bananas,” Dragon suggests.

  “That’s a little weird,” I say.

  “It’s not weird. It’s perfect,” Dragons replies.

  I think about it for a minute. He’s right.

  Turn the page to read a chapter of

  Everyone Loves Chewy

  My dad is waiting for me outside the school in the pick-up area. Mrs. Tierney walks over to him and motions to Chewy before giving Dad a bag of hamster food. Dad smiles like he’s not sure if he’s really happy. It’s the same smile he gave me when I made him a necktie out of marshmallows I glued together for his birthday.

  “I look forward to your report,” Mrs. Tierney says to me before going back into the school. I do not say I am also looking forward to it because I don’t know what report she is talking about. But now I have to write some sort of report over the weekend, too. This is just great. Maybe I can bribe Dragon with marshmallows to write one for me.

  My twin sister Ellie’s class lets out, and she walks over to us.

  “Oh, what a cute little hamster!” Ellie squeals, and looks into the cage.

  “He looks kind of ugly to me,” I say.

  “He’s adorable,” Ellie insists. “And he doesn’t talk back either,” she adds, looking at me.

  “What’s wrong with talking back?” I say. I like it when Dragon talks back to me. He says really good stuff most of the time.

  “Dad, can we have a pet for real?” Ellie asks. “Not a dragon toy,” she adds, shooting me a look like I was going to interrupt.

  She’s right, I was going to interrupt. I was going to say I don’t want any new pets. Dragon is enough of a handful. Plus, he’s not a toy. He’s a real dragon pet, and it’s not my fault no one else knows it.

  “Pets are a lot of responsibility,” Dad says. “You have to take care of them and feed them and make sure they don’t get hurt. . . .”

  “I can do all that!” Ellie pleads.

  “Ellie, you hardly ever get through a whole week with the chores you already have,” Dad says.

  “Ellie has chores?” I ask.

  “So do you!” Ellie says.

  “I have chores?” I ask. “Wait, is this why I haven’t gotten my allowance in forever?”

  Dad looks at me and shakes his head.

  Ellie glances over at me like she’s thinking about something. “What if I prove I can be responsible?” she asks Dad.

  “You can start by making your bed every morning,” Dad says.

  Ellie doesn’t reply but walks over to me.

  “Are you okay, Warren?” Ellie asks me. She is looking at Dad as though she wants Dad to hear her.

  “Yes,” I say. I do not say I can’t figure out why Ellie is suddenly being so nice.

  “Do you need to stop and rest? Are you thirsty?” Ellie asks, and pats my head.

  “No,” I say, ducking her hand.

  “Watch out for that puddle!” Ellie shouts, and tries to grab my arm. I move backward and start to trip before I accidentally let go of the cage.

  I land hard on the ground and Chewy’s cage lands on my stomach. He runs around for a moment before taking a sip of water from the attached water dispenser.

  “Warren!” Dad says. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “I’m okay,” I mumble while getting up.

  “Are you sure, Warren?” Ellie asks. “He needs so much care and attention,” she says to Dad. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch out for him. Just like I’d do with a real pet.”

  Before I can tell Ellie to stay away, Michael walks over with one of his moms, Paula, and Addie. Michael is in first grade and I’m in second, but we still hang out at recess and after school a lot. I guess you could say he’s my best human friend. Dragon is my best dragon friend, although there’s not much competition.

  “What’s that?” Michael asks, pointing at the cage.

  “A hamster,” I reply.

  “You get to have a dragon and a hamster?” Michael says in awe. Like other people, Michael isn’t able to hear Dragon talk. But unlike other people, Michael still gets how awesome Dragon is.

  “All I ever had was a goldfish last year,” Michael adds. “He lived a good life for a couple of weeks but then I overfed him and, well, you know.”

  I nod in understanding. I overfeed Dragon all the time, but luckily dragons don’t die because of too much food.

  “We only have the hamster for the weekend,” Dad quickly points out.

  “Hamster boo,” Addie says, and giggles as she waves to Chewy in his cage.

  I do not know why everyone likes Chewy so much. All he does is run on
his wheel and eat his food.

  When we get to our houses, Michael tells me he’s going to start thinking of ideas to build our ramp tomorrow. I say I will, too, because building a ramp to trade snacks after bedtime is way more important than taking care of a hamster or writing a report. Luckily, I have a plan.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Ariel grew up outside of Philadelphia (developing a cheesesteak obsession), went to college at Barnard in New York (developing a sushi obsession), and now lives in the suburbs of New Jersey with her family (developing a marshmallow obsession). She doesn't have a pet dragon, but does have the occasional herd of deer show up in the backyard.

  Besides writing children's books, Ariel's worked in a movie theatre, at a Baskin Robbins, as a camp counselor, a paralegal, in human resources, and as a stay-at-home mom.

  Visit her at arielbernsteinbooks.com.

  Before his career as a writer-illustrator, Mike was a freelance graphic designer, comic book artist, performer, and teacher with a career spanning two decades. He is the director of ORNG Ink, an after-school studio for young artists, and has received several awards and honors for his work in the community with children and teens.

  Mike lives in Orange, NJ with his wife, two adventurous kids, and a cat named Agnes that hates him. Visit him at mikemalbrough.com.

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