“Weapons shop! Weapons shop! Weapons shop!” 4-year-old Dragon Little was jumping up and down and shouting this mantra all the way from Earth’s ocean to the asteroid belt and to the asteroid that held the weapons shop.
It was time for their yearly visit to the small meteor that only appeared once a year in the asteroid belt.
Dragon Father landed Bonny’s Revenge right above the small parking lot, already filled with various cars, personal spaceships, and small pirate ships.
“All right, all right, we’re going,” Dragon Father told her. “Remember what happened last time. You will not touch anything, you--”
“I won’t!”
“You will not fire anythin--”
“I won’t!”
“You will not test anything!”
“I won’t!”
Dragon Father looked into her eyes. “Repeat what I said.”
“Don’t touch anything. Never touch anything. Don’t fire anything. Never fire anything. Don’t test. Never test.”
He stood up, and nodded slowly. “Right. Okay. Let’s go.”
Dragon Father and Dragon Little climbed down the rope ladder and went in through the entrance, under the same wooden sign, ‘Ye Olde Weapons Shoppe’.
They were now past my ability to see. I could see only slithers of the shelves packed with guns, swords, and other armaments through small slithers of the blinds in the windows, but my sharp dragon ears heard everything.
“Look, Dad, that’s a TX12 Laser Pistol, the one that General Hawk’s army used.”
“Yeah, that is the same one. That was a long time ago, how do you remember that?”
“Look, the Slither 13 Ninja Sword those ninjas used on us!”
“That’s right!” the amazement in his voice was palpable.
“Those are the Triple Giant Ass Rocket Launchers when we fought the giants!” “Look! Laser guided missiles!” “Dad, look here! S.A.M. The Man rocket launchers!”
And on and on, Dragon Little enumerated at least a hundred items in the store to her father’s amazement.
“How do you know all that?” he whispered to her after a few minutes.
“I pay attention. Don’t you?” she answered simply.
“Huh,” he said back, probably to himself.
When the shopping was done, Dragon Father had bought himself two new ninja swords, a rocket launcher just in case, and a ninja dagger for Dragon Little.”
When they climbed back aboard Bonny’s Revenge, Dragon Little’s eyes shone and Dragon Father was deep in thought.
“You know, I think today there’s no adventure waiting for us,” he told her as he approached the wheel. “Let’s do other father-daughter stuff. Let’s go on a picnic.”
Bonny’s Revenge rose into space, and off they flew to their picnic. But as they did, Dragon Little went to the stern of the ship. She was staring at the weapons shop, and no doubt noticed that, unlike the other two visits to the shop, the weapons shop and the asteroid it was on… they did not disappear.
Knowing Dragon Little as I do, watching her every day, I had no doubt that the wheels in her mind were moving, and she had begun to count back the time until her father would disappear and she could fly back to the shop all on her own.
I was right, of course.
Tomorrow I will tell you what happened once Dragon Father disappeared.
—Told by The Red Dragon