C.M. Chapman, Writer

      The first time Carla found Dad with the bag over his head, he was sitting on the couch after dinner with the television playing.

     “Dad, that bag is for groceries.”

     “I know, sweetie.” his voice came out from under the cloth bag.

     “Then why are you wearing it on your head?”

     “The room is too bright, honey.”

     Carla looked around.

     “How do you see the TV?”

     “I don’t need to see it right now.”

     “But...”

     “Just let it go, Carla.”

     They had the same conversation the next day, and again, the next.

     After a few days, she finally talked him into cutting eye-holes.  Now, every evening he sat there, on the couch, watching television through the holes in the bag.

     After a week, Carla gave up on asking him why.

     Eventually, she asked a dragon.

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      Along two edges of Carla’s yard, a giant rose hedge towered all across the back and up one side.  Carla thought it must be ten feet tall and almost as thick.  Every spring the bunched, white flowers bloomed and filled the air with a wonderful smell that meant school was almost over for summer.

     Once the smell of the flowers was gone, Carla thought, it was just a nasty bush.

     She figured that every ball in the history of children was swallowed up by that rose hedge.  Once a ball rolled in there, it was long gone.  Sometimes she could reach it, but that was always dangerous.  Many times, she reached in and pulled out a ball with a bloody arm.

But the darn rose hedge made Carla into a pretty great Little League shortstop.  When she practiced ground balls in the back yard, she didn’t dare let them get past her or she would lose them in the bush.

     She was the first girl to play shortstop on the Hopewell Tigers.  It made Dad very happy, Carla could tell.  But the Little League season ended weeks before Dad started wearing the bag, and Carla went outside as much as possible in the evening, not knowing what to say. 

She practiced her ground balls, bouncing them off the side of the garage, hoping Dad might notice.

     “Darn it!” she yelled as she missed one.  It rolled into the rose hedge, of course.

     She got down on her hands and knees, looking for an opening.  First, she went in sideways, through the thorny branches, all the way up to her shoulder.  The ball was still a couple inches away.  Then, very carefully, she squeezed her head into the opening and reached further.  It was not far enough.  The baseball rolled a little further into the hedge.

     While her head was in there, she could see where the bush ended at Mr. Vitelli’s yard.  If she went in that way, there was an opening big enough to crawl through to get the ball.  The opening was too shallow for much movement once she crawled in, but she got her ball.  Then she carefully brushed a spot clean and sat down in the little bush cave, so close around her it felt like a thorny skin.  No one could see her in here, she thought.  It was her own, secret place.

     Carla began to cry. 

     A rustle passed through the leaves and branches of the rose bush that sounded like a heavy sigh, and then...

     “Mmmmm, a hungry sound.”

     Carla jumped, almost enough to scratch herself on the branches above her, snagging a strand of her hair on a thorn.

     “Ow!  What?  Who is that?”

     “Why it’s me, of course,” said a voice.

     Carla thought it might be someone on the other side of the bush.  She didn’t recognize the voice.  She tried to peer through the thick leaves and thorny branches.

     “Can’t see me, can you?”

     “No, who are you?”

     “You should know, waking me up with those wonderful hungry noises.”

     “What hungry noises!  What are you talking about?”

     She jumped again when the branches in front of her began to move toward her, revealing a face bigger than she was.  It was the head of a dragon, made entirely of old, twisted rose branches.  Giant, ancient thorns lined its mouth. It opened its eyes and looked at her.

     “In the old days, the sound of a maiden weeping meant it was dinnertime.”  The rose dragon turned its head to look her up and down, old, dead leaves and loose bark falling from its woody face.

     “But then, you hardly look like a proper maiden.  Hardly a proper meal for regal dragon.”

     “I’m twelve years old!”

     “Indeed!”

     “And you’re not a proper dragon!  You’re all made up of branches!”

     “Well, a dragon has to do what a dragon has to do...”

     “I doubt you could really even eat me, looking like you do.”

     The dragon sighed.  “Ah, quite right, more’s the pity.”  It leaned in close to Carla and the branches drew back into a mischievous smile.  “But don’t fool yourself little girl.  In a few moons' time I could be my old self again.  And then I could eat you quite quickly.”  A tiny branch came out of its mouth and licked its woody lips.

     Carla’s eyes were wide.

     “And I dare say, even now, I bet I could scratch you within an inch of your life.”

     Carla nodded.

     “So,” said the rose dragon, “seeing as how you were not in danger of being eaten, why do you wake me with the hungry noise?”

     “You mean, why do I cry?”

     “Precisely.”

     “I don’t know.”

     “Child, you simply must learn the definition of precise.  Listen to me.  I am a dragon, praised through the ages for my wisdom.  I am immortal.  My wings are in the stars and my claws are deep within the earth.  One would think that a little girl might not want to waste such an opportunity.”

     “You can’t die?”

     “Oh, I can be killed,” the dragon huffed.  “If I can somehow manage to avoid that, then I just get older and older, and wiser and wiser, until the end of time.”

     “Oh.”

     “So you see then?”

     “What?”

     “Why you should tell me about the hungry noise.”

     “Oh, yes, I guess.”

     The dragon groaned.  “Well?” it said. 

     Carla thought she could smell something burning.  “Dad is wearing a bag on his head,” she said.

     “Oh,” said the dragon, looking thoughtful.

     “Why is my Dad wearing a bag on his head?”

     “I’ll have to think on it,” said the dragon.  “Come back tomorrow, same time, no earlier.”

     The head pulled back and it was just a rose hedge again.

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     The next day, Dad sat down on the couch after dinner and put the bag on his head.

     Carla headed out into the yard.  Instead of going straight to the back, where she’d met the dragon, she went out their big, red front door and into the front yard.  The rose hedge came clear to the front and she ran over to where it ended on that side.

I wonder if its tail is on this end, she thought.  She followed the prickly hedge all the way down the side of the yard, peering inside it, looking for a leg, a wing, or a spiny backbone.  All she could see inside were more branches and thorns.  Across the back of the yard she followed it, all the way to Mr. Vitelli’s yard, where she got down and crawled into the opening.

     The inside space was bigger, as if the branches had pulled back.  And there, in the middle of the spot that Carla cleared on the ground, were three old baseballs that she had lost.  She sat down and looked at them.  One had nearly turned brown.  The other two were yellow now.

     The dragon’s head emerged from the hedge, like the hollow skeleton head of the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the museum.

     “Thank you for the baseballs,” said Carla. 

     “I can’t abide a mess,” said the rose dragon, “not when I’m awake.”

     “Well, thank you anyway.”

     “You’re a very polite little girl.  You are welcome.”  The head came close and the rose branches constricted as if the dragon were sniffing her.  “So, have you decided to tell me why you made the hungry noises?”

     “I told you that yesterday.  You said you would tell me why Dad was wearing a bag on his head.”

     “Ah, yes.  But that was not the only answer,” said the dragon.  “The answer to both questions is one and the same.”

     “That doesn’t make sense.”

     “It makes perfect sense to one as old as me.”

     “Well, I’m not as old as you.” Carla said impatiently.

     “No, but you already know the answer.”

     Carla thought for a minute. 

     “How old are you, anyway?” she asked

     “I have lived for tens of thousands of years.  The last two thousand years were spent here, on this spot, sleeping.”

     “That sounds boring,” said Carla.

     “What sounds boring?”

     “Being in one place for two thousand years.”

     The rose dragon cocked his head quizzically, shedding more leaves and debris.

     “Little girl, we reside on a spinning planet that whirls around a sun.  The sun is whirling around the center of the galaxy.  The galaxy is speeding through the universe.  At no time in my life have I been in the same place and, for that matter, neither have you.  Every moment brings us to a new place that we have never experienced before and never will again.”

     “Never again?”

     “Never,” said the rose dragon.

     “That’s sad,” said Carla.  She thought about the earth, flying through space.  “When people die, do they get left behind?”

     “Ah, a new question.”

      Later Carla lay in bed thinking about the dragon.  She wondered why he wouldn’t answer her until tomorrow.  From her bed, she could see the night sky through her window.  The Big Dipper stretched across the sky, pouring its contents onto Earth.  Mom once told her it used to be called the Big Bear and one could always tell whether it was summer or winter by how it hung in the sky.  She hoped Mom wasn’t lost out there, in space, wondering where her family had gone.

     That night she had a good dream in which Mom had made her laugh and smile and feel good.  She couldn’t remember how the next morning.

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     After dinner she ran straight to her dragon hideaway.  The dragon’s head appeared from the tangle of branches.  She thought it smiled when it saw her.

     “Well, little girl, I suppose you want your answer.”

     “Yes, please.”

     “So polite!  I don’t think you really know how nice that is.”  The rose dragon’s smiling branches came close to her again.  “The answer is again something you already know.  Tell me, what did you dream last night?”

     “I dreamed I was with Mom.”

     “You see?  You haven’t left your mother behind.  She is still with you, only now she talks to you from the realm of dreams.”

     “How did you know I dreamed about her?”

     “Little girl, I slept for two thousand years before you woke me with your hungry noises.  I know a thing or two about dreams.  When you leave me today, I will return to sleep again and from there I will explore the universe.”

     Carla’s heart sank.  “You mean I won’t see you again?”

     “Perhaps in your dreams, little girl.  As much as I like you, this is not my time.  Better to be a beautiful, dangerous bush.  If I were to stay awake, I would want to return to my real form, and then I might be tempted to eat you… and we couldn’t have that, could we?”

     “I cried ‘cause I miss Mommy.”

     “Ah, and there is the answer to your other question.  You see?”

     Carla did.  “I think I might miss you, even if you want to eat me.”

     Again, the dragon smiled.  “Just remember little girl, you are flying through space.  These moments never come again, so cherish your dreams and the good moments.  You have known a dragon.  Not just anyone can say that.  You will be strong now.  You’ll know what to do.”

     Carla felt tears start to run down her cheeks.

     “Mmm,” said the dragon, “perhaps you will make a proper maiden some day.  Now go!  You’re making me hungry.”

     She paused on her hands and knees and looked back once more.  The rose dragon was already gone.

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     “You can watch whatever you want on TV, sweetie,” said Dad, from under the bag, when she came back in the house.  She tried to see his eyes through the eye-holes, but couldn't.

     “I think I’m just going to go up to my room.”

     “Okay.”

      In her room, sitting on her bed, Carla thought about everything the rose dragon had said to her.  She thought about her dream and cried a little when she still couldn’t remember what Mom had said to make her feel so happy.  But she had felt happy when she woke up.  Maybe the dragon was right, she thought.  For the first time in three weeks she felt like maybe everything would be okay.

She rose from her bed and walked to her dresser.  Dad was wearing the bag because he missed Mom.  And the dragon said she knew what to do.

     Three weeks ago, beside the grave at Mom's funeral, the man from the funeral home took a red rose from the casket and handed it to Carla.  When the man tried to hand one to Dad, he had walked away, toward the car, without saying anything.  Carla never saw him cry.  Grandma said he was being strong for her.  Carla took his flower, too.

      In her dresser drawer, wrapped in one of Mom’s handkerchiefs, were the two roses.  Someone had trimmed off all the thorns.  The roses were dark red, curled, and shrunken now, but still soft.  She pulled one out of the drawer and went back down to the living room, stopping to look at the picture of her, Mom, and Dad that sat on the mantle above the television.

      She turned toward her dad.  “Daddy.”

     “What is it, sweetie?”

     “Can you take off the bag?”

     “No, honey.”  His voice sounded funny to Carla.  “I think I need to keep it on right now.”

     “Dad, I have something to give you.  I want you to see it.”

     “Can’t it wait, Carla?”

     Carla didn’t wait.  She reached out and pulled the bag from his head, messing up his hair.  His eyes were red.

Carla handed him the rose. For a minute, he just stared at it.  Then he pulled her to him and hugged her tight.

Carla wanted to cry, but she knew it was her turn to be strong for Dad.

     After all, she was a girl who had known a dragon.