Don't Look Like No Dragon to Me
Chapter 3 of SNOWBIRDS, a serial novella-in-flash by Margo Rife
This is part three of Margo Rife’s novella-in-flash, Snowbirds. Go here to start at the beginning.
I’m happy to be on my own. My dad is searching for fishing lures. Mother is buying days-of-the-week underwear for Christmas presents. My sister found some older teens.
After the grayness of the North, the Florida flea market is a technicolor wonderland. Waving flags from foreign lands and bold scents greet visitors. My eyes scan the rainbow of iced drinks, and twirling food served on sticks.
To escape the noise and noontime heat, I enter a tented area and discover a large tank.
“Come out little fish.”
I look over my shoulder then back to the tank. A sea creature with a red-striped body and blue-green feathery appendages appears.
“Ooh. Why hide? You’re the most magical creature.”
A thin man with a faded Florida Gators hat and skin the color of an acorn walks into the tent to adjust some of the gauges.
“That’s a Leafy Sea Dragon, little lady. Very rare. Caught off the Southern coast of Australia,” Gator Man says. The man limps over to a radio on a chair and turns it on.
“Watch. He’ll be dancin’ to the music,” says the Gator Man. “Come up closer. Come see this.”
I inch next to the man to get a better look. He smells of cigarettes and chlorine. The man explains that sea dragons slurp up their food with their straw-shaped mouths. He makes a slurping sound and flicks out his tongue too. His Gator hat bobs. I watch entranced but then feel embarrassed when he smiles at me.
“I better get going.”
“Wait. I gotta favor to ask you, young lady. I got a hankerin’ for some muffuletta at that Cuban booth, but someone gotta keep an eye on my tank. This fish is all I got, so if he die or get stolen, I can’t do the flea markets no more. To survive, I need this fish. Understand?” I nod my head.
“Good. Bring ya some Coke. If people got questions, read from this brochure. I’m bettin’ on ya.”
“But I’ve never been in charge of anything,” I confess.
“Don’t let nobody steal from my Donation Jar and keep that leafy safe, hear me?” he says as he exits.
Gator Man believes in me. It feels good. I pick up the brochure and read. “Leafy Sea Dragon males get pregnant, give birth and care for their young. Once born, the young pipefish blend into their environment. Blending in is all they need to survive.”
Blending in to survive. Of course, that’s it. I realize that I never blend in—either invisible or standing out in a bad way.
A young couple with linked arms burst into the tent.
“What this?” demands the muscular teen in a Flintstone’s tee shirt.
“It’s a Leafy Sea Dragon and he’s very shy,” I warn. I’m able to overcome my shyness because I feel strangely protective of this sea creature.
“Don’t look like no dragon to me,” the youth says. “Look a little sissy.”
“Hey, Tomas, don’t give the kid a hard time,” says the tattooed girlfriend.
“Don’t go bossin’ me, Janelle.”
“Sorry, kid,” whispers the girl. “He’s mad at his stepdad. Takin’ it out on the world.”
The teen boy knocks on the tank.
“Let’s go to that other tent and see the Komodo. That’s a real dragon.”
I’m alone with a delicate, distressed rare sea creature. Leafy is tipped and gulping. The teen’s blow to the glass dislodged the plug to the pump. I must act or he will die. As I reach over to plug in the cord, the pump tilts and falls. A metal edge slices off one of its winged appendages. Leafy swims in a tight circle.
Gator Man returns with the soda pop and yells, “Mother of Pearl, what in world’s goin’ on?” He continues to curse while struggling to fix the pump.
“Son of a bee sting, what you up to, schoolgirl?” he asks as the leafy spins.
“Two teens came in and one of them knocked on the glass.”
Gator Man looks at my wet arm.
“I tried to plug it back in.”
After another long string of swears, the man takes off his hat and wipes his forehead.
“It ain’t your fault. Puttin’ somebody your age in charge. How old are ya? Never mind.”
“Almost thirteen. Your brochure says it’ll grow back,” I offer.
“I gotta get me a new gig. Take up guitar again. Man gotta survive. You wanna buy this stupid fish?”
I hear my name being yelled.
“I gotta go. Thanks for the Coke.”
I put my face close to the tank and whisper, “Goodbye Leafy. Be a good sea dragon. Don’t forget that to survive you must eat your krill and blend in.”
Margo Rife’s work has been published by New World Writing Quarterly, Reflex Fiction and a variety of literary publications. She is also a playwright whose dramatic monologues have been staged in New York City, Raleigh and Chicago. Margo produces a seasonal podcast from her hometown library that features local writers.
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