A Modern Day Knight. Chapter 2.

Here is chapter 2 my lovelies! 

Chapter 2.

“Mom, I’m home!” I yelled as I puffed my way into our kitchen. I had missed the bus and had to walk home. Thankfully we only live about a mile away but for a guy my size it was still a walk.

“No need to yell.” Standing at the counter, wearing her uniform from the restaurant and her blonde hair pulled up in a messy bun, Mom still managed to look elegant, “I’m right here.” She cut in half a lemon and squeezed it into the pitcher. “You’re late getting back. What took you so long?” Without waiting for an answer, she stopped what she was doing and gave me a hug. As I hugged her back I could smell her lavender shampoo and a lingering sharp hint of citrus. She released me pretty quickly though, wrinkling her nose. “You stink.” She told me.

I set my backpack and the box on the table. Pulling out a chair I flopped into it.

“You wouldn’t smell so great either if you had to walk all the way home in the blazing sun.” I said, accepting a glass of lemonade.

Mom’s brow scrunched up at that and she put a hand on my forehead. “You didn’t get overheated, did you?.”

I pushed her hand away. “I’m fine Mom.” Feeling embarrassed even though she and I were the only ones in the room. I cast around for something to change the subject but before I could come up with anything Mom created the perfect opening.

“So why did you miss the bus.” She asked as she sat down in her own chair and tried to give me her best stern mother stare, I saw right through it.

I smiled and slid the clear box across the table. “Mom, meet Bow-Bow.” Mom let out a small squeak and scooted as far away from Bow-Bow as she possibly could in her chair.

“Is it alive?” She wanted to know. “And what in the world possessed you to bring that home?”

“I think so.” I answered her first question. “Mr. Droves asked me to keep him over the summer.” I didn’t want to tell her about the whole picture fiasco so I hoped she would buy my story without those few details. She pushed back from the table, still eying the lizard.

“What does it eat?” I was so relieved that she wasn’t questioning Mr. Droves just giving me a class pet for the summer that I failed to answer the one she had just asked until she prompted me. “Well?”

“Oh, ah, what does it eat? Mr. Droves said I didn’t have to feed it.” I rubbed my neck feeling about as doubtful as Mom looked.

“ You don‘t have to feed it?” Mom gave me her patent did-you-think-about-that-at-all look before going to the fridge and pulling out a pack of lunch meat. “Well, I don‘t care what he told you, but while that,” she pointed a finger at the box, “is staying in my home we will be feeding it. The poor thing looks like he is on the verge of dying.” She peered through the glass and added in a mutter, “if it’s not already.”

I held up my hands in surrender “I know, I was planning on feeding it, I was just telling you what he said.” I followed Mom’s gaze and was surprised to actually see the lizard for the for the first time.

With half of it’s grayish green scales shedding, it lay unmoving. Its neck at an unnatural angle and a tiny bit of it’s tongue hang from the side of it’s mouth. I was disgusted. Bow-Bow looked so pathetic that if I hadn’t known better I would have thought he was putting on a show.

Mom, of course, had gone all soft and slipped into that baby talk people use when talking to animals. “Oh the poor lizard’s hungry, aren’t you little guy?” She took a piece of lunch meat from the pack and tore a corner from it, “here you go Bow-Bow,” she lifted the lid open a crack and slipped the meat in. It landed next to the lizard. It was gone so fast and Bow-Bow was back in his half dead position so quickly, that I thought I must have imagined it being there in the first place.

Mom chuckled, “I knew he was hungry.” She stood and wiped her hand so her apron, while I reached for another bit of ham and feed the lizard a few pieces of my own. After I had eaten a couple of mom‘s cookies, okay maybe closer to a dozen, I made my way up stair.

Sweeping an arm along the top of my dresser I pushed a mound of laundry onto the floor to make a spot for my new pet. Putting Bow-Bow down, I gestured to my cluttered room. “Okay little guy, welcome to your home for the next three months."

***

That evening after watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the twentieth time I was busy trying to recreate my drawing of Droves. We couldn’t afford video games, or internet for that matter, so drawing was pretty what I did with my free time. I struggled to get the same picture to come back to life on the paper but just like any time I tried to create a previously drawn picture, the figure seemed stiff and dead.

Ripping the page from my pad, I glanced around my room for something else to sketch. My searching gaze fell on Bow-Bow and I smile at the thought of Bow-Bow being a relative to a dinosaur. My smile faded though as I had a sudden inspiration. I began to draw. Quick defiant lines as first and then softer ones slowly bringing the whole thing together.

Now when I start drawing, sometimes I get into a zone and nothing else seems to exist until the idea has been finished. This was one of those times. I planned ahead as my pencil flew over the paper and I barely use the eraser at all, now and then smudging a shadow or changing a small detail, but mostly I just drew. As soon as the penciled sketch was done I began to ink the picture. This was just going to be a black and white, I decided, yet as I came to the end I changed my mind. Grabbing my tube of gold paint, I fumble for a moment at my jar of art utensils before plucking my smallest paint brush from it. Squeezing just a dabble out of the tube I swiped my brush under it and added a couple quick touches to my picture with it. Satisfied, I then laid down my brush. Suddenly tired, I glanced at my bedside clock and was surprise to see nearly three hours had gone by. Sometimes that happened, I would get so caught up in my work that I would lose track of time. Studying my picture, I knew it was worth it.

Around the edge of the paper I had drawn as the dimensions of Bow-Bow’s cage. The floor of it still littered with dried scales and sand, however that is where the similarities ended. Instead of drawing a partly decomposing lizard I had put a dragon in its place. Boldly inked in black, the dragon was crouched. Its legs half bent and its wings were just barely folded, talons on the first joint of each drove deep into the sand as if the beast was using his wings as extra set of limbs to keep it proudly arched head and neck from coming too near the ground of his cramped quarters. The only color in the picture was the dragon’s eye. Only one side of the dragon’s face showed the other hidden in shadows but the one eye that you could see glowed gold and seemed to look into your very soul.

After looked at in a few minutes longer and adding a few more tiny details, I closed the sketch pad and slid it into the bottom drawer of my bedside desk, where I kept all my art work. As I straightened my stomach growled and I made a last minute decision to downstairs for a snack.

I crept down the stairs as silently as possible, but let me tell you it is more difficult than you would imagine when you have a hard time seeing your toes. Turns out my sneaking wasn’t necessary because Mom was still awake.

“What are you doing still up?” I asked.

Sitting at the table with heaps of books and loose papers in front of her, Mom lifted her head off the palm she’d been resting it on and pulled off her glasses,“ I am trying to get a jump start on my summer classes. The course load this semester is going to be twice as hard as the last.” Mom had been take prerequisites for nursing for the past year at the local community college. Turning blue eyes that were the same color as mine on me, she raised an eyebrow,  “and shouldn’t I be the one asking what you are doing up?” she said, her tone part stern and part teasing.

I walked past her and took a Ziplock baggy of her cookies from the cupboard, and looked at her over my shoulder. “ I got hungry.” I told her, grabbing two cups and snagging a half gallon of milk from the fridge. Pulling out the chair across from her, I sat down and poured us both a glass of milk, sliding two cookies over to her.

She took them and the smile lines by her eyes crinkled, “what, you only give me two and keep the whole bag for your self? Not very gentlemanly of you.”

“Just be grateful I gave you any. I was going to eat them myself without sharing any at all,” I pretended to be aloft for a few second before chuckling. Taking out two cookies for myself, I slid the baggy to the middle of the table, “there. Happy?” I asked, smiling.

Mom grinned back at me, breaking her cookie in half. As she dunked it in her milk her elbow brushed against one of the bills sitting next to her, causing the papers to stir. See them, I sobered. Looking down at my own cup, I cleared my throat.

“So Mom I’ve been thinking about trying to see if I could get a job this summer.” When she didn’t say anything I went on. “ you know, just to help out with things around here a little.” Still she didn’t speak and I played with a crumb on the table. Finally she spoke.

“Griffin, look at me.” 

 Slowly I lifted my gaze from the yellow flowered tablecloth to meet hers. I was relieved to see she was smiling. Reaching out, she grabbed my fingers and gave them a squeeze, “honey it’s up to you if you want to get a job this summer. I won’t stop you. But if you get a job what you earn is yours.” She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, “don’t worry about your old mum. We’re getting along just fine.” she said and smoothed my shaggy blonde hair back from my eyes. “Now you better go to bed,” standing, she pick up the milk and cookies, frowning at me as I snagged a few more.

Planting a quick kiss on her cheek, I escaped a swat on the behind by making a dash for the stairs. “You little thief,” she yelled after me.

“’Nite Mom.” I shot back around the cookie I’d stuck in my mouth, adding a “love you.” Mom’s own I love you too came floating up after me, followed by a:

“Don’t run in the house.”

***

I was just about to crawl into bed when I remembered Mr. Droves' note. Picking up my jeans from the floor I dug it out of the backpocket. Sitting down on the edge of my bed, I unfolded it and leaning closed to the light from my lava lamp to read it.

Mr. Griffin Louis Matthews,

I hope that Bow-Bow will not be too much of a bother. You have no idea how much trouble you are save me by taking him for the summer. That is not to say that he is a needy fellow. I don’t think you will have to do much as he is a rather self-sufficient little reptile. The only thing about him is he has a hard time sleeping in new places. In order to make him feel at home, please read him this little poem at night. I always do and it sends him right off every time. I have written the poem at the bottom of this note.

-Mr Droves

Shed thy skin, thou beast from hell.

For thou or I, it shall not go well

Whether it be delayed or be it soon.

A death we must have before the third new moon

PS. It helps if you sing it in a sing song voice

Finishing the note, I looked at Bow-Bow’s unmoving form and then back at the letter in my hand. I shook my head.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Setting the note on my night stand I clicked of the lamp and climbed into my perpetually unmade bed and laid my head down on my pillow. The last thought going through my mind as I slipped into sleep was that Mr. Droves really was crazy as he seemed.

Hope you guys enjoyed this. In the next chapter the action picks up so stay tuned and please review.