Voices of Dragons

“If they were going to do something, they’d have done it already,” she said, trying to convince herself.

“Maybe we can get together this evening, assuming my parents let me out of the house.”

Kay’s father hadn’t left yet. They had breakfast together—juice, toast, cereal—and she told him about Jon’s call.

“So, you going to let me stay home?” she finished.

Gri

She hadn’t looked at it like that. It was a little unfair, in her opinion. She pouted. “I’m not that important.”

Jack Wyatt got a fu

Then he looked into his cereal bowl with his usual amused expression. “I guess you lost the parent lottery. Sorry, kiddo.”

“It shouldn’t matter that I’m your daughter. I should be able to do what I want to. Right?” Like speed on the highway, like stay out late with her boyfriend…

“Kay, after high school you can move away to where nobody knows you’re the sheriff’s daughter. Until then, you’re stuck with it. And if being the sheriff’s daughter means that maybe you can make a difference, like showing people there’s nothing to get in a panic over, don’t you think you ought to do it?”

This was a long-ru

She sighed. “I’ll just have to go out and be a role model then, won’t I?”

“That’s the spirit,” he said, smiling.

A lot of kids weren’t at school. Their parents apparently thought it was the end of the world. In first period, a third of the seats were empty, but class went on as usual.

Tam showed up.

Kay said, “You couldn’t convince your mom it was the end of the world?”

“I didn’t think of it,” she grumbled. “I bet I could have. And you?”

Kay took on a fake-official tone of voice. “As the sheriff’s daughter, I’m a role model to the community.” She rolled her eyes.

“Wow. Sorry. So that’s why you never speed.”

In the cafeteria at lunchtime, the librarian had brought in a TV on a cart and turned it to the news. The room was quieter than usual, and not just because so many people were gone. Conversation was subdued.

The three dragons hadn’t moved.

Someone in a uniform came on the TV. Labeled General somebody-or-other, he’d just arrived at Malmstrom Air Force Base from the Pentagon to deal with the crisis. Kay couldn’t hear what he said.

The news didn’t say anything about photographs showing someone riding a dragon. Despite her mother’s fears, the pictures hadn’t leaked yet.

“All those drills we do,” Tam said, watching Kay watch the TV, “I never thought we might actually have to do it for real.”

Kay shook her head, tried to think positive. “We’re not there yet.”

For days, the dragon sentinels didn’t move. They might have been statues perched on the mountainside. Some people wondered if they were really the same dragons, if maybe new ones arrived to stand watch while no one was looking. But someone was looking at them constantly, and they didn’t move, didn’t eat. Dragons, somebody on one of the news shows said, were timeless. They’d reappeared after World War II, just as they’d always been, unchanging. They could sit on that mountain forever, looking down on Silver River. Kay noticed that much of what people said about dragons on TV wasn’t based on reality, but on old stories, half-baked legends, and old cultural memories rather than real knowledge. She kept wanting to argue with people.

The military issued a statement supposedly explaining the new jet and why it had crossed the border, and the international coalition issued a statement advising caution regarding the border, without outright condemning what had happened. The dragon territory border on the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia had remained quiet. There was a press conference, which Kay watched live on TV because her mother was there and called, telling her to watch. Her mom sounded agitated on the phone—more so than usual—but she wouldn’t tell Kay what was wrong and hung up quickly.

The guy behind the microphone was almost a stereotype: broad shoulders, square jaw, balding, with a hawkish, hooded gaze. He wore a blue air force uniform decked out with insignia. GENERAL MORGAN H. BRANIGAN, the TV caption said. The Pentagon guy who’d arrived a few days ago to make everything better.

For the first five minutes, he read from a written statement explaining the new jet: an experimental fighter called the F-22, designed for maneuverability and speed, exceeding all expectations, and so on. What he didn’t say, but what was clear, was that this was a jet sixty years in the making, a plane specifically designed to be able to hold its own in flight against dragons. His staff presented visuals: drawings, a poster showing simple schematics, a video.

Then, with the might of the air force’s new tool displayed behind him, the general a

So, the plane accidentally crossed the border because it needed more room to practice? Kay might have bought it if the guy didn’t look like he wanted a war.

The general stopped talking, and the reporters shouted questions that he didn’t answer. Kay spotted her mother off to the side, arms crossed, looking surly. Her pantsuit was rumpled, and Kay wondered when was the last time anyone had done laundry. The stress must have been just killing her.

Everyone made it home for di

“They’re not telling us everything,” her mother said.

“It looks to me like they’re poking a wasp nest to see what comes out,” said Dad, as he sat at the table and skimmed the newspaper.

Mom dropped the bag of pasta on the counter and put her hands on her hips. “That’s the problem. The military doesn’t think they’re going to respond. They don’t think the dragons are actually going to do anything, no matter what the coalition says about it.”

“And what do you think?” Dad said.

“I’m not paid to think, apparently,” Mom said, and slammed an empty jar of sauce into the trash.

When they were all finally sitting around the table with food on their plates, Dad asked Kay how school was, and for once she rambled on about classes and grades, eager to change the subject until her mother calmed down.

Kay knew she was getting only half the story. She knew the dragons were talking about this as well, and she was desperate to talk to Artegal about it, call him up on the cell phone, tell him what was going on here. Although, it occurred to her that someone like General Branigan would call that spying.

She and her father cleaned up while her mom went to take a shower and lie down. She hadn’t gotten much sleep over the last couple of days, and Jack quietly urged her out of the kitchen. She touched Kay’s shoulder as she passed, as if needing the contact for reassurance or for balance.

The only useful thing Kay could do was load the dishwasher, so she did.

Her father was usually laid-back. It was hard to read him. But there was a tension in the room, as if he were worried. Kay wondered what he was thinking and didn’t know how to ask. By way of observation, she said, “She’s really upset.”