“That’s exactly what I was doing!” Lucy said. “You know me so well. We don’t need this chair, right? It’s Linus’s, but he told me he likes standing when eating.”
Linus snorted. “I said no such thing.”
“Theodore?” Arthur said. “Is it true? Can you create fire?”
The wyvern glanced at Sal, who nodded. Theodore began to click and growl, spreading his wings and moving his head up and down. Arthur listened intently as Theodore explained that he’d woken up a few days before with a brightness in his chest he’d never felt before. He ignored it at first, but it made him itchy, like his skin was vibrating. He hadn’t said anything because he thought it’d pass on its own.
It wasn’t until this very morning when he’d woken up, stretched, yawned, and breathed a small gout of fire. It hadn’t hurt, he added, clicking and chirping that it had felt good, like stretching a stiff muscle. He chirped a question that Arthur—for all he’d seen and done—didn’t have the answer to.
“I don’t know,” he said, tapping his chin. “I was under the impression that wyverns—though descended from dragons—were incapable of creating fire. Linus? Have you ever heard of a wyvern making fire?”
“No,” Linus said from somewhere behind him. “Granted, Theodore’s the only wyvern I know, but I thought they hadn’t evolved in such a way as to make fire. Something about not having the gland that secretes the oily mixture needed to ignite.”
“It’s green,” Chauncey said from his bucket. “Like me.”
“Green fire,” Arthur said. “Can you control it?”
Theodore hesitated for a moment before nodding.
Arthur took a step back and said, “Show me, if you feel up to it.”
Theodore pranced on his two feet, claws clicking on the tile floor as he spun in a circle, obviously eager. He waved his right wing for them to take a step back to give him enough room. Linus, for his part, opined that perhaps indoors wasn’t the best place for a demonstration of fire, but he was quickly outvoted when everyone (including Arthur) booed him. Linus then reminded them of the last time an event involving fire had occurred indoors (Talia’s birthday; too many candles and not enough fire extinguishers). “And that’s the reason I think we should consider going outside to—”
It was about this time that Theodore reared his head back, eyes narrowed. A ripple of iridescent light moved across the black scales along his back toward his head. As Theodore opened his mouth, Arthur smelled the comforting familiarity of smoke and flame, and then a jet of green fire shot from Theodore, stretching at least five feet, the heat immense. It only lasted a few seconds before the fire died out, but Theodore was obviously pleased with himself, puffing out his chest and hopping on either foot as smoke leaked from between his jaws.
Pleased, that is, until the banner hanging above the table caught fire and began to burn. Arthur whirled around, raised his hand, and sucked the fire down into his palm. It formed a crackling sphere that snuffed out when he closed his fingers around it.
“Well done, Theodore,” Arthur said, suitably impressed.
“Again!” Lucy yelled, punching his fists in the air. “Again!”
“And this is why we don’t breathe fire inside the house,” Linus said, hands on his hips. “You can’t just … There’s not…” He frowned. “Why does the sign above the table say HAPPY BIRT?”
“It’s supposed to say ‘birthday,’” Sal said, scratching the back of his neck.
“I like ‘happy birt’ better,” Talia said as she tossed the eggs into the mop bucket, causing Chauncey to proclaim he was egg drop soup. “It sounds dumb and amazing, like Lucy.”
“Happy birt!” Lucy crowed.
“I knew this was going to blow up in our faces,” Phee muttered.
“Oh no,” Chauncey whispered as eggs bobbed around him. “What are we supposed to sing now? The happy birthday song doesn’t work when it’s a happy birt song. Haaaaaapppy birt to you. See? It sounds like nothing.”
Linus shook his head. “It’s not someone’s birthday. The next is Chauncey’s in August.”
Arthur closed his eyes, suddenly realizing what all of this was about. The mess in the kitchen—for, yes, there was batter on the walls and ceiling, along with paw prints—was a small price to pay for what the children had done on their own.
He opened his eyes when Sal said, “It’s your birthday, Linus.”
Linus laughed and said, “What? Of course it isn’t. My birthday is in…” His mouth moved silently as he ticked off his fingers. “Wait. What day is it?”
“June eighth,” Arthur murmured. “Your birthday.”
“My…” Linus looked around the kitchen. The HAPPY BIRT sign was still smoldering slightly, but below it, on the table, were place settings for each of them. In the middle of the table, a fry-up: platters of burnt sausages, half-burnt bacon, fried eggs (with bits of shell in them), a plate of baked beans that were still in the shape of the can they’d been poured from, tomatoes and mushrooms from Talia’s garden, and a stack of toast that appeared to have had each piece gnawed on by a certain child of reptilian persuasion.
“You did this all for me?” Linus whispered, hand at his throat.
“It was my idea,” Talia said. “You’re welcome.”
“But all of us chipped in,” Sal said as Theodore climbed up his side to his usual perch on Sal’s shoulder. “Everyone had a role.”
“Phee and me were the lookouts,” Chauncey said, eyes bouncing. “We did amazing, so you’re welcome.”
“You didn’t have to do this,” Linus said with a watery smile.
“It’s not just for your birthday,” Talia said, taking him by the hand and leading him toward the table. Lucy shoved the chair against the back of his legs, causing him to sit down roughly.
“What else is there?” Arthur asked, taking the broom from Sal and motioning for the children to take their seats at the table. The mess could wait. Chauncey climbed out of the mop bucket, announcing he was done being soup for the day, but that he’d like to try it again tomorrow.
“It’s a going-away party,” Phee said.
Arthur paused at the pantry. He took a deep breath, stored the broom away, and turned back around. Everyone was seated: Linus at one end of the long table, Lucy, Phee, and Talia to his right, Chauncey, Sal, and Theodore to his left. Aside from Arthur’s spot at the other end of the table, there were two more place settings: one next to Talia, the other next to Theodore.
“Going-away party,” he said. “I see.” He moved around the table, touching each of them on the shoulder before taking his seat, folding his hands on the table near his empty plate.
“Is it a going-away party if we’ll only be gone for a few days?” Linus asked. His voice was light, easy, but Arthur knew him well enough to recognize the undercurrent of worry. He felt similarly, though perhaps not quite for the same reasons. Yes, Linus fretted over the idea of leaving the children—even if it was only for three days. Leave tomorrow, and if all went well, back by Wednesday. But Linus had been on the island for less than a year. It was the only thing Arthur had known for far longer, and it made him uncharacteristically nervous, stepping out into the world beyond the island and the village. What they were—he was—about to do had never been done before, at least not with the openness he planned to bring. So many things could go wrong.
“You’ve never left us alone before,” Lucy said, attempting to spear a sausage and somehow making it shoot across the table, snatched out of the air by Theodore. “What if something happens and I have to be evil and take over the world?”
