A damp chill permeated the small room where the boy sat glumly on his small cot. He shivered, pulled a flimsy blanket off the cot and draped it over his shoulders. For the millionth time, he stared around the room and glumly wondered how his life had come to this—locked up in this small, cold and sterile room decorated only with the dull gray bars attached to the tiny window and splotchy colors of green and purple mold struggling to grow on the cinderblock walls.

The boy’s eyes wandered to the scant furnishings—the creaky cot he sat miserably on, a small desk stacked with a few well-read magazines, a nightstand that contained his three sets of clothes, a reading lamp and a Bible. The rest of the room, with its cold puce-colored tiled floor and stark white cinderblock walls, was void of any decoration, except two small doors. One of the doors opened to a small bathroom, the second door led to the rest of the building. This second door was currently locked.

The door had been locked for two days because the boy was supposed to be in “Quiet Time,” which was what the attendants at the Saint Agnes Boys Home liked to call solitary confinement. The name fooled no one. “Quiet Time” was what the troublemakers got, and Joe, who had resided here for almost six months now, was given Quiet Time quite a lot. More than he deserved.

The funny thing was, Joe never made any trouble. Or at least, he tried not to. He had been sent to St. Agnes because of the mysterious disappearance of three people—an old gruff bookstore owner named Petey, a mentally disabled boy called Clarence, and Maggie—a twelve year-old girl. Joe didn’t deny that he had something to do with the sudden disappearance of these people, but when he had told the very true story—that he had traveled with them to a different world, and they had decided to stay there—of course no one had believed him.

Because he was apparently bananas, a judge suggested that St. Agnes’ Boys Home might be a good place for Joe. Joe disagreed wholeheartedly. St. Agnes was a dilapidated place, and for the umpteenth time the boy wondered how it even passed any legal regulations governing these types of institutes. The food was deplorable, the rooms cramped and dirty, the attendants either woefully incompetent or indescribably mean, and the “psychologists” entirely ineffectual. The fact that Joe was innocent and stuck here for God knows how long didn’t help his mood any, and his once quiet and easygoing demeanor had been replaced more and more with anger and resentment, which didn’t help his cause.

When Joe got really moody, he would grip a little golden ball tightly in his hand and breathe deeply for a few minutes. The golden ball calmed him immensely. None of the attendants or his psychologists knew about the little ball. It was about the size of a pea, and Joe could hide it anywhere—behind his ear, under his desk, in his sock—and when he held it in his hand, it soothed his bad temper and he felt sane again. Joe wondered what the psychologists would think about the little golden ball. Maybe they wouldn’t have thought him so nuts if they had known about it. But Joe knew the magic of the ball, and he also knew if he showed it to anyone, the ball would disappear forever. So he kept it secret.

What he couldn’t keep secret was the reason he was stuck in St. Agnes in the first place. He knew no one would believe it, and yet he had still regaled the cops and his parents with the fantastic story of how Maggie, Clarence and Petey had disappeared. As crazy as it sounded, he couldn’t drum up any other good excuse for their disappearance. He seemed bound to tell his absurd story, even though he had tried to refrain from it. The cost of his truthfulness was a stint at St. Agnes.

Joe had warned himself several times over the last six months to stop talking about the “other world,” as the psychologists liked to call it, but he seemed unable to. Gabbing about the place always seemed to land him in trouble, yet he couldn’t prevent himself. This frustrated him immensely, and every day he resolved not to say a word about his strange adventures ever again, yet every day he would start blabbing about it to whoever was handy. He knew he sounded crazy when he talked, but couldn’t seem to shut himself up. Eventually, the attendants would determine that he was getting too riled up for his own good, and they would shut him in his room to “calm down.”

Even though it was dreadfully boring, he began to look forward to his long bouts of “Quiet Time.” At least he didn’t sound like a yapping idiot while he was locked away in his room. The attendants gave him some magazines to read, and he took long naps. To fill the rest of the time he would ponder the events that had happened a year ago and had led him to this predicament. Invariably, he would start thinking about the dragon.

The dragon had shown up at Petey’s bookstore right before Joe’s adventures had begun. He took the form of a rat at the time, and the rat had managed to coerce Joe, as well as Maggie, Clarence, and another boy called Alistair, into a rat hole that led to another dimension. As crazy as it sounded, that’s what had actually happened. Once they were in the other dimension, the rat turned into the dragon (they called him Mickey) and led the children on a fantastic adventure. Maggie became princess of a wonderful kingdom and in the end, Clarence and Petey (who had turned up in the world eventually also) decided to stay with her. Joe and Alistair returned home without them.

Alistair promptly forgot everything about their adventure, but Joe remembered every detail. And Mickey the dragon told him there was a reason why Joe remembered and Alistair didn’t, but wouldn’t tell Joe why. He had given Joe the little golden ball of “Soothing Fire” which kept the boy calm when he held it, and promised he would return one day.

But right now, the dragon was nowhere to be seen and Joe sat huddled with the flimsy blanket covering his shoulders. He wondered if the nasty attendants had decided to punish him further by turning off the heat to his room, or if the dilapidated building was just suffering one if its normal bouts with broken down boilers. He bemoaned his appalling life-change for about five minutes, then lay down on the cot and stared at the ceiling, hoping that slumber would take him away from his predicament. He closed his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, squeezed the little golden ball and sighed.

The room was quiet. Joe could hear a dull clang-clang coming from outside the locked door—probably old Bill carting his mop bucket through the hallways again. Bill took special pride in keeping the halls sparkly clean. Joe wished the folks in charge of cleaning the actual rooms that the boys lived in had the same kind of pride in their services as Bill, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.

The clanging sounds died away as Bill moved down the hallway, and silence enveloped Joe once again. He sighed and stared vacantly at the ceiling, knowing that sleep was futile; he wasn’t at all drowsy. He glanced at the magazines on the desk, but didn’t feel like getting off the cot to retrieve one, and he glanced at the Bible, which was in reach, but he didn’t feel like reading that either. He had never picked up a Bible before he was sent to St. Agnes, but in the span of six months had become quite an expert on it, and could quote plenty of verses. It didn’t help him spiritually, however. He was too despondent at the way his life had turned out to take much comfort from it.

So he lay there, doing nothing except alternatively staring blankly at the ceiling and shutting his eyes to no great effect, until he finally heard another sound. This one was coming from the bathroom, which was not too unusual—the pipes usually moaned and groaned when a toilet was flushed. St. Agnes’ rooms were situated like a hotel’s, which meant that the next room’s bathroom was adjacent to his. What didn’t make sense, however, was that he knew all the other occupants on his floor were right now at “Talk Time,” which meant they were meeting with their counselors. Fatty Jones, Joe’s closest neighbor, wouldn’t be back in his room for another hour, at least.
The sound was a metallic bumpity type noise, and Joe couldn’t place it. It didn’t sound like the angry elephant noise you’d get from a flush, and it wasn’t the swish of water pulsing from a showerhead, and what’s more, it sounded distinctly like it was coming from his bathroom, not Fatty’s. He wondered if it was worth getting up and taking a look to determine the cause. Not that he was particularly interested, but at least it was something to do.
The bumpity sound stopped and was replaced by a scratching noise, like fingernails sliding down a chalkboard, and Joe sat up suddenly, quite a bit more interested in this sound. It sounded so very much like a small rodent scurrying across slippery tile. Like a mouse.

Or a rat.

He jumped up and stumbled over to the bathroom door, which was stuck, and he cursed at it as he yanked at the knob. The door finally relented, and he peered into the small bathroom. A tiny toilet squatted in the left corner, next to it sat the sink with a dirty mirror hanging over it, and the small shower took up the right side. Joe stared around, but didn’t see anything unusual. A small comb, a toothbrush and some toothpaste sat on top of the sink, they all were in the same place as where he had left them. The shower contained a bar of soap and a small bottle of shampoo. Both the soap and the shampoo looked untouched. Joe let his eyes travel up to the showerhead; he couldn’t see any signs of leaks. He looked down at the floor. The drain faceplate was askew.

An excited chill swept through Joe as he stared at the drain. He knew that it hadn’t been like that this morning—he had taken a shower and would have noticed, especially if he had stepped on it, if the faceplate hadn’t been flush with the floor. He got down on his knees, removed the faceplate, and stared down the drain. He thought he could hear a faint scratching noise coming from somewhere in the pipes, then the metallic bumpity sound started again, only from a little further away, perhaps in Fatty’s bathroom. He put his lips close to the drain and whispered, “Hey!”

The bumpity noise stopped. Joe sat there for a while, hunched over on his hands and knees, listening, but didn’t hear anything else. He finally gave it up and left the bathroom, and lay down on his bed again.

Well, at least it was a little diversion in an otherwise dull day, he thought morosely. As much as he had dreamed about the dragon over the last year, that sound had excited him. The first time he had met the dragon, it had appeared in rat form, the explanation being that the dragon had to appear in a form normal for Earth-folk to grasp, and a rat was about the same size as the tiny dragon’s normal mass. Joe wondered if a dragon the size of a rat would fit in the drainpipe. Maybe Mickey was returning at last! And if he was, that surely meant escape for Joe. He hadn’t dared think, let alone hope, something like this would finally happen, but now his dormant imagination sprung to life, and he began to ponder the idea. Would the dragon come back? And if he did, would that mean the end of St. Agnes’ Boys Home for Joe?

While he lay there, excitedly contemplating, the door to the hallway creaked open, and a large, rough looking orderly moved through it. “Ready to rejoin society, Joe?” the orderly asked gruffly. “It’s dinner time.”

Joe didn’t particularly want to rejoin society at this point in his ponderings, but he didn’t say anything, just nodded vaguely, got off the cot, and followed the orderly out to the cafeteria. He found Fatty Jones and sat next to him. Fatty was the closest thing to a friend Joe had in the joint, and that was mostly because they were neighbors and shared the same wall. Just for the heck of it, over the last six months they had worked out a sort of code by knocking through the wall, which wiled away the depressing night hours. The next day they would usually tell each other what they had been trying to knock, and see how close the other one got to correctly deciphering it.

Fatty was in for burglary. The reason why he wasn’t in a normal prison was partly because of his age (he was only fifteen) but mostly because he kept insisting that he was robbing stores to pay off the ransom of one Baby Thumpy, who was royal heir to the Kingdom of Pattycake. Baby Thumpy’s captors insisted that the ransom be paid in cigarettes, comic books, and Diet Pepsi, which was why Fatty robbed convenient stores instead of banks and never took any money, just products. He kept all the loot in the cellar of his mother’s house, and was waiting for the time when Baby Thumpy’s captors would come to claim it and free their hostage. That day, Fatty kept insisting to Joe, was in exactly one month, which was why he was thankful that he only had a couple more weeks in the joint to go. He had never told the cops that he had been stashing all the stuff he stole, they wouldn’t have really cared anyway, since the stores probably wouldn’t want the stuff back, and he knew his mother wouldn’t have found it, for she was scared to death of the cellar and wouldn’t go down there voluntarily. So he was pretty sure he would be able to free Baby Thumpy, unless his captors had already done him in, of course.

Fatty was large and round (hence the nickname) and pink-faced and jovial. Except for the whole Baby Thumpy thing, he talked pretty normally. And Fatty loved to talk. He usually kept up a constant chatter, which drove the other boys nuts and got him beat up more than once. Today, however, he was rather subdued.

“How was solitary?” Fatty asked as Joe sat down. None of the boys deigned to use the expression “Quiet Time.”

“How do you think?” Joe shot back, gazing disgustedly at his dinner, which consisted of a very dry piece of meatloaf, watery instant mashed potatoes and some extremely overcooked green beans. The green beans looked more like bloated lime-colored slugs than vegetables.

“Well,” Fatty said, stirring his potatoes, and staring at them fixedly, as if he hoped they’d congeal into something more appealing, “boring, I’d guess, by your knocks last night.”

“You guessed correctly,” Joe sighed, shoveling a scoop of the bland potatoes into his mouth and gulping them down. “Whoever prepares this slop should be shot,” he muttered.

They ate in silence for a bit, then Fatty, who had determined that the silence had lasted long enough, said, “Mr. Givens was asking about you today.” Mr. Givens was their “counselor.”

“What’d he ask about?” Joe asked dully.

“Wanted to know if you’d been given solitary for spouting off about that magical land again,” Fatty said. “I told him of course, what else would have gotten you in that much trouble?”

Joe said nothing. Fatty, who was the only one who loved hearing about Joe’s adventure, started eating again, apparently disappointed that Joe didn’t regale him with one of his wild stories. Joe didn’t think for a minute that Fatty believed him, but normally, with a teensy bit of prodding from Fatty, Joe would start talking. Usually, he couldn’t shut up about the place once he started talking about it, but today he felt absolutely no urge to explain about the magical dragon, or the enchanted kingdom in the mountains, or the disappearance of his friends. It was the first time since he arrived at St. Agnes that he felt entirely disinclined to regale Fatty with the story, and he wondered at this.

They were silent for the rest of the meal. They had an hour in the “Relaxation Room,” which was heavily guarded and so not really very relaxing, but there was a T.V. in there, and a chess and checkers set, and several books that you could read in an armchair or take back to your room with you, and a few packs of cards. Joe and Fatty watched the news on T.V., played a quiet game of war (Fatty hated war, but Joe always insisted on playing it, he said it reminded him of someone) then they were escorted back to their rooms for the night. The doors locked behind them, and Joe wandered into the bathroom to check the drain. He had replaced the faceplate before he left, and it was still in the same spot. Joe sighed, brushed his teeth, left the bathroom and climbed into bed.

He lay there, totally awake and restless. Finally, he sat up and knocked once on the wall. A couple of seconds later, a faint knock came back, so he knew Fatty was awake also. Joe knocked back twice. That meant “how are you?” Fatty gave three quick knocks, which meant “bored,” and Joe did the same in agreement.

There was a significant pause, while both Joe and Fatty tried to think of something else interesting to knock, then suddenly Fatty knocked several times rapidly, which Joe took to mean “something interesting is happening.” That was their usual code if they wanted to tell each other something important, although if there was something important to discuss, Joe wasn’t sure why Fatty hadn’t told him during dinner.

“Ok,” Joe knocked back, waiting for some sort of fractured explanation, which he was sure he wouldn’t understand and would have to ask Fatty to clarify the next day at breakfast. Another long pause followed while Fatty presumably tried to think of the best way to knock his answer, and Joe waited patiently. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

Finally, Fatty knocked four times, very softly. This meant “listen,” and Joe put his ear to the wall, and finally heard a faint scratching sound, almost like the sound he had heard in the pipes, only it was coming from the wall, and he was pretty sure Fatty was making it. The sound diminished, and Joe realized it was getting further away, as if Fatty were walking along his wall, dragging his fingernails across it. Joe got up and followed the sound. He heard Fatty’s bathroom door open and close very loudly, and Joe opened his own bathroom door and went inside and waited.

After a few seconds, he heard a knock above his toilet, and knew he had guessed right by following Fatty’s sound into the bathroom, which surprised him. Usually they spent hours trying to get each other to understand what they were trying to knock, and normally neither one of them got it until it was explained to them the next day. But today, Joe almost seemed to know what Fatty was thinking. He heard the sliding of Fatty’s fingernails against the wall again, this time towards the shower area, and Joe instinctively looked down at the drain. He dropped to his knees and pulled off the faceplate that covered the drain, and put his mouth close to the hole in the floor.

“Fatty,” he called into it, “what’s up?”

Everything sounded amplified through the drain, and he was surprised to hear how loud Fatty’s voice sounded. “Joe,” Fatty said in a metallic-sounding voice, “there’s a rat in my room.”

Joe breathed sharply. “A rat?” he called back.

“Yeah, a rat. I heard it run across the floor, and saw it go under my bed. What should I do? I’m not sleeping with that thing in my room. You think I should try and call for an orderly?”

“No,” Joe hissed. “Don’t do that, Fatty. How do you think the rat got in your room?”

“Dunno,” Fatty breathed. “There’s no holes anywhere, the walls are made of cinder blocks. You think he could’ve gotten under the crack in the door?”

“Maybe,” Joe said, “or maybe he came up through the drain.”

“You mean the one we’re talking through?” Fatty asked, sounding surprised. “Hey Joe, I wonder why we never thought about using this to talk to each other before. Beats the hell out of knocking.”

Joe didn’t answer, but he wasn’t half as surprised as Fatty was. He would pretty much bet that normally they wouldn’t have been able to hear each other through the pipes, at least not quite this clearly. But he didn’t say that to Fatty. Instead he said, “Don’t call the orderlies, Fatty. You remember what I told you about the dragon that appeared as a rat?”

There was an unmistakingly disbelieving pause. Then Fatty said, “You’re crackers, Joe,” in a giggly sort of way, and Joe sighed.

“No, I’m serious Fatty. Just leave the rat alone. Get in your bed, he won’t be able to get up there.” That was a lie, Joe had once seen that rat scramble all the way up the side of Petey’s bookstore checkout counter, but he was hoping Fatty would forget that part of the story.

“I’m staying in here,” Fatty said. “I’ve got the door closed, the rat can’t get in.”

“Fine,” Joe said, “just don’t call anybody, Fatty. At least not until tomorrow. Promise?”

“Ok,” Fatty replied.

“Hey Fatty,” Joe said, “is the rat gray? With a pink tail?”

Another pause. Then, “Yes,” Fatty breathed.

“I thought so,” Joe said. “Goodnight, Fatty. Knock if you need me.”

He got up and went back to his bed, leaving the bathroom door open. He couldn’t think of anything else to say to Fatty. He was rather rankled that the rat was in Fatty’s room, not his, he had a lot of things he wanted to say to that rat.

The night dragged on, and Joe lay on his bed completely awake. He didn’t hear anything else from Fatty’s side for a long while, until finally he heard a loud “Hey!” and he sprang up and rushed towards the bathroom, and called into the pipes.

“Fatty?” he yelled, but all he heard was a distant whooshing sound echoing through the pipes. Joe waited until the whooshing sound died away, and then he heard nothing. No sound from Fatty. Joe called again, then knocked on the wall, but Fatty did not respond.

Joe went back to his bed uneasily. He guessed what the orderlies would find the next morning when they entered Fatty’s room—nothing. The boy would be gone, vanished. Joe was sure of it.

Joe sat nervously on his bed the next morning, waiting for the outcome. As he predicted, an announcement was made over the intercom stating that all inmates would be fed breakfast in their rooms, due to unforeseen circumstances. Joe took this to mean that the orderlies had gone into Fatty’s room and noticed that he was no longer there. About a half an hour later, an orderly came with Joe’s breakfast, and three other higher-ups.

“Joe,” one of them said, “did you hear anything unusual coming from Frederick’s room last night?” (Frederick was Fatty’s real name.)

“No,” Joe said, feigning innocence, “why?”

The three higher ups and the orderly shot meaningful glances at each other before the speaker answered. “No reason, Joe. But if you heard anything—er—unusual last night, we would very much like to know.”

Joe shook his head. The others stared at him curiously. He wasn’t exactly known for keeping his mouth shut, and he was fully aware that they had all expected him to start spouting off about his “dragon nonsense” again, and were rather surprised that he didn’t. So was he. But something in the back of his brain was telling him that saying anything at all right now would be extremely foolish. More so than usual.

They eventually left, and Joe ate his cold oatmeal and half burnt toast and wondered what would happen next. He was extremely glad that they were all in lockdown for he had no desire to leave his room—he was sure something else was bound to happen and he didn’t want to miss it. He couldn’t believe the rat had come back just for Fatty. It didn’t seem right, not to mention fair.

The morning dragged on, and Joe paced restlessly around his cramped room. Occasionally he gazed out the window, but since the room only had a lovely view of a dirty alleyway and the wing next door, he lost interest in that activity fairly quickly. He wandered in and out of the bathroom and checked the drain, but heard nothing.

“A watched pot never boils, Joe,” he reminded himself, and tried to forget about it and read a magazine instead, but couldn’t focus on the pages. He finally resigned himself to lying on his cot and staring at the ceiling—that seemed to generate the most active response the day before.

Sure enough, after about a half hour of this mindless activity, he heard a faint scratching noise coming from the bathroom. He breathed in quickly and lay still, worried that if he got up to investigate he’d disappoint himself if he found nothing. So instead he waited quietly until he saw the tiniest movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head slowly, expecting to see the rat. He didn’t.

Instead, he saw a bright green, lizardy looking thing, about the same size as a rat, squatting on the floor. The thing had folded leathery wings tucked close to its sides and a long, wormy face with bright red eyes. A thin, scaly tail flicked back and forth and knobby claws gripped the smooth floor tiles. It stared at Joe, and a long, snaky tongue flicked quickly in and out of its fanged mouth.

“Mickey,” Joe breathed, and the thing on the floor gave a sharp nod, spread its bat-like wings and soared to the edge of the bed.

“Hello Joe,” the dragon replied pleasantly. “Nice to see you again.”

“You too,” Joe whispered, because he really couldn’t think of anything else to say. After a year of continually waiting for this to happen, he was at this moment just extremely glad to see Mickey again.

“Are you going to get me out of here?” he asked quietly, and the little dragon nodded his long head.

“Of course,” Mickey said, “Why else would I be here?”

“Where will we be going?”

“Can’t tell you that right here, but I’ll explain it all when we get there,” Mickey replied. “Are you ready? I think the portal is in full working order.”

“Where’s the portal?” Joe asked, although he thought he already knew.

“In the shower drain of course,” Mickey replied. “The only good way into your room. And, since your friend Fatty was conveniently located next door, the drains were definitely the easiest way to get in, since they attach to both yours and his rooms. I started setting up the portal yesterday.”

“I thought so,” Joe said, sitting up and looking around for his shoes. “How come you didn’t say anything when I called to you?”

“Wasn’t ready yet,” Mickey said simply. “I was hoping to go unnoticed until I had everything ready to go. Thanks for jumping ahead of things, Joe.”

Joe grinned, then asked curiously, “Mickey, I thought you weren’t supposed to show up here as a dragon. What gives?”

“Usually, I don’t,” Mickey replied. “When Fatty saw me, I was a rat. But you, you’re already used to seeing me in this state, and unless they have cameras in here (which they don’t, I checked) no one else can possibly see me, so it’s pretty safe, don’t you think? We’ll be leaving immediately anyway. Are you ready?”

“Of course,” Joe said eagerly. He had found his sneakers and was pulling them on. Mickey stared at Joe’s orange jumpsuit with revulsion.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked.

“Sorry, but yeah,” Joe said. “This is what they give us to wear. Don’t tell me, this is inappropriate clothing for where we’re going.”

“That’s inappropriate clothing for anywhere,” Mickey retorted, “but I guess we can find you better attire when we get to our final destination.”

“Which is where?” Joe asked, not really expecting an answer. The last time Mickey had taken him somewhere, the dragon had no more clue as to where they were going to turn up than Joe had.

“Can’t tell you here,” Mickey said, “everything will be explained when we get there. But we’d better hurry. It’s almost lunchtime, I expect someone will be sticking their nose in here shortly.”

He flew towards the bathroom. Joe scanned the room once more, wondering if there was anything he should take with him, but decided against any of the scant possessions he had. He figured whatever he needed would probably be provided once he got to wherever they were going. That was pretty much what happened the last time Mickey took him somewhere.

“What did you need Fatty for?” Joe asked as he lumbered after the dragon.

“To keep you company,” Mickey replied, “and we needed him anyway. Again, great luck that both of you were in the same place.”

“Did he know that you needed him?” Joe asked, clambering into the shower and standing in front of the drain.

“Of course not,” Mickey said, “otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered with the whole rat getup. He was clueless. Kind of like you, your first time. But we’ll get him up to speed. You ready?”

“You bet,” Joe said in excitement, staring at the drain. “Do I have to do anything?”

The dragon snorted, and bright blue sparks shot out of his nostrils. “What could you possibly do? Just stand here until I finish the incantation, then we’ll be off.”

Joe nodded. The last time Joe saw Mickey perform an incantation, he had gone into a crazy dance, but this time the dragon just stared intently at the shower drain and Joe stared too. Then suddenly he felt himself falling towards it, and he thought for an instant that he might hit his head on the facing wall, but he seemed to get smaller and smaller, and the black drain hole became larger and larger until he was dropping down into it. He fell into darkness with what seemed to be great speed, and if he weren’t a bit used to this by now he would have been fearful at what lay below him, but was not very surprised when he suddenly felt himself land, fairly softly, on hard ground. He stood up, took a deep breath, and looked around.