And here is an excerpt from the brand new story in Flights of Dragons. This book contains all the out of print shorter works in the Notice universe, as well.
This story is called “Dragon Awakening,” and it’s a glimpse into how Varian and Josh are doing some six months or so after they adopted baby Jenny, the unwanted daughter of a dragon and a human. While Varian and Josh have adored her from the beginning, raising an infant with dragon blood in the human world has some unique challenges. This excerpt doesn’t have Josh in it, because to pull anything later would have spoilers, but you’ll get to meet the two teenage dragons in Varian’s history class. This is in Varian’s point of view.
Chapter 1
“Mr. Kendall, think we’ll get out early?”
“Only if our superintendent wills it,” I answered, glancing out the window. Rather, I glanced at a pane of glass that looked as if it had been treated with a privacy coating. The blowing snow made a white wall outside. This squall had not been forecast, and it concerned me because my husband Josh and our daughter Jenny were out in it. With luck, they were safely at the mall already. I knew I would sense if anything happened through the mental link Josh and I shared—but it wouldn’t hurt him to send me a little reassurance on my phone.
Trying not to worry, I refocused on my class of twenty high school freshmen and sophomores. “In the meantime, I am feeling most ill.” I staggered and dropped my Smart Board pen. “I am feverish, vomiting blood, and—oh no! Black blotches all over my body! Thank goodness I have a room full of medieval doctors with me. What is my disease?”
“The Black Death!”
“Shout out some treatments. Quickly, I may only have a few hours left among you.” I collapsed dramatically to the floor and lay motionless.
“Let his blood!”
“Cover him with flowers!”
“Give him a urine bath!”
“I’m getting buboes in my armpits,” I said without opening my eyes.
“Ew! TMI, Mr. Kendall.”
“And in my groin.” I’d always believed a teacher’s most important job was to embarrass students.
“Oh, yuck!”
“Lance them,” someone else suggested. “And rub feces in them.”
Someone made barfing noises. “That’s disgusting.”
“No, really, they did that,” another kid said.
I was getting comfortable. It actually felt pretty good to teach from the floor with my eyes shut. Jenny had been fussy last night and I had been up since one. Josh had tried to spare me, but Jenny knew she could claim him all day, so I belonged to her at night.
Then it hit me how I would feel if Josh and Jenny began throwing up blood, bursting into buboes, and dying within hours or days of the first symptom. That had actually happened to half the population of Europe—up to 200 million people, according to some sources. Nobody knew for sure. Children, lovers, spouses. It was unimaginable.
“Throw him over a cliff,” someone suggested.
“Or at your enemies,” someone else said. Humans could be so barbaric. Times like these, I was glad I wasn’t one of them.
“Like throwing Mr. Kendall over a cliff would make a difference.”
Okay, time to get up before that went any further. I recognized Taylor’s voice. He and his brother Pembroke—tall, light-haired, and brown-eyed freshmen—were the bane of my school year. Identical twins, and the first dragons I had taught since my own brother had shown up in my class.
“And I am healed!” I cried, leaping to my feet. “Thank you all, young physicians.” I gave them a bow and everyone laughed.
Then I sobered. “I know most of these treatments sound ruthless and primitive today and probably contributed to the death count, but remember how often scientific discoveries come from trial and error, or from pure accident. Also remember,” I paused and dusted off my hands, “that people were frightened, grieving, and desperate to save themselves and their families any way they could think of. And people kept dying by the millions.”
I let the idea sink home. “Imagine that tomorrow, a meteor crashes into the earth, bringing a hitherto unknown disease. Our trusted antibiotics are worthless. No known surgery helps. People begin dying within hours of being infected, and no one even knows how the disease spreads. It rips through our population. How long would it be before our social systems break down—government, health care, schools, banks, the internet? How long would it be before people were trying urine baths and wearing flowers in their buttonholes? Are we any different from people living back then?”
“We’re much smarter,” a girl in front said.
“Okay, so consider that phone in your hand,” I said, smiling as it disappeared into her pocket quickly. “Could you make a new one? Or even repair it? How about the vehicle that brought you to school today? I don’t have a clue what goes on under the hood. I’m lost without a calculator. Without electricity, few of us could heat our homes, especially once we ran out of matches.”
I avoided looking at Taylor or Pembroke, who were sitting in the front row. The three of us could keep warm fine without a fire, and we could live by hunting. But back when the field had been more level before, humans had done a good job killing us off before we’d gone into hiding. We were a long, long way from living openly among humans.
Baby steps, I told myself. At least I was out of the closet as a gay man now. Dragon acceptance would follow. In another thousand years, maybe.
You can get it here: