Chapter 4

Fun and I woke early to the sounds of cartons playing on the TV in the living room. When we went through to the kitchen, Pink and Flower were sitting together with Pink leaning up against Flower as if they were both sleeping.

Fun and I went over to look at them and sure enough, both had their eyes closed, breathing regularly. Strange, because Mom said they didn't really sleep. We decided to leave them alone and went into the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast.

I thought in my mind, "Mom, Pink and Flower look like they're asleep, how come?"

Fun and my minds were filled with, "I think yesterday must have been a very emotional and tiring day for them. We dragons do sleep sometimes but only if we have had an unusually busy or emotional day."

Fun asked in her mind, "How long will they sleep, do we need to let them sleep a long time?"

"Oh no," Mom said with a chuckle. "The two of them will wake soon but watch out, when dragons sleep, they wake up very hungry. Hope you have lots of greens in the refrigerator."

Fun and I got out a bunch of greens and lettuce, cutting it up into small pieces. We put two large bowls on the table so our critters could eat as soon as they woke up.

While Fun and I were eating some cereal we heard yawning and some giggles in the living room. First a pink dragon head peeked around the door jam at us then a yellow dragon came floating in toward the table.

Fun and I heard in our minds from Pink, "I'm very hungry. Let's eat."

Flower added, "When we sleep, we get very hungry."

Just as the two were floating to the table, you could see a pained expression appear on their faces then "poof" they were gone.

About the time Fun and I were becoming apprehensive about the two disappearing "poof" they re-appeared with relieved expressions on their faces.

Fun asked, "Where did you go?"

Flower blushed, "We had to ah, ah, relieve ourselves. We had to go out into the ocean real quick and come back."

Fun commented, "At least they walk themselves and even keep the place tidy."

The two dragons ate all of the greens we had cut up down to the last bite but were smiling, rubbing their tummies. Pink said, "Ah, hits the spot. I was really hungry."

Fun and I cleaned up and dressed for the store then casually walked to the store in the bright morning sun.

We entered our new store at seven thirty to find all of the critters happily floating around in the air or in the pool. Fun and I looked into the fridge to cut up some greens to find most of them gone. A big orange dragon came floating up and said, "Several of us slept last night and we were very hungry this morning so we had most all of the food."

Fun said, "I'll run next door to get some more. We need to keep enough on hand that there is always enough."

The big purple dragon came up to us and said, "If they get too hungry, they can just go out into the gulf for some sea grass. They're just being lazy. They have to go out there anyway to relieve themselves so they might as well eat while they are out there."

I made the suggestion, "You know we should probably have you guys go out a couple at a time throughout the day so no one seas that you are missing. As long as you stay invisible, it shouldn't make a difference but only a couple at a time. You all can eat a little while you're out there as well. We'll have plenty of food here but consider eating some natural food while you're out there. It will keep you healthy."

All of the pink and yellow dragons had clustered around me as I was instructing. As soon as I finished, they all began talking at once. I had the dejavu feeling of what it must be like to teach a bunch of grade school kids.

At eight fifteen, the uniformed Henry and another uniformed man came in the door, banging it heavily when closing it. Henry said loudly, "Now I'll have you two retards put in your place. This man is going to shut you down for having wild animals caged up."

The uniformed man said, "I am Fred Henning of the fish and game commission. We have jurisdiction over all wild things and have certain requirements that you will have to meet to sell any wild animal."

Fun said, "Our pets are really not wild animals. They live peacefully on a small island off Southern Mexico. They enjoy being with people and seem to love to be good company to humans."

"Nevertheless, I have to take some blood samples and some saliva swabs for testing. Let me get started, I'll tag each one as I go with this metal tag. I'll just shoot it though their skin so we can tell them apart."

In our minds Fun and I heard Mom say, "I don't think so Fred, I think you and Henry need to take a nap."

All of a sudden Henry and Fred were both perfectly still, right in the midst of whatever movement they had been doing. Fun reached up and pinched one of Henry's ears saying, "That's for being such a putz Henry. Why do you just have to be so mean all the time?"

Mom said to us, "I'm going to give them some memories that they have completed all of their tests and the fish and game person is going to declare your pets safe. He will write it up in his reports later so there is a public record. Do you wish for me to give Henry some memories?"

Fun giggled, "I would love to give him some bad memories but I'm not mean like he is. Can you do something that makes him do something embarrassing every time he's being wrongfully mean? He has to be a policeman and sometimes people think that is being mean, but he has to protect the people."

There was a long pause then Mom said, "How about for now every time he gets mean with someone for no reason he stutters. That will embarrass him enough to make him quit talking anyway."

Fun said, "Perfect, maybe he'll learn some humility."

Henry and Fred both began to move just as if they had never paused. Fred said, "That will take care of it. You have some great pets. If I had enough money I swear I'd get one of those yellow ones right now. Perhaps I can save up enough to get one. I think they would be a great friend."

Fred turned away and said, "Come on Henry, let's go see that nasty pet store down on the far south end, they need to be as clean as this one is."

Henry looked a little confused especially since one of the little pink dragons kept coming up under his hand so Henry was touching him. Henry patted the little guy on the head and left with Fred.

Fun exclaimed as soon as the two were out the door, "Mom that was perfect. How did you do that?"

"A dragon secret Fun, we can do many things and some are just for us to do. It looks like people are parking in front of your store so you're going to be busy. I'll watch and check in on you later."

A large family came through the door. They had three kids and four adults. It soon became apparent that this represented three generations of the family.

The oldest gentleman came in and just watched as all the rest of the family oohed and ahed over the dragons. Fun and I were busy teaching them not to be to firm in their stroking but to gently stroke them and to talk to them naturally.

Amazingly one of the pink dragons was all over the two little girls doing funny tricks and playing with them. The older women noticed and began showing the dragon an equal an amount of attention. The middle generation Dad was taken by one of the orange dragons. He was standing in front of it talking to it as if it were another human. The orange dragon seemed to really enjoy the company and appeared to respond to the man's chatter.

"Funny isn't it?" The older man said. "The guy hardly ever talks at home. Of course with the kids and these women he can't get a word in edge wise anyway. But look at him; he's carrying on a conversation with a six foot tall orange dragon. How strange. Now for me, give me one of those big purple guys, I'll bet he's smart and can probably help out around the house. I'll bet he's really strong too."

The older man walked over to the almost ten foot tall purple dragon and smiled at it. The big dragon smiled back. "Hey this thing even smiles at me. My goodness, I'll bet they can be great friends to have around, better than a dog even."

Now the women and the little kids were also entertaining a yellow dragon that seemed to pair up with the pink one. The older woman stood up and came to me, "Um, just how much are these things. They are so unusual, they must be a fortune."

"Not bad," I answered. "The pink ones are three fifty, the yellow are four. If you really want an orange one you can have one for seven fifty and the big Purple guy is a thousand."

"My, my, that isn't as much as I thought. John honey, did you hear how much they want for these?"

The older man still talking to the big Purple dragon said, "Yep, pretty good prices. Let me ask these folks a little about them."

The older gentleman, the older woman and the children's' father came over and asked all of the usual questions. I gave them the information and the history of the dragons. After a lengthy question and answer session the older gentleman asked, "You wouldn't take credit cards would you?"

He could tell from the look on our faces that we didn't but I said, "Let me go next door and see if he'll take your card for you."

The landlord was just opening the T-shirt shop when I walked in. "Henry, I have a pretty big sale and the guy wants to use a credit card, can you take a card for me?"

"Sure can, but you oughta make sure the guy has lots of I.D. or maybe he could just go next door to the bank annex and get cash. They're used to travelers."

"Let me go see," I said leaving quickly as I had not thought all of it through yet.

"Excuse me sir, but there is a First National Bank annex right next door that you could get cash at, would that be okay?"

"Sure would, let's get a total on what we want then I'll go get some money."

The older woman said, "We want two of the pink ones and one yellow one. I think Doris' husband wants that orange one and you George, I'll bet you want that monster purple dragon."

"Yep," George said, "Let's see two times three fifty plus four hundred is eleven hundred. Then add a seven fifty and a thousand and that makes twenty-eight fifty. Do you have to collect sales tax?"

Fun had gotten up to be a part of the conversation but was standing there mute, in shock over how much money these people were willing to spend. She came out of her stupor and said, "Are you sure you want to get so many at once. Don't you think you should learn a little more about them with a small one first."

The grandmother said, "They are all good with animals and should be fine. If we can't handle them, we'll bring them back and give them to you. They seem to be real happy here."

I commented, "They are just very happy critters. Show them attention and they will do anything you want them to do."

The older man came back from the bank and paid Fun the money then he said, "Good thing we have that big Van, otherwise it would take two trips to get all of these guys home. Come on folks, let's get these guys home so we can play with them."

In seconds, our inventory of dragons was reduced by two big ones and three little ones. Wow, we had already sold seven of the dragons we had brought back with us.

In our heads Mom said, "Here come some more people, get ready."

Three separate couples and one threesome came in to look at our critters. In very little time the threesome picked out a pink dragon they really liked and one couple bought a pink one. One other couple said they wanted a pink one and a yellow one but they would need to get enough money to pay for it.

As the last of that group was leaving, Jill came in, "Hey guys, how's it going?"

Fun told Jill about how nice Henry had been this morning and that we had sold several dragons. She mentioned to Jill, "Were you serious about working for us? We need to make a quick trip to get more dragons and would need you for a couple of days."

"I'd love too. I'll even work for nothing to play with these guys."

I smiled at Jill, "We can pay you Jill, we're getting paid for the dragons so we have enough to pay you what you're worth."

Jill said in a sexy voice, "Whatcha' think I'm worth big boy, want a sample to find out?"

"Now, now Jill," Fun was teasing. "Don't be trying to steal my boyfriend from me."

Jill laughed and said, "Not a chance Franny, I love your guy like a brother but that's the only way I'll love him."

"Good," Fun laughed.

Fun and Jill had an extended conversation about how to run the store while we were gone. She said, "We have to get some business stuff done real quick before we leave so if you can watch the store, we can get it done."

Fun and I went next door to Henry and asked him, "Henry, is your brother still a lawyer with an office over the grocery?"

"Yeah, he's there. He doesn't do much more than drink but he's there. He's good with drunk driving or getting into a fight but not much else. What do you need?"

"We need to set up a corporation for tax stuff and a sales tax number," I said fearing this was going to require trips to Austin.

"No problem," he said then yelled, "Hey Janny, gotta take the kids over to the bank so they can get their sales tax number and go see Sam about a corporation. Be back in thirty."

Henry knew his stuff. The bank branch vice president acted as a state tax official and issued us a sales tax number and certificate. He helped us open a bank account in the name of "Fun Dragons."

Next was Henry's brother. The guy's office smelled like a bar room. He was coherent enough to fill out all of the forms and said, "I'll have your federal I.D. back in a week. Make sure you keep good records now and give receipts to your customers. You can get Margie to keep your books if you want; she does it for a lot of the people around here and doesn't charge a lot."

Almost exactly thirty minutes after leaving the T-shirt shop we were walking back into it. We thanked Henry while noticing he had an unusual amount of traffic in his store for the off season.

We walked back into Fun Dragons to find Jill swamped with customers. It took all three of us to help everyone and when we were through we only had one yellow, two pink and one orange dragon left. Jill looked shell shocked. She said, "Quick, get the money out of the freezer. I'm not used to having that much money in my hands at one time. You're going to have to leave soon to get more dragons because people really like them and are willing to pay the money."