A Fine Pickle

A Fine Pickle

She found me in the pocket of her winter coat.

In my defense, it was August, and nobody had any business rummaging through winter clothing. I'd chosen the coat after an exhaustive search of the hall closet. It was red, fleece-lined, and smelled faintly of peppermint and dryer sheets. The pocket contained thirty-seven cents, a petrified raisin, and a cough drop old enough to qualify for Social Security.

Then she stuck her hand inside and poked me in the eye.

Naturally, I bit her but not hard. Dragons have some couth.

“Ouch!” she said, jerking her hand out.

I poked my head over the edge of the pocket. She stared at me. I stared back.

The little girl had tangled brown hair, enormous eyes, and the perpetually hopeful expression of a child who had not yet accepted that most of adulthood consisted of bills, passwords, schedules, and deciding what to watch on Netflix.

"Oh," she whispered.

I climbed onto her palm.

I was about the size of a chipmunk, although much better looking. My scales were moss-green, my wings were still largely decorative, and my tail had an unfortunate habit of wrapping itself around anything nearby.

"You can't be real."

I sneezed. A spark landed on her sleeve, and she quickly slapped it out.

"Okay, you're real."

She studied me for a moment. Then she scurried to her bedroom and gently placed me on her bed.

"My name is Piper. You need a name."

I nodded. Something noble seemed appropriate. Scorch, perhaps. Maybe Blaze. Possibly something ancient and unpronounceable that would eventually inspire folk songs.

She scratched my scaly chin.

"Pickle."

I stared at her. Pickle?

Thousands of years of dragon ancestry, young fire in my belly, wings on my back, and the child named me after something that lived in a jar beside the mustard.

I considered biting her again. Then she kissed me on the head. Pickle it was.

The only person Piper wanted to share me with was her sister, Sophie. This was unfortunate for a few reasons. I’d heard things before I was discovered living in that coat pocket in the closet.

Sophie was eighteen, nine years older than Piper and therefore, according to Sophie, infinitely wiser. She was leaving for college in a few weeks. She had recently developed the unbearable confidence of someone who had taken one introductory psychology class and suddenly understood why everyone in the family behaved the way they did. Sophie seemed to love Piper, though she showed it mostly by calling her a weirdo.

Piper carried me into Sophie's bedroom beneath her shirt. I peeked out through a small hole in the hem.

"I found a baby dragon."

Sophie was packing shoes into a box. She didn't look up.

"Of course you did."

"A real one."

"Sure it is."

"He breathes fire."

"Tell him not to burn the house down. Mom just had the kitchen painted."

I was insulted. At my age, I couldn't have burned down a kitchen if someone had soaked it in gasoline and handed me a match. And I’d never do that, at least not intentionally.

Piper frowned. "You never believe me."

"Last month you told me there was a mermaid living in Mrs. Delaney's swimming pool."

"There might have been."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "It was the pool cleaner."

Piper groaned. She almost pulled me out from beneath her shirt but changed her mind. Her sister told their parents everything. Everything. The broken lamp, the candy bar Piper ate before dinner, even the time she'd used their mother's good scissors to give herself bangs.

A dragon wouldn't stay secret for five minutes.

"They'd probably take you away," Piper whispered.

I hadn't known her long, but I had no intention of living in a zoo, laboratory, or anywhere that didn't serve cookies.

Piper affectionately patted the top of my head. "So, nobody can know about you. Not even Sophie. Especially not Sophie.”

I curled my tail around her wrist and then climbed onto her shoulder. I sneezed smoke.

"See, exactly."

For the next few weeks, I lived secretly in Piper's bedroom. I slept in her slipper, bathed in her cereal bowl, and discovered peanut butter, which remains the strongest argument I have encountered for human civilization.

Piper liked that I could breathe fire. It was still just a flash, but I could light candles, toast a slice of bread, and warm her hands. Yet, I could also be unpredictable when startled, which is how Piper lost half an eyebrow when the vacuum cleaner unexpectedly came whirring around the corner.

Sophie noticed at dinner. "What happened to your eyebrow?"

"Pickle."

"Pickle?"

"My dragon."

"Your imaginary dragon burned off your eyebrow?"

"Part of it."

Sophie nodded thoughtfully. "You should probably get an imaginary fire extinguisher."

I disliked her.

Unfortunately, Piper loved her. That became obvious the day Sophie's belongings began disappearing into the car.

Piper spent the morning pretending not to care. Children are terrible at pretending not to care. Adults aren't much better, but they have mortgages and wine to distract them.

When Sophie hugged her goodbye, Piper wrapped both arms around her and refused to let go.

"You're squishing me, weirdo. I'm coming home for Christmas.”

"I know."

"Meanwhile, I'll call you every Sunday."

"Okay, I guess."

"And you can keep me updated on your imaginary dragon." She laughed.

Piper pulled away. "You still don't believe me?"

Sophie softened. "I believe that you believe he's real."

Even I understood that this was the wrong answer.

That night, Piper cried. I climbed onto her pillow and rested my head against her cheek.

"I miss her already."

I hummed.

"She's so annoying."

I licked her nose.

"And bossy."

I nodded.

"And she doesn't believe in you."

I sneezed and set the corner of her pillow on fire.

"Pickle!"

She smothered it with her blanket, then started laughing. Mission accomplished.

September came and went. Every Sunday, Piper talked to Sophie. Sophie reported on professors, roommates, the terrible food, and a boy named Trevor who played guitar poorly but apparently made up for it with cheekbones and a man-bun.

Piper reported on me. “Pickle ate three peanut butter sandwiches."

"Your imaginary dragon needs to watch his carbs."

"He's not imaginary."

"Right."

"And he's getting bigger."

That part was certainly true.

By October, I no longer fit inside the slipper. By November, I had outgrown the laundry basket. My wings strengthened, my silver horns lengthened, and I developed what I considered an impressive chest, albeit bright green.

Piper began sneaking me outside at night to practice flying.

My first attempt landed me in a prickly shrub. My second ended on the roof. My third ended in that shrub again, which felt unnecessarily personal.

But I kept practicing, and soon I could clear the trees, then the neighborhood, then climb high enough to see the highway winding toward the horizon. Flying came naturally once I stopped thinking about it. And I also didn’t want to think about someday having to soar away from Piper.

By Christmas week, the house smelled of cinnamon and pine, and presents rested beneath the tree. Sophie was coming home the following day. Piper was beside herself with excitement.

Then the snow started. At first, everyone thought it was pretty. By noon, it became inconvenient. By evening, the mailbox had disappeared, the driveway was gone, and snow was halfway up the front steps.

Sophie phoned that night. Piper answered before the second ring.

"I'm stuck here," Sophie said.

Piper's smile disappeared.

"What do you mean?"

"They closed the highway. The buses aren't running."

"But Christmas is in a few days."

"I know, but there’s nothing I can do."

"You promised you'd be home."

"I want to be home, Pipes."

Piper looked toward the window, where snow was flying sideways.

"Maybe it'll stop."

"Not in time for Christmas. I’m sorry."

Piper cried, even though Sophie suggested that they could video chat while Piper opened her presents. She promised they'd make cookies when she eventually got home. She even offered to let Piper choose a movie they’d watch together. This was a considerable sacrifice given Piper's inexplicable affection for talking snowmen.

None of it helped. When the call ended, Piper sat on the stairs. She was inconsolable, so I sat beside her and wrapped my wing around her shoulders.

"She should be here, Pickle. We've never had Christmas without Sophie."

I nudged her; a cheering-up gesture. She looked at me. I looked at her.

I knew that expression. It was the same one she'd had shortly before asking whether I could roast a marshmallow while it was in her mouth.

Then she fixed her gaze on my wings.

I shook my head. Not happening!

Piper wasn’t reading me because she grinned.

Half an hour later, after her parents thought she'd gone upstairs to sulk for the night, we were knee-deep in snow in the back garden.

Piper explained her idea, and I snorted, leaving a burnt strip of melted snow. Without a second thought, she climbed on my back.

Seriously?

She held on and refused to climb down. “C’mon, Pickle. Let’s go!”

What was a dragon who loved a little girl supposed to do? After all, she taught me to fly.

I spread my wings, and we took off into the storm.

Humans often mistake confidence for competence. Flying through snow is nothing like flying on a clear night. Snow got in my eyes and up my nose and into places a dragon prefers not to discuss.

The wind shoved us sideways, and twice I lost sight of the highway entirely. Piper lay flat against my neck, shouting directions from beneath the hood of her coat.

"Right!"

I banked.

"Other right!"

Humans really should have better words for mile-high directions.

The trip took nearly two hours, but Piper held tight. When the lights of Sophie's college finally appeared through the snow, Piper yelled into my ear.

"Down there!"

I descended toward the dormitory lawn. Smoothly. At least that was my intention. My left wing clipped the building's cornerstone gargoyle on the way down, but I recovered nicely. The gargoyle, not so much.

Sophie came running outside wearing pajamas beneath her coat.

"Piper? What the f---?"

Sophie said a word I’m sure a nine-year-old girl shouldn’t hear.

Piper slid off my back. Sophie stared at her. Then at me. Then at Piper again.

"What are you doing here?!"

"Merry Christmas."

Sophie grabbed her sister by both shoulders. "How did you get here?"

Piper smiled. “We flew."

Sophie looked at me again. I furled and unfurled my wings. For effect, I sneezed a small flame. She took a step backward.

"That's Pickle? The thing that burned off your eyebrow?"

"Only half."

Sophie approached me slowly. I lowered my head, and she touched my nose.

"He's so warm."

Piper rolled her eyes. "He's a dragon, Sophie. What did you expect?"

Sophie started laughing. Then Piper laughed. A second later they were hugging.

"I really thought you were making him up. And c’mon, a dragon? That was the most bizarre thing you’d ever told me."

"I know."

"And you do make a lot of things up."

"Not everything."

Sophie pulled back and looked at her little sister.

"No," she said. "Apparently, not everything."

That moment seemed important, so I pretended not to notice.

"We came to get you."

Sophie glanced in my direction and then at the sky.

"You expect me to ride in this storm on this, this...Pickle?"

I sighed. I had bravely crossed miles of frozen wilderness through a blizzard and still somehow sounded like a sandwich ingredient.

"You're scared," Piper teased.

"I am not."

"You look scared."

"I'm almost nineteen. I don't need to prove anything to a nine-year-old."

"Okay. Whatever. I tried." And Piper climbed onto my back.

That did it.

Two minutes later, Sophie was sitting behind Piper between my wings with both arms locked around her little sister.

"This is insane, Pipes."

"Yep."

"Has he ever carried two people?"

"Nope."

"Piper!"

I started running.

"Whoa, wait!" Sophie screamed.

Not a dignified scream, either. It began somewhere in her abdomen and came out at a frequency usually associated with smoke detectors. And I knew all about those.

It was too late to object; we’d left the ground.

Piper laughed so hard she nearly slid sideways.

"Stop laughing!"

"You said he wasn’t real, remember?"

"That was before I was a thousand feet in the air!"

We were perhaps fifty feet up, but I saw no reason to correct her.

The storm was beginning to weaken. Snow still swirled around us, but breaks appeared in the clouds and stars wheeled above us, while the moon turned the fields below silver.

When I leveled off, Sophie loosened her death grip.

"Oh my God," she said, glancing around. "It's absolutely beautiful."

"He is, isn’t he?" Piper gently patted my side. My heart soared higher than we did that night.

“I meant…” Sophie stopped herself. “Yes, Pickle is wonderful!”

Then Sophie wrapped her arms around Piper again, but this time it had nothing to do with being afraid.

For a while, neither sister spoke.

"I missed you, weirdo."

"I missed you too, Sophie."

"Piper?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm so sorry I didn't believe you."

Piper was quiet for a moment, then whispered, "It's fine. You believe me now though, don’t you?"

Sophie laughed. "I'm literally sitting on the evidence."

By the time the lights of home appeared below, the snow had softened to lazy flakes. I landed smoothly for the first time. Ice crusted on my wings, and I was famished.

Once inside, I waited for them to acknowledge that I had personally defeated both geography and transport in a blizzard. It took a minute, but it came.

Both Sophie and Piper hugged me tight around the neck. I felt heat rise in my nose and couldn’t help but snort. My flame lit the fire in the hearth and maybe a bit of the carpet. The girls giggled and stomped it out before it did any damage.

It was midnight by the time they got into dry clothes. They sat together on the floor beside the twinkling Christmas tree, watching a movie Piper picked out, and all was as it should've been.

Sophie looked at Piper. "This is already the best Christmas ever."

Piper glanced toward me, stretched out beside the fireplace with a soft blanket half tucked around me and a plate of peanut butter cookies I'd most certainly earned.

"Definitely, the very best."

"I still think you're a weirdo."

"I know."

The girls curled up together, and before long, they fell asleep.

Come morning, their parents would be so pleased to find their oldest daughter home, safe and sound. There would be a lot of questions, of course, but I was certain the truth would belong to the sisters alone.

A family separated by a storm for the holidays, and I was proud I was the one to get them out of what humans referred to as a fine pickle.

Fortunately, Piper had one.