I have trouble reading some of my early notes about Lois because I was still trying to make up a shorthand that wouldn't get me slapped in jail and Smokehill turned over to developer piranhas if anyone found one of my notebooks, or broke the password on my computer (I am not a computer genius). I can read most of them, but not all of them. But everything, up till I started this, was still all notes, daily fragments and questions with no answers and unconnected details and ravings (lots of these). Dad's the one who told me that how I felt about all of it is valid too. Maybe our first conversation about it, when he started really leaning on me about writing this, went like this: "Valid for what?" I said. "Who cares? Lois is who's important — and now all the other dragons."
Dad made scritchy noises running his fingers through his beard. (I don't think I'm just being whatever-my-old-man-is-I'm-not-going-to-be although maybe I am, since it's obvious that unless I'm kidnapped by aliens and even if I don't ever get any PhD's I'm going to be head of the Institute some day too, but I shave. Actually one of the reasons why I shave may be the scritchy noises Dad makes when he's thinking about something.)
"You're the human," said Dad finally. "Sure, it's about our dragons, but most humans are mostly interested in other humans. You're a way for the ones who aren't so interested in dragons to get it. By tuning into you. And I know you don't want to hear this, but it's your story too."
Actually this freaked me out. I can just about stand having Bud staring over my shoulder all the time and Lois glued to me (almost) all the time, but they're my friends. I don't want a lot of strange humans staring at me for a clue. Not me, boss.
But then I thought about what Dad had done, keeping the Institute going — have I reminded you recently that he's the real hero of this story? — and I thought about Eleanor on national TV . . . and then my mind did a sort of somersault and I thought about all those books I read when I was a kid about ordinary kids who lived in towns with streetlights and movie theaters, who went to school and played football and ate at McDonald's. The way I'd sucked them down, because I wanted to know. And okay, they were fiction, but they were real fiction, if you follow me, and how did the authors know how to make them up?
So then I thought about how I had felt about all of it. I thought about what had been going on behind the notes, as I reread my notes. And then I thought, okay, maybe I'll try it. And then I got the worst case of writer's block you can imagine, and I buried myself in dragons in the hopes that the Headache would hammer it all out of me. Either the writer's block or, preferably, this idea of Dad's (and, it turned out, Martha's too) about writing about how I felt.
And how I feel, here, in a cavern full of dragons, is that it's all so interesting. Which maybe you're thinking is an anticlimax, but in that case I feel sorry for you because that just means you don't really know about interesting. Interesting is as good as it gets — and no I'm not getting all masculine, here, okay? I can say the word "love" and not throw up or turn blue. It if makes you happy, you can say that interesting is part of love — and if you'd like me to say I love my dragons, fine, here we go: I love my dragons.
But it's turned out to be so much more than just (!) raising one baby critter no human has (probably) ever raised before. I'm still scared to death too — not of the dragons any more (except in terms of the fact that they're still BIG and I wouldn't survive being stood on, however accidentally, and however sorry they were afterward), but for them. Every now and then I heave this huge sigh like my lungs are going to burst before I get enough oxygen in and out of them, and it's all about everything.
I have to kind of get up and give myself a shake every now and then, like a snoozing dog, or one of those cartoon characters rattling himself back into shape after a piano or a brontosaurus falls on him, if the dragons and I are in the caverns. But if we're outdoors and we've started early and it's a nice day, I'll suddenly wonder why it's getting dark and why I'm so hungry and I'll realize we've been at it for twelve hours or more. (Dragons eat about every third day, I think.) Part of this is the headaches — they're confusing — Martha calls it fuzzying, and she's right, it's like they rub up your brain till it looks like a sweater a cat's been clawing — it's not just that they hurt, although pain can make you stupid too, even if it's a pain you're used to. I wish I could figure out what Bud isn't telling me about not getting headaches.
And I guess I've grown up strange, probably as strange as Lois, in my own way. But I was already strange four years ago when I met her, when she wasn't quite as long as my hand. But — if you're asking — I wouldn't have any other life. (There. That's how I feel.) I wanted to work with dragons, and you can't get any more working with dragons than this. Some of the old lifers here are about the only people who still treat me like I'm normal — without thinking about it, I mean. Even a lot of the Rangers are a little, I don't know how to put it, awkward. Wary maybe. I should be a freshman at some college this year, hanging out at the student union and drinking beer. I was too young to drink beer much when I met Lois, and I can't now, because of the headaches. You could say that while Lois has finally got to return to her people, my reward has been to leave mine. But it is a reward, even if it's a little complicated.
Hey, it's late. The fire's dying and I think my battery is too. Even Bud's eyes are almost closed: just a glint where the lids meet in the middle. I'm going to shut up now and get some sleep myself.
EPILOGUE
I wrote all that five years ago. (So, yeah. I've got all old and gross and legal-adult and everything. Deal with it.)
It's taken that long to get it through the Searles' lawyers. When I wrote it I hadn't even thought about the Searles'-lawyers aspect. I was only worried about trying to tell the story as well as I could without looking like any more of a moron than I had to — plus what people like Dad and Eric would think when they read about themselves. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone's feelings (although I admit hurting the Searles' feelings didn't bother me a lot) but where do you start, or where do you stop, telling the truth?
But it's the Searles that were the real problem. Somebody told me what I'd written was going to have to go through some legal stuff and I said "whatever" and went back to my dragons. Then it took months to hear any more — but I'd never been happy about trying to write the story of Lois' early life so I wasn't sorry that it went away for a while. Then we started getting legal letters. At first I thought, Drop dead, I'm not changing anything, and then I thought, Hey, great, it's not going to get published after all and go out into the world and be read by strangers . . . and then Dragon Drivel came out, or whatever dumb thing they finally called it, which is the "sensitive" version I mentioned on the first page, and it was even more gruesome than I'd expected. So then I thought, Well, okay, I'll have a try at changing what the Searles don't like — or I'll try to change some of it. Our lawyers had helpfully highlighted what they thought were the most controversial bits.
And I did try. But then I thought, I'm supposed to be nice about the Searles and their psychopath son when I'm not being nice about my own family? And if I start being nice about everybody all that's left is the me looking like a moron part. So then I went stubborn all over again and said "drop dead" officially, and our lawyers translated that into legal speak and . . .
So it's been five years. And I didn't change anything after all. Our Friends got involved and it was all going against the Searles — even I felt a little sorry for them — a little — they're stuck in their own reality warp which they have to make everyone else agree with, except almost nobody does any more, however much money they spend. But I suppose it's hard saying "yes okay our son was a rotten evil creep."