Flying Saucers and Dragons – Part 1

“FLYING SAUCERS!” the headline screamed across the entire top half of the paper. I stopped to look at it before I tossed it in my bike basket for the ride back home. My small-town weekly paper usually had more mundane headlines such as “Miller’s Watermelon Takes First Prize” or “Cows Block Traffic”. Flying saucers were something new.

Below the fold was a photograph of the witness to the air-born marvel – Joe Rivers, who owned the gas station at the crossroads and was better known for his feats of drinking prowess at local bars. Well, that put this story into perspective. I tossed the paper in my basket along with the rest of the mail and set off for home. Flying saucers didn’t really impress me anyway. I consorted with dragons, wizards and other strange beings from other worlds on a regular basis. And not through my local library – or the bars, either.

My home was also the home of the Door, an inter-dimensional portal to all sorts of strange places. I was the Door-keeper, caretaker, and occasionally hotelier to beings who needed a place to stay for a few days while visiting our world. I was also the foster mother of two young dragons. Flying saucers seen by the local drunk were small potatoes.

As I bumped down the dirt road on the bike my best friend Jon had given me for Christmas (a candy-apple red cruiser with three speeds and coaster brakes), it occurred to me that I should probably make sure that there was no connection between any of my visitors and the flying saucer thing. One night-flyer from one of the Dusk Worlds would go a long way towards looking like a flying saucer, especially when seen through booze-fogged eyes.

But when I got back to the house, I was distracted by my two small charges. As I wheeled my bike around to the back of the house, cries from my newly-planted garden caught my attention.

Murgatroyd, the older of my draconic fosterlings and a genius by any world’s standards, had managed, even with his magic curtailed, to create havoc in the garden. Just that morning I had just set out small pumpkin plants since the dragons loved pumpkin guts and seeds. They were like ambrosia – or maybe crack – for dragons, and I wanted to have plenty of pumpkins on hand this fall.

Apparently Murgatroyd still had enough magic to enhance the growth of plants. Both small dragons were effectively bound in pumpkin vines, and neither one wanted to damage the precious vines to get themselves loose.

“I just thought…” Murgatroyd began as I came over to try and untangle the pair. Some of his best excuses began with those three words.

I stopped him. “I know, you just wanted to help.”

He nodded mutely, a pumpkin flower bobbing in his face.

“Well,” I sighed as I unwrapped Cosmo and removed a baby pumpkin from his ear, “no major harm done this time. We’ll just have pumpkins earlier than anyone else. Way earlier.” I looked around the garden. The magic had bled over into the corn and beans, too, and they were a good two weeks farther along than they had any right to be. “And I may actually have you do this again. I wouldn’t mind a chance to grow a few extra vegetables.”

Both small dragons saw this as a threat; like human children, they detested most veggies. I smiled. Murgatroyd, still encased in pumpkin vines, stared at me in horror. “I…I think I’m not sure what I did,” Murgatroyd began.

“Save it. We both know that’s not true. So, for your consequences for using unsupervised magic, you will help me out here in the garden for the next few weeks and we’ll get early harvests on everything and then plant more.” I couldn’t quite contain a smirk.

The newly freed Cosmo was slinking away. “Not so fast, bucko. You were part of this – so you get consequences, too. You get weeding duty, since I’m sure the weeds will be growing magically as well, and they grow fast enough as it is.”

Cosmo had sense enough not to argue with me and nodded before he slunk off to the house.

Murgatroyd, being the source of the magic, was far more wrapped in the vines than Cosmo had been. “Murgatroyd,” I said as I worked at getting him free, “what am I going to do with you? Every time you use magic, something goes wrong. When are you going to learn, little guy?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But statistically, the odds are that eventually I will have success without problems.”

Well, there was no point in continuing this conversation – or trying to unwrap the vines without  damaging them. I finally gave up and broke the vine to Murgatroyd’s intense dismay. “There are plenty more vines.” I told him. “Now run on before I come up with more work for you.” He scurried after Cosmo to the house.

Once inside, I went hunting for Felix, the large blue dragon who tutored my small charges in things draconic and babysat while I was out of the house. I found him replacing the keys in the oversized computer keyboard that the small dragons used.

“Murgatroyd’s claws put holes in the keys again,” he grumbled.

“Then make them out of something harder,” I replied. “You know he’s going to use that thing incessantly. Bridges are his new obsession, and I think he’s looked at pictures of every bridge on the internet. Prepare for the inevitable. By the way, do you know what your two charges were up to while you were fiddling with this?”

That got his attention. His head flew up and he looked at me with panic in his eyes. “Oh, no. What did they do now?”

“Just put the garden on hyper-speed growth trying to get early pumpkins. No real harm, but, Felix, you HAVE to keep a better eye on them!”

“Pumpkins? Early?” His eyes glazed over.

“Felix, you’re missing the point entirely. He used magic – again – without supervision.”

“Yes, sorry, of course you’re right. I’ll go and talk to him right now. Er, can you put this last key on? Maybe if he can go back to looking up bridges and construction of them he’ll stay out of mischief for a while…” Felix handed me the “B” key and took off. I had a feeling that the early pumpkins were going to be more of a topic than the magic use.

Later that evening, while the dragons and I were having dinner, Jon stopped by. He often did in the evenings, helping me put the little dragons to bed and then spending the evening talking to me. Tonight, he had to come through the entire house to the big dining hall to find us; since Felix was staying for dinner, my small table in my small kitchen wasn’t nearly big enough. When Jon came in, Murgatroyd was asking for what felt like the fiftieth time why I wouldn’t take him on a tour of the local bridges so that he could look at the structure of them up close.

Jon dropped a kiss on the top of my head and knocked on the small dragons’ scales gently. They giggled with delight – everyone loved Jon. “Bridges still?” he said to Murgatroyd, who nodded.

“Hey, you left this in your bike basket,” he said, tossing the paper down in the middle of the table and grabbing a plate. “Looks like excitement here in the big city.”

The screaming headline got everyone’s attention. “Fly-ing sa-sau-cers,” Cosmo sounded out slowly. He looked up, and all three dragons asked, “What is a flying saucer?”

Ah, cultural differences. Well, this was why Cosmo and Murgatroyd were being fostered here in this world. They would know both our culture and the draconic one when they were grown. For now, things like magic and elves and gremlins and Night Flyers were part of their everyday experience, but things like flying saucers were a whole new world for them.

“Well,” I started, but Jon said, “Let me handle this. I was an expert on flying saucers from the time I was in grade school.” So, between bites of his dinner, Jon regaled us with the A-Z of flying saucers. Finally, over desert, he wound up with a lecture on Area 51. “And this is why we keep you guys a secret – we don’t want you to end up on ice at Area 51 like the aliens.”

Both small dragons’ eyes were like dinner plates. I could see a sleepless night and nightmares in my immediate future. I turned to Jon with a don’t mess with me look in my eyes. “Jon, I think you’d better tell the little ones that this is just a scary story. NOW.”

Jon had the good grace to blush. “Sorry, guys. There aren’t really any flying saucers. And you won’t end up on ice anywhere. I just got carried away with the story telling.”

Neither of the small dragons looked convinced; Felix didn’t either, for that matter.

“Come on, guys, stories. All stories. Now help me clean up the table,” Jon said, standing up quickly and grabbing a plate. He avoided looking at me.

I grabbed his arm as he tried to follow the others out of the dining room. “Not so fast, buster.”

“I know. I’m really sorry. I just forgot how young they are.” Jon hung his head.

I couldn’t stay too mad at him. “Oh well, I guess it’s not any worse than the time I watched that vampire movie when I was in first grade. I didn’t sleep for a week and had to have a night light for a year, but I recovered. Sort of.”

Jon winced. “Right. I’ll just set myself up in the guest bedroom near the dragons, then, shall I?”

I grinned. “Got it in one.” And I accompanied him to the kitchen.

Jane © April 2010

Advertisement