Heavens to Murgatroyd – a Cosmo the Dragon Story – Part 1

The winter was really dragging on and Cosmo was getting cabin fever. So was I, for that matter. No matter how much I love winter and the excuse to curl up with a book or my knitting or spinning, by spring, I’m ready for spring. I wanted to head out into the woods around our house, with Cosmo in tow, and enjoy the great outdoors – at least as much as I could with Cosmo scaring off all the local wildlife. Not that Cosmo would scare them off on purpose. It’s just that a young dragon racketing around, flying into the trees, and smelling of fire tends to send the wild critters running for cover. We mostly admired the flora on our walks, rather than the fauna.

Anyway, Cosmo and I were both ready to get out and about but we were still getting one cold snap after another, along with snow that tended to melt into mud with a day or two. In short, it was nasty out, so we stayed in.

Cosmo argued that he could simply fly over the snow and mud. It was a good point, but I reminded him that I couldn’t and he wasn’t going out there without me. He whined and begged me to ask Felix, our friend the blue dragon and Cosmo’s sometimes tutor,  to come for another visit – Felix could fly with him, so he wouldn’t be out alone. I pointed out that Felix had other things to attend to than staying here to amuse Cosmo. Besides, a fully grown dragon flying around would tend to attract unwanted attention from the local people, none of whom had any idea that they had real, live dragons – from another dimension, yet – living in their midst.

“Felix said he’d be back in a few weeks, Cosmo,” I told the little dragon for what seemed like the forty-third time that cold, snowy day. “Anyway, he’s not going to fly around with you. He almost got caught last fall, and that would just be awkward.”

Cosmo hung bat-like, upside down, from the door frame of one of our extra-large dragon sized doors, his back claws digging deeply into the wood. “But I’m bo-ored,” he whined again. “I want someone to play with me-ee.”

It didn’t matter that he was a dragon-child. Children all whine in the same annoying, irritating tone. And Cosmo’s whine was getting on my last nerve. I rummaged around in my head for some sort of idea to keep him amused.

“Do you want to use that Kool-aid to dye some more wool for me to spin?” I asked brightly. “You liked when we did that before. I’ve got some green, and then I can spin it and knit you that green scarf you wanted.”

At Cosmo’s sullen silence, I continued. ” Bake cookies? Make play-dough? Read books? Finger paint? Play dress-up?” The last was usually very popular. Cosmo loved to drape himself with all sorts of costumes and then zoom through the air in the cavernous front room of the huge old house we occupied. But today, all of my suggestions met with the same sulky expression.

“Fine then. You can help me clean your room,” I snapped in every parent’s last response to a bored and grumpy child. “If you’re that bored, you can just help me clean.” I turned by back on him.

Before I even finished the sentence,  Cosmo had let go of the door frame and was skittering down the hall to his playroom. At least he was out of my hair for a while. I returned to my chores with a sigh.

A short while later, I heard the Door bell ring. The Door isn’t just a door, it’s a portal between worlds. Since some of the beings that want to come through it are less than nice, my boss, the wizard who created the Door in the first place, had set an alarm in place to warn us when someone wanted in through the Door. If what was on the other side wasn’t friendly, it didn’t get to come in.

I checked the alarm system and saw that it was Felix on the other side of the Door. I unlocked the several locks (put in place after Cosmo had let some rather unpleasant characters in at Christmas because they looked like Santa’s elves) and greeted him with a huge hug. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” I said, pulling him into the house. “Cosmo is bored silly and driving me nuts. Maybe you can come up with something new for him to do!”

“In fact, that is precisely why I came,” said Felix. “Well, not precisely. I have a little problem myself, but I think that you helping me solve my problem will help me solve your problem…” he trailed off, looking at me hopefully.

Somehow I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that simple. “Come on, let’s go and get a snack and talk about this,” I sighed and gestured towards my apartment at the back of the house.

“Excellent! Do you have any of those pumpkin-seed cookies?” Felix followed me back to my rather small kitchen.

Felix barely fit the place, but I moved the table out of the way and we soon sat companionably on either side of the breakfast bar with a huge plate full of pumpkin seed cookies for him and peanut butter cookies for me and an enormous pot of tea for both of us. The amenities taken care of, I got down to business.

“So what is this problem you need me to help solve?” I asked. “And how is it going to help with Cosmo?”

Felix shifted uncomfortably. He looked at his dragon-sized mug of tea and reached for another cookie.

“Ah-ah.” I said, pulling the plate to me. “First you talk. Then you get more cookies. Maybe.” It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that this was probably not going to be to my benefit, as much as Felix claimed it would be.

He sighed, and the temperature in the room dropped about ten degrees – being a blue dragon, he breathed an icy-cold blast rather than a fiery one. That he was doing it inadvertently told me how nervous he was.

“Hey, I like my tea warm, and I’m not ready for the air-conditioning to be on yet. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s blowing snow outside today,” I grumbled.

“Sorry. Um, yes. Well,” Felix hedged. “Right. I would like to ask you if you’d be willing to have a visitor for a few weeks. It’s another young dragon, a cousin of Cosmo’s actually.” He finished in a rush and looked up at me brightly.

“I’ve had dragon-child visitors before, and it’s never been a big deal,” I said warily. “What’s the catch this time? There has to be a catch, or you wouldn’t be so nervous about it. Is he some sort of juvenile delinquent?”

“No, no, nothing of the sort. He just needs a bit of supervision, that’s all,” Felix replied, too cheerfully.

“Right. You’re asking me to ride herd on the dragon version of Dennis the Menace. No thanks. Cosmo bored is bad enough. I don’t need what you’re offering.” I said bluntly.

“Murgatroyd is simply precocious,” said Felix.

“So is Cosmo. You told me he’s talking and using his fine-motor skills long before most dragons do. That’s never been a problem of any sort. In fact, it’s made it a lot easier for me to foster him.”

“Yes, well, that’s one thing. This is another. Murgatroyd came into his magical abilities early. That’s a whole other sort of problem,” Felix sighed. “Let me explain.” He shifted again, trying to get comfortable in the small space of my kitchen. “Murgatroyd’s family called me a few months ago. It seems that he began to do some magic, oh, about a year ago. Most dragons won’t mature into that ability until they are well into adulthood. And there’s a reason most dragons don’t get their magical abilities until adulthood. Or rather, that the only dragons that survive are the ones who don’t get their magical abilities until they are adults, and Murgatroyd is only a few years older than Cosmo. We’re not just talking about getting an ability early, we’re talking about the equivalent of a small child who suddenly is able to build a nuclear reactor.”

“Oh my.”

“Yes. Those abilities shouldn’t develop until the dragon in question has the judgment to go with them. Even then, sometimes that isn’t enough. You’ve seen the results of that already, with the red dragon who made himself huge to take over his world and any others he could find. Imagine what it’s like in the hands of a rather curious, impatient child who doesn’t understand safety and limits.” Felix sighed and put his head in his front claws.

“So where do I come in?”

“I want you to let Murgatroyd come visit for a while.”

“And that will solve the problem how, exactly?” I was very, very skeptical.

“Someone near his home seems to be helping him, supplying him with spell books and lessons of a sort. We don’t know who it is, or why they would do this, but we need to get him out of there for a while so we can investigate this and put a stop to it before he does himself any more damage.”

“Does himself any more damage? What happened? Is he badly hurt?” I was more concerned about him now than I was about what he might do here.

“He’s not injured, but he does have a little problem.” Felix snorted a small laugh. “He wanted to see what it would be like to be a green dragon, so he tried to turn himself into one. Now, as you know, green dragons evolved in a forest environment. They are, in addition to having the obvious attribute of being green, without wings and rather long and sinuous in shape so as to fit between the trees more easily. They breathe poison gas instead of fire – something very useful if you live in combustible places like forests. It will still take down prey but not ignite the entire area.

“Murgatroyd managed to get some of that right. He turned most of himself, with the exception of his belly, green and then he made his wings disappear. He even managed to take away his fire to the point that he can only breathe smoke. But that was a far as he went. When he realized that it wasn’t going well, he tried to reverse the spell but instead managed to make it permanent. So now he is a red-dragon shaped green dragon child with a red belly and no wings who breathes smoke rather than fire. And needless to say, he is very, very unhappy about it all.”

I was torn between laughing and feeling sorry for the little fellow. What a hard lesson to learn! “So is he stuck like that forever then, since he made it permanent?” I finally asked.

“I am currently researching ways to counteract first the permanence spell and then the other spells. The biggest challenge is that since he is inexperienced, the spells were done in a non-traditional manner. To use your terms, they are jury-rigged. And unsnarling them is proving to be a major pain in my long, scaly tail,” Felix finished dryly.

“So you want Murgatroyd here, away from further temptation and potential danger to himself while you try to find out how he’s learning the magic and reverse what he’s done so far.”

“In a word, yes.”

“How do I know he won’t do something here that he shouldn’t?” I asked. “I don’t want anything to happen to Cosmo. And is he likely to be a bad influence on Cosmo?”

“First, I have personally put a spell on Murgatroyd to limit the amount of magic he can work, so he shouldn’t be able to do anything more magical that a few parlor tricks. Second, I hope Cosmo and you will be a good influence on him.”

I didn’t like the sound of the last, and I said so.

“But he’ll be a companion for Cosmo, and really, he isn’t a bad-hearted little fellow. He just hasn’t grown the judgment to accompany his powers yet. His mischief shouldn’t be any worse that Cosmo’s – like that of any small child. And he needs to be someplace safe for a while.”

Felix really knew how to play me, and he knew it. He was sitting there with a pleading look on his big blue face. Only the puffs of icy air coming out of his nostrils betrayed his nerves.

I sat there, thinking.

“If he is really a problem, you have only to call me and I will take him somewhere else immediately,” Felix said.

I decided, nodding. “All right, I’ll do it. But this had better not turn out badly,” I warned Felix.

“Oh, it won’t!” Felix bubbled happily.

I just hoped these wouldn’t be famous last words.

-She Wolf ©2009