“You mean….”
“Now you’re getting the picture.”
He flashed his toothy grin at me despite his obvious depression.
“The cell is alive!”
Startled by this revelation, I looked at the tower top cell again. As if it had been waiting for the right cue, the dragon’s head opened its eyes and looked at me.
Chapter Twelve:
“For the right person, the impossible is easy!”
-DUMBO
To everyone’s surprise, particularly my own, I didn’t find the revelation about the true nature of Aahz’s confinement at all discouraging. If anything, I was doubly pleased. Not only did I have an immediate idea for how to beat the problem, I had arrived at it before my knowledgeable partner . . . well before, as a matter of fact, as he had been pondering his dilemma for days whereas I had only just received the information. Of course, he was probably not in a position to see the easy solution that I could.
“What are you grinning at?” he demanded. “If there’s anything funny about this, it eludes me completely.”
Unlike my own amiable self, Aahz tends to show his worry by getting mad. Come to think of it, he tends to express almost any emotion by getting mad. Well, at least he’s consistent.
“Tell me,” I said, eyeing the dragon’s head, “you say this thing’s alive. How alive is it?”
“What do you mean, ‘how alive is it’?” Aahz scowled. “It’s alive enough to swallow me if it gets it into it’s head. That’s alive enough for me.
“I mean, can it hear and see?”
“Who cares?” my partner said, in a dazzling display of charm and curiosity that makes him so lovable. “I hadn’t planned on asking it out for a date.”