The Sasquatch Escape (The Imaginary Veterinary) (8 page)

The baby dragon arched its neck and turned its face, looking up at Mr. Tabby. A watery hiss emerged from its mouth, but no flame. Its head fell back onto the green-stained paper towels. Mr. Tabby removed the helmet. “No need for concern. It is too weak.”

Ben and Pearl took off their helmets and set them aside. Mr. Tabby slid on a pair of white gloves, then grabbed a pair of tweezers from the table drawer.

“I thought it might be a bat,” Ben said.

“That is understandable. The color, the wings…” Using the tweezers, Mr. Tabby gently stretched out the bad wing. “But just as I suspected, it is a wyvern. My nose is rarely wrong.”

“What’s a wyvern?” Pearl asked.

“A wyvern is a winged dragon with two legs,” Mr. Tabby said. “They appear in many medieval stories from the area of the Known World called
Wales. The wyvern was popular with knights in shining armor, who often wore its image on their shields and in their coats of arms.” Using the tweezers, he delicately uncurled the hatchling’s tail. “This sort of dragon often has a barbed tail.”

“Can you fix its wing?” Ben asked.

“The wing is easily mended,” Mr. Tabby said. “As is the puncture wound in the tail. Do you have any idea how it became injured?”

“My grandpa’s stupid cat caught it.”

Mr. Tabby narrowed his eyes at Ben. “
Stupid
cat? You dare call a cat
stupid
?” A low growl arose in Mr. Tabby’s throat.

Ben thought that
stupid
was a perfectly good way to describe a cat, along with
mean, nasty
, and
rotten
. He didn’t like cats, ever since the neighbor’s cat ate his first hamster. All that had been left was the end of the hamster’s tail. “I don’t like cats.”

Mr. Tabby’s mustache flicked with annoyance. “My dear boy, perhaps cats don’t like
you
.”

“The baby closed its eyes again,” Pearl said, pointing.

Mr. Tabby mumbled as he typed on his creature calculator. “Species: dragon. Breed: wyvern. Age: approximately three days.”

“Is the other dragon its mother?” Pearl asked.

“What other dragon?”

“The one Ben and I saw flying. The one that landed on the factory roof.”

“That is a bothersome question that I shall ignore,” Mr. Tabby said. “This hatchling was in our nursery. The cat must have gotten in somehow.”

“Probably through one of the broken windows,” Pearl said.

Ben still couldn’t believe they were talking about dragons. Real, living, breathing dragons. “I don’t understand something,” he said. “If this is a worm hospital, how come you had a baby dragon in your nursery?”

“Another bothersome question.” Mr. Tabby removed the gloves. “The hatchling will need surgery to treat the broken wing and the cat bite.”

“Can I have it back after the surgery?” Ben asked.

“No.”

“But—”

“If I gave the hatchling to you, I would be breaking the law,” Mr. Tabby said. “Creatures from the Imaginary World are not allowed to live in the Known World. Look what happened with the Loch Ness monster.”

“What?” Pearl said with a gasp. “You’re telling us that the Loch Ness monster is real?”

Mr. Tabby cleared his throat. “Again, I shall ignore that question.”

“But the big dragon is living here,” Ben pointed out. “In the…Known World.”

“The
big dragon
has Dr. Woo’s permission to live here. Oh dear, I shouldn’t have told you that.” Mr. Tabby folded his arms and stared at the two kids, who wore equal looks of surprise. “Even if I agreed to give you the hatchling, which I would not do, but even if I did, how would you take care of it?”

“I don’t know,” Ben said with a shrug.

“I could keep it in my bedroom,” Pearl said. “I have a big bedroom.”

“My dear girl, do you live in a castle?”

“No, I live above the Dollar Store.”

Mr. Tabby raised a red eyebrow. “The tiny creature you see before you will grow to be fifteen feet long, with a twenty-foot wingspan and the weight of one ton. When it reaches puberty, more barbs will sprout on its tail. Flames will shoot from its snout when it is frightened, angry, or simply bored. Unless the Dollar Store is made of stone, you will have constant visits from the fire department. And then there is the issue of feeding it.”

“We can make dragon’s milk,” Ben said. “We can use your recipe.”

“The recipe will only help you for a few days. The milk must be served boiling hot, which is a dangerous feat. The hatchling will grow very quickly and will require fresh meat. Squirrels, rats, and rabbits will do at first. But a full-grown wyvern will eat a cow a day.”

“Wow,” Ben said. “That’s a lot of meat.”

“Exactly.” Mr. Tabby picked up the cookie tin and set it on the conveyor belt. “I will send the wyvern to the surgery room.”

“But you said that Dr. Woo is making a house call,” Ben pointed out. “Who will do the surgery?”

“The splinting of a wing and the stitching of a wound are simple matters.” He pressed a button, and the conveyor belt began a steady roll, carrying the cookie tin and its occupant into the tunnel. Ben wanted to grab the tin and not let it go. But he knew the baby dragon was going to get the help it needed. He and Pearl stood at the tunnel’s entrance, watching until the hatchling disappeared.

“I didn’t even get the chance to hold it,” Pearl said sadly.

“Good-bye,” Ben whispered.

“Now I will escort you two from the building. Most certainly your parents are wondering about your absence.”

“I’m supposed to get home to do chores,” Pearl said. “I’ll be in big trouble if—”

An alarm rang and a nasal voice shot out of a
speaker that was set high in the wall. “Emergency code yellow, emergency code yellow. Sasquatch escape. All personnel needed immediately.”

Pearl and Ben shared a stunned look.

Normally, someone shouting “Sasquatch escape” would have made Ben laugh. But very few “normal” things had happened since he’d come to Buttonville.

“Oh dear,” Mr. Tabby said. “Well, no need to worry. As long as the front door is bolted, we should not have any cause for concern.”

Ben gulped. His mind raced to the front door and its rusty bolt. “Uh…”

“Emergency code red, emergency code red,” the loudspeaker voice announced. “All personnel needed immediately. Sasquatch has left the building!”

M
r. Tabby hurried into the lobby with Ben and Pearl at his heels. A cool breeze tickled Ben’s face. The factory’s front door stood wide open.

“Oops,” Ben said.

“Oops?” Mr. Tabby asked, his eyes flashing.

“The bolt was rusty,” Ben started to explain. “I tried, but I couldn’t—”

“Do you know what you’ve done?” A soft growl rose in Mr. Tabby’s throat. “You’ve made it possible for an Imaginary creature to enter the Known World.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Ben said. He slid his hands
into his jeans pockets. “I tried to bolt it, but it jammed.” He looked down at his shoes, hoping to avoid Mr. Tabby’s glowing eyes. What was that on the floor? He reached down and picked up a tuft of coarse brown fur.

“A sasquatch’s fingers are too thick to grip a dead bolt. That is why we put them on the doors.” Mr. Tabby stood in the doorway, shaking his head slowly. “No sight of it. This is a dreadful turn of events.”

“What’s a sasquatch?” Pearl asked.

Ignoring the question, Mr. Tabby began to search through a pile of boxes. “It is my responsibility to keep things in order while Dr. Woo is making house calls. She will be very disappointed.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben said. “I tried to bolt it. Really, I did.”

“What’s a sasquatch?” Pearl asked again.

“It’s a big, hairy ape,” Ben said, holding out the tuft of fur. He remembered a TV show about a group of sasquatch hunters. But he’d thought the show was pretend.

“You mean there’s a big ape running around Buttonville?” Pearl asked. “Cool.”

“A sasquatch is not a big ape,” Mr. Tabby said as he continued his search. “Apes are Known World creatures. Sasquatches come from the Imaginary World.”

Ben stuffed the tuft into his pocket. He would be the only kid in his neighborhood who owned a genuine tuft of sasquatch fur, which was way
better than the shark tooth his friend Warren was always bragging about. “Don’t some people call it
bigfeet
?”