by Salvatore T. Falco
In retrospect, it should have been obvious that a dragon was a poor choice of pet for a three-year-old. It had seemed like a splendid idea at the time, one of those impulse purchases you regret afterward, like the florid pink dress shirt Eric bought because his wife liked it, wore once, and then hid away forever after enduring an endless day of office jokes.
The wizened old man Eric bought the dragon from had assured him that the dragon liked children. He’d been right. Now the dragon lay curled up on the divan, head resting on its tail, its gullet bulging with the boy’s bulk. Occasional puffs of smoke issued from its nostrils as it slept, and sometimes it growled softly. Perhaps the boy didn’t agree with its constitution. Eric could sympathize. Fatty foods had the same effect on him.
This was all Sheila’s fault. If she hadn’t dumped Bobby on him at the last minute, Eric wouldn’t have gone downtown, wouldn’t have stepped into that store, wouldn’t have brought the dragon home.
He had planned to have friends over to watch football while Sheila took Bobby to her mother’s house. But she changed her mind and decided to go alone.
“You and Bobby need to bond,” she said.
Eric had no idea what that meant to her, but to him it meant a quick change of venue for the afternoon’s entertainment. His friends were too boisterous, too loud, too irresponsible. They’d scare Bobby, keep him awake through his nap time, and give him sips of beer.
So he called the one sitter he could trust to keep her mouth shut—in exchange for half the going rate—and arranged for her to come by and look after the boy. As soon as she arrived, he drove to the sports bar where his friends waited for him.
Four hours, four touchdowns, and one field goal later, he was a little drunk. When his friends insisted he shouldn’t drive, he laughed. “No problem. I’ll walk around first for a while.”
He’d walked a dozen blocks from his car when it started to rain. He ducked into the nearest store, a magic shop with shelves jammed to overflowing with boxed tricks and novelty items. Rubber masks on Styrofoam heads lined one wall. The place smelled of mildew and dust.
He was a little hazy on what happened after that. He remembered talking to the old man behind the counter, saying more than he intended about Sheila, Bobby, and the hardships of being a parent. The old man said, “I have just the thing you need,” ducked through a curtain behind the register, and returned leading what Eric at first thought was the ugliest dog in existence.
The size of a Rottweiler, its head drooped to the ground on a long neck. The snout curved downward, and its eyeteeth stuck out over the lips on either side, crocodile-like. Loose folds of skin hung from its back over a mottled orange, red, and yellow coat. A tapered tail dragged on the floor. Only after it sneezed and shook itself, so that its wings partly unfolded, did Eric realize what he was looking at.
Somehow, he’d been talked into taking the beast home with him. He asked if he needed a pet carrier, but the old man laughed, and the dragon growled without baring its fangs. “A pet carrier would offend his pride,” the old man said. “He’ll be fine in the back seat of your car.”
And so Eric walked back to the car in the rain, put the dragon in the back seat, and brought it home. After paying the sitter, he introduced it to Bobby. Now the only thing that remained of the boy in the living room was the sailor’s cap he’d worn just before the dragon swallowed him.
Maybe the old man who sold it to him could help. He called the number on the receipt. The old man answered, and remembered Eric immediately. “How did everything go with the dragon?” he asked.
“It ate my son.”
“Magnificent!”
Eric felt his ears turn hot. “I don’t think you heard me correctly. It ate my son,” he shouted.
Silence.
Eric wondered if he’d been disconnected, but then the old man said, “Was that not what you wanted?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. From your complaints, I’d thought you wanted him gotten rid of. Well, bring the dragon back and I’ll be happy to refund your money. Less the ten percent restocking fee, of course.”
“That’s outrageous.”
“Actually,” the old man said, “If you’ll look at the receipt, you’ll note that all returns are subject to a restocking fee.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I want my son back.”
“Oh, is that all?” His tone was suddenly light and friendly again. “How long has it been?”
“Not very. About five minutes is all. It licked his face a few times, and then swallowed him whole.”
“Ah, good. You have plenty of time. He won’t suffocate. Dragons are full of air. Hot air is how they fly, you know. The wings are just for steering.”
“So if I kill it, my son’ll be all right?”
“No, don’t try to do that. You’ll just make it angry. No, what you need to do is make it throw up. They’re like snakes. If they need to move quickly, they’ll bring up whatever they’ve eaten to make a getaway.”
Unfortunately the man didn’t know what would make a dragon want to move in a hurry. He couldn’t think of anything dragons feared enough to make them want to run—“At least, nothing you’re likely to have on hand. You might try making it angry enough to chase you, but that will probably prove fatal to you, and then the dragon would just eat the boy again afterward. If I think of anything, I’ll call. Good luck.”
Eric sat in an overstuffed chair staring at the dragon. How do you make a dragon throw up? He picked up the sailor cap and looked at it. It was part of an ensemble—one of many—that Sheila insisted on dressing Bobby in. It was ridiculous, but she loved to dress the boy up, just as she had loved to dress up their dog, Pugsley, before the little mutt ran away, leaving shredded bits of doggie lederhosen on the garden fence. All they had ever found beyond that was his tiny Tyrolean cap, half a block away. Eric hadn’t been surprised that Pugsley ran off. The dog had done what he had to do to for the sake of his dignity.
Eric narrowed his eyes at the dragon. How could he get the thing to vomit? His beer-soaked brain offered up a hopeful thought: syrup of Ipecac. There was a bottle in the medicine cabinet.
Eric fetched the syrup and grabbed a turkey baster from the kitchen. He had no idea how much to use, but he figured he couldn’t go wrong using the whole bottle, so he drew all the Ipecac into the baster and returned to the living room.
He knelt next to the couch and said, “Hey, dragon.” It opened one eye again and looked at him.
Eric gave the creature a smile. “I have an after dinner drink for you.”
The dragon, no fool, rolled over and buried its head between the back of the couch and the cushion.
Eric sighed. At least the dragon’s claws now faced the other way. Eric had another thing going for him, too: Bobby. The dragon couldn’t struggle too much lest he upchuck, which was exactly what Eric wanted it to do. He put the baster down and hauled the dragon’s head out from behind the cushion. He held its neck tightly with on hand and picked up the baster with the other.
“Mmm,” Eric said. “Yummy,” as if he were trying to feed Bobby peas.
The dragon clamped its jaws. Erik maneuvered the baster under the dragon’s lip behind its eyetooth and squeezed the bulb.
Syrup flowed down the dragon’s chin onto Eric’s arm. He let go. The dragon shook its head, flinging drops of syrup everywhere. It snapped its jaws at Eric, missing by less than an inch as Eric scooted away, crablike. The dragon returned to its repose, one eye open this time.
While Eric considered what other options he might have, the phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, hoping it was the magic shop owner calling back with better advice. When he saw his wife’s cell phone number, he snatched up the handset.
“I’m getting ready to leave Mom’s,” she said. “Would you preheat the oven?”
Blood roared in his ears. It would take her thirty minutes at most to get home. Stall her, he thought.
“We, um, really need toilet paper. Can you stop and get some?”
“Sure.” She sounded suspicious. She probably heard the panic in his voice. “Is everything all right there?”
“Yes.” It came out as a yelp. “Just, you know, really need to use the can.”
Sheila hung up.
How am I going to explain this to her, Eric thought. He picked up the boy’s sailor cap. The phone call had driven the last fumes of alcohol from his mind, and the cap gave him an idea. It was crazy, but he was out of options.
Eric ran down the hall, snatched a picture from his wife’s vanity, and dashed back to the living room. He grabbed the dragon’s tail and shook it. The dragon’s other eye snapped open. Eric thrust the picture, a shot of Bobby and Pugsley in matching cowboy and horse outfits, in front of its face.
“Look at this,” he said. “This was our dog, Pugsley. You see the ridiculous getup he’s wearing?”
The dragon made a snort that Eric took to be derision.
“Yeah, well, don’t laugh too hard. This is going to be you. My wife loves to play dress-up, and without my son around, who do you think she’s going to make all these precious little costumes for?”
The dragon stared at the picture, blinked twice, and then looked at Eric. A trill sounded in its throat and it cocked its head sideways.
“Yeah, that’s right. You.”
Eric leaned closer. He was nose-to-snout with the overgrown lizard.
“You,” he said through a sadistic grin, “are going to look just darling in a bunny costume.”
That did the trick. With a shudder, the dragon slid off the divan. It extended its neck parallel to the ground. It began to huff and puff, which after a few minutes gave way to sickening burps and gurgles.
The dragon unhinged its jaw. Eric saw lumps outlined in its throat. Probably Bobby’s feet. The dragon coughed and spit a wad of phlegm on the rug.
The dragon shuddered again, gave one final belching heave, and the boy slid onto the rug, covered in sticky mucous. He was silent long enough for Eric to wonder if he was still alive, but then he coughed and began to wail. Eric had never thought he would be glad to hear that sound.
The dragon retched once more and spat another shimmering gob of crud, this time onto Eric’s right shoe. It looked at him and shook its head to re-attach its lower jaw, then looked at the door. Eric opened it.
“Go on,” he said. “Save yourself.”
The dragon padded through the door, took three running steps, and launched itself into the sky.
About the Author
Salvatore T. Falco attended the University of South Florida in Tampa, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Master of Arts in English. He now lives in Saint Petersburg, where he works as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer. He is an active member of the Florida Writers Association.
©2009 Salvatore T. Falco
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