"Wow, that was...intense", I said then.
Raleigh gave me a pat on the back.
"Congratulations, mister Ports, you survived the ArK's tropical section. Usually people faint, the first time".
I stared at Raleigh with my mouth open. She was silently laughing, she was loving it. A light bulb turned on in my head.
"That's not the only entrance, right?" I asked her.
"No, actually", she answered starting to walk again. "But why deny this pleasure?"
I shut my mouth and collected with honor. She had gotten me.
Ah, the mustang revenge.
I knew Raleigh would have gotten her payback sooner or later, and that's what happened.
A real nice prank, can't deny it. I'll have nightmares tonight.
I mumbled something incomprehensible and followed her. In the new section the climate was completely different. A gigantic lamp, at the top of the dome, simulated the hot Mediterranean sun, and the first part went through an olive garden. As much as that section was nice, I had already tried all the plants it had, with the exception of capers (but that Whiskey didn't even glance at). The dragon was busy smelling the air, as if he were searching for a particular smell.
The third section was northern Europe, even in that case Whiskey had already seen almost all the plants it had. I had him wander around anyways and when I got close to the dividing membrane, he started becoming restless and straightening his neck out in that direction.
Maybe, we've got it this time, I told myself.
"Look", I pointed out my dragon's strange behavior to Raleigh, "it seems he wants to go in there no matter what".
Raleigh followed the direction Whiskey's snout was pointing in.
"It's the South-East Asia section", she said. "Let's go see".
Once we crossed the membrane, it was like having a bloodhound following his prey in my hands.
"Oh, yes. His plant is in here for sure", I said.
Inside the box, the dragon was flapping his wings and was flailing against the caging. He practically pulled me along the path without me being able to stop him. If I had let go of the handle, the box would have flown away with the dragon inside.
"Calm down, Whiskey. Calm down", Raleigh whispered to him. "Where do you think it is?"
I looked around. Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, I didn't know any of the typical plants from that region. A small hill sat above an artificial ravine. On the top, there were some cacti, full of fruits. On the other side, instead, a tropical forest. I tried to spin around, following the dragon's "push". For a few seconds, Whiskey stopped being restless, then all of a sudden he started up again with even more fury. He was pointing directly toward a sort of cactus.
"That way", I told Raleigh.
We crossed the ravine and went up the hill. When we stopped in front of the cactus Whiskey was wild: he was jumping, roaring, trying to open the box's door with his teeth and claws. The plant was actually a bundle of thin trunks, light green, with short yellow thorns. The trunks grew upwards supported by a plastic pole planted in the ground, and they were almost up to my shoulders. Along the body hung about a dozen fruits, oval shaped, with a red and yellow scaled rind, similar to small balls of fire.
"Is this your plant?" I asked the small dragon.
Whiskey was trying to push his whole snout through one of the holes in the box.
"Yes, I would say this is the one".
Before I even asked her, Raleigh had taken off one of those strange fruits and was peeling it. With her fingers, she broke it in two, revealing a white and succulent pulp, studded with tiny black seeds. She gave me a half and I had Whiskey smell it.
The dragon's pupils dilated, and on his neck, where his jugular was, you could see his accelerated heart beat. With lots of caution, I took the steel locks off the door and opened it just a crack. With a lightning fast jolt, Whiskey bit my half of the fruit and started devouring it.
I got up with a sigh of satisfaction and I noticed Raleigh was giggling.
"Well, the mystery has been solved, finally...but why are you laughing?"
Raleigh handed me her smartphone.
"I checked through our database with the scanner. Guess what plant it is?"
I looked at the screen, without understanding. The photo in the database was similar to the plant in front of me. A giant cactus, flat leaves, lots of thorns. But the file read: "Hylocereus undatus". And underneath: "Latin name of the plant known as Pitahaya, or Dragon Fruit".
"You're kidding me!"
I started laughing too. Of all the plants in the world, Whiskey had chosen that one. It was incredible.
"I'd like to cut one of the branches so you can replant it", said Raleigh. "but I can't do it. The regulations forbid it. However, I can let you take the fruit away. Try to plant it".
"Okay, thanks". I smelled the Pitahaya's white pulp, and it reminded me of a pear. "Do you think I can put it in the Flight Garden's grass?"
I tried biting into it. Even the consistency was like that of a pear's, soft but compact, full of seeds. It was like eating chocolate chunk ice cream.
"You'll have to use a sandy terrain", Raleigh informed me, going through the information on her smartphone. "Nothing complicated. I'll show you later".
I put away my half of the Pitahaya and checked on Whiskey. His whole snout was bedded into the pulp and he was chewing noisily, forgetting about the rest of the world. I left him to his delicious lunch and closed the box's locks.
When we got back to Wild Dragons, I dug a hole halfway between the solitary peach tree and the orange tree, under Whiskey and the other dragons' watchful eyes. Whiskey had only shaken off a bit of the dizziness caused by the Pitahaya. Once in a while he swayed his head and blinked his eyes, like a drunk, but he wouldn't stop following my every movement. He knew what I was doing.
I poured the mix of sand, perlite and organic compost that Raleigh had suggested using into a hole. Then, I showed my half of the Pitahaya to Whiskey.
"Here it is, Whiskey".
The dragon moved his tongue a couple of times. I placed the fruit in the middle of the hole, about four inches under the surface, and I covered everything, packing the dirt with my hands.
"Now all we have to do is wait", I sighed getting up.
Whiskey pawed at the piece of naked dirt, exactly on the spot where I had put the Pitahaya, and cuddled on top of it.
Goodness, I didn't think you would take it literally, I thought.
I still had to fill the troughs for the evening, so I left for a while. At seven, before leaving and closing up the store, I peeked at the hole. Whiskey was still there, he hadn't move an inch. And when I went back the next morning, and the day after that. I swear, he seemed glued. A little worried, I went to make sure he was okay. I admit I'm ignorant, regarding this particular phase of a dragon's development. Usually, I planted the whole tree first, already grown, and then I bought the dragons. I had never followed the opposite path, so I was full of doubts.
Is he going to sit still waiting until the cactus is grown?, I kept on asking myself. He risked getting sick like that, sitting still for months in the same spot. But Whiskey didn't seem sick at all, when I checked on him. All his values were normal. He was just unremovable. I tried having him play with the red ball, his favorite, but all I got out of it was a straightened neck and an uninterested look. When I threw it in the grass, he put his head back down between his paws, in the middle of the damned piece of dirt. His behavior made me think of a penguin focused on brooding his egg.
But he didn't plan on brooding his plant, right?
A FEW DAYS LATER Raleigh called me from Pandora 1 with some bad news. Canberra seemed sick. She wouldn't come out of the burrow, and she wasn't eating anymore. I got my portable medical kit and reached her at the college's large dome. Canberra was in fact weak and feverish, but after a few tests, I realized it was just a false alarm. Her blood sugar was sky high, though.
"It's just an indigestion. Has she eaten anyt
hing else, besides the diet I gave you?"
I was in the garden-slice with Raleigh and Ben. Elen, instead, was analyzing some samples from the orange tree in the laboratory. There was no trace of Langley.
"No, I assure you", answered Raleigh.
I saw Ben Dameshek look away, and she noticed too.
"Ben? Answer the question, please".
"Maybe...", Ben's voice was a whisper, "...sometimes, I, well...it was just some candied fruit..."
I started laughing. The charm of the Outback. Ben Dameshek had fallen for it.
"I'm sorry, Jack", Ben apologized, "I didn't want to make her sick. But she greets me every time I arrive, and then she looks at me with those big eyes..."
A Canberra classic, I thought. These dragons are worse than Homer's sirens. Only their song bewitches your heart, and there's no corks for that.
"Don't worry, Ben, it's nothing. Just, next time don't secretly give her candied fruit, if you want to reward her. Give her rice treats. And don't exaggerate".
I closed the kit and took Canberra under the stomach with both hands.
"I have to take her back to the Flight Garden, just to be safe. 'Backs have slow stomachs, she'll need at least a week to get back into shape. You may need another dragon".
Raleigh glared at Ben and sighed.
"Ok, let me take my coat off and I'll follow you".
Together, we went back to the Garden and Raleigh decided to replace Canberra with good old Longstaff.
Many aspects of life are decided by details. Small particularities we are barely conscious of. A door that instead of being open is closed, for example. Or a simple piece of candied fruit. Their effects, that at first appear to us as insignificant and lacking any importance, reverberating in time acquire power and influence our lives.
While we were preparing the box to bring the Outback to the College, Henry Woods came into the Flight Garden. I hadn't seen my ex egg supplier for a month and a half, since Whiskey was born, and to tell you the truth I didn't think I'd ever see him again. I had been clear, I didn't want any other dragons.
"What are you doing here?" I asked him, more irritated than surprised. He shouldn't have been there, nobody comes into my aviary without my permission.
"Um, sorry Jack, I saw the door open..."
Henry stopped on the doorstep and gave a look around the three trees.
"Give me a minute", I said to Raleigh. Then I reached him while taking off my work gloves.
"Get out right now, Henry. If the Mustangs attack you, the insurance will have my ass".
I brought him into the hallway and closed the graphene door to the Flight Garden.
"What do you want? I won't buy any other eggs, I already told you".
Henry licked his lips, feeling uncomfortable.
"Listen, Jack. The competition is destroying me. Give me a hand, in the name of old times".
"And how?" I opened my arms. "I can barely make it myself".
"I heard you loaned three 'backs to the university".
"Yeah, so?"
I couldn't understand what he was getting at.
"Well, maybe you could consider alternative ways to earn money, if you know what I mean".
That's it. The nerve of this guy. I started to get pissed off.
"Are you suggesting what I think you are, Henry?"
"You have Mustangs, Jack. Mustangs! Nobody has them, in Idaho".
"And you really think I would use my dragons for illegal fights? I'd rather go bankrupt and give them away".
Woods became red.
"But..."
"Get out". I showed him the door. "And next time you come into my aviary without my permission, Deirdre will take care of showing you out".
Henry Woods insulted me heavily, but I didn't react. God only knows why, but instead of punching him in the face, I decided it wasn't worth it. I waited until he left then I went back to Raleigh. I found her petting Whiskey while she made fun of him because he didn't want to move from his spot.
"Why are you angry?" she asked me. "Who was that guy?"
I told her the whole story, without leaving out the insults toward that idiot Woods, and at the end she was looking at me with a crooked smile. She stroked my arm, making a small shiver run up my spine.
"You're a good guy, Jack Ports".
She took Longstaff, and after setting him in the box, she closed the locks.
"You know, you haven't told me why you've decided to not buy any more eggs".
"I don't know if you'd understand", I answered. "None of my friends have understood it".
She got up and stood in front of me, staring at me with her big green eyes.
"Try me".
I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed.
"Okay, the fact is..." I smiled, a bit embarrassed. I didn't really know how to start. "I mean, when I started this job...I was naive. An idiot, okay?"
"You still are, trust me".
"Ha ha ha, thanks a lot. Anyway, I didn't know anything about how pet dragons were created. What I want to say is, I studied the classics, at College. I knew everything about their anatomy and their behavior. But a company like GeNext, or Disney, how do they create their eggs?"
Raleigh shook her head. She didn't know either.
"I needed Sheela, to open up my eyes. It was a present for my ex, remember? I had called LeBon, a friend of mine in New York, and had the egg brought over from the Paris branch. A little thing only this big, all pink, with small silver spots on the shell. It was perfect. LeBon told me that ten dragons were needed to create it".
"I don't understand", Raleigh asked me. "What do you mean by "ten dragons"?"
I nodded.
"That's exactly what I asked him too. And do you know what LeBon answered me? That Sheela's egg cost so much because of the "aesthetic selection". These companies, to make it brief, create the eggs in a laboratory. They don't wait for dragons to reach sexual maturity. And for every egg on the market, for every dragon in stores, there are hundreds, thousands that are discarded, because they're considered not perfect. It's absurd, "perfect" animals don't exist. It's bullshit".
I shrugged my shoulders and smiled at Raleigh. "So I quit. That's how it goes, right? Either you don't care, or you get out of the game". I motioned toward the cherry tree. "If in a few years Deirdre and the other three witches lay any eggs, I'll raise those. And there won't be any imperfect dragons. Not here".
Raleigh looked away and remained silent for a few seconds, staring at the Garden.
"I know what you mean", she said after a while, looking me in the eyes again.
"Really?"
"Yes", she nodded. "My grandfather, years ago, long before the Drought arrived, had an apple plantation. Three acres down in Franklin county. When I was little, every September we would go help him pick the apples, and at the end he would show me the cases of unsold ones, because there were small defects on the skin. Every year the same story. Four, five cases, full of absolutely normal apples. So the farmers had to use a good amount of pesticides to keep the apples perfectly round, smooth, shiny. Like the ones in commercials".
"That's human stupidity", I commented.
"He would always tell me "Remember, Raleigh, good things in life..."
"...require effort", I finished for her.
"Exactly".
She looked at me in a strange way, and then I felt that something had clicked between us. A light redness appeared on her cheeks and forehead. Raleigh looked down and picked up the box with Longstaff in it.
"I have to go now", she said. "Abrams must be asking where I am".
And so she left. She brought Longstaff away with her and didn't even want me to accompany her back to the college.
A week went by. When I would go to Pandora, Raleigh always managed to be occupied, and even our video calls lasted only a few minutes, just enough time to get an update on my dragons' health and hear how Longstaff was settling in. She was always nice and smiling, but something had changed, betwee
n us, and not how I had hoped. Suddenly, she had become cold and distant. Was it perhaps a sign she was starting to feel something for me? Or was she behaving like that because she noticed my interest, and didn't want to encourage me?
Damn it, nature didn't give us males enough sensitivity to navigate in the complex meanders of female emotions. We're brutes. "Um", "Huh?" and "Burp" are the expressions that best describe our mood. I decided, like a big coward, to not do anything and wait. But things were doomed to become worse and worse.
Everything started because of that bastard Langley.
The Brit (Dragons Manual)
Species Name: Draco Occidentalis Albionicus
Length: between 24 and 30 inches max
weight: 11 - 16.5 pounds
Wing span: 40 inches max
Tail: 8 inches
Average life span: 30 years.
Scale color: dark purple leaning toward blue.
Eye color: dark grey.
WHEN GENEXT SPREAD THE TREND of pet dragons around the world, its competitors didn't stand by and watch. Many believe the purple Brits and their variant, the European Dragon, were really born in Europe, or at least in England. If the Chinese had their green and yellow dragons, us westerners could finally flaunt a species "of our own".
After all, even we have a long tradition of legendary relationships with these monsters, right? Don't they appear in dozens of stories, tales of knights and epics from a time long ago? Sure, our relationship with dragons has always been a bit complicated: for lots of people they were just treasure-accumulating monsters, our heroes spent all their time trying to kill them, and then there was that story about the virgins, and let's admit it, for a medieval village it must have been a difficult and stressful task supplying a constant contribution of young, untouched ladies.
The Asian populations, instead, have always considered dragons as symbols of wisdom and power, and in the previous decades this spirit had slowly spread to the west. Hence it was time for mister and misses Smith to bring home a small dragon without sacrificing their daughter's virginity. So the Brits appeared on the market and, just a few months later, the European Dragon did as well, whose scales are a bit darker (basically, though, they're the same type of dragon).
The Dragon Seller: A Tale of Love and Dragons Page 9
