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THE EVOLUTION MACHINE

The next couple days fly by.

Turns out Fribby is a whiz with the Evolution Machine. She swaps a hyena with a praying mantis. She swaps a tiger with a slug. She swaps a wolf with a daddy longlegs spider. First time I hear that daddy longlegs spider howl, it makes the scales on the back of my neck stand up.

Meanwhile I hash out my battle plans. I appoint an old wise grizzly bear as my Commander. I name him Surge.

Then I tell Surge I need to learn and study about these man-creatures, so I can better understand who it is I’m about to conquer.

“Yes sir,” says the grizzly bear, with a crisp salute. A little later Surge comes striding back into the cave. “Here, sir,” says Surge, as he bows and lays some books at my green webbed feet. “I found these in a man-creature’s cabin.”

Well, the first book I open is Beowulf. And as I turn the pages, I keep coming across lies about us dragons. About how vile we are. About how disgusting we are. About how uncivilized we are.

As I read, I start seeing lava. I’m getting seriously pissed off. Just holding Beowulf in my talons, running my eyes over the words.

This is what these bastards think of us? This is how they portray us?

But it turns out Beowulf is just the warm-up act. Because the next book I read about us dragons is the lunatic rantings of a man-creature that goes by the name of Mr. J. R. R. Tolkien. Now this nutjob Tolkien’s book The Hobbit is so full of balderdash and nonsense about my glorious species that it makes my toe claws shudder. I mean just look how old Tolkien paints that dragon Smaug out to be the most slovenly and debased creature in the entire universe.

Please.

Well the next book I read is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has no dragons in it, but it isn’t half bad. No sir. And then the next book I read is The Catcher in the Rye. Now for most of the book I figured the main character Holden must be a dragon. But then I realized old Holden Caulfield was a man-creature. Just like that other fella, Huck Finn. But I reckon the two of them seem like a couple of pretty boss man-creatures. And if I happen to cross paths with Mr. Finn or Mr. Caulfield while I’m busy conquering Earth, I won’t eat them. Out of respect. I might even ask them to join the Doomsday Squad.

At one point my reading’s interrupted when a she-hawk comes flying up to our cave with news. It turns out that several miles from here, this hawk encountered some other dragons who were asking about me, showing holopics. The hawk tells me she pointed them in the wrong direction. I tell the hawk thanks and ask her a few more questions.

From the hawk’s description, it sounds as if it was Rexro and some of his dragon goons. I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean this is the last place Dean Floop saw my scaly green ass, after all. I decide to put it out of my mind. I’ll just deal with that problem when I come to it.

Anyway, so that’s how I learn to read and write English. Just sitting there reading about old Huck and Holden. Wolf never leaves my side.