Take Your Dragon to Class Day

By Cassandra Hamm

My backpack is twitching.

I peer under my desk at the previously-inanimate object and try not to panic. Professor Delorey’s reptile lecture goes in and out of my ears.

Oh. Crap.

My bag moves again. I kick it, and Venus lets out a yelp—Venus being my tiny pet dragon, not the planet. Way cuter and way more annoying.

I guess it was inevitable she’d sneak into my backpack at some point. But did she have to hitchhike to Delorey’s class?

Kitty McDowell glances back, eyes wide behind her glasses. She’s a row ahead of me—somehow too close and too far at the same time. “Are you okay, Drew?” she whispers.

“I’m fine.” Heat floods my cheeks. I study the table and try to figure out what to do. I’m in the back corner of the lecture hall, so my wriggling bag shouldn’t be visible to Delorey or any of my classmates…

Maybe I’ll just wait it out. Venus can’t destroy anything in fifteen minutes, can she?

I lift my head. Kitty is staring rigidly ahead at Professor Delorey. Talking to her is like an extreme sport—and there isn’t an athletic bone in my body.

My backpack shifts again. I clamp it between my feet. Venus starts chewing through the fabric.

Okay, I seriously need to get out of here. Except I can’t.

Professor Delorey is what you call the spawn of hell—a.k.a. she loves pop quizzes. Bombing them takes your grade down three percent. If you skip, you drop an entire letter. And she loves to throw them at the very end of class.

My scholarship depends on me getting at least a C. My guidance counselor was like, “Drew… you might want to prepare for paying more next semester.” While smiling.

Venus pokes her golden head through a newly-chewed hole. Great. Guess I need a new bag now. At least she hasn’t set it on fire. That ratty piece of blue canvas has my books, my notes, my homework, my whole college life. Without it, I’m dead.

Delorey continues blabbing about reptiles as Venus crawls through the hole and pounces on my shoe. I try to dislodge her, but her claws latch onto the fabric.

“Get back in there,” I hiss, frowning pointedly at the backpack.

Kitty turns around again. “Really, is everything all right?”

“Um…” She would report me for having a normal pet. “None of your business.” I try to sound tough, but my voice cracks.

Kitty recoils like I’ve slapped her. She stares fixedly at her notebook.

Now you’re just being a jerk, Drew. A soft crunching noise rattles up from under my desk. Venus is munching on my bag’s zippers. I use my shoe to push her back into the hole. She lands with a thump and growls, her tiny golden snout poking out.

I look around. The other students’ eyes are either on Professor Delorey or closed entirely—all but one pair. Kitty gapes down at my backpack and the dragon within.

I dive under the table, snatch my squirming bag, and hug it to my chest. I bolt from the room and speed-walk down the hallway. She probably only saw Venus’ head. Maybe she’ll just think I have a lizard.

I push through the double doors leading out of Clayton Hall. Meat-scented breath singes my chin. Venus smirks up at me through the hole.

Glaring at her, I hurry down the steps and head onto the quad. “Not cool.”

Venus stares at me with her burnt-orange eyes, and I can’t help melting—not literally. She only breathed fire on me the time I tried to borrow from her coin stash, a.k.a. treasure trove.

“Drew, wait!”

I trip and almost fall flat on my face. Slowly, I turn around. Kitty is staring at my hand, the one covering the hole. I can’t believe she actually left Delorey’s class—that she skipped any part of any class.

“I just—I thought I saw…”

Venus dislodges my hand and pokes her head through. I try not to hyperventilate.

“A dragon,” Kitty says breathlessly.

I don’t know how to respond, so I look down at the grinning little demon. “You have no sense of self-preservation,” I tell her.

Venus sniffs, like, Humans are no threat to me.

“How… what…?” Kitty edges forward, her eyes locked on Venus. “Dragons aren’t real.”

Venus whips her head around and spits a puff of smoke at Kitty. Kitty jumps back.

“You can’t tell anyone,” I say. “Seriously.”

“But this is huge.” Kitty crosses the sidewalk. “What if there are others like it?”

“Her,” I say. “And you have to keep this a secret. Okay?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want anyone to hurt her!”

Both Venus and Kitty gape at me.

I shrink back, cheeks hot. “I mean… it doesn’t matter that much to me—”

“You’re right.” Kitty shakes her head. “No one can know about this. I mean, scientists would kill to get their hands on it—on her.”

I don’t even want to think about Venus on an operating table. “So you won’t tell?”

“Nope.” Kitty gives me a shy smile. “As long as you tell me more.”

I know I’m grinning like an idiot, but I can’t help it. “Deal.”

Venus burrows back into my backpack, snuggling between a binder and some crumpled papers. With her eyes closed and her scales flat, she looks so sweet, so innocent…

Until a spark ignites my homework.

I snatch the papers and pat out the fire, screaming as it singes my fingers. At least my textbooks are safe.

Venus yawns, showing her tiny, sharp teeth.

“Why do I even put up with you?” I mutter.

Kitty lets out a sharp laugh. Then I’m laughing too. Sure, I have to redo my homework, I might’ve just missed a Delorey quiz, and my tuition next semester will probably cost me a kidney.

But when Kitty smiles at me, I feel as warm as one of Venus’s fireballs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cassandra Hamm is a psychology nerd, jigsaw puzzler, and hopeless romantic who spends most of her time lost in another world. Her work appears in various anthologies, including Stories that Sing, Bingeworthy, Sensational, and Prismatic from Havok Publishing; Warriors Against the Storm; When Your Beauty is the Beast; The Depths We’ll Go To; and Faces to the Sun. She suspects she may end up as a cat lady (or the owner of a Warrior Clan).

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