Bob, the Invisible Dragon
by David J. Wighton
Book #6 in the Wilizy Series
Copyright 2015, David J. Wighton
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Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my wife, Dale, and to my other family members whose support made it possible.
Cover design by Rita Toews at WordPress.com
Editing assistance from Michelle Scoville who sees typos that mere mortals would never find unaided.
Parent Advisory
Sexual predators and the impact they have on their victims is a theme that winds throughout this novel. My focus in the story is on the impact on the victims – whether they are male or female, child or adult, an individual or a family. I have described the actual act that produces that impact in very vague terms – enough for the reader to understand what has happened but without getting into the details. However the impact that innocents can experience is fully described and some readers may be impacted by what they read. I hope that seeing how fictional characters deal with the impact of sexual predation will be a positive, constructive learning experience for youth readers.
Chapter 7 has the most intense descriptions of this impact. Parents may want to read the part where Dreamer talks about the worst time she had with her father and how she reacted. This description comes near the end of the chapter.
Since much of this book's plot line revolves around members of the Wilizy family encountering sexual predation, this topic does surface throughout the book. However there are other plot lines that will keep the overall story light and entertaining.
Wilizy Family Members as of September 2084
• Doc and Granny (about 73 years old).
• Hank (about 43) and Yolanda (about 39).
• Wolf (19) and Mac (19).
• TG (19), Yollie (18), Liset (3), and Yo-Yo (9 months).
• William (18) and Melissa (18). (Previously known as Will and Izzy.)
• Wizard (16) and Lucas (almost 13).
• Theo (almost 12), Mathias (almost 11), Reese (almost 10).
• Winnie (8), Patella (2), and Scapula (3 months).
• Stu McKenzie (44), Manager of the WZBN.
• Momaka (40), Manager of Agricultural Development.
Also
• General Jock MacLatchie (49), Mac's father.
• Dreamer (14), Wanda, Dreamer's nonny (54), and Wescott (Double-Tom), Dreamer's father.
This page is to help you if you get confused about who is who in the story. If that happens, just click your way back to the Table of Contents and scroll back one page.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Other novels by David J. Wighton
About the Author
Chapter 1
It was early evening on Friday, September 4, 2084 – several days after the Clearwater band members had celebrated the second anniversary of Assassination Day. They had held a community dance in front of their sawmill and then, shortly before 11 p.m., the entire tribe had moved onto the flats next to the North Thompson River and had watched the replay of Will and Izzy's romantic kiss under the stream of multi-hued fireworks. The event was even more moving now – seeing as how Will and Izzy had been assassinated by Zzyk and his exploding copter.
But that celebration had been three days ago. Wanda, the Clearwater band chief, was in her compact kitchen trying to handle a delicate band matter. The scruffy guest who had slipped uninvited into her kitchen while Wanda’s hands were immersed in soapy water was not helping. He was the delicate band matter.
Wizard and Dreamer were upstairs in Dreamer's bedroom. As was now part of their regular routine, Wizard would come to Clearwater on Friday afternoon to discuss sawmill business with Dreamer. He'd stay for dinner and then he and Dreamer would disappear upstairs to her bedroom. Wanda, Dreamer's nonny, would hear Dreamer lock her bedroom door, but this barely registered in her conscious thoughts. Dreamer always locked her bedroom door. Since Dreamer and Wizard had prepared the meal, Wanda would clean up afterwards while singing little ditties to herself. These were songs that she remembered from her childhood, songs that brought back happy memories in spite of her family's poverty. With the Clearwater tribe’s sawmill business steadily growing more prosperous, life was good now. Later in the evening, since it was too dark to copter home safely, Wizard would sleep over.
Dreamer's bedroom was on the second floor, directly above the kitchen, and every so often, Wanda would hear the soft murmur of their voices. She'd also hear faint footsteps, but not too many of those since both Dreamer and Wizard moved around the bedroom in their bare feet. The sound that did resonate clearly into the kitchen was the rhythmic squeaking of the ancient bedsprings. She'd hear this twice every Friday evening. The first time would be about now. Wanda looked at the oval green clock above the kitchen counter. Right on schedule. The frequency of the squeaks began to increase. Wanda didn't mind. Her guest did.
Wanda had told her guest that Dreamer had a boyfriend, but had said nothing more. It wasn't any of his gol'darned business. Apparently her guest thought otherwise, because he exploded out of the wooden kitchen chair that he had been angrily occupying and bounded up the stairs two at a time. Wanda looked quickly around her kitchen, grabbed the handle of the heavy cast-iron frying pan that was lying half-on and half-off one of the stove’s elements, and followed at a run three paces behind her guest. The frying pan left a trail of cooked brown hamburger crumblets behind her as Clearwater's best cleanup batter ever charged to Dreamer's rescue.
The wiry man with the black ink tattoos covering his arms tried Dreamer’s doorknob first. Then he stepped back and kicked the door open, splintering the wood around the lock in the process. He was two paces inside the bedroom and poised for action when Wanda arrived. Short but powerful, Wanda was well-known within all of the little communities that made up the North Thompson Softball Association. At fourteen, she had been brought up to play on Clearwater’s men's team! Opposing male crybabies had complained that Wanda’s batting success against their star chuckers had been solely because she presented an unfairly small strike zone. Clearwater supporters countered with her decades of success driving the ball over the fence from either side of the plate. Wanda herself said
nothing, but let her bat and her strong arm from behind the plate do the talking for her. Still semi-active in her 50s, she’d wait for the game to be on the line, or for the men on the other side of the diamond to become obnoxiously overconfident, before grabbing her favorite bat and driving the ball out of the park. She enjoyed beating men at what they thought was their game and planned to remain active in the sport for many more years.
Wanda’s cast iron frying pan struck the angry man on the shoulder and caused him to stagger onto his knees before he could see what was happening on the bed. It was, at best, a five second distraction. The man with the short black Mohawk-cut was too intent on what was happening in Dreamer's bedroom to be stopped so easily. But at least the blow from the frying pan had allowed Wanda to slip in between her unwelcome guest and the bed that had abruptly become squeak-free. She pulled the frying pan back for a second swing. The intruder was on his knees and she had his entire face for batting practice. By now, the astute reader will have observed that a certain degree of – let’s call it animosity – existed between Wanda and the man who had just kicked his way into her granddaughter's locked bedroom.
Wanda didn't have to look at the bed to know what Dreamer and Wizard had been doing. She had actively encouraged them. Strenuous exercise was healthy for growing teenagers. “Leave now or you’ll be drinking your food through a straw for the rest of your miserable life,” she warned the man on his knees in front of her.
For his part, the intruder had acted out of anger. Dreamer was up in her bedroom and some slimy, pimply-faced teenager was having sex with her. It was his duty to protect her. “Get your filthy hands off my daughter,” the man yelled at the still unseen sex fiend while preparing to simultaneously grab Wanda’s wrist and rise to his feet. Dreamer’s father had acted instinctively. But his anger was now replaced by a different instinct – one that had been buried the whole time he had been in prison. Dreamer would be naked on that bed. He remembered very clearly the last time he had caught his young daughter without any clothes on.
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Chapter 2
The explosive crack of the bedroom door flying open had frozen the athletic activities in the bedroom, but only for a few seconds. Dreamer was the first to react. She screeched, sprang off the bed, fled into the nearest corner of the bedroom, scrunched down to the floor, covered herself up with her hands and arms as best as she could, and began yelling over and over and over at the top of her lungs, "Get out of my bedroom!" She needn't have worried about trying to hide her naked body from her father's leer. In her panic, she had forgotten that she was fully clothed.
Wizard, for his part, was frozen on the bed after this hostile, scary man had blown through the door. Dreamer had been lying on her back. Wizard had been lying beside her, also on his back. The detonating door had caught them in the middle of a race to see who could do the most stomach crunches in two minutes. They did this twice a night to clear their minds. Then they'd return to Dreamer's business management bot.
Wanda saw Dreamer huddled into the corner, trying to cover herself, and knew instantly what must have happened at some point in her childhood. She flung the frying pan to the floor and, without knowing how it got out of the sheath on her belt, Wanda found her all-purpose knife in her right hand. By the time the frying pan had stopped wibble-wobbling on the floor, the point of Wanda's knife was sticking a millimeter into the vulnerable soft spot immediately under her visitor’s black-stubbled chin. He might have been bigger than Wanda, but Wanda was powerful and she had the cold fury of a grandmother protecting her granddaughter. "Look at me, Wescott" she demanded.
Wescott's eyes stayed on his daughter who continued to screech wildly on the floor of her bedroom. Out of the corner of her eye, Wanda saw Wizard rolling off the bed. "Don't touch her, Wizard," she yelled. "Look at me, Wescott," she demanded again. When he didn't, she pulled the knife away from his chin and slashed at the right side of his head, in the process catching a piece of Wescott's scalp and shortening the top of his ear as well. "Look at me, Wescott!"
Wescott put his hand up to his bleeding ear and shifted his glance. Even in the din of Dreamer's screams, he could hear clearly what Wanda said.
"The judge in Kamloops ruled when you were in prison. I am Dreamer's legal guardian now. You aren't. For all of the reasons I told you downstairs, you are banned from Clearwater. I will tell the band council what happened tonight and what effect your presence just had on Dreamer. The Council will decide what to do. I can tell you this. If I ever find you on tribal land again, I will personally apply tribal justice for what you did to her. Nod if you understand."
Wescott nodded but glared at Wanda. Many bigger, more formidable men had seen that glare and had looked away. Wanda was a woman defending her granddaughter. She didn't look away. "If you come on tribal land again, you'll lose more than the tip of an ear."
# # # # # # # #
The slam of the front door brought no relief from Dreamer's ear-piercing shrieks. Wanda had no experience dealing with this kind of situation, but she had her own basic instincts to guide her.
"Wizard, you can't be here right now. Even your voice could upset her. Go downstairs and stay there. I know your grandmother could arrive here quickly, right? I'm a friend. Be honest."
Wiz nodded.
"Could you ask her to come? I need a chief-to-chief discussion. Quickly please."
Once Wizard was out of sight and hearing, Wanda grabbed the heavy quilt off the bed, approached Dreamer and held it out open. Something to cover herself with. In Dreamer's mind, she was naked.
Dreamer seized the quilt and wrapped herself in it. Wanda knelt on the floor next to Dreamer, enfolded her in an embrace, and began talking. "He's gone. You're safe. This will never happen again." Soothing words, over and over.
In time, Dreamer's shrieks turned into wails, then into sobs. Her body turned from steel to rubber. Wanda was able to lift her onto the side of the bed and soothe her with strokes on her hair. The sobs ended in time, and then a murmur. Repeated. Wanda had to put her ear next to Dreamer's lips to hear what she wanted. "He's downstairs. I'll take you to him.”
# # # # # # # #
Dreamer was settled on the sofa, still wrapped in her quilt, when Wanda heard the footsteps on her porch. Wizard was sitting beside Dreamer, holding her right hand, his face still bloodless. As Wanda left to answer the double-tap on the door, she glanced at the kitchen clock. It had seemed like an eternity, but barely ten minutes had passed since Dreamer’s dad had left. Wanda wasn't particularly surprised by how quickly Wizard's Granny had completed what should have been an hour long copter trip. As she opened the door, Wanda saw Dreamer take Wizard's arm and put it around her shoulder. Then Dreamer squeezed her head under Wizard's chin, slid both her arms around his waist, and snuggled in.
Wanda took three Wilizy women into the kitchen and began telling them what had just happened in Dreamer's bedroom.
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Chapter 3
While Wanda is talking with Granny, I should interrupt the story to tell you what happened after I released the fifth book in the Wilizy adventures – the one in which Will and Izzy died in that helicopter explosion. Bear with me. Wanda and Granny are having a long conversation, but you already know what they're discussing.
After Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes hit the Internet, I became the target of a sewer of abusive comments. Not because Will and Izzy had died. Even now, over eighty years after their deaths, anybody interested enough in the Wilizy legend to read my books not only knew the day that they were going to die, but they knew the time, place and cause as well. Their outrage was because I had revealed that Will and Izzy had survived the giant copter's explosion.
I was more than a little confused. My readers hadn't shown any hesitation in believing that Will had invented a sling that could fly at supersonic speeds. They also took for granted that the Wilizy family members could make themselves invisible and send mind-m
essages to each other. They accepted those fantastical ideas because those inventions explained how a small group of amateur warriors could defeat Zzyk's forces as well as demolish The Citadel's navy, air force, and fortress.
Yet the public couldn't believe that two very smart people like Will and Izzy could have predicted that Zzyk would try to blow them up. After all, Will and Izzy knew that Zzyk had installed electronic devices in the Wilizy copters that sent information to Zzyk and only to Zzyk. Plus they knew that Zzyk liked to walk around his lab making sounds of explosions, after which he would snigger with enjoyment. How could Will and Izzy not have known a bomb was inside those tracking devices?
Even more confusing to me was the venom the readers spat my way when I said that Will and Izzy had managed to live secretly in another part of the world after they had died. If Will and Izzy had been their heroes, should they not have been overjoyed? Or at least mildly pleased? Instead, I was brought involuntarily to a tribunal where my words in Teenage Mutant Ninja Torpedoes would be challenged. When I saw the people arrayed against me, I understood. They were lawyers. For the ultra rich. They were protecting their investments.
You see, back when the Albertan economy was starting to emerge, Wizard had developed a unique currency: a personally autographed scarf with Will and Izzy's picture imprinted on it. At the outset, these scarves had been worth about two klabooies each. The value of a signed scarf gradually rose as tourist traffic into Alberta increased. But when Will and Izzy died, the value of Wiz's currency exploded. No more supply. Lots of demand. Over the decades that followed, each currency scarf that Will and Izzy had ever signed was located and authenticated. Since then, those scarves have continued to trade, rising in value each and every time they have changed hands. Now, so many years afterwards, all of those precious scarves have ended up in the grasping hands – make that the burgeoning vaults – of the ultra rich.
For some of the ultra rich, their ownership of a single signed scarf had provided the beginning credit that was used to build their vast fortunes. Now I, the obscure narrator of the Wilizy series, was claiming that Will and Izzy had survived the copter's explosion. That meant that Will and Izzy could have continued to sign scarves for decades and boxes of them could be stored away somewhere. If only a few of those scarves were released into general circulation in their pristine condition, the value of the current scarves would plummet. Who'd want a soiled scarf with a barely visible image when you could acquire a signed scarf that had been never used? In fact, the last people to touch those hidden scarves were probably Will and Izzy! In the face of that possibility, the local stock markets took a big hit on the fear that the treasures of the ultra rich would be compromised. And then their lawyers dug in their claws. Since there was no other handy target, they dug their claws into me.