No Soliciting

As Bella lived three blocks in a straight line away from her school in a small town and was seven, she could walk home by herself. It had been her birthday present. One house had a stone wall with an iron gate, and on the gate, a sign:

Solicitors will be fed to the dragon.

No Soliciting

She stopped to read the sign one day after learning how to sound out words that were not compound, but she did not know what “soliciting” meant. Bella decided to ask the teacher.

The next day, the gate was locked and she climbed up a pole like it was a rope in the gym. Stepping over the sharpish points, she scraped her leg and slid down the pole. The scrapes did not hurt much, but she did not like blood.

The glass storm door also had a sign for no soliciting. Bella rang the doorbell.

A man opened the wooden door, with its chain bolt in place, and said like a teacher,

“Little girl, I assume the sign is too difficult for you to read, so I will explain it. I don’t buy things from people who go door-to-door. I’m sure the Girl Scouts or your school cause is great, but please sell it to somebody else. Thank you and good-bye.”

“I want to see the dragon, but I’m not selling anything,” Bella said.

“Do your parents know where you are?” he asked.

“I’m on my way home from school. I live down there.”

“The house with the groovy tree?”

“Groovy?”

“Awesome, in young people language.”

“Yeah, it’s a fun tree to climb.”

“How old are you?”

“Seven. I’m Bella.”

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“I’m Mr. Vroom. You are young enough to see the dragon, I suppose.” He shut the door.

When the man opened the door, Bella saw he had a sweater, felt hat, a walking stick made from a tree branch, and a pair of sunflower oven mitts.

“If you come back, bring your parents along,” he said. “Back up a little—the door opens out.”

“You’re the man that shovels sidewalks and you clean up dog poo,” she said, backing down.

“Well, broken necks and dirty shoes aren’t very nice,” he said. “Still, bring your parents if you come back.”

“Okay.”

He had a gravel yard with a chicken coop, pig pen, rabbit pen, cows in a field. Also, he had a pick-up truck and hanging from his house wall, a deer carcass.

“What’s he for?” Bella pointed to the door.

“Well, when I see roadkill, I clean it up, and feed it to the dragon, unless it has gone past. But I hunted that deer for food. Hunting can balance the wildlife population, assuming the hunters obey the laws. Some years, I don’t hunt because poachers hunted too much the year before, but this year, I could.” He unlocked the corrugated shed, making a high “whh” noise somewhere between speaking and whistling: two slow, three fast, and he repeated them a couple times.

A dragon’s snout slightly larger than a horse’s head and Mr. Vroom removed one of his oven mitts for the dragon to sniff his hand. Bella watched behind Mr. Vroom through the door while he put a muzzle on the dragon’s head. Adelhard nuzzled the man’s chest and made a happy snort.

“Does he like the muzzle?” Bella asked.

“He likes being outside. I only let him outside with a muzzle for fire prevention.”

Mr. Vroom backed up with the thick rope. Adelhard followed, walking on three legs. His front left leg had tough skin on the end, but no scales and his body had some similar scars in places. His skin under his scales was a brighter red than the scales, which also shone like a glossy paperback book. Adelhard filled up the yard, with a neck as long as a minivan and a body as big as an eighteen wheeler trailer, and his tail roughly equal to the length of his head, neck, and body. One paw could have completely crushed Bella’s head.

Her hand could have covered an egg-shaped eye.

“Lie, lie lie,” he said, and the dragon lay down with a soft sigh of comfort and folded his wings against his back.

“In a minute, you can pat him, but you must listen very carefully. Always look Adelhard in his eyes. He can see your feelings. You can let him sniff your hand,” Mr. Vroom said, showing her. “Hold your hand flat and your arm still. He comes to you—you shouldn’t touch his nose. It is hot. He won’t touch your hand if it is bare.”

Mr. Vroom showed her and stood right by her, holding her hand in the correct position, and holding the rope with his other hand.

Adelhard’s breath was as hot as a pot of macaroni being strained.

“Why do I have to look at him?” Bella asked, suddenly extremely afraid, and she ran back.

Adelhard raised his head and snorted, his eyes wide and looking around, but Mr. Vroom whistled again and Adelhard looked at him.

“He thinks something is wrong if you appear afraid. It scares him. But if you do it purposefully, he follows your eyes or your hands. I think a knight rode him into battle, circa 1200.”

“Where did you find him?” Bella sat on the back step.

“Spelunking in Germany—cave-exploring. My friend and I were in an accident. We skidded down the wall and we could not climb back up. This was before cell phones, and I doubt we would have good coverage there anyway. We found water and we knew to follow water, particularly running water like that. The ledge was very narrow and some bats flew down. It surprised us and we fell yards down into the river. Adelhard grabbed us out of the river with his claws and brought us to the other side of the river. I thought he would eat us, but he looked at us and sniffed us a little. I was in Vietnam, but I don’t know if I was more afraid there than in the cave right then. He pushed us away from the water’s edge with his tail and dove into the water to catch fish, and he cooked it for us by breathing fire. We had flashlights and we were saving the batteries, but we saw by the flames a suit of armor lying on the rock. His body had rotted, as the cave was humid, and there were also fish bones by him that had also melted away. Adelhard also offered us water with his mouth, and I drank it because I did not know what he would do if I did not.”

“Ewww,” Bella said.

“My friend agreed, and Adelhard was very concerned about him,” Mr. Vroom said. “I told him to drink out of the river so Adelhard would see he was fine. Adelhard stood up on his back legs and stretched his neck as far as he could to breathe fire into the air, and we discovered an entrance to the cave. He could not unfold his wings enough to fly out, and his wing muscles had atrophied. He could hardly open them when we found him. He pushed us against the wall with his claw and raised us above the level of his head, and brought his head under his feet. He raised his head as far as he could up the wall and we could reach the ledge again. We decided one of us should climb out and one should stay behind, in case we fell. He went first and came back for me. We knew we needed a heavy transport helicopter. We couldn’t predict how Adelhard would react in one, and we chose the heaviest one we knew, a Mil Mi-26. This was before the Berlin Wall fell, and it was not too difficult to find a Russian pilot.”

“But Russia has countries between it and Germany,” Bella said.

“But back then, Russia controlled those countries and half of Germany,” Mr. Vroom said. “You will learn about in school, I suppose, but it seems recent to me. You might look in the library for books about the U.S.S.R.”

“The letters?”

“In a string, U.S.S.R. The pilot lifted Adelhard out and we bribed a captain to ship him to America. We bought this land and fireproofed it, but we had some close calls. We still live together.”

“Are you gay?” Bella asked.

“You are half right.” Mr. Vroom had not rehearsed an explanation of asexuality appropriate for a seven-year-old.

“Are you straight?”

“No, I’m…Not either.”

“I have to go home now. Can I come back?” She jumped off the step.

“If you bring your parents.”

“Can I bring one parent?”

“At least one.”

“Thanks!”

Naturally, Bella’s parents did not believe her. Bella did not see Adelhard again for a couple months, then temperatures and a wind chill below zero closed the schools and Mr. Vroom shoveled the sidewalks. Bella dragged her father outside to ask about Adelhard.

“Yes, he exists,” Mr. Vroom said. “You are welcome to settle the issue by looking in my shed.”

Mr. Kazlow gave Bella a look of extreme parental tolerance for ridiculousness, but agreed. He half-expected to see an inhumane animal breeding factory, but he fainted at the sight of Adelhard, which alarmed Adelhard.

Adelhard had melted all the snow in his shed and breathed fire on it until the water evaporated. Bella put her mittened hands on his snout, but Mr. Vroom said, “The steam will burn your hands. You can hug his neck gently to warm up. Don’t squeeze the spines—they are sensitive.”

It warmed her up a little and left her clothes wet. Mr. Vroom invited her and Mr. Kazlow into the house for an explanation, and as Mr. and Mrs. Kazlow believed fire-breathing dragons were too dangerous for a child to be around, Bella was not allowed to see him again. Her mother agreed.