hide, still yelling to overcome the roar. “Thigocia’s scales would skew the radar echoes. She probably looks like a wandering albatross on the screen.”
Karen, sitting behind Walter, the wind whipping her dampened red hair around her freckled face, pulled on his sleeve. “We’re more likely to see gawking bird watchers than attack jets.”
“Too bad. I was kind of hoping to get a jet to follow us.” Walter leaned to the side and pointed past Thigocia’s swinging tail. “Can you imagine how a pilot’s eyes would bug out if he came up behind us and”
“Hey! Not so far!” Karen grabbed Walter’s back scabbard and pulled him upright. “I only have you to hold onto.”
Ashley pressed the GPS unit against her chest. “Walter! Don’t scare us like that!”
“Sorry.” Walter’s blue eyes sparkled, and a wide grin spread across his boyish face. “I guess I’m not cut out to be an albatross.”
Rolling her eyes, Ashley turned her attention back to the locator. After flying so far, mostly in the middle of the night, and having to endure Walter’s never-ending jokes and Karen’s constant fretting over his safety, it was time to get their feet back on the ground for good. Yet, even at ground level, life had been a pain—drinking water from streams, eating berries and nuts as well as wild game Thigocia would capture and cook, and wearing the same clothes for days on end. Everyone was ready for a change.
Walter sighed. “So how far is it to the mountain?”
“We’re coming up from the south on this path,” Ashley said, tracing a line on the grid with her finger, “so, if we don’t have to take a detour to stay in the clouds, we’ll probably get there in about ten minutes.”
Walter leaned into the beating wind. “All I heard was ‘ten minutes.’”
“Right!” Ashley said, raising her voice to compete with the strengthening gale. “Give or take a minute!”
“Good!” Karen blew a strand of hair from her brow. “I’m getting soaked.”
Bending her long, scaly neck, Thigocia brought her head close to her riders. Thin strings of smoke swirled away from her flared nostrils. “When we get there, I will give you the Sahara treatment. You will be warm and dry in no time.”
“Unless it’s raining,” Walter added.
Karen shivered and slid closer to Walter. “Or snowing.”
Ashley tapped her jaw with her fingers and spoke into the breeze. “Larry, what’s the weather forecast for the Flathead Lake area in Montana?”
A computerized voice hummed through Ashley’s tooth-embedded transmitter. “Cloudy and cool today, high in the fifties. Rain changing to freezing rain tonight, low in the thirties.”
“Not good.” Ashley pulled a soaked tissue from her jacket and wiped her nose. “I hope we can find shelter, or we’ll all die of pneumonia.”
“An excellent suggestion, O daughter of a dragon. The official forecast calls for a sixty percent chance of precipitation, but that seems low to me. Based on the satellite presentation, I calculate a sixty-three-point-seven percent probability. On a scale”
“No!” Ashley shouted. “Not another dragon scale joke!”
“Your mind-reading capabilities are working perfectly, O maiden of the mailed membrane. On a scale of one to ten, your mental perception rates a nine point two.”
“I don’t read minds!” Ashley moaned.
Walter laughed. “Good one, Larry. You slipped in your scale joke anyway.”
Ashley swung her head toward Walter. “You heard him?”
“Barely. It sounds like a buzz coming from your ears, like the highest note in a bumblebee choir’s scale.”
“Cool!” Karen chirped. “Another scale joke!”
“Walter! Cut it out!” Ashley scowled at the GPS unit. “It’s a good thing we’re almost there. Another night of this craziness and I’d be ready to check into Arlo’s mental hospital.”
Karen reached over Walter and patted Ashley on the back. “Well, they do have a vacancy now that we sprang Arlo, but you probably wouldn’t get any treatment. Thigocia scared the workers so bad with that blast of flames, I don’t think they’ll ever come back.”
“Yeah,” Walter agreed. “I guess you could say Thigocia fired them!”
Walter and Karen gave each other a high five, while Ashley just shook her head and groaned. When Walter and Karen finally stopped laughing, Ashley called out to Thigocia. “Mother! Get ready to descend!”
Thigocia curled her neck back again. “Ashley, I am not a dog to be commanded. A bit of courtesy is always appropriate when addressing your elders.”
Walter whispered into Ashley’s ear. “And your mom is about as elder as you can get.”
“Speaking of courtesy … ,” Ashley whispered back, glaring at Walter. She rubbed the dragon’s neck scales and sighed.