Burn(7)

People talking about the Inagawas used the phrase “at least” a lot. At least Hisao had managed to get his own farm back; not everyone had been so lucky. At least no one bothered them too much anymore in this part of the country where there were at least a few other Japanese families around.

Sarah was careful to never say at least around Jason if she could help it. They also never went to the Puyallup Fair, which ran every September, no matter how many times people at school said it was great.

“Did the dragon tell you his name?” Jason asked now.

“I’m not even supposed to tell him mine. I’m not even supposed to call him him.”

Jason kicked a rock across the road as they walked. “The red we hired when I was a kid we called Grumpy. She didn’t seem to mind.”

“Like from Snow White? Ours would definitely mind.”

“You could call him Doc. Or Sneezy. That’s a good name for a dragon.”

“Or Lippy,” Sarah said. “He sure does know how to talk back.”

“They’re supposed to be scholars, blues. Super-smart, but tricky.”

Sarah scanned the horizon. “We should be able to see him now.”

They were coming around the last small hill that blocked the view of Sarah’s family farm—Jason’s was down the road another half-mile. The two fields that needed clearing were farthest off the road, edging onto the base of another hill with a radio tower on top that began the vast forest that reached all the way to Mount Rainier.

“There,” Sarah said.

The dragon rose from the field amid faint columns of white smoke, carefully controlling a stream of flame. He had to, lest he start a forest fire, but dragons could control their greatest weapon with terrifying ease.

“It’s small,” Jason said.

“Blues are smaller,” Sarah said, feeling oddly defensive about her dragon. Though, she supposed, it was in no way her dragon. “He’s still plenty big.”

“And agile . . .” The dragon spun, perhaps a little ostentatiously, before aiming quick white-hot blasts at three of the thicker trees in the field. They were more or less vaporized in equally quick puffs of white smoke.

“He’s showing off,” Sarah said.

“He’s going to attract attention,” Jason said, and the words were almost prophecy, for who should come driving down the road behind them but Deputy Kelby himself.

“Nuts,” Jason muttered under his breath as the police car pulled to a stop next to them.

“Shouldn’t you two be at your chores?” the deputy said through his window, kept open despite the cold so he had a place to spit his chewing tobacco.

“We’re on our way home from school,” Sarah said.

He smiled at her, his teeth smeared with black dregs of tobacco slime. He spat it “accidentally” too close to their feet. “You’re on your way home from school what now?”

“We’re on our way home from school, sir,” Sarah said.

“Heard your daddy hired a claw. A Russki, no less.”

Sarah and Jason turned to see the dragon now tearing up burnt stumps with its back legs and tossing them almost jauntily into a pile. “That’s some good detective work, Deputy,” Jason said.

Kelby’s face hardened fast as a snakebite. “You giving me lip, boy?”

Sarah stepped in, trying to head off trouble. “Nothing against the law in hiring a dragon, and they aren’t involved in governments—”

“Nothing against the law,” said Deputy Kelby, “about marrying outside your own kind.” He spit again. “Don’t mean people gotta like it.” He looked back out to the dragon. “Don’t mean people gotta put up with it.”

“Well, yeah, actually,” Jason said, “it kind of does.”

“Jason,” Sarah hissed.

“What did you say to me?” Deputy Kelby was all eyes on Jason now.

“If there’s no law against it,” Jason said, “then that actually does mean people have to put up with it. That’s how laws work.”

Deputy Kelby took a moment, then he put on his Deputy hat with a deliberateness that spoke of no good whatsoever. “Was it law,” he said, “when your country bombed mine at Pearl Harbor?”

“This is my country,” Jason said. “This one, right here, where we’re standing.”

“Was it law,” Kelby said, getting out of his car, one hand on his gun, the other on the billy club in his belt, “that killed my daddy in Guadalcanal?”

“Was it law that dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” Jason said, his gaze level with the deputy’s.

“Jason,” Sarah said again, sickened at how quickly this situation had gone south. It was getting worse, too. Kelby unbuckled the billy club.

“Human girl,” a voice rumbled from the sky. The dragon was suddenly overhead, flying so close Deputy Kelby ducked. It turned a curve, then landed in the road, resting one long, hooked foreclaw on the hood of the deputy’s car, for seemingly no good reason whatsoever.

“Your father wants you home,” the dragon said, turning his good eye to take in all three of them.

“Get your filthy claw off my vehicle,” Deputy Kelby snapped, now unlatching the leather strap of his gun.