I sigh quietly, wave to the Bird throng below, and start drawing. Just as I expected, they soon grow tired of craning their necks trying to decipher my scribbles and freezing their tails off in the process, and slowly drift away. My head is spinning from the vile hooch Dearest calls tequila. What I’m drawing is the outline of a dragon standing on its hind legs. It is coming out strange: a bit like a horse and a bit like a dog. I would have done better in a more convenient spot, but this’ll have to do. I give it teeth and sharp talons on the front paws. Talons are important. Once it becomes obvious that it’s a dragon I’m looking at, I crack open the can and fill it in.
Gunk, hair, and assorted debris that drowned in the can long ago—my poor dragon is now covered in all of this. When the white brush follows its jagged spine, my hand starts shaking. Time and I, we’re not exactly on the best terms, but it appears I may pull it off, even though it’s too early to tell for sure. I can’t sit here and wait until the dragon dries completely. With the pocket knife I start gouging out a hole for the eye.
This is hellishly difficult. The hole is almost ready, and then the can suddenly jumps off my knees and disappears below. Awful racket. It rolls around down there for a while, then finally gets stuck, and I’m still busy with the eye. The hole is already quite deep. I probe it with my finger. Now for the lilies. I scratch them into the wet surface of my dragon with the tip of the knife, the crude fleurs-de-lis, all over. Once I’m done, the dragon is no longer just any dragon, it’s Noble, because lily equals Noble if you want to draw him quickly and recognizably. I sign my work.
By the time the lights go out I’m almost finished. I rummage in my pocket for the magical stone the color of Noble’s eyes. The dragon, the ceiling, me—we all disappear in the darkness. I’m not scared. I take out the flashlight, point it at the eye socket, and insert the stone. It’s holding. It fits, or maybe just sticks to the wet paint.
I fulfill my dream. Here it is—the ghost dragon, covered in lilies and with Noble’s eye. It’s running with the talons pointing at our room. That means return. Maybe something else as well, I have no idea. My job was just to put it here. I switch off the flashlight and sit there in the dark. I’m all sticky; probably covered with paint.
I don’t know how much time passes before there’s stomping, flashlighting, and cooing from below.
“Coo-ee yourselves,” I say. “I’m up here. Could you maybe have waited until morning? My rotting carcass would have been so glad to see you.”
“Pipe down,” Sphinx says. “It’s no one else’s fault if you decided to spend the night on this idiotic contraption.”
“He-ey!” comes in Vulture’s drunken voice. “I would thank you for not dumping on my princely perch!”
They point flashlights at me and giggle. Then someone trips over the can and steps in the paint. Now I’m the one giggling.
“Damn!” Humpback yells. “There’s shit all over the floor! He was making a trap for innocent passersby. Using bird crap!”
They finally take me off the ladder and carry me away. The actual carrying falls to Alexander, and everybody else just stumbles along, waving flashlights and singing.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being the only sober member of a drunk crowd. But by now it’s useless for me to try and catch up with them. Not even with the help of Dearest’s tequila.
They carry me inside and file in. Humpback is bringing up the rear, whistling into a flute. The dorm is so trashed it’s scary. The nightlights leave a trail on the ceiling. Alexander puts me on the bed, and the rest keep circling the room in a conga line. Must be looking for dungeons and caverns.
Nanette is sleeping splayed out on the sandwich plate. I take her off, grab the last remaining sandwich, and eat it. The rest of the plates are empty. My favorite place is occupied by Elephant, fast asleep, clutching some kind of red ball. On closer inspection it proves to be our Chinese lantern.
Red and Blind are waltzing, but mostly walking into furniture. Humpback is trying to tootle on the flute in time with them. Blind is counting off loudly: “A-one-two-three . . . One-two-three . . . One . . .” Each standalone “one” makes them freeze in place. Humpback then bumps into them and freezes too.
“To the girls,” Vulture proclaims, sniffing at his glass thoughtfully.
Who knows what he can be sniffing there. Anything liquid within reach has already been gobbled up. I set to gnawing on the remains of the sandwich. In this crotchety state I disgust even myself.
Sphinx plops down next to me, winks, and imparts, “A dragon be a mythical beast . . . While a white dragon, doubly so, because in addition to all of its other qualities it is also an albino, that is, an anomaly even among its own kind.”
“You noticed,” I marvel at him. “Managed to see! In total darkness!”
