Page 127 of The Pushy Pixies Are Going Down
There was a pause, and I honestly couldn’t blame him, even though I didn’t like the guy.“I’m sorry, what? What in the world does that mean?”
“It means that the pixies brought the baby dragon inside the egg back to life. This isn’t a fossil anymore. It’s a live dragon egg.”
There was another pause.“Are you kidding me with this bullshit?”I winced because now the mean-asshole-manager was coming out.“Do you really expect me to believe that? I thought you were a professional! And now you’re trying to steal a fossil from me? You better get yourself a good lawyer, Miles, because I’m calling the police, you good for nothing piece of—”
Winter pulled the phone from my hand—I hadn’t even realized he was listening—held it up to his ear, and said, “Mr. Sharp, before you call the authorities, why don’t you come and examine the egg for yourself. We’re in the Carry A Faerie truck. It’s the one surrounded by pixies. You can come out here and take a look, or we can call the authorities ourselves and report you keeping a dragon egg illegally on the property.” He paused for a moment, and even though the phone wasn’t on speaker, I could hear Sharp’s raised voice, but the words weren’t clear. “Uh-huh. Come out to the truck, and we’ll sort it out.”
It was a fiasco getting Sharp to the truck. Win drove around the block a few times in order to lose a good bit of thepixies, but we were still surrounded when we came back into the parking lot.
Win went out to get Sharp, giving him my own mask but not the rest of the gear. Maybe that was petty, but I didn’t actually care if the man ended up with bad allergies for the rest of the day. He was a jerk, and he was mean to Chaos and Ace, so he deserved to suffer a little.
Ugh. Ineverdid things like that.
By the time he made it into the truck—sitting beside me with Chaos on my other side so he didn’t have to sit beside the jerkface—he had some dust on his clothes, but he wasn’t too bad. Win had done a great job covering him with the repellent and nets.
As soon as everyone was inside, the doors shut, and Chaos had caught the few pixies that’d made it into the truck, Sharp said, “Let me see the egg.”
Aeson hesitated for a moment, then lifted it up between the front seats so Sharp could see it more easily. He went to take it, but Win quickly turned the interior light on, so I pointed at the dragon we could now see inside the egg.
“Watch. You’ll see it move in a second.”
We all waited with bated breath, and I prayed the little guy moved a lot so we could prove our point, get this dickhead out of my truck, and take the egg home.
We didn’t have to wait long. The little body inside wiggled, then it looked like it stretched big, and Sharp gasped loudly.
“Holy shit.” He turned to me. “You weren’t lying.”
“Nope. I don’t lie, especially not about something like this.”
“Is that really the same egg?”
I lifted a brow. “Where in the world would I get a dragon egg? And why would I buy one—which would’ve probably cost more than my house—just to, what? Steal your fossil? That doesn’t even make any sense.”
He grimaced and stared at the egg some more as Ace rested it on the console, still in sight of Sharp, but where the teen could kind of cuddle it. He seemed attached to the thing.
He was very clearly an animal person.
After a minute of the four of us looking at each other while Sharp just… sat there, he finally said, “I can tell it’s the same egg from that butterfly-like pattern on the side.” He pointed at a blotched spot on the egg that really did look like a butterfly. “Okay. So… what do we do now?”
“I’ll take the egg with me and find a sanctuary willing to take a baby dragon.”
I had a feeling I’d be searching for a long time and might even have to travel to the other side of the world with a baby dragon in tow to find a place. I didn’t think anywhere close to here would have the capacity to take care of an ancient, giant dragon.
“What? What are you talking about? You can’t take it with you.”
Okay then… angry Sharp is back. Sigh.
As calmly as possible, I said, “You’re not licensed to handle faeries or their eggs. This is clearly a living being, so I’m taking it with me to ensure that it’s handled with care.”
“You-you… you can’t just take my fossil!”
“This isn’t a fossil. Not anymore. Do you really want a baby dragon hatching in your garden?”
The man spluttered for another few seconds. “But… but you can’t… how the hell will I explain this to the board?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Sharp. But if you want to call the police or whoever to come investigate, you’re going to get in trouble for keeping a dragon egg on museum property without a permit.”
He looked shocked and upset.
