Dragon's First Christmas Read online

  Chapter 3: Challenge

  The American Museum of Natural History was where they had met Virgil, and it was the one other place Rose could think of where there might be someone with helpful insights on baby dragons.

  Someone in particular, and it wasn’t Director Campbell.

  Mr. Teedle, the curator of the dragon collection, was in the Research Library on the fourth floor. It was locked because it was not open to the public, but Rose found a staff member to open it for her.

  As the door opened, Rose maneuvered the pram to push it through.

  “What’s that?” Mr. Teedle looked up from the table where he had been carefully paging through a book. “We’re not open to the public right now. The hours are two pm to five thir—” He stopped, recognizing her. “Oh, Miss Palmer. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Mrs. Wainscott,” Henry corrected him, coming in after Rose.

  “Oh. Yes.” Mr. Teedle coughed. “Please do forgive me.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Rose said. “I often forget that myself.”

  Mr. Teedle ran his hand down the slick surface of his greying hair. “And I see you have brought Virgil. Is he . . . ah . . . not likely to burn the reference materials in here?”

  “He’s asleep,” Henry said. “He tired himself out throwing a fit on the way over here.”

  “Thank heavens,” Mr. Teedle said, breathing a sigh of relief. “This is not a room where a firebreathing infant ought to be, you realize.”

  Henry’s smile grew strained, and Rose recognized that his patience had frayed considerably due to Virgil’s tantrum.

  “Perhaps we could speak outside?” she asked Mr. Teedle. “We have some advice we’d like to ask you about Virgil.”

  “Certainly,” the man said, setting his book aside. He stood and walked to the doorway, where he then waited with his fingers tapping his thigh while Henry struggled to turn the pram around and wrestle it back out into the hallway.

  Rose cast a longing look around the Research Library before she followed them out. She had spent every spare moment she could in this room for years; that was how she had become acquainted with Mr. Teedle. When she had been in high school, this had involved a great deal of irritation on her father’s part, and a great deal of protests from her mother that they really would have liked to see her before six pm on Tuesdays through Thursdays.

  This had never caused a jot of difference. Nor had starting college: she had simply spent what time she could here, and then gone home to complete her homework before starting dinner. Unlike her roommates, she had never been particularly interested in social activities, so she had felt no great loss in missing these.

  But now, she had not been here once since Virgil had hatched, as it was a struggle merely to find time to do her homework and sleep. She had barely even come to the museum since then. With a pang of loss, Rose watched the door close, shutting her out of her favorite place in the city.

  “What is it?” Mr. Teedle asked. “Are you wondering how much larger he will grow in the next month? We have some estimated charts based on his growth over the past eight weeks.”

  “No,” Henry said. “Well, yes. That would be nice to know, but . . .”

  “We have some specific concerns,” Rose said. “Namely: what would you recommend as a long-term bed for Virgil? Somewhere that he cannot escape from as he gets older, and which would be both fireproof and safe for him?”

  Mr. Teedle looked thoughtful. “Perhaps something made out of brick, like is used for a fireplace? My daughter-in-law has a wooden contraption called a playpen that she uses for their daughter. I wish those had been around when my children were babies. Something like that, only made out of brick, might be appropriate for Virgil.”

  Rose’s heart soared. That was a truly useful idea!

  “How fast could we get one made?” Henry asked.

  “Well, I imagine you would need the permission of your landlord to install what would amount to a permanent piece of furniture,” Mr. Teedle said. “But other than that, I believe the cement takes one or two days to dry? If you could find someone willing to sell you bricks and lay them tonight, it could be ready by Christmas.”

  “Perfect,” Henry said. “Where could we go to buy bricks?”

  And how much will it cost? Rose wondered. They had already spent a concerning amount on presents and the now-charcoaled tree. Despite Rose’s vehement protests that it was unnecessary and a waste of money, Henry had gone out and bought Virgil several more stuffed animals.

  Never mind that the only interest their dragon son seemed to have in the teddy bear Henry had bought him was to dig his claws into it and pull out stuffing.

  Never mind that it had been singed twice from Virgil breathing fire on it.

  Never mind that Virgil referred to it as “prey.”

  “Actually,” Mr. Teedle said excitedly, “I believe that Mr. Jones is currently working as a bricklayer! I’m sure he would be happy to help. If anyone can understand your situation, he will. I’m sure he would be happy to help!”

  Rose tried not to show her dismay. While Harrison Jones was a friendly man, she was not particularly fond of him. He was rarely kempt, and his breath usually smelled quite unpleasant.

  She glanced over at Henry, and he looked no more enthused than she felt. She suspected Henry’s dislike of the man stemmed from the fact that he had allowed Violet to be kept in a zoo with no concerns or argument. She had chosen him to be her father, and then he had cheerfully turned around and handed her to the care of others who saw her as no more than an extremely precious, rare animal.

  Still, necessities were necessities. It was true that Harrison Jones would likely be happy to help.

  “How do we contact Mr. Jones?” Rose asked politely.

  “I don’t believe he has a phone,” Mr. Teedle said, frowning. “At least, not of his own. He lives at a boarding house.”

  Of course he does, Rose thought. What need has he for a fixed address when he can pay someone to do his housekeeping and keep his daughter inside a zoo?

  But perhaps that was unfair. After all, he had not planned to have a daughter: Violet had come into his life suddenly, just as Virgil had come into Rose and Henry’s.

  Perhaps he is making do the best he can, the same as we are, Rose thought.

  “Ah! I know,” Mr. Teedle said. “I know he visits Violet daily. Perhaps the best way to contact him would be to go to the zoo and wait until he comes to see her? I’m sure Virgil wouldn’t mind playing with her while you’re waiting, and I assume you two both have the week off school, so if you have no pressing other concerns . . .”

  Henry cringed.

  “We were just there,” Rose said. “It did not end well. Virgil behaved quite abominably.”

  “And if we go back now, he’ll think his tantrum convinced us to go back,” Henry growled.

  “I’m familiar with that challenge,” Mr. Teedle chuckled.

  “We can leave him a letter with our phone number to call,” Rose decided. “Mr. Teedle, could we perhaps borrow a pen and a sheet of paper?”

  “Of course,” the man said.

  Thirty minutes later, they were walking down 5th Avenue away from Central Park Zoo.

  “Do you think those people ever worry about money?” Henry asked longingly, looking across the street at the abodes that had been built for the super-rich.

  “I think probably most people worry about money,” Rose said. “Whether or not they need to.”

  “It would be nice just to know our money won’t run out before I graduate,” Henry sighed, taking a hand off the pram to rub his forehead while he continued pushing it with the other. “Virgil’s carnivorous diet is costing more than it should.”

  “Then perhaps,” Rose hinted strongly, “he does not need a diet of stuffed animals to supplement it.”

  “You can’t be stingy with a child at Christmas!” Henry said.

  Rose snorted.

  There was a wriggling in the pram.
/>   Virgil liked that noise. He was going to snort, too. Snort, snort, snort —

  “No!” Rose and Henry shouted, diving for the pram to grab their son before he set the whole thing ablaze.

  Chapter 4: Charm

  When they arrived back home, their landlord was waiting outside the door for them.

  “Do you have something to tell me?” he demanded, his tone strongly implying that the correct answer was yes.

  Henry swallowed. “Virgil burned down the Christmas tree last night. We caught it before it caused too much damage, but —”

  “Oh, really?” the landlord asked heatedly. “Have you seen the carpet in there?”

  “We apologize for the carpet,” Rose said swiftly. “We are taking steps to make sure this will not happen again.”

  “I’ve told you tenants again and again, don’t light the candles until Christmas Eve!” Mr. Torgerson fumed. “And don’t leave them lit overnight!”

  Henry looked startled.

  Rose was taken aback.

  “You’ve . . . experienced burning Christmas trees before?” Henry asked cautiously.

  “I wish I could just ban them outright,” the man huffed. “This is the third time something like this has happened in the past five years! But when I tried to ban Christmas trees last year, oh no, everyone called me Scrooge.”

  Rose bit back a chuckle. The man’s first name was Ebenezer. She didn’t think showing amusement at the nickname would improve their landlord’s mood.

  “Well, we’re very sorry about the . . . candles,” Henry said. “We’ll make sure that won’t . . . happen again.”

  “Of course it won’t, because you are not lighting those candles again!” Mr. Torgerson said. “And you will pay for the carpet!”

  Henry cringed.

  What a jolly season, Rose thought. I hope we will not be destitute by the time it’s over.

  Virgil poked his head out of the pram, as if he had determined that this would be the best moment to make his presence known.

  Could he eat now? He was hungry. Hungry, hungry, hungry. Where was his food?

  “Right here,” Henry said, walking into the kitchen. He opened up the icebox and pulled out a covered bowl that had chicken meat, raw egg, and butter mushed together. He pulled the cloth off the top of the bowl and scooped up some of the mash with his hand.

  Mr. Torgerson watched with evident curiosity. “Is that what a dragon eats?”

  “Back in the Cretaceous Period, he would have eaten one of the prey species of dragons,” Rose said. “We’ve found that bird meat is the closest approximation we can come to it.”

  Virgil wriggled his tail over the side of the pram, and then tumbled out. He landed on his head on the carpet.

  Mr. Torgerson’s eyes widened, and he looked about to lunge forward to see if the baby was all right.

  Virgil rolled over onto his stomach, not seeming to notice the fall. He half-rolled, half-crawled across the floor to where Henry was waiting.

  “OW!” Henry shouted as Virgil put one of his clawed hands onto his ankle. He reached down and unhooked the baby from his pant leg.

  Virgil was hungry. Virgil wanted food. Virgil wanted to be fed by mouth.

  “No, for the thousandth time, I’m not putting it in my mouth,” Henry said. He leaned over and held out his hand.

  Virgil’s neck darted forward, and he snapped up the chicken and chewed busily. Sharp teeth glinted as it shot forward again.

  Mr. Torgerson watched with awed apprehension. “Doesn’t he bite you?” he asked.

  “Thankfully, no,” Henry said. “Which is more than I can say for some human children. My nephews, for instance.”

  The landlord chuckled nervously.

  Rose decided that this might be the best time to speak up. “We’d like to build a brick bed for Virgil to sleep in,” she said. “This would allow us to restore the oven to its original purpose. We will cover the cost, and it will eventually be a playpen, as well.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Torgerson said, seeming too riveted watching the dragon to think much about the question. “Would it be, um . . . removable?”

  “We could lay a layer of cardboard on the floor so that any cement drips on that, and nothing is affixed to the floor,” Rose said.

  “Hmm,” the landlord said, his eyes on Virgil. “You know, when I first read what the paper said, I thought it was some kind of hoax or joke. And then I saw you two walk out with that thing . . .”

  “Dragon,” Henry said. “He is a dragon. Not a thing.”

  “You know, I’d love the chance to meet the other one,” the landlord said. “Is it true they’re both intelligent? Do they both talk like . . . that?”

  Virgil was done eating, and now he wanted more food. The hand was empty! Where was his food?

  Henry glanced down and reached into the bowl to scoop out more for Virgil.

  “Both Deinonychus dragons are telepathic, yes,” Rose said. “We believe it was a trait unique to their species, but we have no way to be sure. We’re certainly glad it’s the case, because there would be no other way to communicate with them.”

  “Bet it’s quite an adjustment,” the landlord said. “Eating chicken instead of stegosauruses, huh?”

  Virgil didn’t know what he meant. Why was the strange man thinking about bones?

  “Stegosaurus lived in the late Jurassic Period,” Rose said. “Deinonychus come from the early Cretaceous. They were approximately thirty-five million years apart. It’s highly unlikely the two species ever met.”

  Virgil’s father thought Virgil’s mother was being pedantic again. Virgil didn’t know what that meant. Why was Virgil’s mother annoyed with Virgil’s father?

  The landlord coughed, as if trying to hide his amusement.

  Rose smiled. For once, Virgil has managed to be helpful. It seems the child has some charm.

  The little dragon raised his head, eyes bright with curiosity.

  Virgil wanted to know what charm was. Hey! Virgil hadn’t been done eating! Virgil’s father shouldn’t take the food away!

  “We have your permission, then?” Rose asked rapidly, hoping that Virgil would not spoil the man’s goodwill while they had it. “To build the bed for Virgil?”

  “Hm?” the landlord asked. “Yes, I suppose so. As long as you cover the cost, and nothing is permanently altered.” He glared in the direction of the oven, as if his gaze alone would remove the metal doorstop and nail affixed to it.

  “Thank you,” Rose said in relief.

  The next half an hour was tense, as they waited for the landlord to leave, and he seemed to want to hover, watching Virgil with rapt interest.

  Rose was terribly afraid that, at some random moment, their son would decide to snort, and sparks would fly from his nose. If he did that, the landlord might catch on that it hadn’t been the candles that had burned down the tree, and his goodwill might transform to fear or hostility.

  Then it occurred to her thinking about that might give Virgil the idea, so she tried to pull her mind away from the possibility. But that, of course, led inexorably back to it. So at last, she moved as far away from the kitchen as possible without being rude, and hoped that she was out of Virgil’s range.

  “What do you do for dinner?” the landlord asked curiously. “Seeing as your oven is not hooked up any longer?”

  “We use our neighbors’,” Rose said. “Speaking of which, I actually should go and start preparing that now . . .”

  It was early yet, an hour before she normally would go next door and ask, but anything seemed better than sitting around here waiting for him to leave.

  “Ah, yes,” Mr. Torgerson said, standing. “Of course. My apologies for intruding. But no more lighting candles in here, no matter how traditional it is!” he added sternly.

  “Yes, sir,” Henry said, nodding quickly.

  Rose nearly collapsed with relief on the couch as the door shut after the man. She put her head in her hands.

  Henry walked over, carr
ying Virgil, and rubbed her shoulder. “I know,” he said. “I’m glad we didn’t get thrown out, too.”

  Virgil was sleepy. Virgil was tired. Virgil was soaking. Virgil was wet. Wet, wet, wet, wet, wet . . .

  “Your turn,” Henry said, holding up the dragon.

  Rose sighed and collected the baby. The cloth pinned around his hindquarters and the top of his tail was, indeed, soaked through and smelly.

  “Thank you for not breathing fire in front of the landlord,” she murmured as she went to find a fresh one.

  Virgil was too tired. Virgil was wet. Wet, wet, wet, wet . . .

  Chapter 5: Chimney

  “Can’t be done,” Harrison Jones’s voice said as soon as Rose picked up the phone.

  “Excuse me?” Rose asked, breathing heavily.

  She was trying not to pant. She had run to grab the phone before it could awaken Henry, seeing as he had decided to get an hour of sleep as soon as Virgil had settled down for a nap.

  “Can’t be done,” Harrison repeated. It sounded like he was shrugging. “Not tonight, not tomorrow night, certainly not on Christmas. It might be possible to have someone do it in a month, if you wanted it done outside, but indoors? Maybe if you paid my company a lot, and I do mean a lot, of money, they’d be willing to take on such a major construction project, but you’d need the agreement of your landlord.”

  “But it’s not a major project,” Rose objected. “It’s —”

  “It is a major project,” Harrison’s voice said. “You’re talking about designing something that doesn’t currently exist, and which has no market outside yourselves.”

  “But it would be similar to a chimney!” Rose protested. “Or a playpen! Nothing complicated at all!”

  “That’s not what you said in your note,” he retorted. “You said you wanted something he can’t crawl out of. Whenever he starts climbing, I doubt he would find difficulties with a brick wall.”

  Rose said nothing. He was, appallingly, correct. If they wanted a bed that would keep their son penned in each night for longer than a few weeks or months, however long it took the little dragon to learn to climb, they would require something that would be safe, something that would be easy to deposit him into, and yet something that would be difficult for him to escape on his own. Her mind failed to imagine a shape which would accomplish all of these things.