Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  “You keep learning this amazing new stuff at alchemy school.”

  “I do. Antimony can be healing, too, if used carefully.” He paused. “Sit down and hold Thorn’s sword. I want you to feel its energy and give me your take on it since you’re kinda psychic.”

  “I’m not a psychic. I’m just a mind reader.”

  “Just a mind reader? Geez, Tammy, I can’t believe you’re so casual about it. Your gift is more than special. And you might grow into some other powers, kind of like I have, kind of like Mom has, even.”

  “That would be cool. Of everything Mom can do, I would love to fly someday. And throwing flames could be interesting.”

  “That probably won’t happen, but I meant other powers.” Anthony squirmed a bit. “You have a funny look in your eyes. What are you doing to me? Something creepy?”

  “Nothing mean, or nosy. I’m hoping for good things to happen for you. Honest!”

  He relaxed. “Thanks. I can use all the help I can get.”

  “We all can.” I paused. “I don’t want to read your mind without permission anymore, but why are you looking at me like that, Anthony? Do you know something I don’t?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s information that clears you from Mr. Hardesty, your chemistry teacher, falling down the stairs at school.”

  My mouth dropped open for a moment. “And you kept this information from me?”

  “Until just now, I didn’t realize it was important to tell you, but I can see you have a lot of turmoil in you. Maybe I can ease part of that turmoil with this information.” He mumbled a bit, “I probably should have told you before this.”

  “What is it, Anthony?”

  “Remember you said that you were thinking about putting a suggestion in Mr. Hardesty’s mind to fall down the stairs if he failed you on your hydrogen assignment?”

  I felt shame wash over me. “Yeah, and I told you that I didn’t do it—you accused me of doing it anyway.”

  “Well, now, I believe you’re innocent,” Anthony said.

  “What did you find out?”

  “You once said that Mr. Hardesty always reeks of cough medicine, right? Back when this school year started.”

  “Yeah. He has some sort of a chronic sore throat. He always looks sick. All the students have noticed.”

  “Sore throat, my ass,” Anthony said. “The guy is in rehab now.”

  “Rehab? Why?”

  “He’s a stoner. A drug addict. When he fell down the stairs at the school and got taken to the hospital, they gave him a drug test and he failed. He fell down those stairs all on his own, Tammy. He didn’t need anyone’s help to take a fall. He was majorly messed-up on bottles of prescription cough medicine when he had his ambulance ride to the emergency room. Prescriptions that weren’t even his, turns out.”

  “Holy cow. I really didn’t try to kill him. I was starting to doubt myself and worry that I actually and accidentally did put the death whammy on him.”

  “You didn’t have to plant a suggestion in his head to make him fall down the stairs. He’s a druggie, a loser.” Anthony paused. “I’m sorry I doubted you and made it seem like you tried to kill the guy with a mind-reading suggestion when I didn’t even know for sure. I didn’t even give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  “But, Anthony, I saw him in my mind, though, falling down the stairs.”

  “Tammy. Don’t you even get it yet?”

  “Get what?”

  “You saw it happen in your mind. You’re not just a mind-reader. You predicted the future. You’re psychic.”

  I let that sink in for a minute and started crying because I knew it was true.

  “Sheesh. You’re such a girl. What are you crying for now?”

  “Besides the fact that my periods are mega screwed up, you mean? And my hormones are way out of whack, so much that I can’t stop thinking about… Thorn, in that way?”

  “Ugh, stop, Tam.” He made the time-out signal with his hands. “TMI, sis.”

  “Fine. How about because now, the devil and other evil people are going to want me even worse when they find out about this new power, my power to predict the future.”

  “Well, sis, I suggest you not advertise your new skill to the devil or anyone else. And just be grateful for your new prediction skills because they’re going to come in handy from now on.”

  I nodded and wiped my eyes on my t-shirt.

  He changed the subject. “Stop leaking and come here and hold the sword. Feel it and tell me what you think.”

  I sniffled and hopped up on the other barstool perched at Dad’s workbench and turned to Anthony. “What do I do?”

  “Put out your arms. Palms up,” he said. “And don’t squeal like a girl when you feel like it’s alive or Mom will come running in a panic.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “No squealing like a girl. Even though I am a girl.”

  Anthony carefully let down the great weight of the sword into my arms. And while I was holding the massive, heavy warm sword, I felt a strange vibration from it, even a sense that it breathed. Breathed! Maybe it was just that Thorn had worn it on his hip for so many years, but that sword was like having a piece of him still here. I felt him in that sword. And took a bit of joy from it, that somewhere in the universe, Thorn was thriving. Living, even if not in the corporeal sense.

  I smiled through my tears. “The sword has a pulse. And it’s full of love.”

  “Yeah, ironic, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a dang sword! For killing. And it oozes love. Who would’ve thunk it?”

  “I know, right?”

  “With or without Thorn, you’re going to be okay, Tam.”

  I let out a sigh. “I hope so. Thanks, Anthony, for having my back and telling me all of this.”

  “Hopefully, we can keep this going, this new path of being friends instead of enemies.”

  “I’d like that, too. I’m tired of fighting with you.”

  “Same here. It’s exhausting on top of all this other stuff.”

  Chapter 31

  TAMMY MOON

  Luckily, I was on spring break because school would have been too much for me right now. We just had a few days left of it when Nick called me, right when I was putting away a couple loads of clean laundry. He wanted to come by to finish up his poem about Beowulf. He told me over the phone that he wanted me to film it.

  “Film it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, my phone screen is cracked, and I was hoping you would film it for me.”

  “So, you’re going to say your poem out loud?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah. Actually, it’s a rap poem.”

  “Great.” I looked at my messy room. “Want me to come over to your house?”

  “No, I don’t want you coming to my neighborhood. It’s not safe right now. There was a drive-by shooting down the street. The neighborhood is insane with plainclothes cops and uniforms stringing yellow crime tape. Detectives are going from door to door, interviewing possible witnesses.” He paused. “I’ve already had my turn and it just happened to be Detective Sherbet knocking on my door.”

  “You’re kidding. Small world, Fullerton is,” I said.

  “Sometimes it is. I didn’t see anything, and my music was blasting during the shooting, so I didn’t hear anything either. I am free to go about my life and, luckily, I am not a suspect.”

  I was a little taken aback. “Okay, Nick, come on over.”

  “Great. Hey, Tam, I need to bring someone over with me. Is that okay?”

  “I guess so.” I couldn’t imagine who that might be.

  “Thanks. We’ll see you in a bit.”

  “See ya.”

  I shoved another mound of my dirty clothes in the washer and started it. I hung up my clean clothes, made my bed and sprayed my room with Febreze. Kicked all my shoes under the bed. Took out the food garbage from my bedroom and put it in the kitchen garbage can.

  Then I set up my dad’s old video camera on a tripod and positioned a ring light I’d bough
t off eBay that time I thought I wanted to be a YouTube beauty guru… for a week or so, but I found out that I hated the feel of foundation on my face, which pretty much killed that goal. Now, I did a couple frames of a lighting test and a sound check. By the time I was brushing my hair and crunching up an Altoids mint, the doorbell rang.

  Anthony ran out of his room and tried to beat me to the front door.

  “It’s for me, dork.” I stuck out my tongue, back to my old self.

  “How do you know that?” he sneered, back to his old self.

  “I’m psychic, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. Know what I’m thinking, Tam Tam?”

  “Yeah, that I’m your hella annoying big sister.”

  “You got it.”

  “I didn’t have to read your mind for that one. It’s written all over your face.”

  When the doorbell rang again, Mom called out from her home office, “I thought you guys made up today in the garage!”

  I looked at Anthony. “Vampire detectives hear everything! We’ve got no privacy, bro.”

  “Then don’t say anything you don’t want overheard, sis,” Anthony teased in a sing-song voice.

  Mom ordered, “Stop the sibling squabbles and someone get the door!”

  I playfully shoved my lug of a brother out of my way with a hip. He let me because he’s a lot bigger than me and not allowed to physically bully me and he knows it. He slunk away back to his room, making a fart noise with his lips as I opened the door. Typical Anthony.

  To my surprise, Nick had a baby with him. Yeah, a baby, a drooling little guy in a clean yellow onesie with giraffes printed all over it.

  “Hi, cutie,” I said to the baby and winked at Nick, who guffawed.

  The baby smiled with his four teeth and gurgled something back at me.

  “Come on in, Nick. I didn’t know you were bringing your little brother with you.”

  Nick blinked quickly. He pushed the stroller in the living room and I shut the door. “Thanks for letting us come over. Our hood is such a mess today after the drive-by down the street.”

  “I bet. Sorry for that crap in your neighborhood. Again. Geez!”

  “Me, too! Sick of it.”

  “What’s this little guy’s name?”

  “It’s Charlie Ray North. He’s named after my dad.”

  I smiled. “Your mom named him after your dad. That’s so sweet.”

  He hesitated. “No. I named him.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.” Nick smiled a goofy, fond smile I’d never seen before. “He’s my son, Tammy.”

  I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds until I read Nick’s mind. “You’re serious. He’s really your son.”

  “Yeah. He really is.”

  “But, how do you have a kid?” And then I blushed after I said it, especially when he laughed and said, “He came to the world in the usual way.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment and then I said, “Come on. Let’s go in my room and film your rap poem.”

  My mom must have been listening because she said from the end of the hallway, “No boys in your room, Tammy. You know the rules.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. It’s a school project. I’m going to film Nick rapping his Beowulf poem against the only clean white wall in the house because Anthony’s kickboxing handprints and footprints are on all the others.”

  “Fine. Leave the door open,” Mom compromised. She came out now and said, “Oh, hello, Nick. I see you brought your little brother with you.”

  I knew Mom’s hearing was better than that, but I think she wanted to hear Nick tell her himself that it was his kid.

  “Hi, Ms. Moon,” Nick said. “This is Charlie. My son.”

  “Well, what a cutie,” my mom said, nonplussed. Not that much shocked her these days. I guessed being a vampire and a dragon did that to a person.

  Now, Charlie was crawling around on the floor and grunting. I thought he might be trying to do something in his diaper. Sure enough, the little guy crop-dusted us a bit. And there were sound effects to it, too.

  I gagged. “Is he pooping?”

  Nick laughed sheepishly. “No, I just changed him. He always farts when he exerts himself.”

  “So does my brother,” I said. “But then again, Anthony exerts himself making a sandwich.”

  “I heard that,” Anthony called from his bedroom, but he didn’t stop playing his noisy video game.

  I looked at Mom. “We’re going to film and if it’s okay, we’ll shut the door so that Charlie doesn’t escape. And so Anthony doesn’t have to stop playing his video game.”

  “Thank you, sis,” Anthony called from down the hall.

  “You’re welcome, nerd,” I called back to him.

  “I can take him in my office for a bit,” Mom offered and smiled at the baby. He smiled back. Such a happy little guy.

  Nick scooped up his kid off the floor. “That’s okay, Ms. Moon. Thanks, anyway. He’s a pretty quiet baby, and I don’t let him out of my sight when it’s my week to have him. I want to spend every minute I can with him. He will only be this small for a little while, and I don’t want to miss anything important.”

  Mom nodded. I knew that she knew that Nick was worried about leaving his baby boy with a bona fide vampire. I knew my mom wouldn’t hurt him, but Nick didn’t know that.

  When we were in my room, I shut the door, put some masking tape on the floor in an X-marks-the-spot way… and got behind the camera attached to the tripod.

  Nick put Charlie on my bed and hemmed him in with a quickly built pillow-and-stuffed-animal fort.

  “How come you never told me you had a kid?” I asked.

  “I thought you read my mind and knew it already.”

  “No, I quit reading your mind when I figured out you weren’t thinking dirty things about me.”

  Nick laughed. “I got my heart broken, and I’m still licking my wounds. That’s why I don’t think sexy things about you. Once burned, twice shy, as they say.”

  “I’m sorry about the heartbreak.”

  “I’m sure there will be other heartbreaks. Plus, I don’t think those kinds of things about you because you’re out of my league. Intellectually, that is.”

  “Don’t say that, Nick.”

  “It’s true and you know it.”

  “You’re not dumb. And I’ll still be your friend, even if you aren’t a genius.”

  “And I’m still your friend, too, Tammy. English honors genius.” He paused. “Are you over the heartbreak of losing Thorn yet?”

  A couple of heartbeats later, I said, “No, and I never will be, but I’m tired of crying. My throat hurts from it, and I totally look like crap.”

  “You don’t look like crap, but you should probably eat something soon. I can hear your stomach growling.”

  I pushed on my shrunken midsection. “You can hear that?”

  “Yeah. Time to eat.”

  “I’m taking your suggestion seriously. We can eat something after we film.”

  “Good idea, if we have time. I try to put Charlie to bed by seven if possible.”

  “Okay.”

  He asked gently, “How do you think Thorn is doing?”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon because either the world will end, or it won’t.”

  “Good point, Tam.”

  I pushed Thorn from my mind for the moment. “But we were talking about you. Who’s the baby’s mother?” I tried to think of any of the girls in our school who had been pregnant and hadn’t said who was the baby daddy.

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “I had a fling with a teacher. Remember Miss V. from driver’s ed?”

  I gasped. “Is she in prison for having… a thing… with you?”

  “No, but she’s a personal trainer now. Luckily, I had just turned eighteen when we did the deed. And luckily, it wasn’t on school grounds. She was about to get fired, though, so she just quit teaching and changed careers. And ditched me after the paternity r
eport proved he was mine. There were others and we all had to go take the test.” He laughed. “I won, and I went to court to get shared custody, well, with my mom, too. Isn’t Charlie amazing?”

  “Yes. He is.” I sat on my bed for a minute and touched the baby, who was chewing and sucking a pillowcase. “He’s so warm and soft. His skin is so… silky.”

  “You can hold him. He loves to cuddle.”

  “I never held a baby before.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  Charlie crawled toward me and I lifted him over the pillow berm and held him close. I felt his little heart beating against mine. Tears rose to my eyes. I couldn’t help it.

  “Why’re you crying, Tammy?”

  “He’s filled with so much love. I never read the mind of a baby before. He is… utterly unspoiled and perfectly beautiful down to his very… soul.”

  “You can read his mind?”

  “Sort of. Yes.” I closed my eyes for a minute and just breathed him in, the innocence and the honesty and the immense love that this tiny human had for… Nick.

  I looked at my friend in surprise. “He loves you. He knows you’re his dad.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. He’s connected to you in this way that I have never seen before between two people. He’s like your other half. I mean, he’s a mini-you, to be sure, but also, he’s his own person. You two are all mixed up with each other, in a good way, though. I think you’re always going to be close.” I was all choked up and handed off the warm, chubby baby to him before I might start bawling for real.

  “I hope we’ll always be tight. As soon as I start to make good and earn a living, I hope to get full custody.”

  “She’s on board with that? The mother?”

  “She is. She has someone new in her life. A rich guy. And Charlie is getting inconvenient to her. He’s spending more and more time with me and my mom.”

  “And she would just give him up to you?”

  “We’ll see. In the meantime, we are 50-50-ish custody.” Nick kissed his kid on the top of his head. “Lie down, Charlie. I have to do homework and when you wake up, if you take a nap like a good boy, we’re gonna get you a tiny ice cream cone at Mickey D’s.” Nick gently stroked the little guy on the forehead and he did indeed, flop down and close his eyes, all while sucking on a thumb.