Dragon Trouble

 

            Justin felt like he had rocks in his backpack as he left his house to walk to school. He readjusted his bag as he struggled to reach the top of the hill. “Just a little bit farther,” he muttered. As soon as he judged that he was out of sight of his house, he took his backpack off and set it gently on the ground. It wiggled a little.

            Justin was now in front of his friend, Wade’s, house. He leaned down to unzip his bag as Wade walked up. “What’s up, man?” Wade asked with a grin.

            For answer, Justin revealed what he had hidden in his backpack. An orange and yellow snout poked out of the bag, sniffing the air. It was immediately followed by the rest of its long dragon body.

            “Oh, wow, you got it?!!” Wade cried excitedly.

            Justin nodded and said, “We just picked him up last night. His name’s Chester.” He reached out a hand to pat Chester’s soft scales as he fully emerged from the pack. “I was supposed to leave him at home, but I wanted to show everyone.”

            “Dude, you’ll never be able to hide him at school.”

            “He fits in my backpack, and he should be okay in my locker. Dragons like to hide in dark places. Plus, he’s not that big.”

            Wade looked doubtful, but he said, “Well, good luck with that.”

            Justin fit a leash onto Chester, and hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders. Chester flew ahead, straining at the leash. The boys started walking to school as Justin talked about how they had gone to pick up Chester the night before. “My dad put him in a crate in the garage this morning, but I rescued him. No one will know he’s even gone.”

            They were joined by another friend, Carson. Carson exclaimed over Chester and talked about how cool he was, and how lucky Justin was to have a pet dragon. They all exclaimed loudly about dragon facts they knew. None of them had actually had a pet dragon before, but they each pretended to be experts.

            Once they reached the Junior High School, a crowd immediately formed around Justin and his friends. “Aww, look how cute!” one girl exclaimed. “What tricks does he know?” asked another girl. “Can I hold him?” one of the boys asked.

            For ten minutes, Chester was passed around until the bell rang, and people started to dash inside the school. Wade looked worried as Justin tried to shove Chester back into his bag. “Are you sure that’s going to work?” he asked.

            Justin tried to appear confident as he said, “Yeah, it’ll be fine.” The truth was that he was definitely having second thoughts about his plan. It had all seemed so simple before, but now he realized that this probably wasn’t the best idea. Chester didn’t want to be stuffed back inside a bag. After struggling for a minute, Justin finally achieved it and walked inside the school to his locker. He put his backpack inside, and then carefully unzipped it. Out came Chester, and Justin hurriedly shut the locker door before the dragon could escape into the hallway.

            Knowing that he was now very nearly late, he ran to homeroom. As the school day went on, it had rarely seemed so long. After every class, Justin ran back to his locker to check on Chester. At first, he seemed to be doing okay, but the dragon was growing increasingly restless. He chewed several holes into Justin’s backpack, and shredded so much paper that it looked like a confetti explosion.

            The real problem occurred at lunch time. Justin went to his locker to grab his lunch and check on Chester, and discovered that the dragon had already eaten his lunch. Wondering what he was going to eat now, he was a little distracted and Chester escaped. Too late, Justin lunged for him, but his serpentine body slipped right though Justin’s fingers. “Chester!” Justin shouted, panicked.

            Several kids tried to grab the runaway dragon, but Chester evaded them all. He was finally free of the small locker, and he took full advantage of his freedom. He happily explored the hallway full of kids by flying up above them. He ignored Justin’s cries of “Chester, come back!” He spotted something shiny and flew to the school’s trophy case. Trying to get to the golden metal inside, he tapped on the glass with his sharp claws.

            Justin groaned as he heard glass shatter. He reached the trophy case, just in time to see Chester fly away with a glistening track trophy. The dragon perched himself on a high shelf to better admire his prize.

            By this time, the whole school knew about Chester, and everyone seemed to be in the hallway, watching what was happening. Justin groaned again as he saw Principal Terrence walk toward him. “Is that your dragon?” he asked.

            “Yes, sir,” Justin mumbled, with his eyes cast down.

            “No pets at school, son. I’ll have to call your parents.”

            Justin sighed as he thought of the talking to he would get at home. Why did he ever think it would be a good idea to bring a dragon to school? It took twenty minutes to catch Chester and put him on his leash. Looking back, it was probably the most interesting lunch period that the school had ever seen. Everyone had ideas about how to catch the dragon. After several failed attempts, they finally managed to catch Chester by luring him with the remaining trophies from the school’s trophy case. They set everything in the middle of the hall, and waited for Chester to come and grab one of the trophies. Chester took six or seven of them before someone was finally able to grab him. By that time, Justin’s mom was there, waiting to take Justin and Chester home.

            Holding firmly on to Chester’s leash, Justin climbed into the car, exhausted. His mom had several things to say, but Justin was only half listening. He had learned his lesson today: Never, ever bring a dragon to school.