A Boy and His Dragon

by Michael J. Bowler

  The demon was gone. As though it had never been there.

  Weak and bloodied, jagged gashes crisscrossing his scaly skin, the stunned and confused dragon rolled up onto his feet, wincing from the pain his movements initiated. His vermeil eyes affixed themselves to those of Bradley Wallace, but the boy’s gaze was glassy and lifeless and Whilly could feel nothing but emptiness. He realized at once what had happened, just as it had happened on Mauna Kea. But he also knew the boy wouldn’t remember what he did, just as he hadn’t remembered before. It was not the right time. The dragon moved to friend’s side, carefully and on wobbly legs.

  Bradley Wallace, he probed delicately, not wanting to jar the boy’s mind. Can you hear me?

  No response. Bradley Wallace continued to stare sightlessly.

  Bradley Wallace! the dragon repeated, louder this time, forcibly opening up the boy’s numbed mind and breaking the spell that bound him.

  Bradley Wallace focused his emerald eyes on his friend before him, and smiled faintly before collapsing into unconsciousness.

  When he came to, Bradley Wallace found himself stretched out on the cold, hard, but comfortingly familiar floor of the aged water tank, an anxious, blood-streaked Whilly gazing intently down at him. He blinked to clear his fuzzy vision, and a knife-like stab of pain ripped through his skull.

  Are you all right? the dragon asked, his tone curiously filled with very human sounding apprehension. As Bradley Wallace tried to raise his head weakly, Whilly gently cradled it in his blood-soaked forepaws.

  The boy felt battered, as though he’d been keelhauled by pirates or worked over on the rack in some torture chamber. Every muscle, every fiber, sung with pain, and he was numb with fatigue. But he was alive. He thought.

  “What happened?” he murmured, barely a hoarse whisper.

  The creature that attacked you is dead, Whilly answered elusively, without any details to fill in the muddled gaps in the boy’s memory. It was all so fuzzy. How did he get here? You were unconscious, Whilly answered his thought, So I flew you back here as rapidly as I could.

  Bradley Wallace nodded weakly, and tried to sit up. But even that small effort sent waves of stabbing pain through his head and giddiness nearly overcame him. Whilly shifted his position to support the boy, and Bradley Wallace struggled to clear the fog in his brain. He reached up to gingerly touch his bruised and battered face where he’d struck the tree, and winced from the stinging pain. The tree. He remembered that much. He’d run into a tree. But what happened after that?

  “What was that thing?” he muttered aloud, still befuddled and trying to make some sense out of what he did remember.

  He’d never seen anything like that.

  I don’t know what it was, Whilly answered him truthfully, But I know I don’t want to meet another one.

  Bradley Wallace shook his head slightly. Another stab of pain. “It couldn’t be real. There’s no such thing as that,” he stammered.

  It was very real, the dragon replied, wincing sharply from his own wounds.

  It was then that Bradley Wallace came to his senses, as he realized the extent of the dragon’s injuries. The gashes were bloody and ugly.

  “You’re hurt!” the boy exclaimed, struggling to rise. But his unsteady legs gave out and he dropped back to the metal floor with a hollow thud. The movement hurt like the devil, but he didn’t care. He struggled forward for a closer examination of Whilly’s wounds.

  My injuries are only minor, Bradley Wallace, Whilly assured him confidently. The wounds are not deep.

  Bradley Wallace gazed at the bloody slashes dubiously. “Are you sure?” They looked very painful.

  I’m sure, the dragon reiterated. Armor plating is very useful.

  Bradley Wallace nodded, reading the dragon’s mind and knowing Whilly spoke the truth. He sat back weakly against the side of the tank.

  *Are you all right?* Whilly repeated his earlier question. You look terrible.

  “Thanks for the diagnosis,” the boy replied, trying for a light smile. But even that tiny effort hurt his battered face.

  He felt the bruise again, and winced. “I must look like I went through a meat grinder,” he commented anxiously. “How am I ever gonna explain this to my parents?” he asked, worry clouding his black and blue features. “If I told them what really happened they’d think I was crazy for sure. And I couldn’t tell them anyway without bringing you into the story.”

  He trailed off, his mind fraught with panic. They would want and expect some kind of explanation. And he knew it had to be a believable one.

  There was a moment or two of silence while the companions considered this question.

  Why not say somebody beat you up? the dragon suddenly

  suggested, having felt his own burst of insight. He thought it an excellent idea.

  Bradley Wallace’s pride did not. But his intellect had to admit it was a good notion. His parents, and probably even Katie, would believe that story. But then fear clutched at his heart. What had happened out there in that forest? What was that thing, some kind of mutation like he’d seen in so many science fiction movies? And he’d dreamed about Josette again, hadn’t he? Or had he? It all seemed so vague now, so hazy. Oh, why couldn’t he remember?

  Perhaps time will answer all your questions, Whilly suddenly suggested, interrupting the boy’s thoughts and disrupting his attempts to remember. Time was the dragon’s answer to everything these days, and he didn’t even need to articulate that notion to Bradley Wallace. It was a given.

  But this time it was almost as if the dragon had deliberately interrupted him, as though Whilly didn’t want him to remember. Did Whilly know something he wasn’t telling?

  Guilt immediately washed away these thoughts, even though they’d been initiated by that little subconscious voice of his. He’d learned to trust that voice lately, but how could he doubt the friend who saved his life?

  His conscience berated him, too, for the irrational, prideful anger that had sent him stalking off into the woods in the first place. His childishness had nearly cost both of them their lives. There was so much he felt he should say to Whilly, so much thanking and apologizing. But he was too weak and exhausted, and the befuddling fog began to descend upon him once more. “I’m sorry, Whilly,” he quickly murmured, barely able to hear his own voice but knowing he had to say at least that much, “for being such a baby and running away. You saved my life.”

  The boy’s eyelids fluttered shut, and his rigid form went limp in the dragon’s surprisingly gentle embrace. Two last, barely audible words floated from Bradley Wallace’s lips before he sank into oblivion: “Thank you.”

  Whilly gazed down at his young human companion, who seemed suddenly so frail and small, and yet whose courage and strength had really saved their lives. He wished he could tell the boy the truth as he had learned it, but he couldn’t. Not yet.. So he settled for a gentle “Thank you,* planted deep within the child’s slumbering mind, even though he knew Bradley Wallace would not remember it.

  That same night, John Wagner had yet another dream, his first in quite some time. But this was a pleasurable dream, not a nightmare. Because in this dream he finally beat the crap out of Bradley Wallace Murphy. He pounded his enemy’s face until the hated features were black and blue and swollen and ugly. He made it quite clear what he’d done, so everyone at school would know. Murphy couldn’t hide those bruises. And the best part of the dream was that he, himself, didn’t get touched. He completely dominated the fight from the beginning; Murphy never even had a chance. When he awoke the next morning, John felt more refreshed and exuberant than he had in months. And then suddenly he knew, knew that his dream wasn’t entirely a dream, knew that his moment of triumph as at hand. He smiled.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Wagner Regains Control”

  Needless to say, the Murphy household was in an uproar the following morning when Bradley Wallace’s parents saw his battered condition, and Katie, furious at being made a fool of, also dem
anded to know where he’d gone. Bradley Wallace calmly told the lie he and Whilly concocted - he’d been “called out” by one of the other guys and he had to go or else he would’ve been chicken. The fight had taken place in the Gully.

  Katie immediately pounced on the fact that he was going in the opposite direction from the Gully, and he smugly told her he did that to throw her off the track. At least he got some enjoyment out of her rage. In a huff, she stormed out of the kitchen. Poor Katie, he thought sardonically, she could dish it out but she couldn’t take it. He settled down at the kitchen table to await his parents’ wrath.

  His mother naturally decreed that he reveal the other boy’s name, but Bradley Wallace refused. “I already have a bad enough reputation without being called a snitch, too,” he explained. His mother stared at him in fury, as though she didn’t even know him. His father, well, it was hard to read his father’s expression.

  “Please,” Bradley Wallace implored, “I’m fine and it’s all over. Can’t you just forget about it?”

  “How, with you looking like that?” his mother snapped.

  She hadn’t even gotten dressed yet, the boy noted. She was still in her bathrobe and slippers. “And you know how I feel about fighting.”

  His father had thus far said nothing substantial, but now he reached out a hand to examine his son’s bruised face more closely.

  “I don’t think it’s all that bad, Marge,” he observed carefully. “At least, not bad enough for him to see the doctor. And the swelling’ll go down in a couple of days.”

  Bradley Wallace almost fell out of his chair in amazement. His father had never said much about fighting one way or the other, only that it was sometimes necessary as a last resort. Nor had he ever made any attempt to instruct the boy in the basic rudiments of pugilism. And yet here he seemed to be taking Bradley Wallace’s side!

  “Thanks Dad,” he said, slightly embarrassed. Marge looked ready to explode.

  Jack took on an inquiring expression. “Tell me, son, what was the outcome?”

  An uncertain frown fluttered briefly across the boy’s sunset of bruises, but was quickly replaced by a manufactured grin. “I think I won.” Which wasn’t entirely a lie - he was here and the creature wasn’t.

  His father smiled and nodded approvingly. Bradley Wallace couldn’t believe it. His mother threw up her arms in flustered exasperation.

  “That’s right, encourage him to fight!” she exclaimed, casting a look at his father that would curdle milk.

  “I’m not encouraging him to do anything,” Jack explained calmly, but through gritted teeth. “But if he has to fight he might as well win, right?”

  “Men!” Marge spat angrily, turning to storm out of the kitchen. Her hard-heeled slippers clicked their way down the hall like a time bomb.

  The boy and his father, very nearly strangers to one another, exchanged a look unlike any they had before.

  For in Jack Murphy’s eyes was something Bradley Wallace had never seen there, but had always hoped for: pride. And it took a lie to achieve that.

  From that moment, a depression settled upon Bradley Wallace like a fine, misty rain in the dead of winter, and remained with him throughout the day. He was still troubled by what happened in the forest, but that seemed so far away already.

  What passed between he and his father that morning disturbed him even more. He attempted to sort out his feelings for Whilly that afternoon.

  “My father looked proud of me, Whilly,” he explained painfully. “For the first time in my life. And it was all a big fat lie.” Tears welled in his eyes, but he made no attempt to stop their progress down his black and blue cheeks.

  Whilly’s answer was simple and direct and, naturally, logical. If he must believe you won a fight in order to feel pride in his son, then that pride is worth nothing.

  “But all boys get into fights, Whilly, all normal ones, anyway,” Bradley Wallace tearfully explained. “I think that’s what made him so happy, that I was doing something ‘normal.’”

  You humans seem to have a high regard for that word, “normal.” For me it has no meaning or point of reference. You are you, just as your father is himself. If he can’t be proud of you as you are, that would appear to be his problem, not yours.

  Bradley Wallace gazed up at his friend in wonder. All of a sudden he saw what he’d been too busy of late to realize - Whilly had passed him up. At one time he was inferior in intelligence, just a baby the boy had to care for and nurture. And then as the dragon grew and learned, they had been equals for a long time; neophytes in the game of life, sharing the common ground of adolescence. But now Whilly had become wise and philosophical, able to view events with a keener eye, an eye that could put those events into their proper perspective. He was no longer a struggling adolescent. Whilly was growing up, and he was leaving Bradley Wallace behind. “Puff the Magic Dragon” in reverse!

  Impulsively, the boy embraced the dragon tightly around the neck, as though afraid to let go. Or maybe he thought he could stop Whilly from growing up if he held on hard enough. But of course, that was silly.

  Whilly shifted uncomfortably under the boy’s embrace, as he often did when Bradley Wallace felt great upsurges of emotion. What’s this for? he asked awkwardly, obviously not willing to search the boy’s emotion-filled mind for the answer.

  “Just for being my friend,” Bradley Wallace answered, releasing the dragon’s neck and stepping back to observe his companion’s discomfort. Why did it bother the dragon so much to feel? Sometimes feeling things was really terrific. But then, he conceded, sometimes it was really lousy, too. He left the dragon alone and rather glumly returned home.

  Bradley Wallace phoned Mr. O’Conner and told the old man that he wouldn’t be able to work that day, employing the same lie he’d used on his parents. But somehow it sounded worse this time, probably because the boy kept hearing Mr. O’Conner’s words about lies becoming avalanches echoing through his mind. He hung up the phone feeling even more dejected than before.

  For the remainder of the weekend, Bradley Wallace laid low, avoiding both parents as much as possible, and definitely staying out of Katie’s way. Besides, he was too depressed to do much anyway except brood over everything that had happened lately. He’d nearly been raked to death by some kind of demon that he knew couldn’t possibly exist, he’d told another slew of hefty lies, his father was finally proud of him - but for something he didn’t do - and to top it all off, Whilly was growing up and away from him. Maybe the dragon was right after all – “feeling” was more trouble than it was worth.

  On Monday morning, the school bus buzzed with excitement over Bradley Wallace’s bruised countenance. The swelling had receded, but the sunset of black, yellow, and dark blue remained as evidence of what everyone naturally assumed was a fight. Speculation as to the other combatant ran rampant on the trip to school, with John Wagner being the prime candidate. Bradley Wallace knew the other kids were eagerly awaiting their first glimpse of Wagner, to see what damage had been done to him.

  Several of the kids questioned Bradley Wallace before the bus arrived, but he refused to divulge any names. How could he, after all? He knew everyone suspected Wagner, but there was nothing he could do about that. He just told those who asked that he didn’t want to talk about it and hoped the subject would die a natural death. It might have, too, had Wagner not been waiting for him that morning as the rickety old bus clattered to a stop on Mission Avenue and dispensed its cargo of gossiping children.

  As Bradley Wallace hopped down to the sidewalk, Wagner leapt from the shadows of a large eucalyptus tree and grabbed his shirtfront, dragging him off to one side, out of earshot of the other students, who milled about anyway, eyeing the duo with bubbly enthusiasm. They obviously hoped for another fight, and most thought their suspicions about Wagner confirmed.

  The pale shadows of the drooping eucalyptus splashed haphazardly across Wagner’s face, and Bradley Wallace had difficulty reading the other boy’s expression. He
roughly pushed Wagner’s hand away and glared with thinly disguised malice. What he did notice about Wagner, and it struck him as odd, was that the older boy didn’t seem at all surprised to see Bradley Wallace so battered. It was almost as if Wagner already knew.

  “What do you want?” he demanded hotly, an uneasy chill creeping up his spine. His subconscious voice was warning him to be careful.

  Wagner sneered haughtily, his steely eyes burning with triumph. “Too bad about your face,” he jeered. “Next time I won’t be so gentle.”

  Bradley Wallace’s eyes widened in shock. “You?” he retorted angrily. But the triumphant look remained on Wagner’s coarse features. “You’re nuts,” Bradley Wallace added, turning to leave. But he was grabbed violently by the arm and spun around. Wagner’s malevolent, twisted face moved close to him, and he could smell the other’s foul breath. His stomach did gymnastic flip-flops, and he feared for his breakfast.

  “Yeah, me,” Wagner repeated quietly, with a cold, calculated firmness. It was obvious Wagner had this all planned out. But how could he have known? “You’re gonna tell everyone I’m the one who beat the shit out of you.”

  You must be crazy, Bradley Wallace thought. But he forced a laugh to his lips as he gripped the other boy’s arm and yanked it away from his own, squeezing so hard that Wagner grimaced in pain. “I repeat,” Bradley Wallace stated flatly, “You’re nuts.”

  He turned once more in the direction of the classroom building, but Wagner’s next declaration, delivered with the sureness of one who knows he’s in command, shot through Bradley Wallace like a lance, rooting him to the spot.