Jeff had no idea how long he stood there, watching the dragon watch him, its hot eyes half-open, hazy smoke from its nostrils blurring the air. There was nowhere to run—and how could he outrun a creature that could fly and breathe fire? The only place he could begin to be safe was in the water and the dragon lay right beside the pool and between Jeff and the sea. The dragon’s tail had come untucked and twitched back and forth, the way a cat’s tail would, drawing huge patterns in the sand. Its green scales glittered in the double moonlight and starlight.
Finally he made his way down the dune, slipping and sliding until he was on the hard-packed wet sand. He took another deep breath and walked toward the dragon—this was a dream, after all, wasn’t it? He couldn’t be hurt in a dream, could he? Not really, right? The water in the tidal pool came up to his knees and felt warm on his feet, like bath water. The dragon watched him as he waded across the pool. Jeff stopped, still in the pool, but now less than ten feet from the monster. Jeff was sure the dragon knew his name and all about him—even what had happened in the dark. How and why, Jeff had no idea.
“Okay, dragon, here I am. You aren’t going to eat me, are you?”
When the dragon spoke, its voice sounded the only way Jeff had thought a dragon could sound: low and deep, like slow thunder. “No, Human Boy, I am not going to eat you. I want you to look down in the water. What do you see?”
Jeff looked down to see his face in the dark water and wavery reflections of the two moons. He saw his black hair, all shaggy and rough about his face. The face that looked back was pale and his hazel eyes looked greener and deeper. His ears—what had happened to his ears? Both his ears were pointed. Jeff touched each point gently, pulled at each one—they were real. He traced the shapes of his ears with his fingers—what? His ears felt smooth—yet looked pointed. And he had felt the points.
“Dragon,” Jeff said and held up his hand to ask a question. The monster nodded and Jeff took a step forward and fell into the pool and kept falling. And falling, falling, through the water, through a close darkness. He couldn’t see or hear or touch anything, not even his hands, his own face. He tried to scream but found he had no voice or even a mouth. His corporeal self was gone. Finally, Jeff heard a sound, a loud tearing, and with a thud, he hit the floor and he could find his hands and feet, his head, and he could see. He was in his bedroom, on the floor, surrounded by his dinosaurs ...
“You must be the new boy Mrs. Markham was telling me about.”
Jeff looked up to see the art teacher standing over him. A blue pencil stuck out of her hair and green and red chalk was smeared on her cheek.
“May I see your drawing, Jeff? I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like it.”
Jeff handed her his drawing and the woman held it out at arm’s length.
“Tell me about it, Jeff. Have you been to this beach before?”
“Just once, this summer, for the first time,” Jeff said very slowly. “I just drew what I remembered and added the dragon for fun.” Please don’t ask me any more questions, just give me my drawing back. Or you can have it; just don’t ask me any more questions.
“May I put this up for the rest of the class to see? It’s really good.”
Jeff shrugged; it didn’t matter what she did or what he might say. Adults always did whatever they wanted. Jeff sank back in his seat and watched as the art teacher showed the drawing to the class, talking about its strong colors and shapes and imagination. Jeff wanted to drop through the floor.
Russell
Monday morning the second week of school Russell woke up in the afterglow of another special dream: the white trees, the meadow, a flying horse, a centaur. The centaur had told him to do something; it would help him understand if he did it. Russell tried to remember as he stretched out in bed, light half on his face from the window, his feet pushing against the sheets, but the centaur’s words were gone. He got up and stretched again and looked out the attic window into a sky of grey and black clouds, pregnant with rain. If only he could remember.
Trying hard to remember, so hard he didn’t watch where he was going on the bus got Russell into a fight. And every bit of the glowy feeling left by the dream was gone when he found himself across the desk from Miss Bigelow. She was on the phone when the driver brought Russell into the office and gestured him into a chair where he sat and waited, staring around her office. A dark blue Duke mug with cold coffee sat on the corner of a coffee-stained desk calendar. File trays flanked the heavily written-on calendar on both sides. Papers and manila folders spilled out of the trays like magazines on a living room table. File cabinets, two or three umbrellas, a coat hanging on a rack. An enormous Blue Devil poster on the wall, and framed photographs of teachers standing on the front steps of the school. The phone call went on and on—an unhappy parent, the bus hadn’t even slowed down—and Russell started squirming in the chair. What would she do if he just got up and ran?
“Don’t even think about it, Russell, sit right there. No, no, not you, Mrs. McHannahan. I’ll take care of this, I’ll talk to the driver this afternoon. You’re welcome. Good-bye.”
Miss Bigelow hung up the phone and pushed back in her chair, picked up the bus discipline report, and then looked at Russell. “Well, this isn’t getting off to a good start, now, is it?” Miss Bigelow said, glaring at him over her dark-rimmed glasses. “It looks like you’re up to your old tricks again, now, doesn’t it? I’ve got a thick handful here of old bus disciplinary reports from your last two schools,” she added and flipped the current one onto her desk.
“Do you think your parents will be pleased to hear about this? And I am going to call them, Russell, I promise you that. We don’t have this kind of behavior at Nottingham Heights, Russell. Two more of these and you’ll be walking to school. Follow me?” She leaned further back in her chair, her hands steepled together. Russell wondered if she leaned back any further if the chair would flip over and send old Miz Bigelow flying through the window.
“Yeah.” Please don’t call Daddy. Maybe he won’t be home; maybe he will be out on a job. Maybe I can get home before he does and erase the answering machine and he’ll never know.
“Yeah what?”
“Yeah, you’re making yourself clear, Miz Bigelow.”
“Yes ma’am is what I was looking for. Go on to class, Russell.”
She didn’t even ask me what happened. She didn’t even ask me if it was my fault. That other kid started it. Same old crap.
Things didn’t get better in the classroom. Russell had left his homework on his night-table. He had been too busy trying to remember what the centaur had told him to do. He didn’t try to explain to Mrs. Collins, he didn’t think she would believe him, and besides, she was too busy delivering a speech on being responsible and getting off on the right foot and fulfilling one’s potential. She repeated a mind is a terrible thing to waste about three times. Russell sat stony-faced as she went on and on. He had heard it all before, even the wasted mind. Teachers must all read the same book. God, he hated her and this was only his fifth day in her room. If he had a cream pie to throw at her or maybe a trip wire between her desk and the door. Or a bucket of water on top of the door.
In the library Russell tried to trip Hazel to make himself feel better.
“First, last, and only warning, Russell,”Mrs. Perkins, the librarian said, her hands on her hips. When he yelled at the yellow-eyed boy with the funny name for looking at him, she blessed him out in front of the entire class. She was so hot and bothered by what Russell had done that she was sweating. But, then, Russell thought, not listening, waiting for his chance to speak, I’m sweating, too. It got real hot in here all of a sudden.
“But he was looking funny at me! He was—I swear he was, as if he knew me! You’re not being fair—”
The smoke alarm over the library door went off—so loud and piercing that everyone, including Mrs. Perkins, winced in pain, covered their ears. A few of the kids started crying and kept crying as the kids
were herded out into the hall and back to their classroom.
But even with a reprieve in the library, by the end of the day Russell’s name was on the board with three checks beside it, thus guaranteeing a U for his weekly conduct grade (“And it’s only Monday and the second week of school, Russell; am I going to have to put you in a cage for the rest of the year?”) and a whipping from his father, phone call or no phone call. But the truly worst thing was that all the magical afterglow of the dream was gone, gone, gone. And he couldn’t even remember how the centaur sounded, let alone his words.
“I’m going to call your mother at work this afternoon, Russell. I will certainly have a lot to tell her,” Mrs. Collins said with a thin smile when his bus was called.
She’s my stepmother, you bitch. She’s not my real mother. I hate her and I hate you.
Russell thought Jeanie sounded a lot like Mrs. Collins that night at the dinner table. Jeanie probably memorized everything Mrs. Collins said word for word, he thought, as he pushed his food around his plate. “She said the boy is angry all the time, Larry. He talks back and is dis-ruptive in the classroom and gets into atterca—fights and he got in trouble on the bus today, too. He’s gotta ride that bus, Larry. I can’t run him out to school every day. I’m already late for work when I get sick in the mornings . . .”
“He don’t need no coun-ser-lor,” his daddy said when Jeanie finally ran out of Mrs. Collins’s words. “Boy, got anything to say for yerself? Don’t you know the hell how to behave? You wanna walk yer sorry ass to school? Huh? Answer me boy.”
“No.”
Even though this time his daddy used the buckle end of the belt Russell still managed not to cry out. He knew that not crying made his daddy hit him all the harder, but if Russell could keep back the tears until he was safe up in his attic room it would be a small victory. When he did finally get upstairs, Russell let himself cry until he was weak and tired. Then he sat up and gingerly walked over to his dresser and his Nativity scene. Outside he could see it was raining. The sky brightened every few minutes with lightning, throwing the trees into sharp, black silhouettes. The rumbling thunder sounded like rocks rolling down a mountain. He took each statue out. First the fox, then the two sheep, the cow, and the donkey. The shepherds, the three kings, and Mary and Joseph. The Baby he left in the manger.
I hate him. Russell put the shepherds and kings back in. Why didn’t she take me instead of Adam? I loved her the best. I’ve got homework to do. Then the sheep, the donkey. The cows and the fox. I hate him. Mary and Joseph. I think I have a test tomorrow. I hate him. Why is it so hot in here? The windows are open. It’s pouring down rain. It smells hot. Why can’t I remember what the centaur said? Time for some fresh grass for the manger.
“Well, Russell, to what do I owe the honor of this unexpected visit?” the librarian asked, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “Didn’t you tell me yesterday you would never set foot in a library again as long as you lived?”
Russell sighed. He knew this was going to happen. He considered telling her why he wanted some books. Russell shook his head. Mrs. Perkins wouldn’t believe he had had dreams two nights in a row in which a centaur had told him to go find books about his magic dreams.
“Miz Perkins, I’m sorry about yesterday; I apologize,” Russell said. Did she know there was a big stain on the carpet? “And, well, I want to read some books about centaurs and flying horses and dragons.” Russell finally looked up. Mrs. Perkins was smiling. She almost looked pretty when she smiled. Maybe she wasn’t going to give him too hard a time.
“Centaurs? Flying horses? Russell White, as I live and breathe, I never would have guessed it.”
“I really am sorry about yesterday, really. I really am.”
The librarian raised one eye skeptically. Finally she shook her head and laughed. Russell laughed, too, nervously.
“Okay, Russell. Centaurs, flying horses, and dragons. I think I have just the book for you. Let’s go over to the L’s in fiction.”
Russell followed her across the room, wishing he were invisible. He was sure the girls over by the dictionary, who were both in his room, were talking about him. One of them was that Hazel Richards who thought she was so smart. She had skipped a grade. They were probably telling each other Russell White was such a dummy he had failed two grades. He wished he had worn a clean T-shirt and jeans without holes in the knees. Or shorts—maybe he wouldn’t feel so hot then. But he had to wear jeans—so no one would see the bruises and cuts on his legs. The girls would laugh if they had seen: he’s so bad his daddy beats him. He had tried to wear his glow-in-the-dark Batman T-shirt but Jeanie had insisted it be washed. He pressed down his cowlick for the millionth time and listened to Mrs. Perkins.
“Here, Russell, try these two first: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian. They are the first two in a series. Let me see, I thought so. Here is something about centaurs in Prince Caspian. I’ll just stick this marker here for you. You don’t think they will be too hard, do you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Russell said as he leafed through the books, mentally cringing at how many words he saw. If I go slow, I’ll be okay, he thought. “The librarian at my last school, she read us some Greek stories and showed us The Hobbit at Christmas. I know a little about these kinds of stories.” I dream them all the time now.
“Well, good. Now, when you’ve finished these, I have some more I can show you about the same things. The Greek stories are over there in the 292’s,” she said, pointing toward a near corner.
“Thanks a lot for helping me.”
“You’re very welcome, Russell. And Russell, please wash your hands before you read, won’t you?”
Russell bit his lip to keep his quick, hot words inside. If he had been Red Fox the Indian he could have whacked her with a tomahawk. The animal Red Fox would have chomped on her leg. For a minute he had been liking her.
“Russell—what is wrong with that thing? Everybody out—go on, I’ll fix it, go on, hurry. Just hand me the cards, Russell, I’ll take care of them . . .”
The smoke alarm had gone off again. Beads of sweat trickled down Mrs. Perkins’s forehead.
Russell started reading the books as soon as he got back to class, opening Prince Caspian where Mrs. Perkins had put the bookmark. He read slowly, his lips moving as he sounded out the unfamiliar words: “... and after a pause, Caspian heard the sound of hoofs . . .”
“Russell. I think you have morning work to do, don’t you? Spelling sentences. Put the book up and get to work. I don’t want to have to tell you more than once.”
“... there came in sight the noblest creature Caspian had yet seen, the great Centaur, Glenstorm ... His flanks were glossy chestnut and the beard that covered his chest was golden red . . .” Just like in the dreams—
“Russell White, did you hear me? Put the book up and get to work. Now.”
“But, Miz Collins, it’s all in here, just like I dreamed—” Russell swallowed down the rest of his words.
“Russell. Put. The. Book. Up. Now.”
“All right, all right, I heard you the first time. I was just trying to read my books. You let Hazel read her books, why can’t I read mine, huh?” Russell glared hard at Hazel who quickly looked away and down into her library book, one hand covering her face. “And you let him, Mal-what’s-his-name, Yellow Eyes, read his book.” This time it was Russell who looked away first; for a moment Malachi’s funny eyes looked even harder than Miz Collins’s did.
“Hazel and Malachi happen to be done with their morning work. Put the book up.”
Russell slammed the two books into the bottom of his desk and jerked out his spelling book. He dropped it on the desktop.
“You aren’t fair,” he muttered and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and slapped it down by the spelling book. He looked up at Mrs. Collins. Just how mad was she? Uh oh, she was standing up—now she was leaning over her desk. A strand of her blond hair fell across her very red face. The e
ntire room was silent. Everybody was watching her and Russell, back and forth, like the tennis matches on TV. Russell felt the back of his neck get warm. He was sweating-why was he so hot?
“Russell, I have already given you fair warning.”
“I haven’t done anything, Miz Collins. I put up my library books and I got out my spelling book and a piece of paper, see? Now I’m gonna do my spelling, see?”
“Russell, I’ve had it. Put your name on the board with a check beside it. That makes twice this week, doesn’t it? Thank goodness you start Resource soon.”
He scrawled his name in big, droopy letters and then drew a lazy check by it. I hate you Miz Collins. I hate you I hate you I hate you. I just wanted to read a book. You don’t yell at anybody else for read - ing. That goody-goody Hazel gets away with everything. Russell stomped back to his seat and flipped open the spelling book. He wrote his name in the upper right hand corner, then Spelling, and September 4, 1991. There was a smudge on his notebook paper. He looked at his hands: they were dirty, after all. Russell carefully made a few more smudges in his spelling book. Then, even more carefully, he copied the fill-in-the-blank sentence from the book. I’ve got to be good. I want her to let me go back to the library.
Russell slipped out of the kitchen in the middle of his father and stepmother’s arguing over how clean she didn’t keep the house. His father had started banging on the table as Russell closed the kitchen door. It was an old argument and Russell wondered why his father cared so much about how clean the house was when his work room was a trash heap. Larry White sometimes even wore the same T-shirt for over a week and his pickup truck was a nest of gum and candy wrappers, old beer and soft drink cans, and cigarette butts, which had spilled out of the ash tray. And tonight, as he banged on the table, Larry White had on a T-shirt yellow with brick dust and dirt ringed the fingernails on the banging fist. So what if he had found the Styrofoam container from the stew beef on the kitchen counter in a drying pool of blood?
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