It was the thump-thump-thump of those paws on her chest that woke Donna more than the frenzied shouting: "Donna! I've been robbed! I've been robbed!"
"What?!" Donna sat up with a start and felt the weight fall from her chest into her lap. "What?!"
A breeze sprang up in front of her, two dots of red whirling into view. "Thieves!" the voice rang out in the darkness. "Thieves! Right here! In this apartment!"
Donna slapped at the lamp on her nightstand and squinted into the light that flooded the room. Above her blankets rustled the little dragon, his eyes spinning, his wings a green blur. As her mind began to focus, she managed to ask, "What are you talking about, Lance?"
The dragon zoomed into her face and held out a paw, claws extended. "Five dimes from my hoard, Donna! Gone! Do you hear me?! Stolen!" His eyes blazed. "You've been dipping in for bus fare again, haven't you? Haven't you?!"
Donna swatted at the dragon, but he dodged. "I haven't even breathed on your hoard since you almost burned the place down the last time." She swung her eyes to the alarm clock. "Jeez, Lance, it's four o'clock."
"So my dimes just walked off, did they?!" He was hovering in her face again, wisps of smoke jetting from his snout.
"Will you--!" Donna swung at him again, missed again, and fell back onto her pillows. "Lance, today is Saturday. On Saturdays I get to stay in bed all day if I want to, especially when I've been out with John till quarter of one...."
"Don't change the subject! A crime has been committed!"
"You've been reading too many mystery stories. They've probably just fallen into the fireplace again." Donna snapped the light off. "We'll look when the sun's up, OK?"
There was a moment of silence. "When the sun's up?" Lance's voice asked from somewhere above her.
"Uh-huh." Donna turned over and dropped back to sleep.
The next time the thump-thump-thump woke her, it wasn't so strident. "Donna? The sun's up. Can we start looking?"
She let her eyes creak open; the dragon was peering down from her chest. Rolling her head to see the clock, she blew out a breath. Seven thirty-two. "OK, Lance, OK...."
The dragon whirred upward as Donna climbed into a sitting position, then he settled down into her lap, his eyes a calmer gray color. "Sorry about last night," he said with a little cough. "I ... I get carried away sometimes."
"Yeah, Lance, I know." Donna yawned and scratched at the fuzz along the dragon's back. "Believe me, if you weren't so cute, I'd've sold you to the nearest research lab years ago."
"Ah, but then I'd have to break out and hunt you down like the filthy human scum you are."
"That's true." She stood up, the dragon fluttering to her shoulder. "Well, let's have a look."
Sunlight spilled through the curtains and across the living room floor as Donna stumbled from the bedroom. She reached over the kitchen counter to flick the fire on under the kettle, then stepped around the sofa to the bookcase.
This whole corner of the room was filled with bookcase, it and its contents the only things she'd let her parents talk her into taking when she'd left home. Not that she'd had much choice: Lance had claimed the top ledge as his aerie years ago, and he absolutely refused to change.
Her old stuffed animals sat along the top, too--a musical bear, his wind up key long ago pulled out; her gray squirrel, rubber bands holding his tail on after her brothers had torn it off--but they were there so Lance could pretend he was stuffed as well. Her friends loved it; the other secretaries at work even gave Donna dimes for him sometimes. Lance thought it was great and said she should have folks over more often.
Donna rubbed her forehead and yawned. "So tell me."
The dragon swooped up and settled with a jingle onto his hoard. "Well, I was doing some gloating last night, counting my dimes, running my claws through them, scooping them up and letting them trickle down my chest," his eyes were swirling faster, his claws clutching at the coins, "sliding my tongue over their gorgeous, serrated edges, thrusting my head deep into them and inhaling their sweet--"
"Lance? Hello, Lance? Can we focus a little, please?"
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