Chapter 2

One morning about a week after their new “cat” moved in, the Harrows family got a letter in their new home.  It was from their aunt Susan.

“Eric, go get the cats.  I think they’re fighting again,” Mrs. Harrows said absentmindedly as she opened the letter from her sister.

“Yes, Mom,” he replied.  Slipping out of his chair, he left his breakfast and went to find their cats.  Their actual cat, a brown cat called Fudge, wasn’t too happy about having a baby dragon in the house.  Bem ate all of Fudge’s food because he was still growing, even though he looked like a full grown cat with gray hair.

Bem and Fudge stopped fighting with each other long enough to look at Eric with wide eyes, and then continued fighting.  Eric said, “If you two keep that up then no treats for either of you for two weeks.”  That made them stop immediately as it usually did.  Eric smiled in satisfaction and went back to the kitchen to finish eating his breakfast.

The cats started fighting again as soon as he sat down.

Mr. Harrows sighed.  “I think we’re going to have to get rid of that stray, kids.  It’s just causing too much trouble.”

Jane whined, “But Dad, Fudge is just territorial in a few weeks, or months, he’ll get used to Bem!  We don’t want to get rid of him!”

“Yeah, Dad, really.  Wasn’t Fudge like that with Rover before he died?” Eric pointed out.

Mr. Harrows laughed and said, “That was such a good dog.  But that’s not my point.  My point is I don’t think I can deal with them fighting anymore for much longer.”

“You may not have to,” Mrs. Harrows put in, setting her sister’s letter down.

“What do you mean, Mom?” Eric asked.

“Yeah, what do you mean?” Jane echoed.

Mrs. Harrows smiled.  “Susan just moved to Alaska and she wants a cat.  When we go visit her later this month we’ll just give it to her.”

“Later this month?  Dear, I don’t think I can take that much time off of work,” Mr. Harrows said.

“But honey, she just moved.  She needs someone to help her set up her home.”

“We just moved, and we need someone to help us set up our home,” Mr. Harrows argued.

“But she doesn’t have two lovely children to help her?”  Mrs. Harrows smiled at her twins, who smiled back as they finished their breakfast.  “Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to go to Alaska?  It’ll be a new adventure.”

“They’re eight years old.  Don’t you think they’re a little young for adventures?”

Jane couldn’t take it anymore.  “Dad, Eric and I want to go.  You’ll be with us the entire time, right?  So it won’t really matter how old or young we are, will it?”

“I suppose not, but still.”

Mrs. Harrows laughed.  “You’re such a sourpuss, dear.  Just let me and the kids plan the trip and all you will have to do is get some time off from work.”

Mr. Harrows rubbed the back of his head.  “Well, maybe, but I just started the job. . . .”

“I’m sure your boss will be fine with it,” Mrs. Harrows insisted.

“I guess so. . . .”

“So are we going?” Jane asked.

Mr. Harrows sighed.  “I suppose it’s okay.”

Jane jumped up and down and started screeching.  The rest of the family, used to this occurrence, covered their ears and waited for her to stop.  It took a few minutes, but she finally did.

“Now that that’s over with, when are we leaving?” Mrs. Harrows asked her family.

“Tomorrow!” Jane shouted, jumping up and down again.

Eric sighed and asked her, “Why are you always so hyper?”  She stuck her tongue out at him.  He laughed.  “I love you, too.”

Mr. Harrows butt in and said, “I think tomorrow is a bit too early.  How about next week?”

Jane thought about it for a bit.  “Fine, but I get to bring an entire suitcase this time, not just a duffel bag.”

“Deal,” her father laughed.

Eric told her reasonably, “Jane, you only ever need what’s in a duffel bag.  Whenever you bring a suitcase you always have too much.”

She scowled at him.  “Be quiet and help me unpack the rest of my boxes.”

“You aren’t finished yet?”

“Didn’t I say to be quiet?” she snapped.

He smiled at her.  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied as he followed her out of the room.

Mrs. Harrows sighed.  “When did she get so hot tempered?”

“I was going to ask when did he get so smart,” her husband chuckled.

She laughed.  “If he’s so smart, why does he bring back such bad report cards every year?”

Mr. Harrows shrugged.  “The world may never know.”

“Kids!  Your cat made a mess in the kitchen!” Mrs. Harrows called later that night.

Jane hugged.  “Why does Bem always do that?  We tell him over and over that he’s supposed to go potty in the litter box.”

“He’s still a baby, Jane.  He doesn’t know any better,” Eric pointed out as he got up and walked into the bright kitchen.

Jane followed closely behind him.  “But isn’t he supposed to be smart?  The manual said that dragons are smart.”

“Those are adult dragons, not babies.”

Jane wrinkled her nose and complained, “Eric, it smells.”

“That’s why I’m cleaning it up, not you.  I’m not so much of a girl.”  Eric got out a rag and some disinfectant spray and started to clean up the floor.  Bem, who was sitting in the corner, looked up at him sheepishly.  Eric told him, “Don’t worry, I forgive you.  Just don’t do it again, okay?”

In response, Bem got up and rubbed his head against Eric’s leg.  Eric smiled down at him.

Once Eric was done cleaning, he and Jane wen’t to Jane’s room to plan.

“If I’m reading this map of Alaska right, the place where Bem’s mom is is only fifty miles from Aunt Susan’s house,” Jane told her brother.

He frowned.  “Didn’t this book say that the dragons live in a different world than us?  How can his mom be fifty miles from Aunt Susan?”

She waved her hand at him and started flipping through the book, not paying attention to what she was looking at.  “The portal, Eric, the portal.  To get to Bem’s mom we have to go through a portal, and the portal is fifty miles from Aunt Susan.”

“Wait!  Go back to that page,” Eric ordered.

“What page?”

Instead of telling her, he took the book out of her hand and, ignoring her protests, he went to a page with only the word “map” at the top.

“What’s that?” Jane asked, looking at the page over his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.  He touched the page and asked it softly, “What is this?”

“Instantly a map of North America on it.  There was a star where Northern Minnesota would be that said “you are here” next to it.

“Cool!”  Jane said.  “How does it work?  Eric, figure it out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.  Thinking it over, he told the book, “Zoom in.”  When he did, the picture changed so that it was only showing Minnesota and the “you are here” star.  He smiled and told it, “Show details.”

Again the picture changed, and this time it not only showed Minnesota and the “you are here” star,but also towns and rivers and everything else.

“That’s amazing.  Tell it to zoom in again,” Jane begged.

It did, and it showed their street and their house, and even the little flowers in their garden.  When they told it to zoom in a third time, the map showed a picture of the inside of their house.

Jane plopped down on her bed.  “That was so awesome!”

Eric nodded.  “It makes me wonder what we’re getting ourselves into, though.”

Jane shrugged and replied, “It can’t be that bad, can it?  Bem’s only a baby after all.”

“True. . . .”

Just them their mom called, “Kids!  Dinner’s ready!  It’s your favorite!”

They looked at each other and yelled, “Mac n’ cheese!”  Slamming the door shut behind them they raced out of the room to help set the table.

Two ominous eyes looked in through Jane’s window.  They saw Bem sleeping on Jane’s bed and chuckled.  And then they blinked and were gone.

Later that night Jane was sitting in her bed, not able to sleep.  She was staring at her light blue walls trying to think of something she could do when she heard the noise.  It was a small thump near her door.  Getting up, she went over to investigate it.

“Oh, drat!  I think I stubbed my toe, Hahn,” a girl’s voice said.

“It’s your fault that you didn’t bring a light, Callan,” a boy’s voice replied.

Jane walked towards the voices carefully, not sure about what to do.  She was so worried about the voices that she didn’t even realize that Bem was sleeping in the middle of her floor, so she ran into him.  He meowed a complaint and got up, glaring at her.

“Hahn, did you hear that?” Callan asked.

“Yes I did.  I think they human girl is awake.”

Callan sighed.  “This is going to be much more difficult than we had originally thought it would be.”

“I think she’s walking this way.  Get out of the way!” Hahn hissed at her.

“Oh, fine!”

Jane looked and tried to see something in front of her, but she just wasn’t able to see a thing.  It was too dark in her room.

Just then Bem walked over to her door and started meowing loudly.  Callan shrieked and said, “Bad kitty!  Bad!  Oh, Hahn, it’s so big!”

“It’s just a cat.  We’ll be fine.  Don’t let it get near your wings, though,” Hahn advised.

Jane stopped walking, startled.  ‘Did he just say wings?’ she thought.  ‘It can’t be.  Can it?’

Looking around her room, Jane found a small flashlight that would give off just enough light for her to see.  Turning it on, she pointed it at the floor by where Bem was, and was surprised by what she saw.

Sitting on the ground in the hallway were two little fairies.

The girl, Callan, had light blonde hair and big blue eyes.  She gasped and whispered to Hahn, “Do you think she can see us?”

“I don’t know,” replied the boy with dark red hair.  “Maybe.  Some people can.”

“But that’s only if they’ve met some other magical creature!”

Jane cleared her throat and whispered softly, “I can see and hear you, just so you know.”

Callan squeaked and hid behind Hahn.  Hahn sighed and replied, “So we’ve been found out.  Mom will be so mad.  But how can you see us?  Have you met some other creature before?”

Jane pointed at Bem.  “He’s a dragon.”

Hahn and Callan gasped in surprise.  Callan said, “A dragon!  Oh my, oh dear!”

Hahn told Jane, “I wouldn’t tell many people that you have a pet dragon, little girl.  It would be far too dangerous.”

“What do you mean?  He just hatched last week!  He can’t be that dangerous.  Can he?”

“Oh, very very dangerous.  We don’t like dragons.  Dragons bring disaster wherever they go,” Callan replied in a small, fearful voice.

“What she means is that dragons have a bad history, and there are a lot of creatures who want to use dragons poorly for their own gain.  I would be very careful if I were you,” Hahn said.

Jane frowned.  “I don’t really get what you mean.”

“That’s not our problem. Bye!”  Callan grabbed Hahn’s arm and started flying, dragging him behind her.  Jane gasped when they flew right past her, but they went out the window without saying another word.

Perplexed, Jane sat back down on her bed and looked down at Bem, who was staring up at her innocently.  “Is it really that dangerous to keep you?  I’d better read that book.”

Getting up yet again, Jane crossed her room to her dresser and picked up the Manual, opening to the history section.  Then she started reading.

Dragons have generally had a very sad history.  Once, a very long time ago, they ruled all the lands in their world.  Nothing could defeat them, they were so powerful.  The only thing that could defeat them was themselves.

There were two powerful clans, or families, of dragons.  The first one, the one that ruled the land, was good and kind.  The dragons in that clan tried to help the humans as much as they could.  However, the second clan was not kind.  Wherever the dragons in this clan went, they destroyed everything.  These are the dragons you hear about in stories, the ones that kidnap princesses and eat horses and stuff like that.

These clans didn’t like each other.  The kind dragons tried to be nice to the evil dragons as much as they could, but the evil dragons just didn’t want to be friends with the kind dragons.  There was nothing the kind dragons could do about it.

Then the dragons had a civil war.  They fought against each other for hundreds of years.  The humans watched them in horror, and eventually they were able to live without the help of the kind dragons.  Eventually the humans forgot how the dragons used to be kind to them and help them.

Finally, after five hundred years, the war of the dragons ended.  There were hardly any dragons left.  Instead of having hundreds of thousands of dragons before, there was only about a thousand left.  The humans saw that the dragons were greatly weakened and took advantage of this.  They tried to kill the rest of the dragons so they would have the world all to themselves.

However, the humans could not pull this off alone.  They needed the help of the elves.  The elves were a very powerful race that usually kept to themselves.  The humans didn’t know what side the elves were on, so they tried to convince the elves that it was a good thing for the dragons to be destroyed.

The elves were always very good friends to the dragons, even if they didn’t really know each other all that well.  When they heard the humans’ plans, they elves warned the dragons and helped them go into hiding.  After all of the dragons were hidden, the elves hid away themselves.

The humans were very angry about this.  They searched throughout the entire realm, but they could not find any trace of the dragons or the elves.  Even to this day, almost a thousand years later, we do not know where the remainder of the dragons and the elves are, or if they’re ever going to come out again.

Jane closed the book and looked down at Bem.  “I never knew that!  I wonder where you came from, then, if dragons haven’t been seen for a thousand years.”  Setting the book aside, Jane sat in her bed with many unanswered questions flying around her head.

Author's Note

Okay, here's what I want you to look at:
1) the way I developed the characters (I haven't had to do that in years so I'm a bit rusty)
2) if the history part makes sense
3) if the entire thing would make sense to a six-year-old boy
Thank you for reading!