“Oh, no you don’t. You already worked hard enough outside this morning. All that shoveling and then the way you played with Zaza.” Nicky’s smile melted my insides. “She had so much fun. You’ve done enough. I promised we wouldn’t interfere with your work schedule. So go.” She actually waved her hands in a shooing gesture.
I didn’t want to go. Almost said fuck it, however, my deadline wouldn’t care I had guests—or a talking dragon.
A dragon already fast asleep along with Zaza. I kind of envied them. No sleeping for me. Must write.
However, my brain didn’t agree. It kept wandering all over the place. When I realized I lacked the focus to write, I hit the internet on my phone, which had signal again now that the storm had passed. My connection was slow and I doubted I’d be able to browse for long with my battery at twenty percent. I needed to make every percent I sucked up count, but did I research for my book? Nope. My procrastinating ass hunted for baby dragon images and found crap.
Not one of the pictures I pulled up looked remotely close to Percy. Most had big, liquid eyes, jewel-hued scales, and round, poke-me-in-the-middle bellies. They also all had wings ranging in texture from leathery to rice paper translucent. Appearance wasn’t the only difference from Percy. Not one article—and I searched blogs, Wikipedia, historical papers, and more—mentioned dragons talking or ever actually existing. Only fictional accounts had them able to converse. Could it be the world had forgotten because they’d gone extinct? How would Percy feel, knowing they might be the last and only one of their kind?
Since the internet seemed to lack the information my sudden curiosity needed—and my phone blinked before dying—I ditched my office and all pretense at work in search of Percy. I had to know more. I headed downstairs and found Zaza and Percy once more playing with blocks, this time with Nicky sitting crossed-legged and playing with them. Wait, she was teaching. I paused and listened as she spoke numbers using blocks as props.
“One.” Nikki held out one cube and drew the digit on it. “Two.” She added a second cube to the first after also labeling it with a marker.
Percy didn’t seem impressed. “I know how to count and I’ve already learned how numbers appear when written.”
“What of math? Do you know how to add and subtract?” Nicky asked. “For example, two blocks plus two blocks is?—”
“Four. Too easy,” Percy boasted.
“Okay then, how about two multiplied by three?”
Again, Percy spat out the answer with ease and then complained, “Don’t tell me humanity hasn’t progressed from basic mathematics.”
“Be polite to Nicky. She has no idea what you know,” I chided as I joined the group, easing carefully to the floor with my bum leg.
“Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. I know it all. The only thing I had to learn upon hatching was the linguistical names and symbols for numbers.”
“What about algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry?” Nicky named off some of the branches of math that I barely remembered. I am proud to say I never had to figure out the square root of shit, never cared what X equaled, and as of yet, never had a use for figuring out the area of a circle.
“I don’t know those terms.” Percy leaned forward eagerly. “Tell me more.”
“It would be my pleasure, but I might need Bruce’s help to print out some worksheets as the more complex math stuff isn’t something I can explain with blocks.” Nicky glanced at me. “That is, if you have a printer and that’s okay?”
“Yup to both, but we’ll have to wait for the power to come back.” I’d have given her anything for the smile she bestowed. Damn, the woman was much too pretty.
And nice.
And hot.
And not for me.
“Surely there’s something you can teach me, woman. I want a proper challenge,” Percy demanded.
“Are you sure you want more lessons? Because I was about to whip together a snack,” Nicky cajoled.
“Sustenance of the body first, then the mind,” Percy declared.
“An excellent choice,” Nicky stated, rising from the floor.
“Let me give you a hand,” I offered just as Zaza threw herself at me.
I mean that literally. Before I could stand up, the toddler grabbed me in an anaconda grip and goobered my cheek while making a humming noise.
As I was being slobbered on, Nicky laughed. “You can help by keeping Zaza busy. She has a tendency of clinging to my leg and wailing when she sees me making food. It reminds her she’s hungry.”
“Does it work?” Percy asked. “Does she get fed faster?”
Nicky turned a stern look on the dragon. “No, it does not, so don’t even think of it.”
