You don’t turn around.
“Remember,” I call out as you wade farther into the grotto, the waves rocking gently against your chest. “All the myths are wrong.”
I don’t know what will happen to you in that grotto.
I know what they say happens. I know what our mother is imagining now in her grief: the rapid shredding of your lifeless body, ripped apart by fangs as long as you are tall. But somehow I find this act of savagery ridiculous; impossible under this quiet, moonlit night. The Dragon gives and protects life; he brings us rain, and he keeps our islands safe. He is ultimately benevolent, not some rabid monster.
An old fisherman I met at the local market told me a lovely story once. He said he heard it from a bird who heard it from a rainbow-scaled fish that swam north from the Nine Curves River.
He said the grotto leads to a beautiful palace. He said the Dragon is kind to his tributes and treats them well; he teaches them magic and trains them to swim underwater without ever needing to come up for air. He dazzles them with treasures that we above water can only dream of, and that is why they never come back. Their new world is so beautiful, they never want to leave.
Whose fault is it that our monsters are lonely? The white snake became a human because she craved the touch of warm, loving flesh. The Dragon begs for a new companion every year because he grows lonely in the grotto, the site of his power and his prison.
Our monsters are lonely, and they cannot be blamed that their kisses are poison or that they drown with their embrace. I suspect this is because they don’t know how to love, and we never taught them—they ventured bravely into our world and we responded with fire, lye, vinegar, and spears. We take your gifts but still we will cast you out, because you terrify us. You cannot help the way you were made. We cannot help the way we were made. We demand and take everything from you and attribute our ingratitude to fear. We don’t know another way.
The sun has disappeared now, and I can only barely glimpse your pale neck and ears protruding over the water.
It has not rained in Arlong in over two months. And if there is any justice in the world, it will not rain for a very long time.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollinsPublishers
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Lucky’s Dragon
Kelly Barnhill
Kelly Barnhill (www.kellybarnhill.com) is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon and the World Fantasy Award–winning novella The Unlicensed Magician, as well as other novels and short stories. She is the recipient of fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Loft Literary Center. Her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories.
Just because the dragon was an accident didn’t mean that Lucky loved it any less. From the moment she saw that her science project contained, at its heart, a flaw so fundamentally awesome as to produce, in a flash, a tiny, blinking, astonished dragon, so small it could fit inside a teaspoon used by a teaspoon (indeed, it was so small that Lucky almost missed it entirely, which would have been a tragedy—not only would she have failed her project, but she would have missed her chance to hold in her hand a dragon that she felt she could love until the end of time), Lucky realized in an instant that her life was about to become ever so much more wonderful than it once had been. She scooped up the dragon and stared at it, awestruck and gaping.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered, noting the trembling in her heart. “I’ll take care of you.” Forever and ever, she knew in her bones. She didn’t even have to think about it. It wasn’t a matter of saying yes, but rather of recognizing that the yes was a foregone conclusion—a prior assumption of a seemingly random universe, which had apparently conspired to deliver an epically tiny and magnificent dragon into the palm of an undeniably deserving almost-ten-year-old girl.
Her science project, or what was left of it, began to bubble and froth. The odd glow that shimmered across its surface took on a more sinister sheen. The edges of the glass beaker crinkled and smoked. Lucky didn’t care. She stared at the tiny creature standing in her palm in wonder. The dragon—no bigger than a lima bean—stared back up at her.
“LUCINDA BEVINGTON-COATES!”
Lucky jumped at the sound of her name and looked in horror at her science teacher tearing across the room like a foul-tempered rhinoceros. “What on earth have you done?” Mr. Shaw’s voice was filled with hooks and barbs and disappointment. Lucky was fairly certain he hadn’t seen the dragon standing in the center of her palm, staring up at its brand-new universe with its relatively large green eyes, currently slicked with tears. But just to be safe, she cupped her free hand over it quickly, and stared up at her science teacher with what she hoped was an innocent expression.
“Yes, Mr. Shaw?” she said, sliding her cupped hands under the table.
Mr. Shaw had large muscles and a larger neck. His neck had two veins on either side that bulged when he was angry—and did so now. He was not interested in Lucky’s hands. He was interested in the glowing, melting, flammable mass in front of her. “Step aside,” he said curtly, as he doused the whole thing with flame retardant. “OPEN THE WINDOWS,” he barked at Mari and Anji. “This minute. The last thing we need is a building-wide fire alarm. You two!” He pointed at Wallace and the boy who always sat by Wallace, whose name Lucky could never remember. “Stand on your desks and fan the vents with your notebooks. STEP UP, SOLDIERS!” Mr. Shaw used to be in the army and had been in charge of training soldiers to stand in straight lines and run thirty miles and shoot guns and say “YES, SIR!” before he decided to try something harder, like teaching fourth grade science. Or that was the story he told, anyway. Sometimes, he made everyone feel as though perhaps they, too, were running through a war zone, with dangers flying from every direction, their feet sore from a long day of pounding in heavy combat boots. He often called them soldiers and told them that learning, like life, was a battle. He called himself Commander, and often said that, for the duration of fifth-period science at least, “your souls belong to me.” He said that a lot.
Lucky disagreed. But she didn’t tell her teacher that.
“Miss Bevington-Coates, I am frankly shocked at you. I expected so much better. You have been distracted all day. UNACCEPTABLE. Distraction causes destruction. Never forget it.” He pulled out his grade book and made three deep, short strokes. An unmistakable F.
Lucky had never gotten an F on a classroom project in her life. This one she welcomed with grace and determination, her head held high and a look of what she assumed was calm acceptance on her face. Because this F came with a dragon. But no one knew about the dragon—which was, at this very moment, crawling around within the space inside her cupped hands, exploring the lines of her palm and poking her skin with tiny, tiny talons. And no one could know about the dragon. It was her dragon, after all. She felt certain that if anyone at school knew, it would be taken away from her, and the very thought of it made her so impossibly sad, she worried her heart would explode.