The Found Dragon (Warm Up Exercise #3)

“Lost something, have you?”

Philip nodded solemnly, wary of the strange woman.

“Speak up now, don’t be shy.”

“… Yer,” he mumbled, cowed by her brisk manner.

“Can I ask what it is you’ve lost?”

“Er…” Hands flailed wildly as the six year old struggled to put into words the image in his head. As always when faced with an adult, his usual gush of words ran dry: “’s a guy. Guy on a thing. Goes ‘RAWR’.”

The school secretary nodded slowly. “Not a mitten then?”

“Nnn…nno,” he stumbled on, “Elf lord.”

“Alright,” She sounded dubious as she resumed her typing. Philip’s heart sank as he worried she had forgotten about him.

“There.”

“Whuh?” Philip replied, unsure if she was talking to him or not.

“There,” she repeated, and now he saw she was pointing at an innocuous looking door to the back of the office, “that’s where we keep the Found Things.”

“Found Things,” he echoed, setting off jerkily across the speckled linoleum, loose shoelaces trailing underfoot.

The wooden door was stained a light maple, light reflecting off the shallow grain. High up a metallic plaque bore the legend “Lost & Found”, but closer to Philip’s eye level someone had tacked up a picture of two kittens playing in a boot, or possibly eating a boot. You never can tell with cats.

Gingerly trying the doorknob, he looked back at the front desk. The secretary was still watching him, face neutral.

“Go on, it won’t bite.”

He stuck his head around the door, squinting into the darkness. A large sigh from behind startled him.

“Light switch is on your left -- your other left. It’s the blue bin in the back.”

The fluorescents revealed a small room, stacked high with file boxes along one wall and excess chairs on the other. To the back, as promised, was the coveted blue bin, almost lost itself, deep in a snowdrift of lone mittens.

The dragon didn’t help it much either.

From atop its hoard of stray treasure, it studied Philip apprehensively. Philip reciprocated, sizing it up mentally. It was not what he would have expected a dragon to look like. Sure, it had the requisite wings, the stubby horns, and the wickedly sharp claws; it even had the lengthy tail, wrapped twice around its eclectic collection. However this one was definitely on the small side, being not much bigger than he was, and he couldn’t help noticing the irises of its reptilian eyes, which could only be described as pale lilac. More striking still was the dragon’s hide, which looked for all the world like yellow corduroy.

The oversized pink and orange woollen bobble hat it peered out from under was a little trying too.

“…Hh…” Apparently adults weren’t the only ones who left Philip speechless. He tried again, “…Hh,” he squeaked.

The dragon was visibly taken aback by his approach. Retreating away from the boy it started to shake, thick sweet-scented smoke bellowing from its nostrils.

“Ngh!” A petrified Philip threw up his hands in surrender.

Deathly silence followed: boy and dragon barely breathing, frozen by the sudden stalemate.

It was the boy who made the first play. Slowly, so slowly it seemed to take an eternity, he moved towards the dragon, watching not it, but something familiar at the base of the pile.

Wedged between a blue and yellow Pac Man lunch box and a battered gym shoe, he’d spotted the toy he’d originally come for -- Philip’s ever faithful friend, Legolas.

In his current incarnation, the action figure of J. R. R. Tolkien’s elven hero sat astride a T-rex, bow at the ready and legs trapped in a duct-tape saddle. Normally the resourceful Philip drove the character around in an orphaned Bat-Mobile, but, as he’d realized that very morning, the Bat-Mobile was “all wrong” for battling Mole-People, that day’s scheduled recess activity.

Philip was close enough to touch the dragon now, which seemed to have calmed, having traded its ominous dark smoke cloud for a suspicious glower. Slowly he bent, to reach his Legolas without panicking the dragon. Yet as he wrapped his fingers around the dinosaur’s tail, the inevitable happened.

Snapping to attention, the dragon drew itself up a good foot taller than the boy. Wings sprung open with fearful energy, and Philip watched in disbelief as the bobble hat fell with great aplomb over the dragon’s eyes.

Roused from his stupor the Philip rushed the door, slamming it so hard behind him he received a glare from the oblivious secretary.

“I see you found it.” She stated simply after a moment. “What took you so long? Buried deep was it?”

“Was a thing. Found Thing. In a hat.” Philip explained. “Goes ‘RAWR’.”

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