The Egg Thief
No one seemed to care that the girl ran off with the dragon egg washed up by the shore. It’s not that I think it was wrong, but if I’d known no one would mind I might have nicked it for myself. Instead, I’m stuck with everyday eggs, free-range, plain. It’s so unfair since I don’t understand the way things work on this beach.
Will she eat it? Raise it? I would have taught it to sing. It had one or two cracks that fractured its craggy shell, revealing pink blubber, breathing - it breathed! She wrapped it in a towel, cradled it close. I’d like to fly on the spine of a massive beast back to my home country, where I am not odd. Where my vowels aren’t peculiar, and the adults don’t laugh.
I can still see her running, her little hat a blue speck on her head. She’ll look back when she can and laugh, knowing she had seized her chance. I wonder where she’ll go once it hatches. Further away, further and farther, until she’s less than a speck and more of a star.
And me - I’ll wait by the tide, ankles deep in baked pebbles, hoping.