Chapter 2
The next morning Kevin and Emalyn got up early and helped themselves to some muffins and cold cereal. When they finished eating breakfast, Kevin tiptoed over to his dad and gently tapped him on the shoulder.
“What do you need?” Brian asked in a groggy voice.
“Is it okay if Emalyn and I go for a hike on Castle Mountain?”
“Yeah, take your cell phone and plenty of water so you don’t get dehydrated.”
“I already have both,” Kevin replied.
“Then have fun, be safe, and make sure you’re back in time for lunch.”
“Okay, we will,” Kevin promised as he opened the trailer door for Emalyn, and then followed her out.
“Your dad didn’t seem worried about us going for a hike by ourselves.”
“No, he trusts both of us, and he knows if we get into any trouble we can call him.”
“I didn’t think a cell phone would work up here?”
“Yeah, we’re high enough up that we can get a signal from the cell towers along the highway,” Kevin replied as he pulled it out and showed her it had a weak signal. “It will get stronger once we get out of the trees.”
“Then lead the way mountain goat,” Emalyn remarked in a light-hearted tone.
“If we make it to the top, you’re getting a special nickname,” Kevin smiled.
“I hope it’s better than the other ones you were suggesting.”
“Oh, you’re going to love it,” Kevin promised as he headed up a ravine that led towards Castle Mountain.
“Did the storm scare you at all?” Emalyn asked as she walked along side him.
“A little bit,” Kevin admitted. “How about you?”
“Yeah, I didn’t like it when the trailer began to shake, but at least it wasn’t hit by lighting.”
“That would have been shocking,” Kevin joked.
“You’re so funny,” Emalyn giggled. “I like it when you punned your dad last night.”
“I do that all the time just to tease him… and the worse the pun, the quicker he responds,” Kevin snickered as he continued up the slope.
When they reached a brushy area, Kevin slowed down and helped Emalyn through the worse parts of it so it wouldn’t scratch her arms or legs.
“You weren’t kidding about this being a difficult climb,” Emalyn remarked once her lungs started to burn from the thinning air.
“Let’s stop for a minute so we can catch our breath.”
“How high do you think we are?” Emalyn asked after she took a few sips from her water bottle.
“My dad said the top of Castle Mountain is close to ten thousand feet, and I know the lake is about eight... so I’m guessing that we are somewhere around nine at this point.”
“Wow, that’s pretty high”.
“You should take a picture,” Kevin suggested.
“That’s a good idea, that way I can show my mom what the lake looks like from way up here.”
“When we get to the boulder field, you’ll be able to see all the way to Denver.”
“No way?” Emalyn remarked as if she didn’t quite believe him.
“I’m serious, and if we reach the top, I think we can see Kansas.”
“Then let’s go higher,” Emalyn said with a determined look in her eyes.
“Alright, do you want to lead for awhile?”
“Nope, I want you to be my trail guide,” Emalyn replied.
“Alright, I’ll take you higher.”
As the slope continued to steepen, Kevin would stop every so often so they could rest, and take in the amazing views.
“We’re almost to the boulder field,” he remarked when the trees started to thin out. “Do you want to keep going?”
“Yes, I want to see all the way to Kansas,” Emalyn replied.
“Alright Dorothy,” Kevin laughed.
“Dorothy… as in the Wizard of OZ?”
“Yeah, wasn’t she in Kansas when a tornado took her to another realm?”
“Your jokes are from another realm,” Emalyn teased.
“Okay, maybe that wasn’t my best material, but you’re the only one who lets me joke around with them without making fun of me.”
“I like your jokes, even the silly ones,” Emalyn admitted.
“Thanks,” Kevin replied before heading on.
When he passed by a large tree just before the start of the boulder field, he noticed that it had a spiraling mark running down the length of it.
“I think this tree was hit by lightning,” Kevin remarked as he stared at it for a moment.
“How can you tell?”
“There’s a burn scar spiraling down the trunk, and a pile of splintered wood fragments at the base of it.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute,” Emalyn replied as she paused so she could catch her breath.
While Kevin was waiting, he knelt down and picked up one of the shards.
“What are you doing?” Emalyn asked when she saw him holding the shard up to his nose and sniffing it like a dog.
“I wanted to see if it smelled like burnt wood or not, and it does.”
“Toss me a piece.”
“Alright, let me find a better one for you,” Kevin replied. When he knelt back down to pull another one from the pile, he instantly jumped back when he thought he saw something moving under the wood.
“What’s wrong?” Emalyn asked after she saw what happened.
“I think there’s something living in there,” Kevin replied with an unsettled look on his face.
“Can you see it?”
“I just got a glimpse, but it looked kind of green and scaly.”
“Is it a snake?”
“I’m not sure,” Kevin replied as he used his foot to carefully move a piece of wood out of the way so he could see what it was. “Oh boy… it’s just a stuffed animal that looks like a dragon.”
“Who would bring something like that up here, and then leave it under a tree?”
“I don’t know,” Kevin replied after moving another piece of wood out of the way so he could see it better.
“Is it a girlie looking dragon, or the kind of stuffed animal a little boy would play with?”
“It’s a girlie looking one.”
“Pick it up so I can see it.”
“I don’t really want to,” Kevin replied since he was still a little spooked by the fact that he thought it was alive.
“You’re not afraid of a stuffed animal are you?” Emalyn teased.
“No I’m not,” Kevin insisted as he reached down and picked it up.
“Oh, that does look life-like,” Emalyn remarked as she stared at it for a moment.
“It feels funny too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know… it doesn’t feel like fabric, it feels like scales, and it’s making my hand tingle.”
“Kevin… I just saw its eyes open for a second after you ran your hand over it!”
“Nice try, Emalyn!”
“I’m not kidding! It opened its eyes when you touched it!” Kevin slowly set the dragon down, and when he took his hands off of her, she looked up at him and let out a pitiful little cry.
“Emalyn, I think she’s injured, what should I do?”
“See if she will drink some water,” Emalyn replied as she tossed him the bottle of water in her hand. Kevin immediately poured a little in the cap, and then offered it to her. The dragon sniffed it for a moment, and then lapped it up with her little forked tongue. Then she reached for Kevin’s hand with her claw before collapsing.
“Kevin, I think she wants you to hold her.”
“Okay, she’s a dragon, but she’s little,” he muttered to himself as he scooped her up into his arms.
“I think the water might have helped,” Emalyn remarked after she came over to look at her.
“See if she wants some more,” Kevin suggested as he gently cradled her in his arms. Emalyn picked the cap up off the ground, and then poured a
little more into it before offering it to the dragon. As before, she sniffed it for a second, and then lapped up a little more before nestling her head in the crook of Kevin’s arm.
“She’s so cute, do you think I could touch her?”
“She seems to like it when I do,” Kevin replied.
“Okay, I’ll just gently run my finger over her tail… wow, she really does feel life-like.”
“Like a real dragon,” Kevin smiled.
“Yeah, I thought they went extinct after the middle-ages… when there were knights, and castles, and ferocious dragons eating people.”
“She doesn’t look very ferocious, and she’s a little too small to eat anyone,” Kevin joked.
“Maybe the history books had it wrong, or maybe she’s a baby dragon?”
“I don’t know… but we can’t leave her out here now that we know she needs our help,” Kevin replied.
“You could wrap her in your jacket, and we can take her back with us.”
“Okay, but what should I tell my parents?”
“Well, they can see that she is an injured animal, so maybe they will let us help her until she gets better.”
“Emalyn, she’s a dragon, and adults think they are mythical creatures. Don’t you think they might freak-out when we show her to them?”
“They can clearly see that she is not a mythical creature, and your parents seem pretty accepting of stuff.”
“Alright, let’s take her back and see what they say, but I warned you,” Kevin agreed as he gently wrapped his jacket around her, and then held her in his arms.
As they made their way back down the mountain, Emalyn stayed close to Kevin so that she could help him over fallen logs, and through the brushy spots so that he wouldn’t risk dropping her.
“How is she is doing?” Emalyn asked when they reached the ravine across from their campsite.
“I think she’s asleep, would you mind taking a peek to make sure?”
“Uh Kevin… I don’t see her!” Emalyn remarked as she peeked under the jacket.
“What do you mean? I can feel her in my arms,” Kevin replied as if Emalyn had overlooked her somehow.
“Nope, she’s gone!” Emalyn insisted as she pulled open the jacket so that he could see that she wasn’t there.
“I don’t understand,” Kevin replied in a frantic voice as he shifted the jacket into one hand so he could feel around with the other. When he felt her cool scales against his hand, he gasped. “Emalyn, she’s not gone… she’s invisible,” he blurted out as if he didn’t even believe it. Emalyn reached over to where his hand was touching her, and then looked on in utter disbelief.
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, but I think we should wait to tell my parents about her until we know more.”
“Yeah, they might have been able to accept that dragons are real, but it’s going to be hard to explain one that can disappear at will,” Emalyn replied.
“Would you mind holding her for a few minutes so I can go tell them that we are back from our hike? I don’t want them to get worried or come looking for us.”
“Sure,” Emalyn replied as she gently folded the jacket back around the dragon before lifting her out of his arms.
While he was gone, she gently caressed the little creature, partially to comfort her, and partially because she couldn’t get over the fact she could hide in plain sight.
“What’s that?” Emalyn asked when she saw Kevin walking back with a small bag in his hand.
“I grabbed a few things in case she might be hungry.”
“Like what?” Emalyn asked as she moved over so he could sit next to her.
“I brought a carrot, some blue berries, and a hotdog since I don’t know if she eats fruits and vegetables, or likes meat.”
“Hotdogs aren’t found in nature, so I would try the carrot or the blueberry first,” Emalyn suggested.
“Good point, I’ll break off a piece of carrot and see if she takes it.” When nothing happened after a few minutes, he tossed the carrot aside and put a blueberry in its place.
“If she’s a carnivore, then maybe you would like the hotdog,” Emalyn remarked when she showed no interest in blueberry.
“Alright, it is meat, although I have no idea what kind they are made from,” Kevin chuckled as he broke off a piece of it and placed it next to his jacket. Within a few seconds the dragon appeared, gulped down the treat, and then quickly changed color to match the jacket.
“Kevin, did you see that… she’s able to match her surroundings just like a chameleon!”
“That’s so cool. I wonder if she can match a stick,” Kevin remarked as he picked one up and placed it under her tail. A split second later, a thin narrow line appeared on the surface of her scales that matched the stick’s color and texture perfectly.
“Let’s try something really challenging,” Emalyn suggested as she removed the stick and replaced it with a piece of foil. With a few seconds, her scales changed to a bright silvery color, mimicking not only the foils reflective surface, but its crinkled texture as well.
“Wow, she can match anything,” Kevin remarked as he looked on in amazement.
“Kids, it’s time for lunch,” Josephine called out.
“Okay mom… we’ll be right there.”
“What are we going to do with her?” Emalyn asked as she looked down at the dragon for moment.
“I’ll go get our lunches, and then we can share them with her if she’s still hungry,” Kevin replied.
“Will your parents get upset if we don’t eat with them?”
“Not as long as I don’t skip out on dinner since that’s family time,” Kevin remarked before running off.
When he returned, he was carrying two large plates of food with an extra hotdog on each one.
“Did they ask you why you took so many hotdogs?”
“Yeah, and I told them they were for our pet dragon.”
“That’s a good one,” Emalyn laughed.
“I know. They didn’t believe me even though I was telling the truth.”
“Won’t they be surprised when they find out you weren’t joking.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be an interesting conversation,” Kevin admitted as he sat down on the other side of where his jacket was sitting. No sooner had he set a piece of hotdog down, then the dragon changed back to what appeared to be her natural green color, and ate it.
“Do you think she is changing color so that we can see her, or so that we know she’s hungry?” Emalyn questioned.
“I don’t know,” Kevin replied as he handed the rest of the hotdog to her.
After she gulped it down, she looked over at Emalyn and clawed the air.
“Wow, she’s really smart… you’re still eating your hotdog, but she’s begging from me as if she knows it’s my turn to feed her the extra one on my plate.”
“How could she possibly know that?”
“Maybe she’s read my mind like you were doing down by the lake, or maybe she understands our language,” Emalyn joked.
“That would be really cool, but I’m sure she just saw that you had more food on your plate than I had on mine.”
“Yeah, that makes more sense,” Emalyn replied as she fed her a piece of the hotdog off her plate.
After she finished eating the second hotdog, she curled up on the jacket and vanished from sight.
“I guess that’s all she wanted,” Emalyn remarked.
“What would you like to do while she’s resting?” Kevin asked.
“Well, she seems pretty content, do you think we can go play down by the lake as long as we come back up and check on her every so often?”
“Okay, let me put my jacket in the shade, and then we can go down to the lake.”
After they had been splashing in the shallows and skipping rocks across the water for over an hour, Kevin headed back up to check on the dragon. But when he looked under the tree where he had left his coat, it was gone and he started t
o panic.
“Mom, did you move my jacket?” he yelled out as he ran towards the campsite as fast as he could.
“I put it in the trailer,” Josephine replied. Kevin raced past her and into the pop-up. When he saw his jacket laying on his sleeping bag, he ran over to it, and started patting it with his hands.
“Whew!” he sighed in relief when he felt a dragon sized lump tucked inside of it.
“Is everything alright?” Josephine asked as she poked her head inside the trailer to check on him.
“Yeah. I was concerned when I didn’t see my jacket under the tree.”
“I noticed it was kind of heavy, have you been collecting rocks again?”
“Emalyn and I found something cool on our hike and I tucked it in my coat for safe keeping.”
“Can I see it?”
“No, you can’t really see it right now, but I would be happy to show it to you later,” Kevin promised.
“Alright, I’ll wait for the surprise,” Josephine smiled. “When you’re done being mysterious, would you please let Emalyn know we’re about to have dinner?”
“Oaky,” Kevin replied as he moved the jacket so it would be nestled between their sleeping bags. Then he returned to the lake to get Emalyn.
“So your mom didn’t even know she was in your jacket when she moved it?” Emalyn asked after he told her what had happened.
“No, she noticed the jacket seemed kind of heavy, but I often collect stuff when I’m out hiking, so she assumed it was an interesting rock or something like that.”
“Just help yourself to the food,” Josephine remarked when they returned to the camp.
“Thanks mom,” Kevin replied as he picked up two plates and handed Emalyn one of them.
After they finished eating, Kevin looked over at the trailer and yawned.
“I’m kind of tired, would it be okay if I got ready for bed.”
“What? No marshmallows?” Brian asked with a surprised look.
“No, I had so many last night that I’m kind of tired of them.”
“What about you Emalyn? Are you going to stay up and roast some marshmallows with us?”
“No, that hike really wore me out.”
“Okay, we’ll be in in a little bit,” Brian replied.
After Kevin and Emalyn had gone inside, Brian looked over at Josephine, and shrugged his shoulders, as if he didn’t quite understand what had happened.
“They were out hiking and playing all day,” Josephine remarked in a low voice.
“Yeah, that’s true, but when I was a kid, I played all day and half the night.”
“Not every kid was a robot like you were growing up,” Josephine teased.
“I was not a robot,” Brian replied in a robotic voice.
“Maybe not, but you were a little different from the other kids your age,” Josephine smirked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Not every child built a chemistry set to test rocks and minerals when they were ten.”
“I might have been a bit of a nerd,” Brian admitted.
“Just a bit,” Josephine smiled.
“Since nobody wants to roast marshmallows, what do think about turning in early?”
“It’s not because I’m teasing you, is it?”
“No, I’m actually tired, and since we’re on vacation why not get some extra sleep?”
“Sounds good to me,” Josephine replied as she followed him into the trailer.
After they turned off the lights and went to bed, Kevin nudged Emalyn with his elbow to see if she was still awake.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“If the dragon needs to get up during the night, can you pretend that you need to use the bathroom and take her out with you.”
“Okay,” Emalyn replied.
“Thanks, I sleep like the dead, and I’m afraid I won’t wake up if she needs something.”
“No problem, I’ll make sure she can get out if she needs to, ” Emalyn replied as she put her arm around the little dragon to comfort her.