Mrs. Hollins walked with a cane with four prongs on the bottom, which wasn’t itself very unusual until one noticed that each prong operated with its own gears and optics, re-balancing and responding to her every move. It was impossible to knock over. Lucky knew this, because she once tried knocking it over while Mrs. Hollins was taking a nap on the couch. Not only did the cane right itself instantly, but it then reared on Lucky, chasing her out of the room like an overprotective Labrador.
Lucky once told Mrs. Hollins that she should name the cane something tough and imposing, like Fang or Bruiser or Wolf. Mrs. Hollins told her it was silly to name machines, as they had no souls. “You can’t have a name without a soul,” Mrs. Hollins had said. “Everyone knows that.”
Lucky set the lunch box down on the kitchen table. “Mrs. Hollins!” she squealed. She could hardly contain her excitement. “I have amazing news.” She laid her hand on the lunch box and began jumping up and down.
Mrs. Hollins reached into the patch pocket of her housedress and pulled out a pair of ornate opera glasses. She frowned. “No. Something’s happened to you. You are missing something.”
“I am?” Lucky said. “What am I missing?”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Hollins said, her wrinkles pressing around the eyepieces of the opera glasses. “You tell me.”
Lucky shook her head. “I don’t think I’m missing anything. But I have something, Mrs. Hollins. A new something. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
The kettle boiled, and instead of a whistle, it belched out a woman’s voice singing a song from an opera that Mrs. Hollins had once explained was La Traviata, as though Lucky had heard of it. Lucky appreciated this aspect of Mrs. Hollins’s personality: she always assumed that Lucky knew more than she did, unlike every other adult she knew, who assumed the opposite.
Lucky shook her head. “No, that’s not right. I didn’t find something. I made something. A dragony something. By accident. But still. I made it. Just like you make stuff.” Lucky pointed to the tiny, eight-legged machine with suction cups on its feet that was, at that very moment, washing the kitchen window.
“I can’t say I know what you’re talking about,” Mrs. Hollins said, adjusting her glasses. “Show me what’s in the lunch box.” She said this like a real scientist. Scientists care about observations and data. Lucky could hardly contain her delight.
She opened the lunch box with a flourish and a smile. Her dragon sat on its haunches in the center of the box, looking up with large, curious eyes. Her very own dragon. There was nothing better than this. “Isn’t it wonderful?” Lucky said breathlessly.
Mrs. Hollins sat down heavily on the polished metal chair and adjusted her thick glasses. “Wonderful certainly is a word that people on Earth use from time to time. Perhaps more often than they should.” She put out her hand and encouraged the dragon to climb up. The dragon was slightly larger than it was before. Back at school, it was the size of a lima bean. Now it was just about the size of a grape. The dragon stood at attention on Mrs. Hollins’s open palm, staring at her as she stared back. She encouraged the dragon to climb from one palm to the other, muttering in Old Countryish as she did so. Lucky knew this was for scientific observations, and was proud to have accidentally created a dragon so worthy of careful study.
“Good job, my friend!” she whispered.
“Why don’t you pour the boiled water into the pot, dear,” Mrs. Hollins said. She cast a side eye at Lucky. “You haven’t named it, have you? The dragon, I mean.”
Lucky felt a wave of guilt that nearly knocked her flat. She hadn’t named her dragon! What kind of dragon parent was she? What else might she forget to do? She put two tea bags into the mechanical teapot and poured the boiling water on top. The mechanical teapot had stubby legs and extendible arms and a timer to make sure that nothing was ever oversteeped. Lucky set it on the table.
“I hadn’t yet,” Lucky said as casually as she could. “Of course I wanted to check with you. To see if it had a soul.” This was a lie, obviously, but it would have been a good plan if she had thought of it. She stopped. Frowned. “Do dragons have souls?” she asked.
“Depends on the dragon,” Mrs. Hollins said absently. She slid one hand into her pocket and pulled out a notebook and a pen and began writing in symbols that Lucinda knew to be in Old Countryish, but had no idea what they meant. “Dearest Lucinda, what is your favorite kind of cookie?”
Lucky was shocked that Mrs. Hollins didn’t know. “Lemon,” she said. It was what she asked for every single day.
“Fine, fine,” she said, bringing the dragon almost to her nose and staring hard. She scribbled something else. “Bring me a lemon cookie. And also, can you please bring me that lens?” There was, next to the toaster, a very large magnifying lens on a metal stand. It was quite heavy, and Lucky needed both hands. Her biceps shook as she carried it over. Mrs. Hollins set the dragon on the table, right under the lens. Then she took a small crumb from the cookie and brought it to the dragon’s tiny talons. The dragon shivered and Lucky shivered. Lucky felt its curiosity and delight. The dragon sniffed the cookie crumb and ate it. Lucky breathed in deeply through her nose, wondering at the bright scent of lemon. And lemon on her lips. And lemon on her tongue. And lemon forever. The dragon wiped its mouth. Asked for another bite with an outstretched paw. Lucky licked her lips. The dragon devoured the second piece and fell back to the table with its paws on its belly. A look of unmitigated satisfaction on its face.
Lucky sat heavily on the kitchen chair. She rubbed her tummy.
“Hmm,” Mrs. Hollins muttered. She turned toward the mechanical teapot. “Tea, please,” she said curtly. The pot didn’t need a second command. Its mechanisms were old and it rattled as it moved, but it still pulled the cups in range and filled them with tea, and then extended its filament-thin hyper-arm outward toward the creamer, twining its tendril tip around the handle and positioning its suckers, then cautiously lifting it across the table, landing dollops of cream into the tea (and a few drops on the placemats along the way). “Nicely done,” Mrs. Hollins said. The teapot seemed to shiver with delight. Its gears shone just a bit.
The dragon burped. Lucky did too. She had heard one time that burps are contagious. Or maybe it was yawns. Or maybe both.
Mrs. Hollins narrowed her eyes. “Lucinda, dear, you’ve had a long day. Surely you must be hungry. Have a cookie. Lemon is your favorite.”
Lucky shook her head. “No thanks,” she said. She yawned. The dragon yawned too. “I’m full.”
Mrs. Hollins wrote it down.
Ever since Mrs. Hollins’s house—with its inventions and laboratories and hidden rooms and unusual floors—appeared without warning next door to Lucky’s house, Lucky regarded it with a combination of wonder and gratitude. She introduced herself to Mrs. Hollins right away. Mrs. Hollins, after her initial shock that Lucky noticed the house at all (no one else seemed to), muttered to herself that “there’s always one” and then told Lucky that she might as well make herself useful, which Lucky did. Every day after that, Lucky helped Mrs. Hollins with the sweeping and the polishing of various scientific instruments. She fed the ancient bird and checked on the ancient fish and left crackers for the squirrels and walked outside to the tree where the owls lived to say hello, because everyone deserves a proper greeting.