Tad Williams - The Dragons of Ordinary Farm

“I’m going to our rooms, Mother.” He was desperate to get to the computer before he forgot the email address. “I just need to make a note for later on. But I’ll be right down after that, if you need any help at dinner.”

She looked hard at him for a moment. “Very well. But don’t dillydally. I’m not in the mood to be crossed this evening.”

A little shiver ran up his back. “I’ll be right back.”

Suddenly she smiled broadly, so that if Colin hadn’t been able to see the rest of her distracted, chilly face, he would have felt quite warm and loved. “That’s my good boy. That’s a boy who knows how to behave toward his mother.” She leaned forward as if to kiss his cheek, but stopped half a foot short, her dark lips smacking the air, then she turned and walked out of the lobby, pulling out her keychain so she could begin locking up.

Colin scuttled to the office in their rooms, and his own computer there-the one with all the security software, so that neither his mother, Gideon, nor anyone else at all could find out what he did. He quickly composed a letter to Modesto.

Please forgive my contacting you this way. I am a business associate of Gideon Goldring and I have certain things that will interest you, both information and an actual rare object. I know you are very interested in Mr. Goldring’s collection. If you would like to learn much more than you have so far been told, I require only two things: a meeting with you and absolute secrecy.

When you make your next appointment with Gideon, send me a message at this address to let me know where and when it will be, and I will arrange to meet you there beforehand so we can discuss things of great mutual interest. However, if you breathe a word to Mr. Goldring or anyone else about our arrangement, you will never hear from me again.

Signed, X

Colin knew the note was probably a little melodramatic, but he still thought it sounded grown-up and serious enough to keep the man interested. He already had what he thought of as the “bait”-an object that would surely provoke Modesto’s interest. He had been saving it specially… Now all he had to figure out was how to deliver the actual prize. He had been thinking about the problem for weeks, but this next bit could be more than disastrous if it went wrong-it could be fatal.

The best way, of course, would be to get someone else to do it

…

Weighing different strategies, Colin sent the email and made his way back to the kitchen. To his pleasure, his mother told him she had confined those brats to their rooms for the rest of the night, and had sent Caesar up with a tray of food and to stand over them till early morning, doing guard duty. Colin grinned to himself-that punished all three of them. For the rest of the evening, he meekly did everything she asked, and afterward she even patted him on the shoulder. Colin didn’t like that. Only a little kid neded to be patted and reassured by his mother. He was stronger than that. That’s why he was going places in this world.

Still, it took him a while to get to sleep that night, and he was troubled by dreams of angry, vengeful monsters.

Morning, and his mother’s rap on the door sounded like a gunshot.

“Get up, Colin, it’s almost six already. Go and get those children and bring them down to breakfast. Now, please.”

“But I want to have a shower-”

“Now.”

He got up, already in a bad mood. Barely dawn and the unwanted strangers were causing trouble for him already. He hated to start the day, especially what was going to be a hot summer day, without a shower. By the middle of the afternoon he would feel like things were growing on his sticky skin, like the clinging plants that had filled and choked off the farm’s unused greenhouse.

He pounded hard on Tyler Jenkins’s door to wake him up. When the boy had gone grumbling off to the bathroom, his eyes half shut, Colin knocked a little less roughly on Lucinda’s. She opened it wearing only a long T-shirt, the skin of her legs almost as pale as his mother’s. That wouldn’t last long, not in Ordinary Farm’s relentless summer sun.

“It’s time to come down to breakfast,” he told her. “It’s going to be a long day so you need a good start.” He felt stupid saying it, like one of those commercials for breakfast cereal, but he couldn’t help feeling bad about dragging her out of bed. She looked tired and fretful.

Of course, she had just met Meseret only a few hours before. He couldn’t guess what that must be like for an outsider.

“Oh, thanks, Colin,” she said. “I’ll be out in just a minute.”

She closed the door. She’d actually thanked him. Quite different from her brother, who emerged from the bathroom at that moment, the toilet still gurgling. “What are you staring at?” Tyler demanded.

“Not you, I promise.”

“Can we see the dragon again?”

“It’s not for me to say.”

“Look, just tell me how it got here, then.”

“I told you, it’s not for me to say.” Colin sighed. Children. “When you’re both ready I’ll meet you at the top of the stairs down the hall and take you down to the dining room.” He walked away, keeping his back as straight as he could. He’d show these urchins how to look dignified. If there was one thing his mother had made sure of, it was that Colin had good posture. He ignored the snorting noise Tyler made behind him. The boy was almost a savage, after all.

Ten minutes later, still ignoring Tyler’s endless questions, Colin led the Jenkins children into the kitchen, where he introduced them to the women preparing breakfast-red-cheeked Sarah, blonde, round, and bustlingly warm; tall, superior Azinza from West Africa; and the little, solemn-faced Tibetan girl, Pema. None of the young women liked him very much, Colin knew, but they all feared his mother, which kept them polite. Once names had been exchanged, he pulled the Jenkins children out of the kitchen and led them onward into the dining room with its long tables. Most of the farmhands were there already, and they turned to gaze with curiosity at the new arrivals.

Colin led Lucinda and Tyler to the serving table. The spread was a good one this morning: eggs of every kind, bacon, sausages, ham, hash brown potatoes, a platter of fried mushrooms and tomatoes (which Tyler Jenkins was careful to avoid, although he seemed to have taken more than a little of everything else), waffles, pancakes, and at least five or six different kinds of muffins. When they had loaded their plates, Colin looked around. The only empty space big enough for all three of them was next to Ragnar, so he reluctantly led them over.

The big blond-bearded man grinned and reached out to shake hands with the children. Their hands disappeared into his massive grasp like pink baby mice being swallowed whole by a python. “Greetings to you both.” Ragnar turned a less friendly look on Colin. “And to you, young Needle.”

“Where did that dragon come from?” Tyler demanded.

“That is Gideon’s story to tell, not mine,” Ragnar said.

“Do you all live here on the farm?” Lucinda asked. More farmhands were coming in now, although all but the kitchen workers were men.

“Gideon has generously given us homes, all us refugees,” Ragnar explained. Colin tensed, afraid the man might say too much-Ragnar was far too full of himself-but the Scandinavian giant only turned to Mr. Walkwell, sitting at a nearby table. “Isn’t that right, Simos?”

The farm’s overseer looked sour. “You children, get on with the eating” was all he said. “It is a long day ahead.”

“Ick, Tyler-you’ve got enough syrup on your plate to float an ocean liner,” Lucinda complained. Her brother ignored her and began to eat. Colin Needle realized that he was hungry too. Then, just as he bent to his plate, a cool hand closed on his shoulder.