The Dragon Under my Bed

Hiding

Yesterday went by in a blur, I could hardly think about anything else other than our plan. By 1:00 yesterday, I and Zagem had an almost flawless plan.

"Alright Garret, let's go over this one last time," Zagem said, yawning. "Tomorrow, go about your usual routine, but when you go to greet your mother, you'll tell her that a friend has invited you to a camping trip for a week or so. Then you'll spend the rest of the day gathering necessities, and we'll be off. You remember where we're heading, correct?"

"Yup!" I said. "The abandoned tunnel by the golf course. The mossy growing on it will camouflage it, hiding us more."

"I don't think so, Garret," Zagem said, smiling.

"I'll make sure to gather as much as I can after school and come and meet you," I said, climbing into bed.

Zagem frowned. "Oh right. I forgot to mention. You can't go to school. If we want to be hiding by nightfall, you'll have to skip it."

"Zagem, I can't miss school. If I do, they'll contact my parents, and they'll be sus of me. The plan will be ruined!" I said

"'Sus?'" Zagem echoed.

"Oh, it's a human thing."

"Moving on," Zagem said. "We have to take that risk, The golf course is nearly an hour's walk from here, and we might have to take 2 or 3 trips depending on what we bring. We'll just have to pray it'll work."

"This'll just increase the chances of this not working." I protested. "which will increase the chances of you being found and killed. We have to try."

"NO!" Zagem roared. I recoiled in shock, nearly hitting my head on the wall. It was the first time Zagem had ever yelled at me. "I'm sorry Garret, it's just... if we don't play our cards right, we could die, both of us."

I buried my head in my pillow. He was right, we could die. With him becoming more and more serious with every moment, it made me realize that this was something I needed to take seriously too. It was scary to think about. I felt Zagem nudge me with his snout, and I looked up at him, looking at his cat-like eyes.

"Garret, Listen to me. There's one thing that every dragon learns when they hatch. It's that even in the most terrifying moments, you are a still dragon, In every situation, whenever it be a fight against a stronger rival, A game of chess that can determine the very fate of your life, or a homicidal dragon hunting you down, you must remember that you are a dragon, The kings of the skies, the rulers of the clouds, the superior race. And you may be a human, and you may feel small, vulnerable, and very scared right now, but you must remember that you are very much like my kind. You're smart, compassionate, you have a large hoard of books, and you always want to fight for what's right. You're a dragon if I've ever seen one." Zagem held out his paw. "Come on Garret, what do you say?"

I only had one thing to say, no matter how crazy it sounded. "Come on Zagem, let's do this, even if it kills us!"

Zagem and I rehearsed this a million times, It won't be that bad, I don't know what I'm freaking out about. Talking to one's mother would be a normal task that shouldn't require a rehearsal, but when your friend's life is on the line, you tend to freak out a bit. I only had one shot at this, if I screwed this up, I don't think id ever forgive myself. Plus, Zagem and I didn't have a plan B, so I had an idea what we were going to do if phase 1 of our plan was a failure. Also, Zagem was terrible at playing the part of my mom.

"Hey, mother- Er... mom?"

"yes, sweetheart?" She said, looking up from her Tarot cards (She was into that sort of stuff)

"So... Yesterday Andrew invited me to this camping trip and I was wondering if I could go."

"You've never shown interest in camping before." She said.

"Um, I wanted to see if I would enjoy it."

"Well, that sounds fun!" She said cheerfully. "How long will you be going for?"

"Andrew's uncle owns a campsite, so we can stay all the time we want, so I'd say about... 2 weeks?"

Mom laughed. "2 weeks? For your first time? But you've never been camping before!"

"There are heated cabins and an operational phone. If I have any problems, ill give you a call."

Mom thought about it for a long moment, before saying: "How much for entry?"

"Oh, um. Andrew's uncle owns the campsite, so it's on him." I lied. "Nothing will come out of your wallet."

"Another reason to let you go then." She laughed. "I'll let you go, but ONLY if you promise to catch up on all of your schoolwork that you'll miss, and take a shower every day. If they don't have showers, jump in a lake or something."

"What if they don't have lakes?" I asked.

"Use a water bottle or something." Mom said. "But showers aside, if you do that, you can go."

"Wow, Really? Thanks, mom!"

"You're very welcome, Garret." Mom said, smiling.

"I'm going to call Zage- Andrew right now and tell him!"

I ran back upstairs to my room as fast as I could. Andrew was a friend of mine, but his uncle didn't own a campsite, nor did he invite me to do anything. So hopefully mother won't give him a call to talk about it, because then things would fall apart. I rushed into my room and shut the door.

"I assume it went well?" Zagem said, Immideitly coming out from under the bed and seeing my wide grin.

"Yes!" I said. Zagem got up from under the bed, and we both danced together in celebration, laughing and talking excitedly like teenage girls would at a slumber party. After all of it ended, Zagem fell to the floor, panting.

"Well, We may have gotten this part done, but there's still more to go. First, we have to wait for your parents to leave. Go tell them you're going to walk to school, and then walk back. They should be gone by then."

I nodded and did as I was told. When I got back, Zagem told me to get as much food and water as I could grab, and take it to the golf course. After nearly 3 trips, we had everything we needed. Most of the food was for me, as Zagem could hunt. I also brought a dish so Zagem could drink the bottled water I brought.

As I made my way towards the tunnel, Zagem saw me and made his way toward me.

"Look what I brought!" Zagem said, holding up a giant mattress. "Suprise!"

"Why did you bring my mattress?" I asked, taking it from him.

"I brought it so you didn't have to sleep on the floor," Zagem said.

"How thoughtful," I said.

"I also brought a blanket. It's already in the tunnel." Zagem said. "Speaking of the tunnel, we're losing daylight here. Let's start barricading."

After a few long hours of barricading our hideout with large boulders and tree branches, We sealed ourselves in the long tunnel.

"Wow, this is so cool! It's like our little fort!" I said, hearing my voice echo back to me. "So what do we do in the meantime?"

Zagem laughed. "Nothing much left to do but stay here. It might be a while, so you might as well be comfortable."

"The waiting game, eh?" I said.

"That's the only thing we can do," Zagem said, curling into a ball. "We must wait as long as it takes..."