Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher: A Magic Shop Book

by Bruce Coville; Gary A. Lippincott

  His thoughts were interrupted by a wave of gold washing through his head. Looking up, he saw Tiamat wheeling through the sky, looking like a string of rubies in the sunshine. Jeremy loved the sight. But it also troubled him. He had a feeling that dragons didn't really belong in this world anymore.

  Or did they? If Tiamat was invisible to almost everyone else, was it possible there were other dragons, ones that he couldn't see? For a moment the idea that the world might be filled with invisible wonders filled his head. Who knew how many amazing things were out there, unknown, waiting to be discovered?

  "Whatcha looking at?" asked Specimen.

  "Just thinking," said Jeremy.

  "You've been doing that a lot lately. Wanna come in and have something to eat?"

  Before Jeremy could answer, Specimen smacked himself in the head and said, "I've got something that belongs to you!"

  "What?"

  "A book. I accidentally brought it home with some of my art stuff that day I got mad at you. It looks good, if you like that kind of stuff."

  "What book?" asked Jeremy, hardly daring to hope.

  Specimen shrugged. "Something about disappearing dragons."

  Jeremy couldn't believe it. Miss Priest's book had been here all along! He didn't know whether to shout with relief—or clobber Specimen for causing him so much worry.

  "I can't really stay," he said, which was more than true, considering the fact that he had a loose dragon to keep an eye on. "But I need that book."

  Specimen looked hurt.

  Jeremy continued home, clutching Miss Priest's book to his chest. He couldn't believe it had been in Specimen's room all this time. He couldn't wait to get home and read it!

  A few blocks past Specimen's house he heard a yowl from the bushes beside him. He paused. The yowl came again. It sounded like a cat in pain.

  Plunging through the leaves, Jeremy cried out in shock. There under the tree was Fat Pete. His legs had been tied together—front leg to front leg, back leg to back leg—and he was hopping about, trying to escape his tormentor, Freddy the Frog Killer, who was poking at him with a stick and laughing hysterically.

  "You stop that!" cried Jeremy.

  Freddy turned around. His cheeks were red, and Jeremy could tell he was angry at being caught in his nasty game. "Who's going to make me?" he snarled.

  "Just stop it," said Jeremy, painfully aware that he was too small to make Freddy do anything.

  To his amazement, Freddy did stop. "You're such a jerk, Thatcher," he sneered. Throwing down the stick, he brushed past Jeremy toward the sidewalk.

  Jeremy held his breath until Freddy was past him. He was just about to breathe out when a ferocious kick caught him in the rear and sent him sprawling face first into the dirt.

  "A jerk!" repeated Freddy. "Also, a . . . "

  He didn't have time to finish explaining what Jeremy was, because Tiamat attacked. It would have worked better if Freddy had been able to see her. Then her claws, her jaws, her very strangeness might have frightened him into backing away. As it was, he only felt something unknown land on his chest and start to claw at him. Screaming, he flailed his arms in front of him. The frantic action knocked the little dragon into a bush.

  Red swirls of pain streamed through Jeremy's brain.

  "Tiamat!" he cried in horror.

  Freddy's face was white. "You're weird, Thatcher!" he screamed, just before he turned and ran.

  Jeremy groaned and pushed himself to his feet. Fat Pete howled, but Jeremy walked past him; except for his dignity, the bound cat was unharmed. Tiamat, however, was caught in the branches of a thorny bush, and her struggles to escape were only making the situation worse.

  Stop! thought Jeremy. Let me help you!

  Tiamat panted with exertion, her hot breath withering the leaves around her.

  Stop, thought Jeremy again. You're going to hurt yourself.

  She slowed her struggles. Working carefully, Jeremy extracted her from the bush. Though the thorns had scraped her wings, they were leathery and too tough to be easily pierced.

  Nasty! she thought, sending pictures of both Freddy and the bush.

  Jeremy couldn't have agreed more.

  With Tiamat perched on his shoulder, he untied Pete, who scratched him for his efforts. Jeremy felt a blaze of anger. Immediately, Tiamat tensed her legs, as if to launch herself at the cat.

  NO! he thought.

  Tiamat sent her question feeling.

  He tried to explain that Pete was just lashing out because he was angry. He wasn't sure he got the point across, but it gave Pete time to get away.

  Jeremy picked up his books. Still smarting from Freddy's kick, he pushed his way out of the bushes and limped home.

  Rather than going into the house, Jeremy headed for his father's office. Hold still, he thought to Tiamat. I want to get something to put on your wings.

  The dragon sent back a message of agreement.

  Dr. Thatcher whistled when his son walked through the door. "What happened to you?" he asked. "You look like you've been dancing with Fat Pete."

  Jeremy blinked in astonishment. Could his father possibly know what had just happened?

  "What do you mean?" he asked nervously.

  "Those scratches," said Dr. Thatcher. "I hope Mary Lou didn't do that to you."

  Jeremy put his hand to his cheek. He had been so worried about Tiamat and Fat Pete that he hadn't noticed what had happened to his own face when he fell.

  "Do you want some ointment for ..." Dr. Thatcher's voice trailed off. He looked at Jeremy and blinked.

  "Dad?"

  Dr. Thatcher shook his head. "I've been working too hard," he said, rubbing a hand across his eyes.

  Jeremy sighed. For a moment he thought his father had started to see Tiamat. Life would be so much easier if he knew about her. For a moment he considered trying to tell his father. But he remembered Mr. Elives' letter. By accepting the dragon, he had accepted a vow of secrecy.

  "Let me get those cleaned up," said Dr. Thatcher, pointing to the scratches on Jeremy's face. "Then I want to put some ointment on them. Only don't tell your mother! She doesn't like it when I use animal medicine on you, even if it is perfectly good."

  Jeremy sighed. One more secret to keep. "Is this stuff good for any animal?" he asked as his father smeared the salve on his scratches.

  "All-purpose antiseptic," said Dr. Thatcher. "Guaranteed to zap germs before they can get a foothold."

  "Can I have some extra?" asked Jeremy. Dr. Thatcher hesitated. "Sure," he said, staring again at the place where Tiamat perched on Jeremy's shoulder. He closed his eyes and then opened them. "Take all you want."

  When he entered the house Jeremy found a letter waiting for him on the dining room table. The spidery handwriting on the envelope was the same as that on the magic shop's direction sheet.

  He waited until he had smoothed salve over Tiamat's wings. Then, feeling nervous, he opened the envelope. His fingers trembled as he unfolded the crisp paper. The words it held were both a relief and the worst thing he could possibly imagine.

  Thatcher:

  It will soon be time for the dragon to go home. Come to the corner of Main and Not Main at 11:30 on Midsummer Night. Bring the dragon, as well as any teeth it has lost, any skins it has shed, and whatever bits of eggshell you were able to save.

  Be prompt!

  S. H. Elives

  Jeremy stared at the note in distress. He had always guessed that Tiamat would have to go home sooner or later. Part of him had even been eager for that to happen; certainly life would be simpler without a dragon to care for.

  But another part of him had hidden from the idea. He had never really prepared himself to cope with the thought of her leaving. He had let himself grow used to her sendings, her questions, her constant presence in his head. Now the very thought of losing her made a great wave of loneliness well within him. As it did, he found his head filled with an image of dragons—hundreds of dragons, flying through a darkened sky.r />
  Home! sang a feeling inside him.

  He blinked, and the image vanished.

  Jeremy looked at Tiamat.

  Home! she repeated—not in words, of course, but by sending him a feeling which could mean nothing else.

  Late that night Jeremy was tiptoeing up the stairs with some chicken livers for Tiamat. Suddenly his mother stepped into the hallway, tightening the belt on her robe. She looked at the plate in his hand and said, "What are you doing?"

  "I . . . uh . . . I'm doing an experiment. You know—how feeding meat to an animal compares with just giving it pellets and stuff."

  Mrs. Thatcher closed her eyes. "You're trying to create killer gerbils? Does your father know about this?"

  Jeremy shook his head.

  "Well, check with him. He's been wondering where his chicken livers have been going. I don't think he'll be too happy to find out you're using them to play mad scientist."

  "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow," promised Jeremy.

  Mrs. Thatcher nodded, then walked into, the bathroom. Jeremy waited until she had closed the door, then dashed for his own room. He found Tiamat crouched in the middle of the floor, trying to breathe flame.

  Stop that! thought Jeremy, as he put the livers in front of her. You'll scorch the floor!

  I want to make fire! thought Tiamat, as she started to gobble the livers.

  Do you suppose you could cut back on those? asked Jeremy. I think I'm going to have to start buying them out of my allowance.

  Tiamat sent an image of a plateful of gerbils, lying on their backs, their little paws stiff above them.

  "Forget it," said Jeremy. "I'll buy the chicken livers!"

  A red-and-gold sigh trickled through his head as the dragon returned her attention to her meal.

  The next morning, Jeremy found Tiamat sitting on his desk, preening her burnished scales. Lying beside her was another discarded skin. Her tail, which hung over the edge of the desk, reached nearly to the floor.

  Jeremy rolled the crinkly red skin and put it with the others. As he did, he wondered again how big she was going to get.

  BIG! replied Tiamat cheerfully.

  Too big for this room, thought Jeremy, stroking her head—which was now wider than his fist, and longer than his foot. In fact, if she continued to grow at this rate, it wouldn't be long before she would no longer fit through the door. He wished he could get a little of that growing ability for himself.

  What am I going to do with you? he thought.

  Tiamat curved her neck around his arm. Send me home, she replied, in a combination of pictures and feelings.

  Jeremy's stomach tightened. When he had gone to bed last night, he had considered ignoring the summons that had come from the magic shop. When Midsummer Night (whatever that was) came, he would just stay right here with Tiamat. The idea had been a little frightening—but not as frightening as losing the dragon.

  But if she wanted to go—well, that was different. He couldn't keep her here against her will.

  A wave of sadness, muddy green and dark brown, rolled through him. He understood. Tiamat didn't want to go. Not entirely. But she knew she had to.

  But where. Where was home?

  Well, he knew one place where he might find an answer: Miss Priest's book. He could sense Tiamat's approval when he took it to his desk and began to read.

  "Listen to this," he said after a while. Tiamat closed her eyes and listened while he read from the book.

  The time came when this world was no longer safe for dragons. Earth had too many heroes, too many swords—and not enough magic. One by one, the great dragons were being slaughtered.

  In an attempt to save the last dragons, the wizard Bellenmore opened a door between the worlds. Through this gate, the remaining dragons passed to the new world that was to be their home.

  It was a harsh world, but it was a world without men, and therefore safer for dragons.

  Yet, as things turned out, there was still a problem. Suited as this world was to the great beasts, it was unfit for their eggs. Though many eggs were laid, for over a hundred years, not one new egg hatched. Dragons live for a tremendous time, of course, but during the second century of this blight, they began to fear that their kind would become extinct after all.

  Finally the dragons contacted Bellenmore's successor, Aaron the Wise (later known as Aaron Dragonfriend), and requested his aid.

  Aaron brought a dragon's egg home with him, to see if it could be hatched here in the world where dragons had once lived. He discovered that without our moon to quicken it, a dragon's egg remains dormant forever. With this knowledge, he was able to hatch the egg. Later, when the dragon had grown too large to stay here safely, Aaron faced great peril to send it back to the rest of its kind.

  This was the beginning of the Company of Hatchers. Since that first hatching, a handful of eggs have come to this world each decade. Each egg is held out of sight of the moon, until the right person appears. Then the egg is entrusted to the Hatcher, who must guard the young dragon and, when the time is right, help it to go home.

  Jeremy closed the book and sighed. It looked like he had better find out about Midsummer Night.

  Eleven - Confessions

  "Ah, Midsummer Night," said Mr. Thatcher. "Wonderful date, filled with magic. Twenty-third of June, if I remember correctly."

  "That's not the middle of summer," cried Jeremy. "It's the beginning!"

  "Just another little trick of the English language," said Dr. Thatcher with a shrug.

  Jeremy felt sick. He had thought Tiamat would still be with him for another couple of months. Midsummer Night wasn't nearly so far away.

  "Anything wrong?" asked Dr. Thatcher.

  Jeremy shook his head and left the roOm. For some reason June 23rd sounded vaguely familiar. He went to check the calendar in the kitchen and found that the date was circled. He had circled it himself, in red, with exclamation points, because it was the last day of school for the year. And it was only two weeks away.

  Two weeks, thought Jeremy in despair. Can I stand to let Tiamat go, when the time comes?

  He really didn't know. The dragon was a part of him now. He was used to her constant presence in his mind, the never-absent play of colors at the back of his head that spoke to him of her moods. He loved those colors. They were starting to show up in his art, making it richer and stronger than it had ever been before.

  Yet Tiamat was already too big to stay in his room. In fact, he was planning to move her to one of the small barns that very night.

  Jeremy waited until the house was quiet. Walking on tiptoe, he led Tiamat down the stairs. Though the cats hissed as they crossed the kitchen, none of them came near. Jeremy had to open the door for Tiamat. The cat door she had been able to slip through such a short time ago was already far too small for her.

  "Now for heaven's sake, don't sit in here and try to breathe flame," said Jeremy as he led Tiamat into the barn. "You'll burn the whole place down!"

  He accompanied the speech with an image of a flame-breathing Tiamat setting the barn on fire, and a sense of how upset he would be if that happened.

  Don't worry, she replied with a whirl of white and gold.

  After Tiamat was settled into one of the abandoned stalls, Jeremy returned to his room—and worried. He worried so much that the next day in school, somewhat to his own surprise, he found himself telling Mary Lou both that Tiamat had grown enormously large, and that she was supposed to leave.

  "What are you going to do?" asked Mary Lou.

  "What can I do? She can't stay here."

  Mary Lou put her hand on his arm. "Do you want me to go with you when you take her?" she asked quietly.

  Jeremy surprised himself again by considering the offer.

  "I don't think so," he said at last. "Saying goodbye to her is something I'm going to have to do on my own."

  "There must be some way I can help you."

  Jeremy shrugged. "You can help feed her if you want."

/>   Mary Lou seemed delighted. "I'll bring over a gallon of milk tomorrow morning!"

  In fact, Mary Lou rode her bike over with a gallon of milk every day that week. On Friday morning, Jeremy began to wonder if the milk trick was still working. That was because Fat Pete's owner came to the Thatcher house to ask if anyone had seen his cat.

  Jeremy swallowed hard. Though Fat Pete often wandered away, he always came back within a day or two. Now he had been gone for three days— the exact amount of time Tiamat had been in the barn. Had he saved the cranky cat from Freddy only to have Tiamat down it for a midnight snack?

  Excusing himself, he raced down to the barn.

  Tiamat was waiting, her long neck stretched out beyond the edge of the stall.

  Breakfast? she asked, sending an image of her bucket of milk, along with her question feeling.

  "Later," said Jeremy irritably. Then he sent her an image of Fat Pete, along with his own question feeling.

  The feeling she sent back could best be translated as Yum!

  Jeremy turned pale. Did that mean that she had eaten the cat—or only that she would like to?

  He was still trying to figure out how to image the question when Mary Lou walked in with a gallon of milk.

  "Good grief," she said, staring at Tiamat in awe. "She's getting bigger by the day."

  Jeremy nodded in dismay. Judging by the marks he had been making on the stall wall, she was at least a foot longer than yesterday. Most of that was tail, but still, her size was getting to be a matter of real concern. Much as he loved her, Tiamat at ten feet was not as charming as Tiamat at ten inches.

  "Do you think this will be enough?" asked Mary Lou, as she poured the milk into Tiamat's plastic bucket.