Cody looked at his watch and started. Was it really almost five o’clock already? He got up and dusted off his blue jeans. “Well, Bryon, I didn’t think dragons still existed, but I’m glad they do,” he said. “Can I… can I come back and see you on Monday after school?”

“On the condition that you do me one favor,” Bryon said, reaching behind himself and pulling out a tarnished coin of some kind. “This should cover what I need. Go to your local grocer, and find me some nice, imported British tea. It has been ever so long since I had a decent spot of tea,” he said wistfully, handing the coin to Cody.

Cody took and looked at the coin. It was a heavy, solid piece of coin, something that belonged on a pirate ship. Or in a dragon’s hoard, on second thought. “Um,” Cody said, handing the coin back, “we don’t use these anymore. Do you have a couple dollars?”

“That is a dollar,” Bryon said, “or at least it was last time I checked. You’ve changed to some other coinage?”

Cody shook his head, then put his cap back on. “Nope. We use dollar bills now. Paper money.”

“Botheration,” said Bryon, folding his wings to his sides. “So they abandoned the gold standard after all… Well, that means this dollar should be worth more.” He pressed it back into Cody’s hand with a sharp claw. It left a dent in the soft coin. “Sell it for what you can get, and buy me some tea. PG Tips is a reliable brand, I believe. Been a decent tea for years. And when is your day of birth, Cody?”

“Yesterday.”

“Oh, well, congratulations. Keep the rest of the money and buy yourself something from me.” Bryon rose, his red-scaled bulk filling the tunnel. “Now, get thee gone before your father notices your absence.”

Cody nodded, slipped the coin into the lantern’s secret compartment, and left the tunnels.

Dad was talking to someone on his cell phone all the way home, something about ‘custody laws’ and ‘child support.’ Cody got the sinking feeling that Mom wasn’t going to be coming back anytime soon.  She missed her Sunday visit, too.

When Monday rolled around, Cody spent most of his time during school doodling dragons around the edges of his papers. As soon as school let out, he went with his friend Bill to Bill’s dad’s coin shop, since Bill went there after school anyway, and asked Bill’s dad if he would buy the coin Bryon had given him.

Bill’s dad gave Cody fifty dollars for the coin, since it was in bad shape, but still a rare colonial dollar. Cody happily took the money, and went to the grocery store, where he found a small bag of loose-leaf, PG Tips tea, just like Bryon wanted, as well as a camping teakettle with a press on top to keep the leaves out of the tea once it had brewed.

Then Cody went back to the dam, the treasure for his dragon stowed in his backpack. It was funny, he’d just found Bryon down there on Saturday, and yet he already felt like he was the keeper of the beast, the owner of a terrible and wonderful secret.

“‘Sup, Iron Man? You’re late!” Charlie asked as Cody pushed open the glass door.

“Not really, I told Dad I was going to Bill’s,” Cody said. “Where’s Dad?”

“He’s at the other powerplant.” Charlie tipped back in his chair and tipped up the front of his John Deere hat. “He’ll be back in a while. Go ‘head and get set up if you want.”

Cody did, somewhat. He got out his homework, but simply left the books on the card table in the corner. He waited until Charlie got absorbed in his computer, posting something on a music forum, then slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed down to the tunnels, lantern blazing away.

Sure enough, there was Bryon, patiently waiting next to turbine seven. “Good afternoon, Cody,” he said pleasantly, sitting up and curling his thick, red-scaled tail about his feet. “How was your day?”

“It was great!” Cody said, putting down the backpack and opening it up. “Look, I got some tea, and I have water to make it with, and a kettle to make it in!” Then he realized something. “Oh… but nothing to heat it with. I’m sorry, Bryon, I meant to-”

“Oh, do not fret, lad,” Bryon said, gesturing for Cody to set the pot down. “Fill it up, and let me show you something you have forgotten about dragonkind.”

Cody set down and filled the kettle with the tea, then sat down. “That coin you gave me was worth fifty dollars. Bill’s dad says it would be worth a lot more if it was in better shape,” he said, scooting away from the kettle.

Bryon snorted. “Bah, inflation. What is your country coming to?” The dragon crouched down, and, pursing his lips, blew out a steady red-blue flame at the base of the kettle. “I wonder what one of my gold doubloons would be worth the,” he mused to himself, his words punctuated with little spurts of flame.

Cody watched in fascination. A real, fire-breathing dragon, right here in the Bonneville dam. It still seemed like a weird dream of some kind. The light from the jet of flame threw more shadows in the dam interior than the lantern did, these ones dancing all about crazily.
Within the minute, the kettle whistled shrilly. Bryon opened the lid so it would stop being so loud, and ceased blowing flame at it. Almost exactly three minutes later, Bryon looked up at Cody. “So, I suppose you press down this little lever here?” he asked, pronouncing lever as ‘leever.’

“I’ll do it,” Cody said, pushing down the lever and compressing the loose leaves down into the bottom of the kettle.

“Thank you, lad,” Bryon said, picking up the entire kettle in his paw. Coincidentally, it was about the right size to be a teacup, compared to the dragon. Bryon opened his fanged maw and poured the boiling hot tea in. When the kettle was empty, he closed his eyes and smiled. “Ahhhh… nothing like a spot of tea,” he said, setting the empty kettle down in front of Cody. “You did well, my little friend. So, what should we talk about today?”

“Tell me more about how you helped the British Air Force shoot down Nazi planes,” Cody said excitedly, scooting closer to the red dragon. Bryon seemed to generate heat around him, and it was cold in the tunnels.

Bryon wrapped his scaled tail around the boy and rested his scaled head on his forepaws so his head was near Cody’s. “Ah, the time I helped the R.A.F. against the Luftwaffe… Well, it was 1942, just before the Combined Bomber Offensive of 1943, when your country decided to help the R.A.F. bomb some important territory in Germany. Churchill was a wizard too, you see, and could see the future with his magic cauldron. He had this disguised magic cauldron instead of a staff, which is why you almost never see Churchill without a hat or helmet on…”