Gleep quivered slightly but didn’t budge from his sitting position.
“See, Boss? He’ll mind,” Nunzio called over his shoulder. “Ya just gotta be firm with him.”
I suddenly realized my jaw was dangling somewhere around my knees. “What… that’s incredible, Nunzio! How did you … what did you …”
“I guess you never knew,” he grinned, “I used ta be an animal trainer . . . mostly the nasty ones for shows, know what I mean?”
“An animal trainer?”
“Yeah. It seemed like a logical extension of bein’ a schoolteacher . . . only without the parents to worry about.”
I had to sit down. Between the demonstration with Gleep and the sudden insight to his background, Nunzio had my brain on overload.
“An animal trainer and a schoolteacher.”
“That’s right. Say, you want I should work with your dragon some more now that he’s quieted down?”
“No. Let him run for a while. This is supposed to be his exercise time.”
“You’re the Boss.”
He turned toward Gleep and clapped his hands sharply. The dragon bounded backwards, then crouched close to the ground, ready to play.
“Get it, boy!”
Moving with surprising believability, the bodyguard scooped an imaginary ball from the ground and pretended to throw it to the far end of the garden.
Gleep spun around and sprinted off in the direction of the “throw,” flattening a bench and two shrubs as he went.
“Simply amazing,” I murmured.
“I didn’t mean to butt in,” Nunzio said, sinking into the seat beside me. “It just looked like you wanted to talk and your dragon wanted to frolic.”
“It’s all right. I’d rather talk to you, anyway.”