Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher: A Magic Shop Book

  red, they looked a great deal like a bat's wings. When they were finally fully extended Jeremy felt a surge of triumph so strong it was almost as if he had managed to pump up the wings himself.

  The little dragon looked around, sniffed, then began crawling across the desk. Jeremy pulled back nervously. Holding his breath, ready to run if necessary, he watched in wonder. Something began to tickle at the back of his mind. He stared at the dragon, and it locked eyes with him.

  For a moment, Jeremy felt as if he were drowning in green. Then the baby curled up, dropped its head over its tail, and closed its eyes.

  The green disappeared.

  Jeremy felt exhausted. But he was also beginning to feel a little safer. Curled up, the dragon was no bigger than a medium-sized grapefruit, and about as threatening. Jeremy found himself longing to touch the gleaming red scales. After the beast's eyes had been closed for several minutes, he put out a tentative finger to stroke its head.

  The dragon opened its eyes and reared back, hissing ferociously. A slender red tongue flickered over the tiny fangs, reminding Jeremy of the lightning that had split the sky earlier that night. He sat in frozen terror. The dragon hissed again, then arched its back, stretching its leathery red wings into the air.

  For a long moment boy and beast stared at each other. Suddenly colors began to swirl in Jeremy's head, almost as if he were looking at the egg again.

  Moving slowly, the dragon resumed its curled position. But this time it did not close its eyes. It simply lay on the desk staring at him. Once it sniffed, sending a tiny puff of smoke out of its nostrils.

  Jeremy took advantage of the truce to study the beast. In the low light of the lamp its burnished scales shone like polished copper. The glittering green eyes, examining Jeremy as carefully as he was examining their owner, looked like a pair of intelligent emeralds. Each of its feet had four toes. From the tip of each toe stretched a tiny claw that looked like a chip of cut diamond. A ridge of pointed plates, none more than a quarter of an inch high, ran from the top of the dragon's head to the tip of its tail.

  After a few minutes, the dragon lifted its head and made a tiny snuffling noise. Then it asked Jeremy a question.

  Jeremy had no idea what the question was. But he could feel the question-new of it inside his head, almost as if the dragon were using its ferocious little claws to etch a question mark into his brain.

  But nothing about the question itself was ferocious. It was simply that: a question. Sensing the little creature's genuine puzzlement, Jeremy's feelings shifted from awe to protectiveness. He put his hand forward again.

  This time the hatchling didn't move.

  Holding his breath, Jeremy inched his hand even closer. When the dragon still didn't move, he cocked out one finger.

  The dragon darted forward and nipped his fingertip.

  "Ow!" cried Jeremy, pulling back his hand. "You rotten—"

  His burst of anger was cut off by a wave of puzzled sorrow that started in the back of his head and shivered all the way through his body.

  Jeremy looked at his fingertip. Though a half-circle of red dents ringed the fleshy side, the skin was unbroken.

  "Are you trying to play?"

  Moving cautiously, he extended his hand again.

  The dragon stretched its neck forward. This time it moved as slowly as the boy. Opening its jaws, it took Jeremy's fingertip delicately between its teeth, then shook its head gently from side to side before letting go.

  "Almost like shaking hands," said Jeremy softly. Feeling braver, he reached forward and stroked the dragon's thumb-sized head. The dragon closed its eyes and made a little chittering noise.

  Jeremy smiled.

  He had just made friends with a dragon!

  Dawn found Jeremy still at his desk, the dragon perched on his shoulder, nibbling contentedly, but ineffectively, at his ear. As Jeremy watched the sun rise, he decided it was a good thing the dragon had hatched on a Friday night. He had a lot to do before he could go off and leave it on its own all day. First and foremost, he had to figure out what to feed it. In the stories he remembered, dragons dined on fair young maidens. All in all, that seemed like a bad idea.

  Jeremy rummaged through the stack of drawings where he had hidden the instruction sheet. Maybe it held some information he had overlooked.

  When he finally found it, he felt such a jolt of surprise that he cried out as if the paper had burned him.

  Four - Hyacinth Priest

  Jeremy stared at the direction sheet. The top of the page had changed. Where it had once read, "How to Hatch a Dragon's Egg," it now said, "The Care and Feeding of Dragons." When had it changed? And how? Fingers trembling, he picked up the paper. The dragon tickled his ear with its tongue as he began to read.

  The Care and Feeding of Dragons

  You have been chosen to care for a rare and precious creature, Jeremy Thatcher. When fully grown, your dragon will be unimaginably powerful. But in the early stages of its development, it is very vulnerable. Like any infant, it must be cared for if it is to survive.

  To begin with, you must guard the fact of its existence. The world at large does not love

  dragons. Should your dragon be discovered, it will almost certainly be taken from you.

  As to feeding: while mature dragons prefer live food, an infant will be satisfied with something that has already been killed. Small gobbets of meat, such as chicken livers, are particularly appropriate. When the dragon is older, it will be able to hunt for itself. (Dragons grow rapidly, so you will need to think about protecting your pets before long.)

  Eventually your dragon will shed its skin. Do not be alarmed by this. However, you must save the skin, as well as the baby teeth, which will begin to fall out at about the same time. You must also save as much of the eggshell as possible. These things will be very important when Midsummer Night arrives.

  Your dragon must have a name. Actually, every dragon is born with a name. However, since these birth names must remain secret, you should provide another name as soon as possible.

  Finally—your dragon will be very sensitive to your own emotional state. It would be wise to avoid extreme agitation while raising the dragon. If you do not, trouble may result.

  It's a good thing Mom and Dad sleep late on Saturdays, thought Jeremy as he tiptoed into the kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, he stared inside. Suddenly he became aware of something big and furry standing next to him.

  "Grief!" he whispered. "Get out of here!"

  The golden retriever looked up at him with a wounded expression. However, if the dog was wounded, he was not offended enough to leave. Leaning against Jeremy, he stared into the refrigerator.

  Boy and dog moved their heads in unison as they scanned the lower shelves, which were filled with plastic containers. Jeremy knew that most of them held stuff like leftover rice pudding. But he knew, too, that there must be some chicken livers here. His father ate them all the time.

  Gathering his courage, he pulled open the meat tray.

  There they were! Jeremy shivered as he pulled the container out of the fridge.

  "Gross," he moaned when he opened it and actually saw the chunks of slippery purple meat. How can Dad even touch these things, he thought, much less eat them?

  His revulsion was multiplied when he felt something wet on his bare foot and looked down to find that Grief was drooling on him.

  Jeremy shook his foot. The glob of slobber spread out a bit, but otherwise stayed in place. He pulled a paper towel from the roll sitting on the counter and bent down to wipe away the dog spit.

  "You make me sick!" he hissed at Grief.

  The dog licked his face.

  Totally disgusted, Jeremy pulled one of the chicken livers out of the container and threw it across the room. Grief ran after it with such lust that he smashed into a cupboard.

  "What's going on down there?"

  Jeremy flinched. "Just giving Grief his breakfast, Dad!" he yelled, hoping his father would be too grogg
y to remember that it had been months since he had voluntarily fed the dog.

  "Well, do it a little more quietly!" shouted Dr. Thatcher. "Some people are still sleeping around here."

  "Okay, Dad. Sorry about that."

  Jeremy waited, but there were no more words from upstairs. He relaxed. His father must have collapsed back into sleep.

  Walking on tiptoe, he led Grief outside and clipped his collar to the chain attached to the corner of the garage. He slipped back inside, gently pulling the door closed behind him.

  That was better. He would never get these stupid things upstairs with Grief around.

  Back at the counter, Jeremy pulled out two more livers. Uck! They feel as bad as they look.

  Quivering with disgust, he dropped the cold meat onto a saucer, then put the container back into the fridge. Picking his way through the cats, he shut the kitchen door and started up the stairs.

  When he entered his room, the dragon was nowhere to be seen. Where did it go? he thought desperately.

  As he was heading for his desk he heard a soft hissing. Looking up, he saw the dragon swooping toward him, its pointy red wings stretched to the full.

  "Yow!" cried Jeremy, jumping back.

  The dragon landed on the edge of the saucer and began to nip at one of the livers.

  Jeremy held the saucer at arm's length. "You," he said to the dragon, "are a troublemaker. And you have bad taste."

  But as he set the saucer down —with the dragonlet still clinging to the edge—Jeremy again found himself entranced by the strange beauty of the little beast.

  When the dragon was done eating, it walked across the desk and began to climb Jeremy's arm. Its tiny claws felt like needles against his skin.

  "Ouch!" cried Jeremy. "Cut that out!"

  The dragon ignored his protest. It continued up his arm until it reached his shoulder, where it settled down with a little sigh that sent a puff of hot air across his cheek.

  Jeremy slid the saucer aside and pulled the instruction sheet out of the desk drawer.

  "Your dragon must have a name," he read aloud. He reached up to pat the little animal, which had curled up on his shoulder. "What about it, beastie?" he asked softly. "What should we call you?"

  To his surprise, the dragon answered him.

  The answer did not come in words. It came as a feeling of not knowing that reminded Jeremy of the blank sensation he got whenever Mr. Sigel called on him in math.

  He turned his head and looked at the dragon out of the corner of his eyes. It yawned, opening its mouth so wide that Jeremy could no longer see the jewellike eyes.

  Jeremy laughed. It had never occurred to him that a dragon could be cute. But this one certainly was. At least, it was now. He wasn't sure what it would be like when it got bigger. Maybe being small made things cute.

  "I suppose that's true," he said out loud, thinking of the women who were always coming up to pinch him on the cheek and tell him how cute he was. As if being cute were something wonderful. Personally, he hated being cute—and being small.

  "At least you'll grow out of it," he said to the dragon.

  He thought about that for a second. The dragon might stop being cute fast once it started to grow. The idea was frightening. Just how big was this thing going to get?

  Other than mentioning that it would be large enough to eat the family pets, the "Care and Feeding" sheet wasn't very specific about growth. Nothing it said indicated the upper limit of the dragon's size. Would it get to be as big as a car? A bus? A house?

  It was time to do some research.

  Since Jeremy's bike was broken, he had to go to the library on foot. The head librarian was just taking down the CLOSED sign when he arrived, puffing with exhaustion from having run all the way.

  She took one look at him and said, "Overdue homework, Jeremy?"

  He shook his head. "I just need to find out some stuff," he gasped.

  "It's wonderful to see someone so hungry for knowledge," she replied, sounding as if she didn't quite believe him.

  Jeremy gave her a fake smile and headed for the back of the library. His smile became real when he saw the long-haired children's librarian. She was sitting at her desk and staring at a book with a look of fierce concentration. The sign in front of her said: MISS HYACINTH PRIEST.

  Jeremy crossed the room quietly and stood by Miss Priest's desk. After a moment she looked up.

  "Good morning, Jeremy," she said. Her voice had a hint of music to it, and he always liked to hear her talk. "Have you come for some more art books?"

  He shook his head. "New topic today. I need to find out about dragons."

  Miss Priest looked at him carefully. "Fascinating creatures," she said at last. "Let's see what we can dig up."

  She stood, towering over Jeremy, and led him past rows of books, until they came to the section she was looking for. She bent forward to scan the shelves, causing the blue beads of her long, dangling earrings to brush the sides of her face.

  "Aha!" she said, reaching out to snatch up a thin volume. "I thought you might be hiding here."

  Without looking up, she handed the book to Jeremy. "Now, where's your friend?" she muttered.

  "Spess doesn't do libraries," said Jeremy, before he realized she had been addressing the book.

  Suddenly her hand darted forward again. "Here we go!" she said triumphantly.

  She handed Jeremy a medium-sized book. A wonderful red dragon reared across the green cover, its claws outstretched, a shaft of flame rocketing from its mouth. Jeremy wished desperately that he could draw like that.

  Ten minutes later Jeremy was sitting at a long wooden table with a thick stack of books beside him. He opened the first and started looking for something—anything—that would tell him what to do with a dragon.

  He had no idea how long he had been reading when his concentration was interrupted by a pang of hunger shooting through his stomach.

  He closed the book and rubbed his belly.

  How long has it been since I ate?

  Glancing at the clock on the wall, he was surprised to see that it was only 10:15.

  He decided to read a little longer. He was enjoying the books, even if they didn't provide much useful information. The only problem was that in almost every story the dragon got killed at the end— usually with good reason, since most of them were extremely nasty. About the only good dragons he had found were Chinese.

  He wondered if dragons were really that terrible, or if people just said bad things about them because they looked so scary.

  More to the point, what was his dragon going to be like?

  Opening the green book, Jeremy found a story about a dragon named Niddhogg. He wrote the name on his notepad. The list of possible dragon names was about the only real stuff he had gotten so far.

  He had barely finished writing Niddhogg when the next hunger pang hit. His stomach began to rumble threateningly. Gathering the books he wanted to check out, he took them to Miss Priest.

  "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

  "Not everything," he admitted.

  Hyacinth Priest paused, then leaned toward him and said softly, "Just exacdy what are you looking for?"

  Jeremy swallowed. "This is going to sound silly," he began. Before he could finish, his stomach began making a noise like an erupting volcano.

  Miss Priest nodded. "Very silly," she said seriously.

  Jeremy blushed. "I mean my question will sound silly."

  The librarian looked directly into his eyes. "No

  question is silly if you really want to know the answer," she said fiercely.

  "Okay," said Jeremy. "Then what I want to know is, do you have anything on how to raise a dragon?" Miss Priest smiled. "Of course," she said softly.

  Five - Things Unseen

  The book Miss Priest pulled from the bottom drawer of her desk felt as if it had been bound with real leather. The cover had no words on it, not even a title. Ignoring the crescendo of his stomach sym
phony, Jeremy opened it.

  The first page was as blank as the cover. On the second page, however, he found the title, On the Nature (and Disappearance) of Dragons.

  Jeremy turned the page again, and nearly dropped the book. In addition to the title, this page added the name of the author: S. H. Elives.

  Jeremy's skin began to prickle. He looked at Miss Priest. "Where did you get this?"

  Hyacinth Priest shrugged. "Who knows where books come from? It's really a very great mystery, isn't it?"

  "Can I check it out?"

  Miss Priest nodded. "I've been saving it for you."

  The little hairs on the back of Jeremy's neck began to bristle. "How did you know I would be wanting it?"

  Miss Priest raised an eyebrow. "What are librarians for?" she asked. She reached forward and took Jeremy's wrist. Looking straight into his eyes, she said, "I would read that book very carefully if I were you, Jeremy Thatcher. Very carefully indeed."

  Jeremy spent most of the walk back to his house thinking alternately about his conversation with Miss Priest and about how incredibly hungry he was.

  He had almost made it through the park when a familiar voice called, "Jeremy! Hey, Jeremy!"