A fork for eating daintily. It led to me glancing at my paws smeared in sauce. My hunger shouldn’t be an excuse for eating like a savage. How could I gain their respect if I lacked simple manners?
A tray on the table held a variety of utensils. Forks taller than me. Blunt knives. Big spoons, but also small ones.
“What’s it doing?” asked grandfather.
“Um, I think it’s grabbing itself a spoon.”
“What the hell for?”
As if it weren’t obvious. I returned to my plate with the slightly heavier than expected instrument. While the shortest of the utensils, it still proved challenging to use. I had to use two paws to fill it and then couldn’t quite get it to my mouth with my short arms. It led to me grunting in frustration.
“Let me help.” Iolana grasped the spoon, filled it, and held it in line with my mouth.
At least she’d begun to grasp her servant status. I ate, spoon-fed like the king that I was.
Once Iolana had scraped my plate clean, she continued to feed me from hers.
Grandfather grunted. “You’re going to make it explode.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Remember how much it ate last night? There’d been enough stew left for four people, and it ate it all plus the bread.”
“What kind of lizard is it?”
Lizard? “I am a dragon,” I declared, however, given it emerged in the ancient tongue, they both eyed me cluelessly. I’d really need to discover the proper term in their language and make them grasp the severity of their insult.
“I don’t know what type it is. I did a quick Google search, but nothing I pulled up seems right. I don’t think it’s native to Hawaii, though. Maybe it escaped from someone who smuggled it in?”
“Meaning it might be rare?” The old man’s expression brightened.
“Don’t you even think of trying to sell Tigger,” Iolana snapped.
“Tigger. What kind of dumb name is that?”
“A cute one.”
“Given how it eats, Garfield might have been more appropriate.”
Iolana’s lips curved. “Fair point, but too late now.”
“Just don’t let it be messing up the house or shop.” The man huffed as he heaved himself from the chair.
“Can’t be any worse than you,” she sang as she cleared the table.
I lowered myself to helping by licking the plates clean before she dumped them into sudsy water.
When she’d finished stowing the dishes, she carried me into a new chamber with a tub, a sink, and a strange contraption that appeared to be a chair of some kind but with a hole in the seat full of water.
She turned a dial and filled the small basin with warm water and set me beside it. “Just in case you want to splash around while I shower.”
Water that appeared from a spout? How innovative. A glance at the tub showed more of it raining from a spigot close to the ceiling. Iolana undressed, not that I cared about human nudity. I dipped my paw in the basin. A bath might be nice, as my skin had begun to itch. A sign my first molt was almost upon me.
A stink, though, distracted. Iolana sat upon the chair with the hole and defecated! Upon standing, she tugged a lever and the water, with its waste, disappeared. How fascinating, especially since I finally had to evacuate my bowels, my body wanting to rid itself of useless nutrients. While she showered under the spray, having pulled across a crinkly fabric curtain, I availed myself of the waste remover, dropping the hardened pebbles. However, I couldn’t reach the lever to remove them. I left it for my servant and returned to the sink for my own bath.
When Iolana emerged from the tub area, she wrapped herself in a towel before exclaiming, “Did you poo in the toilet? What a good Tigger. I didn’t know lizards could be potty trained.”
Lizards couldn’t. Dragons, however, did maintain a certain level of hygiene.
She pulled the lever and made it go away before scooping me from the sink and wrapping me in a much smaller towel. She carried me into her chamber, but didn’t put me in the tank, rather, she placed me on her bed. It smelled of her, but I didn’t mind. The cushion at the head provided even more softness for my body. I curled into it and went to sleep.
