The Trap (The Magnificent 12 2)

“Yeah, okay, but aren’t there different jobs for dragons? I mean, there must be, like . . . um . . . you know, dragon firefighters, dragon bus drivers. Maybe not bus drivers. But you know, different dragon jobs.”

“We are born with certain duties,” Xiao said. “We learn and we think and we write.”

“Oh, please,” Jarrah said with a derisive snort. “Don’t give me all that good-girl, do-what-I’m-told stuff. No one wants to grow up to do just what their parents tell them.”

I have made new friends in detention. The first day I met Matthew and Helder and Dwayne. They are bullies. I think I sat in the wrong chair, and Matthew asked me if I would like him to punch me in the head. I said, “Yes.” Because it’s important to be positive. Matthew punched me and I thanked him. So he punched me again and I said, “Thanks!” again. We played this game until Matthew was tired. Camaro, who is a girl bully, said, “I always knew you were cute, Mack. But I didn’t know you were so tough.” Then she sat next to me.

Xiao sighed. Mack was sure she was going to stick to her previous statement. But then she said, “The truth is, I love playing sports. At the school, we sometimes play football or basketball. I love basketball.”

“You play hoops?”

“I like being part of a team. It is a very human experience, you know. We—we dragons—are solitary. We don’t have teams. Handing the ball to someone else so that the team will prosper, it is a new challenge. The idea that the individual must sacrifice for the common good, that is very dragonlike. But doing this within a team, as a strategy for victory, that is new.”

“So you want to be either a dragon or a basketball star?” Jarrah didn’t sound skeptical. In fact, she obviously liked the idea.

Xiao laughed. “I can’t help but be a dragon. But when I daydream, in the hour before sleep, I sometimes picture myself as part of China’s Olympic team.”

“Are your parents okay with that?” Mack asked.

“No,” Xiao said, sounding annoyed. Then, in a more resigned tone, she repeated, “No.”

“Do you know kung fu?” Stefan called up to her. “You could give me lessons.”

Xiao turned her head as far around as she could and stared at Stefan. “No. No, I do not know kung fu.”

Stefan blushed.

“What about you, Mack?” Jarrah asked. “What are you going to be when you grow up?”

“We’re almost there, probably,” Mack deflected.

“You’re deflecting,” Jarrah said. “Come on, we all told.”

“Chef,” Mack said.

“What?”

“A chef. Okay? I want to be a chef when I grow up.” Then he added, “If I grow up. Which is seeming less and less likely.”

“That’s like a cook, right?” Jarrah asked.

“Kind of,” Mack said. It was embarrassing to him to talk about this. He was twelve. Twelve-year-old boys were supposed to want to be cops or firefighters or soldiers or wizards or at least game designers or billionaires. Not chefs.

But at the formative age of three, Mack had watched his father putting ingredients into the blender as he made a so-called health shake. Strawberries, okay. Banana, okay. Yogurt, sure. But even at the tender age of three, Mack had known the raw potatoes were a mistake.

Since then, Mack had become a student of his parents’ cooking. His father had a habit of odd substitutions. (“No,” Mack would say, “you can’t substitute American cheese for butter in a cake; it won’t work.”) And his mother tended to cook foods until they were not only done, not only overdone, but reduced to a flavorless gray goo you could suck up through a straw. (Brussels sprouts are bad enough—liquid brussels sprouts are even worse.)

As Mack had grown, he’d experienced much bad cooking. But then, one day, his parents had taken him to a dress-up restaurant to celebrate his mother’s promotion. The restaurant had a white tablecloth and crystal glasses. And the food! Baby vegetables cooked just right. A piece of fish that was not a stick or a patty or a cake. Just fish! And a dessert that was neither Costco ice cream nor Sam’s Club cookies.

It had opened Mack’s eyes. Since that day he’d wanted to wear the toque, learn to cook, become a chef.

Now, he reflected, he was stuck in a very different “job.” He was riding on the back of a dragon. Not quite what he’d dreamed about.

“I’m riding on a dragon,” Mack said out loud.

“Yeah. Cool, huh?” Jarrah said.

“This is what I do now,” he said. “I ride dragons and fight monsters.”