“I don’t think you actually heard me,” the principal said from the hallway.
“Hello, Lucan,” Mrs. Hollins said mildly. “You look terrible.” She added something in Old Countryish that Lucky couldn’t understand but clearly made Mr. Shaw angry. His eyes were bloodshot, but became even redder than before.
“YOU’RE TOO LATE, YOU KNOW.” Mr. Shaw’s movements became jerky and odd, like the mechanics of his joints were catching. His red eyes flashed white. Then blue. Then they were red again.
“I don’t think I am.” Mrs. Hollins jerked her head toward the other scientists. “Colleagues?”
The scientists swarmed in. And the three very small children, each the size of a half-used pencil, hooked out of their hiding place behind the bookshelf and ran across the room. No one noticed them. Mrs. Hollins had told them exactly what to do.
The principal, still in the hallway, said, “Matthew, why did that woman call you Lucan?” When Mr. Shaw didn’t answer, he said, “I am calling the police. Right now. Sheryl? Will you please call the police?” The secretary didn’t move.
The scientists moved quickly through the room, extracting vials from the patch pockets of their floral housedresses and dipping them into the various beakers.
“ALL THEIR SOULS BELONG TO ME,” Mr. Shaw yelled. “AND ANYWAY I ALREADY HAD THREE SUCCESSES AND YOU SAID THIS COULDN’T BE DONE. SO I WIN.”
“Actually,” Mrs. Hollins said mildly, as Lucky, Anji, and Alfred helped one another hoist themselves up onto Mr. Shaw’s lab coat and climb the back of him like the side of a mountain. They each had a thumbtack tied to their backs like a sword in a scabbard. “You don’t. I’m sorry, my dear. You were my finest work. But I never should have named you. One must never give a name to something that doesn’t have a soul.”
“There’s an off-switch, you see,” Mrs. Hollins had told the children, back at the tent. “Right in that divot at the base of a human’s skull.”
Alfred narrowed his eyes. His dragon did so as well. “But wait,” he said. “Why specify human? Since we’re all human, shouldn’t you just say skull?”
Lucky smacked her forehead with her hands, and Mrs. Hollins rolled her eyes. “You aren’t the brightest one in this group, but that is okay, dear. I’m sure you have other gifts.”
Mrs. Hollins drew a diagram, showing where the thumbtack should go. “And then he’ll turn off?” Lucky asked.
“Well,” Mrs. Hollins said. “Hopefully.”
Wallace’s project exploded. The scientists didn’t make it in time. So did Analin’s.
“I WIN, I WIN,” Mr. Shaw screamed.
Lucky? her dragon thought at her. It’s too dangerous. I’m coming down.
“Not yet,” Lucky said, realizing too late that she said it out loud. Mr. Shaw flinched, and grabbed her in his palm. He grabbed Alfred in his other hand. He looked at Mrs. Hollins. “A THUMBTACK? YOU TOLD HER ABOUT THE THUMBTACK? TREACHERY!” His fist squeezed around Lucky’s body, choking out the air.
The window shattered, and three dragons burst in amid a spangle of glass and light. Later, Lucky would remember that moment in several ways. First, she remembered the fear of dying. And the fear of loss. And the fear for her dragon’s grief. And her mother’s. She remembered the swirl of bodies and voices and the metallic screech of Mr. Shaw’s voice and that her dragon became the size of a polar bear, and then the size of a buffalo and then the size of an elephant. He filled the room. He broke the room. She remembered colors and motion and falling plaster and screaming children and the abrupt bellowing of a soldier standing in the center of the room.
“YOU BELONG TO ME,” Mr. Shaw screamed, his voice sounding metallic and rusty, and nearly grinding to a halt. “YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL AND YOU BELONG TO ME.”
No, Lucky’s dragon said in her mind. His voice was so big and so full of feelings, it seemed as though he held the whole world close to his heart. I belong to me. And Lucky belongs to Lucky. And we belong together. Out loud, the dragon shouted, “AND YOU ARE A VERY SILLY SCIENCE TEACHER AND NO ONE LIKES YOU VERY MUCH.” It was the first thing he’d ever said out loud. Lucky was very impressed.
In Mr. Shaw’s astonishment, his hand opened, and Lucky fell, grabbing onto the hem of his lab coat. She still had her thumb tack. The dragon screamed. Mr. Shaw screamed. The principal mumbled about this being “highly irregular” and “certainly the authorities are coming immediately.”
Lucky climbed. The thumbtack was so heavy. She was so small now that Mr. Shaw barely saw her. She was getting smaller every second. The thumbtack grew heavier and heavier and larger and larger. Lucky shrank and strained as the dragon grew and grew. Finally, she found the spot at the base of Mr. Shaw’s skull. She heaved the thumbtack, found purchase, and pushed.
There is not, as it turns out, a cure for what the scientists referred to as a Soul Split. But there were several accommodations to help the affected children. Mrs. Hollins arranged for meetings with the parents and guardians and teachers and social workers to help them make sense of this new reality. This proved difficult, as most people didn’t notice Mrs. Hollins’s house most of the time—despite the metallic tent and strange cars and crowds of unusual scientists going in and out in their lab coats and Wellington boots. People’s eyes went fuzzy when they looked at Mrs. Hollins’s house. Even Lucky’s mom, who noticed it more than most people. So most of the meetings had to be held in Lucky’s house instead.
Symposiums were scheduled and papers published. Lucky’s mother welcomed the other parents warmly, and made sure there were ample snacks and tissues, because there were often tears at these meetings. The scientists staying in the metallic tent attached to Mrs. Hollins’s house wrote colorful booklets aimed at assuaging the fears of worried parents. Unfortunately, the text, while informative, consistently referred to endragoned children as “perfectly normal human children, from Earth where we all obviously live,” which wasn’t exactly reassuring. Parents of endragoned children developed a permanent crease in their foreheads and palpable anxiety that could be felt the moment they walked into a room.
Except for Lucky’s mom.
Once the team next door was able to get a better handle on the sizing problem, and halt Lucky’s rapid shrinking (after the incident at the school, Lucky had been reduced to the size of a grain of sand—it was a miracle they found her at all), much of the worry about having all her feelings in the shape of a highly affectionate dragon were largely assuaged. The dragon was now the size of a small poodle, and would likely stay that way for the rest of its life. Lucky needed new pants, as she had lost about five inches, and her projected height would be less than it was before, but in the scheme of things, both Lucky and her mother agreed that it was better than being the size of a pencil. Or a grain of sand. And so life next door to the scientists returned basically to normal.
Better, actually.
Since her feelings lived in her dragon—a creature whom she loved more than anything—Lucky was able to observe them the way a scientist observes. This made it much easier to discuss vexing problems with her mother. It also made it easier to understand the people around her. Lucky had friends for the first time. She was no longer baffled by people. And people were unbaffled by her. And since her mother could see Lucky’s feelings right in the open, it made it easier for her to discuss her own. And in doing so, her own pain and grief and confusion started to lose their weight and injuriousness. She started laughing again. And reading the mail. Lucky’s mother painted dragons all through Lucky’s room. And then she painted dragons in every room in the house. And then she painted dragons that she sold to other people, and made a fine living doing so. Indeed, years later, Lucky and her mother both said that the dragon was probably the best thing to ever happen to them.