The Story of Owen (25 page)

The reporters gave up on us at that point, but we had received enough coverage by then that word started to circulate outside of the county. Hanover and Kincardine both petitioned Lottie to help them train their own Guards, with charters based on the one we'd written on unicorn paper in Mr. Huffman's classroom. Hannah took over the training at Trondheim so that Lottie could travel to other high schools in the area. Aodhan did his part too, adding one high school stop per day to his patrol schedule whenever he was in an area that was training a Guard. And it went further than that, too. Rural schools all over the province started requesting the help of a government dragon slayer to help them train their own students, and even city schools started to approach their local corporation-backed dragon slayers on the subject.

Even though we had driven off most of the local news coverage, we generated a flurry of media activity on a national scale. The idea of training teenagers to help with the dragon problem was debated on talk shows and radio programs from Victoria to St. John's, with opinions ranging from those who believed in the Dracula myth strongly enough to declare it child abuse, to those who thought the Guard was a magnificent idea and something worth fostering across the country. The
political split did not go unnoticed by any of the commentators, but as we got closer to actually starting our official season, more than a few Conservative MPs were starting to change their minds on whether or not it was a good idea.

Things came to a head the week before our first official game. We'd been playing preseason games against other schools, those training a Guard and those that weren't, for almost a month by then, starting pretty much as soon as the snow melted and playing through some fairly horrific mud. The game in question took place in Wingham. Unlike in years past, where the girls' teams had traveled together, this game featured both the senior squads against Wingham's two senior teams. The girls played first, Trondheim winning handily (footishly? I was still working on my vocabulary that early on), mostly thanks to Sadie's complete inability to stop moving once she decided she would like to take the ball somewhere. Seriously, I'm pretty sure she could have taken down a brick wall, so something as inconsequential as the other team proved no barrier to her.

Anyway, by the time the boys' game started, we were all in high spirits, and even though they'd lost, the Wingham girls' team stayed behind to cheer as well. Since school was out for the afternoon by then, the audience had increased, and since Owen was playing, the news cameras were on scene too, rolling film. Lottie and Hannah were sitting away from the crowd and had brought a blanket to sit on. They waved me over once the game started, and I dragged Sadie, who was so excited I thought she might explode, with me to sit with them. Aodhan was in the
area, Hannah told me, so he might show up after halftime to watch Owen play.

We were about ten minutes into the game when Lottie's cell phone rang. She looked down at the screen, and I knew immediately that it was Aodhan, and that it was bad news. She got up and walked farther away from the crowd (there were no bleachers since, before now, no one ever actually came to soccer games), and Hannah followed her. I watched, waiting for some indication of what I should do. Sadie grabbed my hand, and I knew that she had figured it out too.

It didn't take long. Lottie ended the call and headed straight for the announcer's bench while Hannah made her way back to us.

“Dragon incoming,” she said as quietly as she could, confirming my suspicion. No one but Sadie and me heard her above the roar of the crowd.

Instinctively I braced myself. Dragon attacks in congested areas are the worst, I knew, because it's hard for people not to panic. At least with the ground this wet, chances of a grass fire were slim. And then I remembered whom I was standing with. Not just Hannah, but the Trondheim Secondary School senior girls' soccer team, more than half of whom had been in training for two months for a situation just like this one. This would be our test.

At the announcer's booth, Lottie got control of the mike.

“Attention, everyone,” she said. The Trondheim players, accustomed to following her orders, froze in place on the field or straightened where they stood in the crowd. The Wingham players followed suit. I saw Lottie's face and wondered how she was going to do this without causing a melee. She smiled
slightly and held the microphone out from her face so she could yell without causing feedback. “Dragon drill!” she shouted.

The effect was immediate, as the forty-odd members of the Trondheim and Wingham Guard immediately took charge. With Lottie, Hannah, and Owen present, everyone knew to be in evacuation mode, and the Trondheim students knew to defer to Wingham, as the host school. I followed along, even though I knew that this was no drill, and kept the pace up, as some would have straggled behind on their way to the enormous dragon shelter underneath the Wingham gymnasium.

Gradually, all of the students, parents, coaches, players and news reporters were corralled into the shelter. Sadie, Alex, and Owen had all gone to Lottie's car to retrieve the swords, Sadie carrying Lottie's like it was some kind of holy relic. I could tell by the looks on their faces that Sadie had told them it was no drill.

“Get inside,” Hannah said to Sadie and Alex as the swords were handed over. “You too, Siobhan. Keep everyone calm. The important thing is that everyone got in before the dragon got here.”

I heard the screech of tires and knew that Aodan had just pulled into the parking lot. The dragon must be nearly overhead. I smelled smoke and turned, and there it was, perched on top of the Trondheim bus. It was just a corn dragon, small enough that the bus wasn't broken under its weight, but it was big enough, and we had successfully evaded it. Now it was up to our dragon slayers to finish the job.

I pulled the shocked Sadie and Alex, neither of whom had ever been that close to a dragon, into the shelter. I pulled
the door shut behind me and latched it. “Okay, everybody!” I shouted. “Move all the way to the back!”

“Aren't we done?” asked one of the Wingham players.

“Not quite,” I said. I noticed the new cameras were still rolling and decided to take advantage of it. “Congratulations on our first successful dragon evasion,” I said, loud enough that everyone heard me. “Our dragon slayers are outside finishing off a corn dragon, but you should all be proud of yourselves. No one panicked and everyone is safe.”

“You mean the dragon is
real
?” demanded one of the parents.

“Yes,” I said. “Aren't you glad you gave your kids permission to learn how to deal with such events in a helpful manner?”

Sadie grabbed my hand again and held on like I'd held on to Hannah all those months ago, but she never stopped smiling. I thought for a moment she must be crazy, but then I realized she was still on pure adrenaline. I looked straight at her and realized that she, like Lottie, was trumpet-shaped in spirit, and bold. Until now, until the Guard, she hadn't had a place to work. That's why she was jealous of my relationship with Owen, not because of romance, but because I had effectively shut her out. I was in-the-know and she was not, but she wasn't out of the loop any more. Her piccolo trumpet soared above the worried murmurs of the crowd in the dragon shelter, and I mentally kicked myself for having missed it all this time. When Hannah finally came to let everyone out, the pair of us were still holding hands and grinning like lunatics.

The rest of the game was cancelled because the soccer field had been set on fire, but there were no hard feelings. We were delayed getting back to Trondheim because the bus had
been caught in the fight after we'd gone underground and was no longer road-safe, to say the least. Aodhan offered me a ride home with Owen, but I didn't want to break my newfound solidarity with Sadie, so I declined.

“I'm sorry I'm so dense,” I told her, once the Thorskards had gone. They'd left us their blanket, and we were sitting on some grass that wasn't burned, away from the rest of the waiting team.

“It's okay,” Sadie said. “It's not like I was straight with you either.”

“Still, next time I will talk more,” I promised impulsively. “Though I'm not sure what about.”

“Deal,” she said.

I got home just in time to record the news that night. The Prime Minister was forced to reverse his party's standing on the issue of training students in basic dragon defense, and then he had to publicly commend every single member of the Trondheim and Wingham Guard. It's the little things in life, I tell you, that make it all worthwhile.

Sadie called on Thursday evening, just before dinner, and asked if I was free. Mum was on nights, and dad was starting to get into tax crunch season, so I had an exciting evening of leftovers and homework planned.

“Oh, good,” said Sadie. “My mom and dad are out too. I'll order something. Bring your workout clothes!”

“Okay,” I said, even though she had already hung up.

Just last week, we were cautious acquaintances, and now, thanks to a dragon attack, we were friends. I was starting to realize we had been friends for a while, and I just hadn't noticed. To be honest, it was kind of exciting. I put the casserole back in the fridge and then went upstairs to grab my gear. The Guard mostly practiced in yoga pants and gym shorts, but Hannah had modified the leather arm guards once used by the now-defunct Saltrock archery club into gauntlets for sword fighting. I had a pair of real ones, of course, and a spare. I threw both into my bag. Sadie would probably appreciate a real pair as well.

Sadie lived close enough to my house that I could have walked over, but I was hungry so I drove instead. I got there just as the pizza delivery guy (who also delivered for the Chinese restaurant and doubled as the only taxi driver in Trondheim) was pulling out of the driveway. Sadie waved, the box balanced precariously in her other hand, and I waved back before turning off the engine.

We ate quickly, but I was still worried that it would be too dark to go outside and swing swords at one another. When I said as much, Sadie only smiled and finished her last slice with a flourish. She reached over her shoulder toward the back door and flipped a light switch, and the backyard was flooded with more than enough light to practice by.

Dragon slaying, even for pretend, is not really something I'd recommend doing after one has eaten three or six slices of pizza, so we started off slowly. We moved through the tai chi forms together, not requiring the count that Lottie still had to give to keep some of the students on track. I had worked for months, back before the Guard was even a thought, to perfect these movements, but Sadie had taken to them as naturally as if she'd been doing them her whole life. After about half an hour, by which time we'd done the whole routine twice, Sadie cracked her neck and headed for the practice swords.

“I really wish you wouldn't do that,” I told her. “It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“You stood by during a dragon slaying, but bone cracking makes you nervous?” Sadie asked. She picked up the swords and threw one at me. I managed to catch it, but only just.

“It's important to know your limits,” I said, and she grinned at me.

I dropped into
guard
and she mirrored me. Lottie had taught us forms for this too, numbered hits in sequence that had been passed down through the generations and had altered only slightly from the days when people used swords to fight one another instead of dragons.

“Do you ever wonder why we learn sword fighting this way?” Sadie asked as we moved through the first sequence.

I was still slightly better at this than she was, by virtue of having a few months' experience on her, but I had trouble talking while fighting.

“What do you mean?” I ground out, hoping my fingers wouldn't get snapped as a result of my inattentiveness.

“We learn sword fighting against a person,” Sadie said. “Dragons don't exactly have swords and follow the rules of chivalry.”

I actually knew the answer to this, having come across it in all the background reading Hannah had made me do, but I waited until the pause between the second and third form to start explaining.

“It's about muscle development,” I told her. “Muscles work based on memory, just like your brain does when it's doing math or driving home from school. By learning the forms, we train our muscles to keep moving from thrust to parry without having to think about it. That way, when you're fighting a dragon, you don't panic.”

“You didn't panic?” she asked, sliding into fourth form with a grace that made me profoundly jealous.

“Oh, I panicked like there was no tomorrow,” I told her. “But I didn't stop moving.”

Sadie thought about that as we went through fifth and sixth,
and then went back to the beginning to start again with her as the aggressor and me on defense. I braced myself. Sadie hit hard.