Ellray Jakes the Dragon Slayer (10 page)

I think she’s actually telling the truth, for once.

“But you’re going to quit it?” I ask again.

Suzette doesn’t say anything right away, but she gives one of Alfie’s newest dolls a reluctant pat, as if telling it good-bye. “You can’t make me
like
Alfie,” she finally says. “You’re still not the boss of me.”

“I don’t want to be the boss of you,” I say, meaning it, except for where Alfie is concerned. “And I don’t care if you like her or not,” I add. “Just treat her fair, that’s all. Like any other kid. And leave the other girls alone if they want to play with her. I’ll hear about it if you don’t.”

“Go away, Alfie’s Brother,” Suzette says, sounding more tired than angry now. “I wanna go home.”

“You can go home when my mom says you can,” I inform her. “And no stealing any of Alfie’s dolls at the last minute, either, not to mention her jacket, or the deal is off. Tell Alfie you changed your mind about wanting anything.”

I can hear pink-sneakered footsteps
THUDDING
down the hall. “The cookies are ready,” Alfie tells us, screeching to a halt just outside her bedroom door. “Come and eat ’em while they’re still all warm and melty! With icy-cold milk!”

“You guys go ahead,” I tell Alfie and Suzette. “Mom will save me a few.”

“Suzette?” Alfie says, her voice turning soft with worry once more.

“Sure. I guess,” Suzette says, getting to her feet. “But they better be good.”

She sneaks me a questioning look when she says this last mean thing, but I just ignore her, turning away.

With some kids, I think mean is kind of a habit. Maybe they can’t stop it that fast.

“EllWay?” Alfie says, putting her little golden hand on my arm. “Are you all wight? Because—
chocolate chips
.”

Chocolate is Alfie’s favorite food group.

“I’m fine, Alfie,” I say. “I’ve just got some stuff I have to do.
Boy
stuff,” I add.

Like lying down flat on my bedroom floor while I try to recover from my dragon-slaying ordeal.

Man, that was
hard
. Every single bone in my body is aching, and I actually have a headache from threatening Suzette Monahan with a really mean lie.

But it was
so-o-o
worth it.

14

“This smells funny,” Alfie says, poking at her grilled cheese sandwich.

“No, it doesn’t,” Mom informs her, sounding tired.

It is an unusually quiet dinner tonight. It’s the kind of dinner a family has after driving two hours to have lunch with relatives they barely know, because “family is important.” Or it’s what dinner would be like after taking your little sister to the emergency room after she fell off the slide at the park one afternoon, and then you had to sit in the waiting room for more than two hours with a bunch of scary-looking people, some of them bleeding, even. But your sister was fine.

Mom heated up a can of soup tonight and made grilled cheese sandwiches, that’s how worn out she
is. Usually, Saturday dinners are a big deal around here.

Chicken with mashed potatoes. Spaghetti and meatballs. That kind of thing.

But we have all had too much Suzette Monahan for this to be a regular night.

Some people are energy vampires, that’s what I think.

Alfie usually loves grilled cheese, but tonight she is eyeballing her sandwich like she suspects there’s something weird inside. Eggplant, maybe.

Dad is pretty quiet at dinner most of the time, apart from asking us about our best things and worst things of the day, one of our family customs. I guess he has a lot to think about, with all the rocks there are in this world.

But tonight, he left the dining room to take a phone call, even though usually, the rule is no phone calls during dinner.

As for me, I still have a headache from telling that lie. And what was the lie? It was
threatening
Suzette Monahan about the bed-wetting thing, because I wouldn’t really have told anyone. Who would be interested?

“It
does
smell funny,” Alfie insists, giving her sandwich another angry jab.

“Don’t eat it, then,” Mom says, shrugging.

Alfie looks up, shocked. “But I’ll starve,” she says, and my mom actually starts to laugh. I do too, because while Alfie isn’t fat, she’s not skinny, either. She is in-between, with a button popping off every so often. “It’s not funny,” Alfie says, heating up. “Stop laughing!”

“We’re laughing
with
you, not
at
you,” Mom assures her, even though Alfie isn’t laughing.

I don’t really see the difference between these two things when Mom says that to me, but Alfie buys it. “Well,
okay
,” she says with a sniff.

“I thought you’d be happy tonight, Alfie,” I say, stirring my soup in slow circles with a spoon. “You got everything you wanted. Your friend Suzette came over. And you guys had a yummy snack,” I continue, “and Suzette left here
empty-handed
,” I add, trying to give Alfie a meaningful look. But Alfie is still glaring down at her grilled cheese sandwich, which is now probably more of an orange glue sandwich, it’s so cold.

“Oh, EllRay, no guest leaves this house empty-handed,”
Mom objects, trying to work up some of her usual pep. “I gave Suzette a nice big bag of chocolate chips cookies to share with her family.”

I try to imagine a family of pinchy-faced brunette dragons fighting over those chocolate chip cookies, claws scratching, crumbs and green scales flying, but my little sister’s sad face gets in the way. “So what’s the matter?” I ask.

Alfie shrugs. “I dunno,” she says softly as Mom
goes into the kitchen to refill the water pitcher.

Alfie and I are alone in the dining room. “Didn’t you have fun today?” I ask.

“Kind of,” she tells me. “Suzette even let me keep all my dolls.”

“Amazing,” I say.

“See, that’s how nice she is,” Alfie tries to explain.

“Suzette’s not
nice
, Alfie,” I say, shaking my head. “Just because she didn’t rob you, that doesn’t mean she’s—”

“And she’ll let me be visible again next week,” Alfie continues, looking relieved.

“Big whoop. You always
were
visible,” I say. “If you can’t see that yourself, I don’t know how you expect me help you.”

“But I never asked you to help me,” Alfie says, scowling. “And I didn’t ask you to wreck my play date, either, EllWay. No wonder Suzette doesn’t like me,” she adds, loud enough for only me to hear.

“She said that?” I ask.

“Kinda,” Alfie says. “Not in words, but I could tell. She thought I was a baby, with my big brother busting in and ruining things.”

I can tell that the more she repeats this, the truer it will sound to her.

Alfie may really be a beautiful-rose-about-to-happen, but she has a ways to go. So far, she’s still mostly bare roots and a few thorns.

Well, let her think what she wants. Maybe she needs to have an excuse why Suzette Monahan doesn’t like her!

“It’s your fault,” Alfie says.

“Ooh, somebody’s tired,” Mom says, coming back into the dining room and sitting down again.

“Somebody is
not
tired,” Alfie says, pouting. “Somebody is starving, that’s all. I want a hot dog for dinner. Or a cheese pizza just for me.”

“This isn’t a restaurant,” Mom says. “You’ll eat what’s in front of you or hope for better luck next time.”

Alfie and I just sit there like two frozen kidsicles, because—that’s what Mom’s grandma used to say to
her
, when she was little. My mom’s
grouchy
grandma. The stories about her always scare me a little.

And now Mom’s saying the same thing to us!

“And speaking of ‘better luck next time,’” my dad says, entering the dining room with his empty sandwich plate, “I need to speak to you, EllRay Jakes. Now. In my office.”

“Oh, Warren, can’t it wait?” Mom says, tossing her napkin onto the table in defeat, as if now, even this skimpy, interrupted Saturday night dinner has been wrecked.

“I’m afraid not, Louise,” Dad says, still standing in the doorway. “It’s a very serious matter.”

“Oh, no,” Alfie whispers. “Poor
EllWay
.”

“It’s okay,” I whisper back, touching my little sister’s shoulder as I pass her chair.

Suzette must have
BLABBED
. Like I said before, though, it was worth it, standing up for my little sister.

“But it’s a very serious matter!” Alfie says, as if I needed reminding.

“EllRay?” my dad says, still waiting by the door.

“Coming,” I say.

15

“Sit down, son,” Dad tells me when we’re inside his office, and he has closed the door.

It’s strange, but my dad calls me “son” most often when I’m in trouble. So as I perch on the edge of the chair near his desk, I try to figure out how to explain the whole Suzette Monahan thing to him in just the right way. Not like I’m making excuses, or trying to get credit for something or, worse, lying, because my father is like a living, breathing lie detector.

I just want to tell the story in a way that makes me look good.

Also, I don’t want him to go nuts and start forming committees about Alfie being bullied at Kreative Learning. I think that problem, at least, has been solved.