Notebook for Fantastical Observations (8 page)

BOOK: Notebook for Fantastical Observations

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“Only a bunch of chuckleheads would mess with a wounded griffin.”

FROM
B
OOK
2: T
HE
S
EEING
S
TONE

GRIFFINS

When I was eleven, my older brother brought home two puppies. They were little white balls of curly fur with undershot teeth and tiny pink eyes. Some neighborhood dog had given birth and the owners were giving them away to any sucker that walked by. John hid the puppies up in his room, but Mom and Dad heard their little nails scratching over the wooden floors and busted him. They yelled and yelled, but he promised that he would walk them and feed them and train them. Finally, half-convinced, they looked over at me, lurking in the hallway, and asked what I thought. I told them that as long as the puppies weren’t allowed in my room, I didn’t care. I was afraid of dogs. I think my dad let John keep them mostly because I said that. My dad was big on confronting your fears.

John got bored with the dogs fast. He named them Voltron and Vexxor and liked to chase them around the yard, but the only thing he ever
taught them was how to jump high enough to bite your fingers and scratch your pants. My parents yelled at him, but it was in that half-hearted, I-told-you-so-but-what-can-I-do? way that meant he wasn’t really in that much trouble. It was around then that we figured out that Voltron was actually a girl. It turns out that she was going to have puppies of her own. Mom took both dogs over to get them “fixed” after the puppies were born, but by then, it was way too late.

We soon had eight new puppies, meaning we had ten dogs total. They ran in a pack, peed on the furniture, and chewed up anything that hit the floor. In desperation, my parents locked them out in the backyard during the day with a couple of dog igloos. They ruled the lawn, digging pits in the dirt and fighting with one another until their white fur was muddy gray. At night, we had to bring them in because they barked so much they would have kept the whole neighborhood awake. The dogs would run through the house, nipping at our
fingers, fighting on top of our laps, and jumping onto the dining room table to eat any leftovers.

I locked myself in my room. It was the only place I was safe.

Then, one day, one of the dogs—Nibbles—went missing. He was just gone. The fence was still there, secure as ever, and there was no sign of a disturbance. My mother seemed worried, but I think she was just pretending. My dad didn’t bother.

“Hopefully it won’t come back,” Dad said.

John looked in all the holes and behind all the shrubs, but he couldn’t find the dog. The next day, another one was gone. The rest of the dogs seemed subdued, too, like they were worried.

The next day another dog disappeared. Each day we lost another one. My brother’s distress grew.

John accused our dad. “You’re doing this,” he said.

Dad just laughed. “Kiddo, if I was going to get rid of those dogs, I wouldn’t bother doing it one at a time.”

I sneezed, which was good because it covered
my laugh. I was just getting a cold and was busy holding my mug of chicken soup above the reach of the remaining dogs.

My brother made a face and whispered to me, “If Mom keeps you home tomorrow,” he said, “can you try and figure out what’s happening?”

“I guess,” I said, thinking that if I didn’t, he would never know.

But the next day, I found myself pretty curious. I was alone in the house—Mom had made me buttered toast and tea, then headed off to work—so I put on my robe and sat at the kitchen table and watched the dogs out the window. It would have been boring normally, but I was sick enough that that was about all I had the energy to do.

Late in the afternoon I saw a shadow darken the lawn. Then a huge creature swooped down out of the sky, grabbed a dog in its claws, and flew off. It was massive, with a body like a lion and a head, wings, and talons like an oversized hawk.

I ran to the door and stared up at the sky,
but it was already far enough away that it just looked like an oddly shaped bird. But there, blowing on the lawn, was a single feather as long as my forearm. I picked it up, touching the soft barbs of the vane, admiring the pattern of browns that played over its surface.

I grabbed the last dog and brought it inside. Without the rest of the pack, it was pretty quiet. I felt bad enough to feed it half of my peanut butter sandwich. We kept the dog in the house for the next week and a half, even though my brother didn’t believe my story and my mother thought I had been feverish. By the time they insisted we let the dog out again, the thing must have been gone. I keep looking up at the skies, though, just in case it ever comes back looking for something bigger than a dog to eat.

—William G.

ANALYSIS: Griffins roost in high places and fly over large areas, scouting for food. Often this food source is a herd of sheep or an overpopulation of deer, but in this case the food source was something entirely different.

—H. B. & T. D.

This friendly creature is a combination of two animals: