#his tumby?? you’re joking right?

[sirjacobthomaskiszka]

no because the way I am crying over how soft he is

[the-stick-scribblers]

Tumby

The neighborhood is half suburbia, half forest, which is maybe why when he screams no one comes looking. 

One hand is occupied by a ring of keys trying to unlock the old car door; the other arm is full of wailing, wriggling four-year old. She hasn't yet noticed the beast on the other side of the street. Gabriel is frozen.

“Mona,” he croaks, eyes locked away from her on the danger. “Love. Shhhhhhh.”

“Tumby!” she wails

“We brought Tumby back to his family. In the woods, remember? The stream?” Gabe keeps his voice low, steady, soothing. The glossy crayon woman on the cover of his wife's favorite parenting book would be proud of his control, given the circumstances.

Mona wails louder.

“Hush,” he tries again, sharper, jiggling her more fiercely. “Shhhhh, sh-shhh,” The keys he fumbles awkwardly in his hand, cold metal biting into his paper cut from church craft time this morning, clanking against his wedding band. He winces at the sound. Mona grabs his ear and tries to kick her way to freedom. He squeezes her tighter but doesn't dare drop the keys. “Mona baby, I'm sorry. I know you miss Tumby. But I need you to be quiet right now. Papa's trying to think.”

There. The keys settle in his hand, jutting out from between his knuckles. Their car is a classic, gorgeous steel low rider from the sixties that's also prone to deciding not to move any part of it at unpredictable times. Today it has decided to jam it's doors. Getting in and driving into the beast heroically is, unfortunately, off the table.

Equally unfortunately, he left his cell phone inside. He can picture it exactly, nestled lopsided in the mesh of the yellow polka-dot lunch bag Maria bought him as a joke right after his promotion, before he left to take care of Mona; he uses it as an emergency kit. Normally he keeps it in the diaper bag. But the batteries needed replacing and medicines' expiration dates needed to be checked.  It's in the front hall buried under a jumble of hurriedly discarded hangers from their earlier walk to the park. Gabe dropped it right inside the front door while wrestling Mona into her shoes. Which are goners themselves now, at least a hundred feet away, right by the street and nearly on top of the beast's horribly dripping tail.

If he can get to the kit, he can call a ride.

The beast occupies the forest; the houses on this side of the road make up suburbia, linked by dead wooden hands all the way across the valley without a single break. The homeowners’ association takes appearances seriously. Normally, Gabe chafes at the caged simulation. Today it means he'll either need to bring Mona with him past the beast or set her down and leave her alone behind.

She sure wants to get down. Even without shoes her kicking feet are pounding his chest into a mosaic of tender bruises. Gabe's ear, the one Mona's tugging at with all the weight of her little body, is ringing and hot. Despite his dedication to the panic of the moment, he spares a few brain cells to miss the gentle way Mona was when she was three.

It's Tumby's fault, Mona's new voice. That damn lizard.

Maria and he agreed when Mona was born they would be the sort of parents who didn't freak over the small stuff. Who let their little girl get just as dirty as their boy and didn't fuss over things like lizards brought home in muddy pockets. Who kept more encyclopedia's on hand than pink or blue toys. Which is why, although Gabe thought the lizard's purple coloring was freaky and possibly poisonous from the start, he smiled at the kids indulgently and grabbed an empty butter box.

“Who's going to catch it bugs to eat?” he joked, holding out the lid so David could punch holes in the box lid with a screwdriver.

“Mona,” said David.

She nodded, her fists stuffed with brown grass and her chest puffed with the important gravity of being the chosen one during play time. Gabe held out the box so she could drop it into the bottom to make the lizard a bed. Then she dropped the lizard in, rather clumsily, on its head, which was the second sign something was weird. At work he'd always known lizards to be agile bastards.

Mona named it Tumby because it's stomach was a little light blue oval and was bottomless - the lizard liked to eat, and eat until all the bugs on their street disappeared for self-preservation. It outgrew the butter box in a day. It outgrew the shoe box in a week. By ten days, it was the size of a small yappy chihuahua and weighed twice as much. And it learned to climb. Mona forgot to bring it bugs that morning before her play date, and it scurried onto the kitchen counter and fell asleep in the bowl of the scale for most of the afternoon. Gabe found it with its nostrils poking over the edge of half-melted plastic like eyes and he nearly threw the knife in his hand out of fright. He told Maria that night it had to go.

“You're telling the kids,” she said, glasses tipped sideways on her face sensibly. It was such an extremely Maria moment, Gabe kissed her.

Mona thought the whole trip to the stream a great adventure, splashing about in her duck-print boots and tumbling about with David until both of their curls were littered with crunchy leaves. The trip back, she splashed less but chattered more, all about the adventures Tumby would have in the woods. It wasn't until Gabe was putting her to bed that night that the tantrum came as she realized Tumby's adventure was not a temporary one. She howled all night, and for a month straight anytime they took her outside.

Of course she's howling again now. Gabe starts to give in and set her down on habit to send her away to play before he looks up and remembers, right. The beast. Purple and probably a people eater. Most of its body is hidden in the shadows of the trees, so whether or not it can fly is still to be determined. It definitely has at least one horn; short for its size but still at least as big as Gabe's forearm. 

“Mona,” he says, giving in to gravity and setting her on the ground. He keeps his hands looped over her shoulders, so she won't turn around and startle. She sniffles, but quiets. “Papa needs you to listen very, very carefully. Can you do that?”

Her lower lip trembles and there are watery beads stuck in the baby hairs around her face. She's looking everywhere except at him. Still, eventually she sniffles, wipes her little hand across her eyes, and nods.

“Thank you, Mona. Papa forgot his phone and needs to go back inside. But there's a...” How much to say, how to say it without setting her off again? “There's a snake on the path and it's camouflaged, so I am going to carry you so you don't accidentally step on it. Understand?”

“There's a...snake?”

“Yes.”

“What color?”

Gabe smooths her flyaway hair and plants a kiss at her temple. “Brown. It blends in with the sidewalk.”

She clings to him so he can't pull away from her. “I wanna see.”

Kids. Was David this circular when he was Mona's age? Gabe can't remember, and it's only been three years. The eternal enemy of parents everywhere, time. “I'll point it out as we walk past, if it's still there.”

“Okay,” says Mona. And just like that she's calm again, nearly her pre-lizard self.

Gabe hoists her up again so she's tucked neatly against his shoulder and as sturdy as he can manage with one arm. He peeks his head out around the edge of the garage, gauging the distance. The dragon's body doesn't move. Its green eye - the same size as their Mercedes's hubcap - is closed, although thin smoke trails from its nostrils. Shudders threaten Gabe's grip. He blinks, long and slow, makes his panic a game for Mona and counts with her to ten. They take one step out, and then -

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the neighbor's front door open.

Bernadette is the sort of woman Gabe and his friends would have called a wicked witch and meant something mean by it, when they were children. She wears frayed, mismatched skirts, sending patchouli thick thorough the air with every step; she has flyaway hair, has the best garden on the block, and is older than everyone else in nearly the whole damn city, too. Her eyesight left her about the same time as her late husband, fifteen or so years ago. Her hearing lingers on halfway. Mona is still against his shoulder, but Gabe feels his heart rate pick up again.

“Bernadette,” he calls, loud as he dares. She doesn't look up. She doesn't look across the street, either.

There's a pebble near his shoe from the gravel driveway, dragged in by some forgotten romp. He nudges it sideways until he can lean down without dropping Mona, then tosses it at Bernadette's porch. It misses and clangs against the drain pipe on the other side.

“David, what sort of trouble are you up to today?” She's turned away the wrong direction, but her voice is the strongest part of her, and it carries. Too many years as an actress followed by too few years with anyone interesting to talk to but boisterous kids. 

Gabe finds another pebble, dances it to his side, throws it. This time it hits her wooden stairs. He calls again, “Bernadette!”

“I moved the keys to the garage, David, you won't be able to find them before I find you,” she says to the wrong house beside her.

“David's in school, Bernadette. It's Gabe and Mona.”

“Bullshit. David is far too naughty not to be suspended.”

“Bernadette, I'm sorry but now is really not the time. There's a -”

“No time for me, huh? He gets it from his father.”

Gabe sucks in a deep whistling breath through his front teeth. “Mona and I are stuck out here in the garage. I don't have my phone. Can you call - no!” She has finally turned around the right way and is starting down her steps. ”Don't come out further, it's dangerous -”

“It's only mud.”

“There's a -” Well, that is the question isn't it. “There's an animal.” You think. You guess. “Across the road. It's been watching us, but we can't get in the car and we can't get inside. Bernadette I need you to call someone.”

“You want me to call the police?” Bernadette doesn't trust the police, and says it again loud as she can every time Maria's brother comes to visit to rub it in. If he needed Bernadette to call the police, he wouldn't even bother to ask.

But animal control won't have anything for this beast, either. “Try the fire department. Tell them, uh -” Gabe eyes the trees across the road, the way the beast's head blends flat against the treetops. “Tell them they'll need extra ladders.”

“What kinda animal are they after, anyway?” Bernadette grumbles. “A monkey?”

Mona wriggles warningly, and yells, “Snake!”

Gabe bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Just call them,” he whispers towards Bernadette like he's on a stage.

“Suit yourself,” Bernadette says to the nearby flower box, and goes back inside. The screen door bangs shut behind her.

Gabe and Mona both jump. She nestles deeper into his shoulder, resuming her kicking with half-hearted attention. Behind the car in the corner of the garage is a tidy, tiny workstation with a short stool the kids like to swivel around on while he works on the car's problem of the week. It's cozy, and good for getting energy out, and most importantly out of sight. The beast - dragon, probably, although thinking its name feels akin to blasphemy, surreal and scary and brave all at once - flicks its tail and takes out two young trees. Gabe sinks back into the garage and sets Mona firmly on the stool. She looks at him with narrowed eyes, confused.

“Papa is going to go watch out for the snake. It's poisonous, and Miss Bernadette is calling for help. I want you to sit here and be safe until I come back, okay?”

Mona considers this. She stands on the stool and uses her leverage on Gabe's shoulders to see past him to the front yard; whatever she sees, she's sits back down again with a satisfying thump, and nods. The creak of the stool spinning around and around follows Gabe back to the entrance. It keeps him grounded. He has to stand at the furthest edge of the garage, away from and out of Mona's sight, to see the road and wave down the help. It's probably an unnecessary gesture. Anyone with functioning eyes should be able to see what the call was about. But Gabe still doesn't quite believe his own. He tries to blink one eye at a time because if he closes both eyes at once, he'll open them to find the dragon is gone, and spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. 

Bernadette's screen door slams open again against the peeling slats. When she steps back out, she hasn't got her phone. Instead, she's toting a rifle tall as she is, and holding it like she means business. She leans it tottering on the steps' railing and turns the long way around to face Gabe. “What did she say this animal is? Snake?”

“Did you call the fire department?” Gabe is going to have to schedule his annual doctor's appointment sooner rather than later. There's got to be some sort of lasting damage from adrenaline this high, this long. “Bernadette, please tell me you called.”

“What's those firemen going to do about a snake? You may never have done a day in the country in your life, but used to we took care of these things with a shovel.” She's reached the bottom of the steps, shaking the railing so the gun tips down after her. Across the road the dragon's unblinking eye rotates sideways until it's laser focused on Bernadette. The smoke coming from its nostrils is flecked with blue and purple embers. Where each one brushes against a leaf, a tree branch catches fire.

Gabe is halfway across the yard in pursuit of Bernadette before he stops. Arms too empty, shoulders too light. Mona. He turns around and runs back to the garage.

It's silent, and dim. He reaches the stool - no Mona. He looks under the car, and then panics, because the garage is too small and there's nowhere else to hide. He should know better, it's parenting 101, never leave your child unattended or they could get hurt. They could die. (“All those sharp tools!” chides his mother in his brain. “All those sharp talons!”)

Back to the yard, squinting against the sudden glare of day and patchwork fires. Looking at the shadows of the grass, the steps, the road, looking for a splash of purple color. There - Mona, waddling alongside Bernadette, leading her in a mostly straight path towards the dragon with her mouth spread wide, baring every crooked baby tooth. A look of pure glee on her face.

Gabe blacks out. He comes to with Mona cradled tight and kicking in his arms, Bernadette behind him ignoring every tenant of gun safety and trying to use the gun to force her way around. Gabe looks up. The dragon looks down. They're both standing nose to nose, breathing in the glowing smoke.

“Mona,” Gabe hisses. “Bernadette. Don't. Move.”

Something about his tone makes them both pause for the first time all day, or maybe the smoke has made him sound harsher than he intends. They both look up, following his gaze.

And let out twin gasps as they both finally see the dragon up close. Not entirely, because it was too large and too camouflaged even from the other side of the street, but in uncanny detail - eyes slitted like a cat's, scales the size of roofing tiles and so black they look purple in the light of the fires. Fine white streams of smoke are permanently etched around the dragon's jaw like whiskers. Well, at least Gabe can cross hallucinations off his list of symptoms he'll be bringing to the doctor if he survives this day.

Bang! A gunshot rings out, flat and startling. Mona screams. Then she bites down on Gabe's arm so hard she draws blood. Gabe's blood mingles with something dark and sticky, the same color of the dragon's scales - the dragon's blood? - and he has to press his hand up in his shirt to stop the flow. And he has to drop Mona. She immediately takes off.

“Mona!” he yells after her.

She runs towards the beast, arms outstretched, ignoring Gabe, still screaming.

“Tumby!”