The Dragon's Gift

Part 9

Later that day, after lunch, Mom told me the rest of the story.
"After he picked me up on the dragon, we flew to his hideout, which was underground underneath a mall. We landed behind the mall and I was so confused and shocked."
"Had you ever seen a dragon before? At this point?" I asked.
"No," Mom said. "But a few years after, I met Tamalia and her dragon family. Anyway, he lead me to a wall with lots of graffiti on it. We waved his hand in front of the wall and a keyboard showed up. He typed in a password, which he told me later, and a door appeared and opened."
"What about the dragon?" I asked.
"He flew away," Mom said. "They just go wherever they feel like. They come back when they're called, though. That happened with Tamalia. Anyway, we walked through the door and into a small hallway. I hardly even knew Justin, so I was really scared that he was going to be a serial killer or some sort of psycho. But, I ended up trusting him with my life. We walked through the hallway and to another door. He put his hand on the door and whispered something. The door opened and through the door there was a HUGE room with tons of people in it. The room was painted blue and red with pictures of dragons on the walls. There was a desk in the middle of the room with a long line of kids my age."
"How do you remember this so vividly?" I asked.
"Well, Nogards can remember things about dragons very well. You should be able to remember EXACTLY what the Red Wyvern looked like and what I said to you. Do you?"
I thought for a bit. I remembered that the dragon had big claws, huge horns, and I remembered my mom standing in front of the door and I couldn't see.
"Yeah, I guess. But, will my memory get better?" I asked.
"It should," Mom said. "Some Nogards are better at remembering things better than others."
"Hey, here's a quick question," I said. "How many Nogards are there in the world?"
Mom pursed her lips. "Well, I was told that one out of ten thousand people is a Nogard."
"Hmm," I said.
"Anyway, Justin brought me to the line in front of the desk. We stood in line for about ten minutes. As we got to the front, Justin told the woman at the desk my name, age and address. She gave me a number to remember and gave me a map of the place. The place was called 'The Nogards Headquarters'. Justin told me that I could go home and that he would show me around the next day. So, he called the Black Wyvern and he gave me a ride home."
Mom stopped and looked at me. She smiled.
"Is that it?" I asked. "What about all the training?"
"Justin trained me. That was just the first time I went to the Headquarters with Justin. Honestly, I thought that I was going to marry Justin. Even though he was a lot older than I was, I had a crush on him. He was so sweet and VERY handsome."
"Why didn't you marry him? He's only seven years older than you!" I said.
"Well, when I was twenty and he was twenty seven, he found a girlfriend. He ended up marrying her, too. I was devastated and didn't want to have anything to do with men ever again. You probably know how I felt, right?"
"What?" I asked. "What do you mean?"
"You've had a crush on someone before, right?"
"Um, well, yeah, I have. But that was a LONG time ago. In like grade four. And he liked someone else anyway. I never told him I liked him."
"That's exactly how I felt. I wanted to kill someone when he told me he was going to marry someone. When he told me, I was about to tell him that I liked him. It was a really big crush, too. He never found out. I haven't seen him in years."
Mom looked down at her feet and sniffed.
"Why don't you teach me about other types of dragons? To get your mind off of Justin?"
"Okay," she said. "Let's start that."
Mom wiped a tear from her cheek.
"Okay, how much have I told you about the Ljubljana dragon?"
I shrugged. "Not much, I think."
"Okay. Well, a Ljubljana dragon isn't the biggest dragon there is. But, it is fairly big. Most of them have green scaly backs, a golden chest, a long green tail, red on the inside of their wings and green on the outside and five golden horns coming out of there red, gold and green faces. They guard the city of Ljubljana and sometimes flee from the city to have a flying trip around the world. They are attracted to gold, silver and bronze items. So, never bring anything that's one of those colours with you while flying with your own dragon!"
I laughed. "Do they breath fire?"
"Yes, they do. But not gasses like Wyverns."
"Cool," I said.
"Next, is the Chinese dragon. Now, these dragons are the ones that you don't want to mess with. Even though they have no wings, they can still float through the air because of some lumps they have on their foreheads. Chinese dragons can turn invisible and turn into humans. They can trick anybody into believing that they're actually human. These dragons are long and have a snake-like body. Most of them have a long scaly yellow body with blue legs and a green face. They have red noses with moustache-like tentacles coming out of their faces. The lumps on their foreheads are bright red and big. These dragons don't breathe fire, but they can do things that other dragons can't do."
"Have you ever seen a real Chinese dragon?" I asked.
"As a matter of fact, I have. They had one in The Nogards Headquarters."
"Wow," I said.
"Next, is the Jersey Devil. I told you a little bit about these dragons yesterday, right?" Mom asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Okay, well,"
"Mom?" I asked. "I'm really hungry again. Can I have something to eat?"
Mom nodded and pointed to the kitchen.