Magic dragon the dragonstone

Nearly ten years had passed since the Wind riders had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Wind riders’ front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Wind rider had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets — but Lightning Dust was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond mare riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by her mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.

Yet Spike Drago was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.

“Up! Get up! Now!”

Spike woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.

“Up!” she screeched. Spike heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying chariot in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside the door.

“Are you up yet?” she demanded.

“Nearly,” said Spike.

“Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the hay bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Lightning Dust’s birthday.”

Spike groaned.

“What did you say?” his aunt snapped through the door.

“Nothing, nothing . . .”

Lightning Dust’s birthday — how could he have forgotten? Spike. . got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Spike was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.

When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Lightning Dust’s birthday presents. It looked as though Lightning Dust had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing book. Exactly why Lightning Dust wanted a racing book was a mystery to Spike, as Lightning Dust was very muscular and hated exploring his mind — unless of course it involved punching somebody. Lightning Dust's favorite punching bag was Spike, but she couldn’t often catch him. Spike didn’t look it, but he was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Spike had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Lightning Dust’s, and Lightning Dust was about four times bigger than he was. Spike had a thin face, knobbly knees, purple spines, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Lighting Dust had punched him on the nose. The only thing Spike liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his cheek that was shaped like a x. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.

“In the curious crash when your parents died,” she had said. “And don’t ask questions.”

Don’t ask questions — that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Wind riders.

Uncle Wind rider entered the kitchen as Spike was turning over the hay bacon.

“ polish your scale!” he barked, by way of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Wind rider looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Spike needed a scale cut. Spike must have had more scale cuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his scale simply grew that way — all over the top of his head.

Spike was frying fish by the time Lightning Dust arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Lightning Dust looked a lot like her mom. He had a large the blue face, a much neck, tall, watery yellow eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on her thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Lightning Dust looked like a baby angel — Spike often said that Lightning Dust looked like a pig in a wig.

Spike put the plates of fish and hay bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn’t much room.

Lightning Dust, meanwhile, was counting his presents. Her face fell.

“Thirty-six,” she said, looking up at her mother and father. “That’s two less than last year.”

“Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie harshwhinny's present, see, it’s here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy.”

“All right, thirty-seven then,” said Lightning Dust, going red in the face. Spike, who could see a huge Lightning Dust tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his hay bacon as fast as possible in case Lightning turned the table over.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, “And we’ll buy you another two presents while we’re out today. How’s that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?”

Lightning Dust thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally she said slowly, “So I’ll have thirty . . . thirty . . .”

“Thirty-nine, sweetums,” said Aunt Petunia. “Oh.” Lightning Dust sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. “All right then.”

Uncle Wind rider chuckled.

“Little tyke wants his money’s worth, just like his father. ’Atta boy, Dudley!” He ruffled Dudley’s hair. At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

“Bad news, Wind rider,” she said. “Mrs. Spitfire broken her leg. She can’t take him.” She jerked her head in Spike’s direction.

Lightning Dust's mouth fell open in horror, but Spike’s heart gave a leap. Every year on Lightning Dust’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hayburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Spike was left behind with Mrs. Spitfire, a mad young lady who lived two streets away. Spike love it there. The whole house smelled of sapphires and Mrs. Spitfire made him look at photographs of all the teammates she’d met.

“Now what?” said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Spike as though he’d planned this. Spike knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Spitfire had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at so, soarin, cloud chaser, and the cloud chaser again.

“We could phone harshWinnie,” Uncle Wind rider suggested.

“Don’t be silly, Wind rider, she hates the boy.”

The Wind riders often spoke about Spike like this, as though he wasn’t there — or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn’t understand them, like a slug.

“What about what’s-her-name, your friend — fleet foot?”

“On vacation in Appaloosa,” snapped Aunt Petunia. “You could just leave me here,” Spike put in hopefully (he’d be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Lightning Dust’s computer).

Aunt Petunia looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon.

“And come back and find the house in ruins?” she snarled.

“I won’t blow up the house,” said Spike, but they weren’t listening.

“I suppose we could take him to the zoo,” said Aunt Petunia slowly, “. . . and leave him in the flight Hall. . . .”

“That flight Hall is new, he’s not sitting in it alone. . . .”

Lightning Dust began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn’t really crying — it had been years since she’d really cried — but she knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything she wanted.

“Lighting Dust, don’t cry, Mummy won’t let him spoil your special day!” she cried, flinging her arms around her.

“I . . . don’t . . . want . . . him . . . t-t-to come!” Lightning Dust yelled between huge, pretend sobs. “He always sp-spoils everything!” She shot Spike a nasty grin through the gap in her mother’s arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang —“Oh, by Celestia, they’re here!” said Aunt Petunia frantically — and a moment later, Lightning Dust’s best friend, ironwell, walked in with his mother. I am well was a buff Minotaur with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held ponie’s arms behind their backs while Lightning Dust hit them. Lightning Dust stopped pretending to cry at once. Half an hour later, Spike, who couldn’t believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Wind riders’ chariot with ironwell and Lightning Dust, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they’d left, Uncle Wind rider had taken Spike aside.

“I’m warning you,” he had said, putting his large baby blue face right up close to Spike’s, “I’m warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Hearts and Hooves Day.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” said Spike, “honestly . . .”

But Uncle Wind rider didn’t believe him. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Spike and it was just no good telling the Wind riders he didn’t make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Spike coming back from the scale cutter looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his scales so short he was almost bald except for his face scales, which she left “to hide that horrible scar.” Lightning Dust had laughed herself silly at Spike, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his scales exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn’t explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Lightning Dust’s (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hoof puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Spike. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Spike wasn’t punished.

On the other hoof, he’d gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Lightning Dust’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Spike’s surprise as anyone else’s, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Wind riders had received a very angry letter from Spike’s headmistress telling them Spike had been climbing school buildings. But all he’d tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Wind rider through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Spike supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Lighting and ironwell to be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Spitfire’s cabbage-smelling living room.

While he threw, Uncle Wind rider complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: ponies at work, Spike, the council, Spike, the bank, and Spike were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was chariots.

“. . . roaring along like Stallioniacs, the young hoodlums,” he said, as a chariots overtook them. “I had a dream about a chariot,” said Spike, remembering suddenly. “It was flying by itself.”

Uncle Wind rider nearly crashed into the chariot in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Spike, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: “CHARIOTS DON’T FLY ON THEIR OWN!”

Lighting Dust and ironwell sniggered.

“I know they don’t,” said Spike. “It was only a dream.”

But he wished he hadn’t said anything. If there was one thing the Wind riders hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Wind riders bought Lighting Dust and ironwell large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Spike what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn’t bad, either, Spike thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Lighting Dust, except that it wasn’t blond.

Spike had the best morning he’d had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Wind riders so that Lighting Dust and ironwell, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Lighting Dust had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn’t have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Wind rider bought him another one and Spike was allowed to finish the first.

Spike felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Lighting Dust and ironwell wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Lighting Dust quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Wind rider and crushed him into a trash can — but at the moment it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Lighting Dust stood with her nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

“Make it move,” she whined at her father. Uncle Wind rider tapped on the glass, but the snake didn’t budge.

“Do it again,” Lighting Dust ordered. Uncle Wind rapped the glass smartly with his hoof, but the snake just snoozed on.

“This is boring,” Lighting Dust moaned. She shuffled away.

Spike moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid ponies drumming their hooves on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Spike's.

It's winked.

Spike stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anypony was watching. They weren’t. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Wind rider and Lighting Dust, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Spike a look that said quite plainly:

“I get that all the time.”

“I know,” Spike murmured through the glass, though he wasn’t sure the snake could hear him. “It must be really annoying.”

The snake nodded vigorously.

“Where do you come from, anyway?” Spike asked. The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Spike peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, The Fortress of Talacon.

“Was it nice there?”

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Spike read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. “Oh, I see — so you’ve never been to The Fortress of Talacon?”

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Spike made both of them jump. “LIGHTING DUST! MR. WIND RIDER! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

Lighting Dust came waddling toward them as fast as she could.

“Out of the way, you,” she said, punching Spike in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Spike fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, ironwell and Lighting Dust were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.

Spike sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. Ponies throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Spike could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, Fortress of Talacon, here I come. . . . Thanksss, amigo.”

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

“But the glass,” he kept saying, “where did the glass go?”

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Ironwell and Lighting Dust could only gibber. As far as Spike had seen, the snake hadn’t done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Wind rider's chariot, Lighting Dust was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Ironwell was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Spike at least, was Ironwell calming down enough to say, “Spike was talking to it, weren’t you, Spike?”

Uncle Wind rider waited until Ironwell was safely out of the house before starting on Spike. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, “Go — cupboard — stay — no meals,” before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Spike lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn’t know what time it was and he couldn’t be sure the Wind riders were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn’t risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

He’d lived with the Wind riders almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he’d been a baby and his parents had died in that chariot crash. He couldn’t remember being in the chariot when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green fire and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn’t imagine where all the green fire came from. He couldn’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, spike had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Wind riders were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tall Griffin in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Lighting Dust. After asking Spike furiously if he knew the Griffin, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old mare dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a chariot. A bald typograph in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these creatures was the way they seemed to vanish the second Spike tried to get a closer look.

At school, Spike had no one. Everybody knew that Lighting Dust’s gang hated that odd Spike Drago in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Lighting Dust’s gang.