by Sarah Matanah
Mo woke up to the sound of Flo muttering “Ow, ow, ow,” and slapping her tail against the walls of the cave.
“Flo, what’s the matter?” Mo asked. Then he saw her wings. They were an odd violet color, all shriveled except for a few ugly lumps.
Mo sucked in his breath. “Can you move them?” he asked.
Flo tucked her snout under her wing and pushed at it. It twitched, then fell limp against her back. “Stupid things,” she said. “They hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Mama G, Mama D!” Mo shouted. “Come here and look at Flo’s wings.”
Mama D came in, smelling like hickory smoke and fish. Her face went still when she saw Flo. She lifted one of Flo’s wings with a claw. Flo winced and pulled away. Mama G rubbed the point of her tail against Flo’s side.
The moms moved away, muttering. Mo followed them, trying to get close enough to hear without them noticing.
“They want to take you to Dregg,” he told Flo, his tail twitching with outrage. Flo bolted up. One of her wings brushed the cave wall. She bit back a squeal of pain.
“They’re crazy. Dregg’s not going to help. He hates us,” she whispered.
“Flo, can you walk?” Mama D asked. Flo stood shakily, her nostrils very wide and red around the edges. Mo let her lean on him, and they walked slowly to the door of the cave.
“We’re going to Dregg’s cave,” Mama D said. Flo’s claws tightened on Mo’s shoulder. “I know you kids don’t like him, but he knows a lot about healing. Flo, you’re going to have to get on my back.”
Mama D pushed Flo up between her wings. Flo hooked her tail around Mama D’s belly and rested her chin on her shoulder.
“Go as fast as you can,” Mama G said. “I’ll meet you there.” Mo was surprised. Usually they flew slowly enough for their gryphon mom to keep up.
Mama D just nodded and launched herself into the air. Mo flew after her.
Even Mama D couldn’t fly as fast as usual with Flo on her back. Mo beat his wings hard, determined not to slow her down. They flew over long stretches of wooded hills, occasionally catching a glimpse of the ocean on their right. Then suddenly Mama D dropped below Mo. Flo had fainted, and lost her tailhold. Flo slid toward the edge of Mama D’s back. Mama D tilted abruptly, sending Flo sliding toward her other wing. Mo swooped down and grabbed Flo around the neck. He tried to hold her on Mama D’s back while keeping his wings from tangling with Mama D’s.
“I’m going down!” Mama D shouted, dropping. Mo dropped with her, still with his arms around Flo’s neck. They landed in a small rocky area beside the ocean. Mama D gently eased Flo off her back.
“Mo,” Mama D said, resting the tips of her claws on his shoulders and looking into his eyes. “You’re going to have to go get Dregg and bring him back here. I have to stay with Flo.”
“Don’t worry, Mama D. I’ll be quick,” Mo said, trying to sound confident. He pictured himself flying lost over the forest for hours or Dregg kicking him out of the cave before he got a chance to tell him about Flo. He’d figure out something, though. Hadn’t he just saved Flo from falling off Mama D’s back?
Mama D had said that Dregg’s cave was on the far side of the third mountain. She hadn’t said that it was so well hidden. When Mo finally found it, tree roots hung over an entrance barely wide enough for an adult dragon. Mo ducked under them. The tunnel was crowded with piles of sardine cans, pottery, empty jelly jars, and old blankets. Mo bumped one of the piles as he went past. It started to slide. He spread his arms and wings to try to hold it up, but the cans and jars slid under his arms and crashed to the floor. Mo kicked them back against the wall. He waited, expecting Dregg to appear and yell at him. Nothing happened.
Mo kept moving, deeper into the mountain. The piles of junk never ended or seemed to get any smaller. After a while, he heard a throbbing echo. After a couple more turns of the tunnel, he could tell it was music. Dregg was home, somewhere.
At last, Mo came out into an enormous cavern with dripping candles jammed onto stalagmites, the light flickering off crystals and pieces of broken mirrors. Piles of junk were everywhere. In the middle of the cavern a dark green dragon sat wrapped around a tuba, blasting away and keeping the beat by banging a set of cymbals with the tip of his tail.
Mo waited for Dregg to notice him, but he didn’t look up. He rocked with the music, his eyes closed. He was blowing so hard that his face was puce.
“Dregg!” Mo shouted. Dregg kept playing, his eyes still closed. His belly rippled in time to the music. Mo wanted to run through the cavern knocking down all the piles of trash. Instead he took a deep breath and blew an enormous fountain of flame at the ceiling. Light flashed off the crystals, stalagmites, stalactites and mirror bits. Dregg stopped blowing and glared at
Mo.
“You,” he spat, a puff of flame emerging at the end of the word. “What are you doing in my cave?”
“Sorry,” Mo said. “Flo’s sick. She needs you right away.”
“Ah, your bratty sister.” Dregg glared at him over the tuba. “And I suppose the two of you think I’m going to come rushing over there on your say so? I don’t think so.”
Dregg leaned his tuba against his side. He reached lazily into a pile beside him and flicked a sardine tin open with his claw. He speared three sardines onto the tip of a claw and turned them in front of his mouth, taking bites from every side.
Mo was too angry to think. He just grabbed the tuba, jumped back—out of Dregg’s reach—and ran down the tunnel. He swung the tuba from side to side as he darted around the piles. He was almost out of the tunnel when he felt Dregg’s hot breath on his tail. If Dregg grabbed him, he’d easily get the tuba back. He was twice as big as
Mo.
And then Flo would never get the help she needed. Mo swiped a huge pile of junk with his tail, blocking the path behind him. He could hear Dregg swearing as he stumbled over dozens of jam jars and sardine tins.
Mo cleared the tunnel entrance and jumped into the sky. He blew a raspberry into the tuba, making a loud blat of sound. Dregg yelled with fury. He burst out of the tunnel and flung himself into the air after
Mo.
Mo flew as fast as he could down the mountain and along the seashore. Dregg came closer with every beat of his wings. Mo flapped his wings harder than he ever had before. His wings started to hurt, but he didn’t slow down. He wondered if his wings felt like Flo’s wilted ones. He made himself pump even faster. They were almost to the spot where Mama D waited with Flo.
Suddenly, he felt cooler. He looked up. Dregg had flown above him, blocking the sun. He ducked his head, about to dive at
Mo.
“I’ll drop it!” Mo screamed. Dregg hesitated. Mo swooped down over Flo and hovered over the ocean. He held the tuba over the waves. “Help her, or your horn goes to the bottom,” he yelled.
Dregg spit some fire in Mo’s direction, but he landed near Flo.
“Hello, Dregg. Thanks, Mo,” Mama D said.
Dregg examined Flo’s wings, running a claw under them the same way Mama D had.
Mo started toward them to make sure that Dregg was being careful, but stopped himself in time to keep the tuba over the water. A wave broke and foamed over his toes.
“Come down, you idiot.” Dregg shouted over the crashing of the waves. “You don’t have to hang there tarnishing my tuba. She really is sick. I have to go get my equipment.”
“I appreciate it, Dregg,” Mama D said.
Dregg glared at both of them and left.
Flo opened an eye. “Good, he’s gone,” she said.
Ten minutes later Dregg reappeared carrying a blue duffle bag with burns all over it and bits of metal things poking out of holes in the bottom. He dropped it on the ground beside Flo. Landing beside it, he immediately started pulling out jewel encrusted goblets and sardine tins.
“Spread your wings out,” he told Flo. Flo didn’t move.
Mo moved over to help her lay her wings out, trying not to hurt her. “It’s okay,” he whispered to Flo. “I’ve got his tuba.”
Dregg snorted, but didn’t say anything. He laid the metal goblets and the sardine cans upside down along Flo’s wings and back, then he puffed fire on them, heating them until they glowed.
“That feels nice,” Flo said.
Dregg moved along her wings, keeping the metal hot.
“Done,” he said, after what seemed like forever. Flo twitched a wing. Already they looked less lumpy.
Dregg shoved his equipment back in his bag.
“I’ll expect payment in gold,” he said, “especially after that tuba-stealing trick.”
“Of course,” Mama D said.
When Dregg had left, Mo said, “He wasn’t listening to me. I had to take it.”
“Yeah, he’s like that,” Mama D said. “You did great. How are your wings, Flo?”
“Better,” Flo said. “Tingly and warm.”
“Here comes G,” Mama D said, squinting into the sky. “I’ll get us some fish for a picnic.”
Mama G landed. She rubbed her beak along Flo’s wings. “Beautiful,” she said. “You can almost watch them coming back to life. That Dregg does good work.”
“Yeah,” Flo said. “But Mo made him. He ran away with his tuba.”
“Good for Mo,” Mama G said.
Mo’s belly felt warm, almost as if he wanted to flame. “If I have to do something crazy to help Flo, I will,” he said. “She knows I’m on her side.”
