Dragon Boy

Eggs weren’t blue. 

The boy gripped the egg under his shirt, holding hard but not hard enough to break. He slipped out the front door and down the road, strolling when he thought he felt eyes following him and sprinting otherwise. In one sweaty palm, a heavy watering can swung about and drooled water over the steaming summer pavement. In the other palm, he held a bunch of his shirt around a large blue egg. 

The boy followed his own footsteps down to a rotting, run-down shed in the park. Inside, the shed was empty save for yellow patches of grass making way for a single aloe vera plant. Its spiny limbs were reaching desperately, always, for sunlight filtering down through the crosshatched roof. 

The boy could hear kids screaming, distantly, on the swingset, but no matter. He couldn’t afford to get distracted—he had an egg. 

The boy set down his orange watering can—careful, careful—next to the aloe plant. His heart clobbered his ribs so harshly he gasped for breath. Chicken eggs aren’t blue. 

It had to be a dragon. 

The boy’s shoes grew damp as he watered the ground next to the aloe plant. He swiped a dripping lump of the earth’s flesh out of the ground and pressed the egg gently into the wound. Then watered it more—a sea dragon’s egg only hatched under the waves. 

This one would be different, he insisted to himself, patting the mud piled above his egg. Different from the brown and white and speckled. What kind of eggs were blue? 

He studied the nesting ground, the surface bloated with water. If he studied the earth hard enough, would it turn into the sea?

The boy grabbed his orange watering can, a chalky dragon drawn on the side, and left the shed. 

*

The liquid dribbled out of the metal fountain, stinking of sweat and iron. The boy’s thumb ached, from where it was jammed tightly against the button pushing the water up and out of the spout. His arm ached, trembling while holding the watering can up to fill it. 

A dragon keeper should be stronger than this, he scolded himself, and he slammed his thumb against the button, harder. The stream of water stuttered, then resumed its pathetic pace. 

The watering can filled, slowly. 

*

Hidden behind the shed, a girl watched him wage war against the fountain. She didn’t blink, from where she crouched, though her thighs burned. She had thirty seconds, at most. One, Mississippi. Two, Mississippi.

Then, she struck. 

*

He found her kneeling at the foot of the aloe plant, hands deep in the ground. 

Clang!

The watering can screeched as he threw it down, and the girl’s eyes flicked to his anguished expression. 

“What are you doing?!” the boy shrieked, and he barrelled into the girl, shoulder first. A cry escaped her, and she fell backward, into the mud, with a large blue egg in her hand. She glared up at him, defiantly. 

“It’s mine! You left it!”

The boy could not believe his ears. 

“Yours?” he screeched, voice cracking. “That egg—you—you don’t even know—hey, were you watching me?”

The girl scrambled to her feet, and the boy surged forward to grab her arms—wrists— anything. She elbowed him, hard, and he grabbed her shirt with dirt beneath his fingernails. They fell to the ground.

“So what if I was? You leave one here every week, and I’m the bad guy because I took one?”

The boy froze, and the girl jerked towards the wooden door, held back only by the seams in her shirt. 

“You’ve been taking my dragon eggs?”

“Dragon eggs?”

The girl was looking at him, now, incredulously. The boy felt his face redden. She wasn’t going to believe him.

“But they look like…”

“Well, duh,” the boy snapped. “Do you think dragons would survive if their eggs were the size of houses? They sneak their eggs into batches of chicken eggs.”

The girl’s eyes widened, then welled with tears. 

“I didn’t know. I thought that’s what eggs just tasted like.”

“You what?!”

“I didn’t mean to,” she blubbered, and the boy stared. The girl sat in the mud, back hunched, and tears dribbled down her cheeks, like dirty water from the fountain. 

“Well,” the boy said, awkwardly, raking a hand through his hair. “Well…”

“Is that all you can say? ‘Well, well?’”

“No!” The boy protested. Her lashes were wet. “Well, I dunno so much about the other ones. But this one’s for sure a dragon. For sure. See how blue it is?”

Their eyes met, and their gazes fell towards the egg on the ground. The large, pure blue egg, on the ground. Its shell cracked open, splintering into pieces of the sky. The yolk bled out into the earth.

The boy stared, and abruptly wished the world would end. 

“I hate you,” the boy said. He burst into tears. 

*

“So, how long’ve you been looking?”

“Well, it’s been a couple years. I don’t put one every week, only when I find an egg in the fridge that’s…y’know, special. Or blue.”

“Sorry, about the egg.”

“Whatever.”

The boy sniffled, kicking a cigarette off the sidewalk. He wrinkled his nose. The setting sun was behind them, and the girl shuffled somewhere behind him, scuffing her shoes against the concrete to chase away the dirt. 

“I was super sure that one was a dragon, you know.”

“Sorry.”

They lapsed into silence again, and the empty watering can seemed heavier than when it was full. The houses along the sidewalk were basked in gold.

“You ate them all, though?”

The footsteps behind him stopped, and he turned to glare at her again. She stood, gripping the bottom of her pink shirt. 

“We don’t get eggs like that at home. I was curious what it tasted like,” the girl said, voice wobbling. “I only had one, but it was so gross.”

“What, you didn’t even like it?”

“Ew. No. So slimy.”

“You had it raw?!”

“How was I supposed to know?”

Both stood, fuming, at a loss for words. The boy broke the silence first.

“How old are you?” 

The girl looked at him, squinting. 

“Nine. Why?”

“When’s your birthday?”

“January. Why?”

“Ha. Mine’s November, so I win.”

The girl kicked him hard, in the shin, and the boy screamed, hopping in circles on the other foot. The crease between her eyebrows eased, then, and she broke out into laughter that made her hair glow red in the sunset. 

“Hey, wanna be friends?”

*

“Let’s say the dragon actually hatched. What would you name it?”

Two kids sat around a dinner table, sketches of dragons spread out every which way. The girl held a fork in her hand, which hovered above a nearly-finished plate of scrambled eggs. 

“Jackie.”

“You’re so gross. Naming it Jackie just ‘cause your name is Jackson is so ew.”

“Why’s that so wrong? I found her, didn’t I?”

“Ugh.”

“What, you want me to name it Lily, then?”

Lily rolled her eyes, and shoveled in another bite of scrambled egg. She stared at her drawings of a wingless dragon with webbed claws, curling and swimming through paper. Big, big eyes. 

“No. She’s her own person—dragon, I mean. What about Coral?”

Jackson tried not to seem too excited. He tried to roll his eyes, like she did. 

“I guess that works.”

*

In his home, the angry, acrid waft of smoke wasn’t unusual, and there was no other smell that killed his spirit quite as easily. 

His father hissed white-hot smoke past his teeth, a cigarette crumbling into ash at his fingertips. He lied on the couch, eyes half-open, and Jackson wished Lily hadn’t left so soon. He tried to ease his way past the dinner table, but his father’s glare caught him.

“Ever think about keeping it down?”

“Sorry.”

“Playing pretend, at your age. Are you slow in the head?”

Jackson stared at the end of the hallway. It yawned, longer and darker than he remembered, picture frames with blurry faces stretching down. He thought if he concentrated, he could stop time. Just for a few seconds, just to fly down the hallway, and close his bedroom door behind him. Back to dragons. The cigarette smoke stung his nose, and Jackson tried not to inhale.

“You ignoring me?”

“No, Dad.” The breath he was holding left him in one blast. 

“The fuck you sighing for?”

“Nothing. Nothing, sorry.”

*

“I’m Coral’s mom, okay, and I’m guarding the castle at night!”

Lily stood at the top of the plastic playground structure, one heel propped at the entrance of the slide. She stuck out her chin, tossing her hair, and a small daisy, once tucked behind her ear, whirled away in the wind. 

Jackson stood on the discolored rubber mulch down below, fixing the leaf crown placed precariously on his head. He paced, near the stairs and ladder, imagining giant, spiked wings flapping furiously through the water. He smiled, despite himself. 

“So I’m the Dragon King, then. I’m circling the castle, from the air!”

Lily began running through the fort, throwing herself against the metal railings.

“I see forces gathering in the distance! In the dead of night, that King, he never changes.” Lily stamped her feet, baring her teeth at Jackson whenever he tried to advance onto the structure. 

“We have the advantage in the sea, soldiers! Do not falter! Protect Coral at all costs!”

“Retrieve Coral at all costs! She’s my daughter!”

Lily gasped sharply, whipping her head around to where Jackson crouched on the ground. 

“Is not!”

“Is too! Coral needs a mom and a dad.” Jackson bit his lip to keep from laughing. Lily hated it when he broke character. 

“But you have wings!”

“So? Maybe Coral does too.”

“Fine.” Lily huffed, hands on her hips. “But you’re stealing my lines—I said ‘at all costs’ first.” 

*

The streetlights cast long, long lines of shadows, and Jackson leapt over them as if they were rolling, treacherous waters. He flew over the riptide, over cascading avalanches and cliffs—like the Dragon King he was. Having failed to retrieve his long-lost Coral once again, he weathered a wretched journey back to his cruel, dark, home. He laughed, at the thought, and wondered if Lily had returned to her kingdom.

Jackson slowed as he entered his yard, slipping past the withered flowers in neglected pots and a rusted bicycle tipped onto its side. Through the sheer curtains, his father’s silhouette sat hunched on an armchair, back facing the window. 

Jackson felt his wings drop off his back and shatter into glass at his feet. He hoped no one saw him coming down the street.

He steeled himself before he turned the doorknob. A sea dragon with no wings was still a dragon. Besides, a king feared nothing.

“I’m home!” Chin up, head high.

“About time.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“Always ‘where’s Mom, where’s Mom.’ The fuck do I look like?”

Jackson’s voice died in his throat.

“I dunno what your mother’s out doin’.”  Jackson’s father sneered. There was a crumpled newspaper in his lap and an ashtray on the coffee table, pulled toward him. “So no dinner for you, if she don’t get back.”

Jackson couldn’t stop himself. “If she doesn’t get back.”

His father sat up, and cold, hard fear ran down Jackson’s spine. 

“What?” His father took his last drag of the cigarette and blew it directly at Jackson’s face. He spit at Jackson’s feet, and Jackson imagined he was a dragon, a soldier at his post. Only cowards ran at the first sign of danger. Don’t move. “Bratty fucking kid. You wanna be grown? Come here.”

Jackson took a tentative step forward, and his father grabbed his face, rough fingers harshly digging into the hollows of his cheek. With his other hand, his father lit another cigarette, but paused before sliding it between his teeth. 

“You want to be a dragon, huh?”

His father held out the cigarette. Jackson’s throat closed up.

*

There was acid rain in his stomach, hellfire in his lungs. His ears were stuffed and flipped inside out, and he wheezed, down on his knees like a dog. Jackson clawed at his throat, trying to cough but afraid he might vomit up his organs. Afraid they were burnt to a crisp. The lit cigarette taunted him from the floorboards below him, lines of smoke brushing past his open mouth.

Water.

“Oh, shut up. You won’t die from that—you barely even breathed in. Try it again, it gets easier.”  

Sea dragons don’t breathe fire, Jackson thought. Of course it hurts. 

The salt from his tears stung his lip, and Jackson tried to pretend it was the ocean waves.

*

“Hey, you okay?”

Jackson’s throat still ached from the burn, but he had nothing to show for it. 

“Yeah, duh.” Something else seemed to be reducing him to ashes, something in his chest. 

“Well, okay. Are you just nervous ‘bout school next week?”

You wanna be grown?

“Yes,” he breathed. 

*

His nightmare started when Lily broke the rules. 

“Jackson, come on. Dragons?”

Daniel leaned over to whisper something to Caden, then they both laughed. Jackson turned around, slowly, basketball gripped in his hands. The sun bore down on his shoulders, hot and heavy.

“Dragons, remember?”

Ryan snickered, and traded looks with Johnny.

“Go on, Jackson, go play.”

Jackson had never wanted to die so much in his life. 

“No, go away. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jackson muttered. He shouldered Lily aside, and threw the ball to Daniel. The court exploded with motion once again. 

Lily blinked, from where she fell onto the scalding asphalt. Her legs burned where it touched her. 

“Get out of the way, Lily.”

Lily ran, and didn’t stop running. Jackson caught glimpses of her back, and thought, serves you right. Only the sharp, unwavering eyes of others existed under the sun.

*

Jackson didn’t know what he expected, drifting around the park near sunset. The sunlight still turned everything it touched into amber. The playground structure was still the castle, and the rubber mulch was the dark depths of the ocean. Coral was still stuck in a custody battle.

Surely, Lily understood. 

Jackson waited for Lily longer than he wanted to admit. He didn’t check his watch, but the sun dipped below the hills and below the sea, and the streetlamps flickered on. Jackson dusted off his knees, pretending to no one that this had been his plan all along. He walked home with a weight on his shoulders that made his backpack feel light. 

He almost missed the burn in his throat and chest, the stain of fog in his brain—at least, then, he had felt something. 

*

There was another girl.

Lily had stopped speaking to him. Not that Jackson minded, but still. She avoided his eyes in the classroom and disappeared out into the fields any other time. Sea dragons and roaring waves and ocean kingdoms and soldiers at coral posts were dreams of the summer. 

But there was another girl. 

Jackson saw them, sometimes. Whispering furiously to each other, passing each other notes with no words, but with curves of pencil and points of dragons’ spines. They raced out into the field. Leaving him behind, on a plane of sticky asphalt and jeering voices. 

The dragon was mine, first, he sometimes wanted to say. It’s mine. 

In lines or in the halls, sometimes, the other girl would grab Lily’s hands and intertwine their fingers. Jackson felt a burning in his throat and chest, something heavier than smoke. Lily laughed so often she dragged spring in early, while Jackson was stuck in winter. 

Daniel did say he made good passes. That wasn’t nothing.

*

There was something Jackson wouldn’t tell anyone. 

He still went to the park. For the months after summer and the months after winter. He wandered the grounds until the streetlamps ushered him home. 

Once, he saw Lily and the other girl. He hid, but he didn’t know why. 

He watched them, heard them pretend the willow tree was a treasure trove that dragons nested in and raised baby dragons. They danced and flitted around each other like doves. He watched them wage war against the day. He didn’t blink, from where he crouched, though his thighs burned.

Once, they kissed behind the shed. Fell back, after, giggling.

Jackson wouldn’t tell anyone, obviously. But he also couldn’t say why he cried, after.

*

The night that Lily had kissed the other girl, Jackson ran all the way home. 

The breath was so tight in his lungs he felt he was drowning.

He barged into his own home like a stranger. That strange, angry scent was still in the air, and nausea came to a boil in his stomach. 

The house was quiet, again. There was a carton of eggs left out on the kitchen counter. 

Fresh from Local Araucana Chickens!

Jackson opened the carton. Twelve perfect, round, blue eggs.

  Twelve perfect, round, blue chicken eggs.