Dragons in a Bag: Chapters 1–5

She takes down the eviction notices he pins to our front door, but I still know what’s going on.

I cringe as a raspy voice asks, “What you want?”

The apartment smells musty, but it looks tidy.

“You hungry?” she asks in a gruff voice.

Geography is one of my specialties.

I sift through all the facts in my head and say, “Africa’s a continent. There are more countries in Africa than there are states in the Union. Madagascar’s in southern Africa, off the east coast of Mozambique.”

I have to tug hard to open the fridge door, and the only thing inside is a head of wilting cabbage and a six-pack—of root beer.

She must have one of those really old rotary phones because I can hear her dialing it in the dining room.

She screeches and jumps up and down in exasperation.

For a moment, I think she’s going to wallop me, but instead Ma raises the cane and aims for the squirrel.

“Don’t you tell me how to handle my business! I may be old, but I ain’t daft. Now, get—GET!”

I want to ask Ma a dozen questions, but the stern look on the strange old lady’s face tells me I’d better keep my questions to myself for now.

Ma prods me in the back with her cane, so I walk out of the kitchen ahead of her and into the dark hallway.

I’m so busy staring at the mangled box that I don’t realize Ma is watching me.

“Where you think you’re going?” she barks at me.
“Home,” I say before hefting my bag onto my shoulder.

Just as I turn to go, we both hear a low, menacing growl coming from inside Ma’s old-lady purse.

I heave my book bag onto my shoulder, and we start walking up the block—slowly, because that’s how Ma hobbles along with her cane.

I heave my book bag onto my shoulder, and we start walking up the block—slowly, because that’s how Ma hobbles along with her cane.

“You’ve seen my home, It was nice and tidy until you let that darn squirrel into my kitchen. I don’t need anyone’s help to keep a clean house. Back then, I needed a different kind of help. Another name for that kind of helper is...apprentice.”

“If I fed them, they’d think I was their mama. You know what imprint means?”

Vocabulary isn’t really one of my specialties, but I give it a shot anyway. “When something heavy makes an impression on something light—or soft. Like when you step in mud or wet cement and leave a footprint.”

“Why can’t they stay here? You could buy a terrarium from a pet store—and another lizard who can show them how to...do lizard stuff. I could help you look after them.”

“In an ideal world, that would be true,” Ma says. “But that’s not the world we live in, Jax.”

Ma grunts. “L. Roy is a quack. Calls himself a scientist, but most of the time he just makes stuff up and hopes folks won’t know the difference.”

Then Ma points her cane at the park up ahead and adds, “That’s where we’re going. Now, Jax—can you keep a secret? ’Cause I don’t need your mama hassling me about mixing you up in my business. That’s why she left home in the first place. She didn’t like my line of work.”