Benjamin Dragon - Awakening (The Chronicles of Benjamin Dragon) (3 page)

Chapter 6: The Pratts

The Dragons pulled up to the modest one-story brick home. There was a mailbox out front that had
Pratt
hand-painted in flowing yellow lettering.

“I guess this is the place,” announced Mr. Dragon.

A tingling mist came down as they hurried to the covered front stoop. Mrs. Dragon rang the doorbell. Mrs. Pratt answered a moment later.

“Tanya and Tim, welcome!” she said with a smile. “How are you, Benjamin?”

“Fine, thank you, Mrs. Pratt.”

She let them in and called for the rest of family.

Benjamin looked around the living space. It was warm and inviting. The smell of baked bread mingled in the air. There were a lot of pictures on the walls and knick knacks on the shelves and side tables. Everything looked well used but tidy.

Mr. Pratt walked into the room and shook Mr. Dragon’s hand. “Welcome to our home. Can I get you all anything?”

“I’d love a beer, thanks,” said Mr. Dragon.

“And you, Tanya?” Mr. Pratt asked.

“A glass of water would be wonderful.”

“You got it. Tim, you wanna come give me a hand?”

Mr. Dragon followed Mr. Pratt to the kitchen. They were already discussing something about restored cars.

“Nathan, come out and say hello, honey,” Mrs. Pratt called out.

A moment later, Nathan shuffled out. He went to wave a greeting but winced in pain.

“Ow,” he said.

“Still hurt?” Benjamin asked.

Nathan nodded.

“Nathan, why don’t you show Benjamin around the house. Dinner’s in ten minutes,” said Mrs. Pratt.

“Okay, Mom.”

The two boys headed toward the back of the house. They stepped into what could only be a boy’s bedroom. Video game and music posters covered almost every wall. A wooden loft bed sat propped over a small desk. Benjamin examined the room.

“You like Deadmau5?” he asked, pointing to a poster with a Mickey Mouse looking head on it.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

Nathan took a seat on the edge of his bed. He eased himself down slowly, closing his eyes slightly.

“Whatcha been up to?” Benjamin asked, still looking around the small bedroom.

“Just watching TV.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as both boys searched for something to say.

“How was school?” asked Nathan.

“Sucked. Everybody was looking at me like I was a weirdo.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. I’m used to it.”

“You guys move a lot?”

“Uh huh. My mom’s job.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a lawyer.”

“What about your dad?”

“He fixes companies.”

“My Dad said he played football in college.”

Benjamin nodded.

“That’s pretty cool. You play football?”

“My dad wishes. You?”

“Sometimes.”

“Why’s that?”

Nathan looked embarrassed. “I got kicked off a couple teams when I was little. My dad knows all the coaches, but no one wants me on their team. He says it’ll change when I can play for the high school team. I’m gonna try out next year.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Nathan cocked his head to the side. “Yeah?”

“Have you always bullied other kids?” Benjamin asked quietly.

Again the uncomfortable pause. Finally Nathan answered.

“I guess.”

“Why?”

The larger boy’s shoulders shrugged.

Before they could continue their conversation, Mrs. Pratt called them to the dinner table.

+++

The rain had stopped by the time they’d finished dinner. Nathan took Benjamin out to the tree fort in the backyard. The dads were in the garage looking at the old Bronco Mr. Pratt was restoring. The moms were drinking coffee in the kitchen.

“Wow!” exclaimed Benjamin. “Did you make that?”

A smile crept onto Nathan’s face.

“Me and my dad did.”

“That’s awesome.”

They climbed the eight foot wooden ladder and entered the covered structure. Nathan breathed heavily as he squeezed over the ledge. There was enough room for four or five other kids. Benjamin wished he had one in his yard.

“So what do you do out here?”

“I used to come up here with my dad. Now that I’m older I come up here to get away and read.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Not what you’d think.”

“Why?” asked Benjamin.

“I like stories about magic and knights. You know, fantasy and sci-fi stuff.”

Nathan avoided Benjamin’s gaze by picking at a piece of splintered wood on the wall.

“That’s cool.”

“You want to tell me how you stopped me from knocking you down?” Nathan asked, still avoiding Benjamin’s look.

Benjamin’s mouth opened. He didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t know.”

Nathan’s eyes flashed and then mellowed.

“Did you pull out some crazy karate stuff on me?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve never taken karate.”

“Brazilian jiu jitsu?”

“No.”

Nathan scratched his head.

“All I remember is you putting your hand out and them I’m flying back. It felt like a truck hit me.”

Benjamin shrugged.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe you have magic powers.”

The boys stared at each other and then burst out laughing.

“I wish!” Benjamin managed to blurt out between heaves and giggles.

Chapter 7: The Incident

The next couple weeks went better than Benjamin ever could have imagined. He and Nathan had become friends and spent most of their afternoons together. Sometimes they would work at Mr. Pratt’s auto shop and other times they would hang out in Nathan’s tree house.

To Benjamin’s surprise, Nathan was pretty smart. He did a lot to hide that fact from the other kids at school. Benjamin asked Nathan about it once.

“It’s easier to be the big dumb kid I guess,” he’d said.

Nathan’s ‘friends’ hadn’t been too happy about Benjamin. They’d tried to press Nathan into not hanging out with the new kid, but Nathan stopped hanging out with his old friends instead.

They ate lunch together, taking over a small table in the corner of the lunch room. Slowly, and one by one, a couple of Nathan’s friends mellowed and rejoined their leader.

There was Little Mikey, who was as short as Benjamin despite being two years older. He had more confidence than anyone Benjamin had ever met, except his own parents, of course. Sometimes he would walk down the school halls singing at the top of his lungs. Luckily, he was a good singer and the teachers didn’t really mind. They thought it was funny.

Funny Paul came next. He was always telling jokes and making farting noises. Everybody thought he was hilarious.

Last came Aaron. He was almost as tall as Nathan, but pretty quiet. When you first met him, it felt like he looked at you with mean eyes, but it turned out he was just shy. Nathan told Benjamin that Aaron was pretty smart too.

Together the five boys would walk the halls joking and laughing. Gone were the days of picking on other students. Nathan had squashed that. He’d told the other boys that he’d learned his lesson because Benjamin was so cool. That made Benjamin happy.

The older boys treated Benjamin kind of like a mascot, but at least no one was staring at him anymore.

There hadn’t been any more ‘incidents,’ as Benjamin liked to call them. He’d tried to make his pencil do the floating thing again whenever he was at home doing his school work. It never worked. Maybe he’d just imagined it.

One day Benjamin and Nathan decided to walk home instead of taking the bus. It was only a couple miles and they lived in a safe town. There hadn’t been a robbery in over ten years.

They were discussing the latest book they’d both checked out from the library. Something about dragons, knights and wizards. Neither of them was really paying attention as they crossed the street next to the grocery store.

A loud screech stopped their conversation. They both looked up. Just over a block away an old rust-lined car swerved its way into the intersection. It seemed like the driver couldn’t keep control.

“I’ll bet his brakes went out,” said Nathan.

Following the path of the vehicle, the boys saw a girl with brown hair approaching the intersection. She had white earphones on and was completely oblivious to the car.

Benjamin yelled for the girl to move. She didn’t hear him. The boys ran to her.

The car barreled in and was now maybe a hundred feet from the unsuspecting walker. As the girl went to step off the sidewalk, she glanced up slowly. Her eyes widened and she froze.

“Move!” screamed Nathan and Benjamin at the same time. They were too far away.

The car’s path now determined, the girl finally crouched down. As if that would do anything.

Benjamin reached out his hand despite still being half a block away. That’s when something amazing happened. Instead of continuing the remaining few feet and slamming into the girl, the car lifted slightly and flew to the left. It came to a crashing halt as its side slammed into a building fifty feet away from where its path had changed.

Nathan stopped, but Benjamin kept running. He knelt down by the girl, who was now lying on the ground sobbing.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She just looked around unable to answer.

Nathan walked up not saying a word, his face a mix of shock and confusion.

“Can you go check on the driver?” Benjamin asked his friend.

Nathan nodded wordlessly. Then, as if he’d just woken from a dream, he shook his head and sprinted across the street. People were coming out of the shops lining the avenue. Some had cell phones to their ears as they peered out in concern.

Three police cruisers showed up two minutes later, along with an ambulance. The driver of the car and the girl on the ground were quickly loaded into the waiting ambulance. As the only real witnesses to the event, aside from the injured driver, Nathan and Benjamin were taken to the local police station for questioning.

+++

The police officer driving Benjamin and Nathan had instructed them to call their parents. Mr. Dragon was out of town on business. That left Benjamin with only the option of calling his mom while she was in court.

Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Dragon showed up at the police station shortly after their boys arrived. Benjamin and Nathan had already been questioned on the way over.

“Are you okay?” Mrs. Dragon asked her son as she examined him from head to toe.

“I’m fine mom. We were just there when it happened.”

“What did happen?”

Benjamin told his mother the story.

“It was a blessing the car swerved at the last second. That little girl could have been killed!”

Benjamin nodded sheepishly, but it was Nathan who interjected.

“The car didn’t swerve.”

Everyone looked at Nathan.

“What do you mean, sweetie?” Mrs. Pratt asked, concerned.

Benjamin shot Nathan a pleading look and shook his head ever so slightly.

“I…I’m not sure,” stuttered Nathan.

“Well I’m just glad everyone is okay. What do you say I take you all for an early dinner? My treat,” said Mrs. Dragon.

They all quickly agreed. Benjamin nudged Nathan on the way out the door, but Nathan ignored him. Benjamin’s face drooped as they walked out to their mother’s cars.

Chapter 8: Alone Again

A week passed and Benjamin kept getting the silent treatment from Nathan. His calls and emails went unanswered. Nathan wouldn’t even talk to him at school. It was as if he didn’t exist, again.

Benjamin was so confused. His ten-year-old mind tried to unravel the mystery. He’d thought they were becoming good friends, maybe even best friends. That was something Benjamin had never had. He longed for it.

The one bit of good news was that Emily Newsom, the girl who’d almost been run over by the car, started talking to Benjamin at school. They didn’t eat lunch together or anything, but it was nice to have someone to say hi to or just wave at between classes.

Benjamin almost jumped when his cell phone rang. He hadn’t gotten a call in almost a week. He’d been so engrossed in his homework that it took him a second to process the name on the screen:
Nathan Pratt
.

Benjamin quickly answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey,” said Nathan.

“Hey.”

“We need to talk.”

“Okay. When?”

“What are you doing right now?”

“Homework.”

“Can you meet me over at the park on Littleton?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes.”

The line went dead. Benjamin stared down at it. What did Nathan want? A sense of dread crept into Benjamin’s twisted gut.

+++

Nathan was sitting on a park bench throwing pebbles at a sapling when Benjamin arrived. A slight breeze carried the smell of roses blooming in a nearby flower garden.

“What’s up?” asked Benjamin, carefully.

Nathan took a minute to answer. Benjamin waited patiently.

“I’ve been running that car crash around in my head every day. I can’t understand what happened. The car should’ve hit that girl.”

“Emily.”

“What?” Nathan looked up, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

“Her name is Emily.”

“Whatever. Anyways, what I’ve been trying to figure out is how it flew the other way into that wall.”

Benjamin was staring at his feet. It was something he liked to do when he felt uncomfortable. Both boys were silent as the last comment hung in the air.

“Maybe it’s like my mom said. Maybe it just swerved at the last second.”

Nathan shook his head. “No. I’ve been around cars my whole life, and I’ve never heard of something like that happening. I even asked my dad and he said the same thing. He said the only thing that could do something like that was a tornado or hurricane. We don’t get those around here.”

Again the silence. Nathan grabbed another pebble and threw it at a squirrel that happened to be running by. The animal screeched and scurried away in search of a human-free zone.

“So why have you been ignoring me?” Benjamin asked cautiously.

“I don’t know. First it was the thing at school where you pushed me. I know that was my fault, but the car crash made me think about it again. How did you push me…or hit me that hard? Then there was the car thing. I don’t know what to think.”

Nathan picked up a fistful of pebbles and chucked them all at the same time. His face contorted in anger.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” said Benjamin.

“Tell me what’s going on!” Nathan yelled.

Benjamin backed away a step. That made Nathan laugh.

“Don’t worry. I learned my lesson. I won’t be fighting you again.”

Benjamin tried to smile, but he couldn’t. Instead, a weird grimace came to his face.

“Does that mean you won’t tell me?” asked Nathan.

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“You’re lying.” Nathan stood up and started to leave.

“I’m not lying,” Benjamin pleaded. “I don’t know what’s going on either.”

Nathan stared at his friend with a cold look in his eyes.

“You’re the first friend I’ve had in a long time,” Benjamin said quietly. “I don’t want to mess that up.”

The comment caught Nathan off guard. He paused, as if rethinking his decision to walk home. Suddenly his eyes lit up.

“Wait a minute. You mean those weird things have never happened around you before?”

Benjamin shook his head.

“What if…”

“What?” Benjamin asked hopefully.

“What if you have…super powers?”