by Lyn Worthen
Cedric also knew he could do even better next time. For the last part of the race, he’d dealt with the extra wind resistance of the biggest smile ever.
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Liz Pierce writes “suburban fantasy” – stories that blur the boundaries between the real world and the fantastical, but are lighter and less edgy than their urban cousins. In her Suburbia series, goblins, trolls, dwarves, elves, and even zombies are just trying to figure out how to cope with their human neighbors and everyday life in the Real World – often with unexpected results. You can find more of her work at www.lizpiercebooks.com
About this story, Liz says: “According to Korean folk mythology, most dragons were originally Imujis (pronounced “ee-moo-ji”), or proto-dragons which must survive one thousand years in order to become a fully-fledged dragon, and a dragon-shaped mark would appear on a person on their 17th birthday, revealing that they were Imuji in human form. I wondered how a teen descended from this lineage – but unaware of the secrets of his heritage – might cope with the unexpected revelation. And just for fun, I put the story in my Olympus High world, surrounding him with a support network of other “unusual” teens.”
What better place to put a young dragon than in a suburban high school? As if just being a teenager wasn’t challenge enough…
Imuji
Liz Pierce
Tim MacLaren fished around in his locker, pushing a wadded-up sweater out of the way and digging through the pile of notebook paper on the middle shelf for his chemistry homework. As he dug, he kept glancing down the hall to see if she was coming yet.
Maddie Gordon, absolutely the coolest girl at Olympus High.
Tim shifted his English book, thinking with some amusement that there weren’t enough superlatives to describe Maddie. Tall, with skin permanently tanned like some sort of Greek goddess, long, dark dreadlocks tumbling over her shoulders… He sighed. Maddie Gordon was simply exotic, in a way that made his own mixed-race combination of auburn hair and almond-shaped eyes just plain ordinary.
Not that she’d ever noticed him, anyway.
At least not so far as he knew. Not that he could tell if she had, since he’d never seen her when she wasn’t wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. But just watching her walk by his locker every day while he was getting his books for his seventh-period chemistry class was the highlight of his day.
Tim uncrumpled another piece of paper – the missing homework – and stuffed it into his pocket just as Maddie made the turn into the east-west corridor. He closed his locker and leaned against it, watching her approach.
She was wearing those tight-fitting black leather jeans again today, and a black leather jacket unzipped just enough to tease. Tim sighed in appreciation, oblivious to the throng of students crowding the halls around them, hearing only Maddie’s heels clicking on the worn, gray linoleum in her long, unhurried stride, as though she had all the time in the world.
She didn’t say anything as she walked toward him, but she gave her head the tiniest shake as she passed, and he caught a hint of a tart, citrusy fragrance. Then, as her hair settled over her shoulders, one of her dreadlocks uncoiled, and a tiny brown snake’s head at the end of the lock rose up, looked right at Tim, and hissed before winding itself back into her hair.
Tim just stood there, stunned, watching Maddie walk away.
“Come on,” said a voice, presumably belonging to the person who was tugging on his arm. “She’s definitely worth watching, but you don’t want to be obvious about it.
Tim turned and found himself looking at Lo, his best friend’s pale, angular face wearing its typical expression of extreme amusement.
“She has a snake in her hair,” Tim said.
“Yeah? So?”
“A snake!” Tim started to turn back toward Maddie.
Lo tugged at his arm again. “Keep it down,” he ordered, pulling Tim away from his locker and toward the chemistry lab. “Don’t make a big deal about it. She wouldn’t like that – and you do not want her mad at you.”
“You knew?” asked Tim.
“About the snakes? Of course.”
“Snakes? As in plural?” Tim asked. He dragged his eyes from Maddie’s retreating form and hurried after Lo, ducking and weaving his way through the between-class mob that packed the hall. Lo had a gift for finding his way against the press of the other students – it was as though the crowd simply parted so he could pass undisturbed – and they had almost reached the chem lab by the time Tim caught up to him.
“You knew, and you didn’t tell me?” he finally blurted out.
Lo just laughed and tugged at Tim’s arm again, and the two of them ran the last few yards to the chem lab, slipping in the door just as the bell rang. Class was interesting enough – but today his mind kept wandering back to the snake in Maddie’s hair…
Of course, since Lo was involved, it all had to be some sort of elaborate prank. Lo loved a good joke, and it was exactly the kind of thing he’d do.
Tim was sure, too that the reddish-colored henna tattoo of a Chinese dragon that he’d discovered on his left forearm was probably another of Lo’s pranks.
He supposed Lo had somehow engineered it during or after his birthday party the night before – the evening had gotten a little crazy, but not so crazy he wouldn’t have remembered someone painting a temporary tattoo on his arm.
However it happened, the dragon tattoo was there when he woke up this morning. He’d tried to scrub it off in the shower, with no effect. It didn’t fade even the least little bit, so he’d pulled on a long-sleeved shirt to cover it, rolling the sleeves up after he was clear of the house.
His dad was going to freak. Pure and simple.
And why a Chinese dragon of all things? Sure, it probably said something about his half-Asian heritage, but if he’d been going for symbols of his origins, shouldn’t he have put the dragon on a Scottish tartan background or something?
“Mr. MacLaren,” Mr. Gallagher’s voice interrupted his disjointed thoughts. “Is it your intention to blow up the chem lab? Or do you merely wish to disintegrate your workstation?”
Tim looked up in surprise, suddenly realizing that he’d been blindly combining chemicals without even paying attention.
“Sorry, sir,” he said sheepishly. “I was distracted.”
“I recommend you put your distraction aside for just a little while longer – long enough to finish this experiment, and then stay after class to clean up the lab.”
At the next workstation, Lo chuckled softly.
“And perhaps you would like to help him,” added Mr. Gallagher, looking at Lo.
Lo stopped laughing.
# # #
“That was a good one, Lo,” Tim said after everyone – including Mr. Gallagher – had left the chem lab. “I don’t know how you managed to convince Maddie to go along with it, but that was pretty extreme, if you ask me.”
“Maddie’s always had snakes,” said Lo matter-of-factly, putting the stools upside-down on the tops of the workstations. “You just never noticed before. What I want to know is what’s changed with you – besides that awesome tat, I mean. Your dad decide that seventeen is old enough?”
“Nice try,” Tim said, pushing his sleeve up and studying the stylized dragon, its long, serpentine tail wound around its body in a circle the size of a silver dollar. “I know you were behind this,”
“Not me,” said Lo, holding his hands up in surrender.
“It had to have happened last night, at the party,” Tim said. “I don’t remember getting it. I didn’t have it yesterday, today I do. It’s not normal.”
“Sure it is,” Lo said.
Thinking about it later, Tim was pretty sure that the next thing Lo actually said was: “You’re normal.” But what he heard was “You’re Mortal.”
For some reason he couldn’t explain, that really made him angry. So angry, in fact, that when he opened his mouth to yell, “Don’t say that ever again!” what really happened was
that his tattoo began to glow a deep, pulsing red and the dragon’s coils shifted as though the creature was waking. And when Tim opened his mouth, it wasn’t the words he’d intended to say at all that came out.
What came out instead was a jet of fire, spraying right across the lab table and all over Lo.
Tim pulled back, hard, clamping his mouth shut and covering it with his hands. He stared, horrified, at Lo, who was standing there at the end of the table, charred and still smoking.
After what felt to Tim like a very long moment, Lo shook himself, sending ash flying from his still-perfectly brushed-back hair and somehow-unburnt designer shirt.
“I take it back,” Lo said calmly, dusting glowing embers from his arms and chest. “I’d say you’re not normal, after all.”
# # #
Tim was trying not to freak out – and failing. Once he realized that Lo was perfectly okay, and not burnt to a crisp, he’d bolted out of the chem lab and headed for the large oval track surrounding the football field at the northeast corner of the campus.
He needed to run.
It was a perfect late-September afternoon in the Salt Lake valley: a mostly clear, blue sky with just a few scattered clouds, not too hot or too cold. The football team was practicing at the north end of the field, and the cheerleaders were running through their routines at the south end.
He ran past them all, keeping his mouth shut tight as the girls called out to him, fearful of spewing fire at them in his agitation.
What is happening to me?
His feet tore at the paved track, moving faster and faster as he ran, lap after lap, increasingly oblivious to everything around him, the cheerleaders’ energetic shouts and grunted calls from the football players smashing into each other, all turning into a blur of people-shaped sounds and colors as he blazed by.
His arms pumped like pistons, and he found himself leaning farther and farther forward, into the wind, his mouth open, his tail stretching in a sinuous wave behind him as he took to the sky.
His tail?
Tim looked down, only to see the track and field receding below him, football players and cheerleaders all staring up and pointing… at him! Then he looked back, and was startled to discover that his legs had somehow fused and lengthened, turning into a long, muscular, serpentine tail that pushed him through the air as it curved and wound behind him.
Astonished at his transformation, he stalled, nearly falling out of the sky before his dragon-body’s natural reflexes took over and pushed him back up.
I’m flying! I’m a dragon, and I’m flying!
He rose higher and higher, twisting and looping over the nearby houses, then shot upward, passing through a cottony-puff of a cloud, wisps clinging to him as he emerged into the sunshine above.
Woo-hoo!
Below him, the grid-like pattern of streets and buildings and vehicles looked like child’s toys, the Great Salt Lake glittering in the afternoon sun. Off to the east, the twin peaks of Mount Olympus and the rest of the Wasatch Mountains rose majestically above him, while the shorter Oquirrh Mountains to the west with their vast copper mine spread out like a pile of multi-colored blankets.
But all of that paled in comparison to his fascination with his new form.
His body was long and lizard-like, about fifteen feet from his broad, flat nose to the tip of his pointed tail, with thick, powerful forearms, each ending in four wicked-looking claws. He had no rear legs; his body tapering instead into a long tail covered in iridescent burgundy scales, edged in deep charcoal gray. He had tail fins, and a variety of other fin-like forms at various points along his body, but no wings, yet he soared through the air in some sort of magical flight, rolling and twisting, testing his abilities. He ascended straight up and then plummeted straight down at a dizzying rate, pulling up into a twisted roll near the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon, then floated lazily across the valley just enjoying the view.
I don’t know why this is happening, but it’s way cool!
After several minutes, Tim became aware of a growling, mechanical sound that was getting closer. Twisting around, he saw a television news helicopter approaching, and found himself looking straight into the lens of a large camera.
Before he had a chance to react to the helicopter, a deafening thunderclap rocked the sky.
# # #
The next thing he knew, Tim found himself hovering in a very different place than he’d been a moment before.
His tail was only inches above a broad, marble terrace, surrounded by a dozen tall pillars – also marble – that rose far above his head. Beyond three-quarters of the pillars he saw rough rock and mountain sage, but turning toward the fourth side, he found himself looking down across the Salt Lake valley.
If he squinted, he could just make out Olympus High School below, slightly to the north-west of this mountain-top terrace.
Tim turned back toward the mountain, just in time to see a very large man coming briskly toward him. He was dressed in white slacks and a tight-fitting white polo shirt that strained across his broad, muscular chest, and carried a golf club in one hand and a stone tablet in the other. He scowled at the tablet as he walked, the expression clear in the angle of his bushy, white eyebrows. Small sparks danced around his head, making his wild white hair and bushy beard look rather like a thundercloud.
Tim felt a sudden urge to retreat, but found himself completely unable to do anything other than hover in place.
“You’re not going anywhere,” thundered the large man as he approached. “Do you have any idea how much trouble your little test-flight has caused?” He tossed his golf club aside, and it clattered across the stone with a low rumble of thunder. “I had to forfeit a game to Odin because of you.”
“I… I’m sorry, sir.”
“You should be,” said the man, coming to a stop in front of Tim and towering over him.
Realization dawned on Tim. “You’re Zeus,” he whispered. “The god of Mount Olympus.”
“Well of course I am,” bellowed Zeus, his voice echoing off the surrounding mountains. “Who else would I be?”
Zeus stared hard at Tim for a moment, then his gaze softened slightly. “First lesson, young Imuji: be discreet with your powers. It’s hard enough to change people’s memories of things they’ve seen; now we have to deal with digital imagery and cable news, InstaGram, SnapChats, and Twitter feeds.”
He held up the stone tablet.
The tablet looked iPad-sized in Zeus’ hands, but in reality was nearly a yard across on the long side. A series of gold symbols were etched in the stone around the perimeter, and a dozen display windows hovered above the polished stone surface, most showing 3D images of a dragon – Tim – dipping and weaving through the sky.
Zeus pointed his finger at the display, and a small, blue spark extended from his fingertip to the panel. Instantly the dragon on the various displays changed form, turning into a kite on some, a large bird on others.
“Wow,” Tim breathed.
“Who says we can’t adapt with the times?” Zeus asked, a grin turning up the corners of his mouth. “Now, second lesson, which is really part of the first: Use some good sense. If you feel the need to fly, head to the hills – preferably far away from the ski slopes. Got it?”
“I’m new at this.”
“No excuse. You’re a junior deity – you have to shield yourself from Mortals if you don’t want to be shot out of the sky. Or worse.”
A junior deity? Tim’s head spun. “How do I learn that, sir?”
Zeus shook his shaggy head at him. “Teaching you is your parents’ job, not mine,” he said, scowling at the display again. “Ask your mother.” Then he waved his hand and Tim was dismissed.
# # #
Tim appeared, in human form, on his own front porch. His dad’s old blue pickup truck was parked in the driveway, and he saw a lamp glowing through the living room window.
“Ask my mother,” he murmured with a glance back at the mountains. “Might help if I�
��d ever even met her.”
He took a deep breath, ran his hand through his hair, then went inside.
“Hello?” called out his dad from the kitchen. The smell of simmering onions and garlic and meat accompanied his dad’s voice.
“Hi, Dad. It’s just me.”
Ian MacLaren came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a small, green towel. “I’ve just started some spaghetti. It will be ready in about a half-hour. How was your day?”
Tim wasn’t sure how to answer, and stood there, looking at his dad in silence for a long moment. Ian MacLaren was a tall, fit man, his broad shoulders filling the kitchen doorway, in contrast to Tim’s lean, runner’s build. He was wearing an old, brown, rock band t-shirt that had seen plenty of paint and cooking splatters. And where Tim had almond-shaped eyes and straight auburn hair, his father’s eyes were bright blue and his hair a brilliant red, wavy, shoulder-length; and today was pulled back in a short ponytail.
Tim cleared his throat. “Um…, well…, it was an interesting day,” he answered finally.
“Uh-oh,” Ian said, leaning against the doorframe. “Would that be ‘interesting’ in a good way? Or not so good?”
Tim pushed up his left sleeve and extended his arm, showing his dad the dragon tattoo.
“Ah-h-h,” his father said slowly, as though the word was pulling all the oxygen out of his lungs with it.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Dad?” Tim asked. “About my mother, maybe?”
Tim and Ian stood there, staring at each other in silence for a few seconds that seemed to go on forever, before Ian finally turned back toward the kitchen, jerking his head for Tim to follow.