Mo and Flo and the Baby Cousins

by Sarah Matanah

Mo could already hear a chorus of squeaking as the baby cousins landed outside the cave. They sounded more like bats than like dragons. He was so excited to see them that he ran into Flo. She batted him across the face with her wing.

“How many did you say there were?” Flo asked Mama G.

“Twelve,” she said. “It’s a good thing your aunt is young and has lots of energy. I remember how hard you and Mo were to take care of at that age.”

“How could it have been hard? There were two of us and two of you. How come there are so many of them?”

“There might have been more in your clutch. There were just the two eggs when we found you. But twelve is a lot, even for dragons. We gryphons only have one baby at a time.”

“Come on,” Mo said. He was so impatient that his tail seemed to have a life of its own. It kept swatting Mama G across the feet. “Don’t you want to see our new cousins?”

Mama G tilted her head and moved aside so he could get to the cave entrance.

At first Mo couldn’t see anything in the cave except a long brilliant blur of yellow dragon. His aunt Veena was pacing continuously from one side of the cave to the other. Each time she reached a wall she would whip her entire body around and head back. When she noticed them standing in the entrance she stopped abruptly. Finally Mo could see the tiny dragons, none of them longer than his foot, hanging from the walls, perched on Aunt Veena’s feet, and crawling all over each other in the middle of the cave.

“Come on in,” Aunt Veena said. “Meet the babies. They’ll be happy to have some big kids to play with.” She went back to twisting back and forth between the walls.

“Aren’t you tired?” Mama G asked, watching her.

“Not at all. I’ve been stuck in this cave for three days waiting for them all to hatch. They’re adorable, but it’s a good thing Dee stopped by or I might have lost my mind. I think I was kind of annoying her, though. Oh, she must have gone back to get you, huh?”

Mo and Flo went around the grownups and approached a clump of five babies who were wrestling each other on the floor. A gold dragon had its tail wrapped several times around the neck of a green one. Their wings were all so hopelessly entangled that none of them could move.

“Hi baby cousins,” Mo said, unwrapping the tail. They were so little that he didn’t think he should pull too hard, but the tail was very strong for its size.

As soon as they were free of each other, the babies started squeaking so loudly that the sound echoed off the walls of the cave. Then all five of them jumped on Mo at once. This got the rest of the babies’ attention. They leaped at Flo, except for two who had attached themselves to Mama G’s feathers.

“I should go,” Mama G said. Her wings were all hunched up. Mo guessed that she wanted to get away to somewhere quieter. “Can the kids stay for a while and play with the babies?”

“Definitely,” Aunt Veena said.

After Mama G left, Mo and Flo took turns calling the babies to different corners of the cave and letting them crawl up their backs and over their heads.

Aunt Veena continued to move from one side of the cave to the other until she finally said, “I’m desperate to stretch my wings. Do you two think you could watch the babies for a while?”

Mo could tell that Flo wanted to say no, but he didn’t want to disappoint their aunt.

“Of course,” he said. “No problem.”

“Great,” Aunt Veena said, and in a moment she was past the cave entrance and had leaped into the air.

The babies started to whine.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Flo said.

“She wouldn’t have asked us if she thought it was hard,” Mo said. “Besides, she wasn’t doing anything special, was she?”

“I guess not. Here, put them all on my back, and I’ll spin around—I bet they’ll like that.”

They did seem to like the spinning. They let their mouths hang open so that all their sharp baby teeth showed. As Flo went faster and faster, their little tongues flapped around, and their squeaks got louder and more excited than ever. But as soon as Flo stopped, they seemed to remember that their mom had left the cave. They started shaking and wailing, and then they all tried to leave at the same time. Mo caught two at the entrance and thrust them back into the cave. He had to lie down flat across the opening to stop four more from getting out. Flo grabbed them two at a time before they could climb over his back.

“Do that spinning thing,” Mo suggested. “They liked that.”

Flo started spinning. Mo put the babies on her as fast as he could catch them. Their squeaks turned happy again.

Flo spun for a while and then collapsed on the floor. Her mouth was green around the edges, and her eyes spun a bit in her head. The babies started wailing. They stared desperately at the entrance to the cave, their ribs quivering with anguish.

“Your turn,” Flo told Mo.

Mo spun slowly in the center of the cave. Flo plucked the babies off her back and dropped them onto his. The babies continued to wail. Mo spun faster until their squeaks turned happy. At first it was fun, but then he started feeling nauseous. Soon he thought his mouth must be at least as green as Flo’s. Then the floor started to tilt until he couldn’t tell where to put his feet. He fell down. The babies immediately started to wail. He looked at Flo, but she still looked sick. He made himself get up and spin again. Then Flo took another turn. He took another turn. By that time the walls of the cave were spinning and bobbing so fast they blurred. He lowered himself to the floor. He couldn’t do anything except watch the walls twirl around his head. He waited for the babies to start wailing. Then he realized they had left him. Aunt Veena stood in the entrance with babies clamped all over her body, every one of them glaring at him and Flo.

“Did you have a good time with your big cousins?” Aunt Veena asked them. The babies all pressed their bodies against her. Two of them vomited down her shoulder. “Yuck. I’d better go wash that off. If I just flew down to the river for a moment, do you think you could—”

“No,” Mo said quickly. “I mean, I’ll bring some water back for you. Do you have a bowl?”

Soon Aunt Veena was clean. After a while the babies decided that Mo and Flo were safe to approach again. When Mama D came to tell them it was time to go home, they each had a baby on top of their heads and three on their shoulders.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Flo said on the flight back. “I think they liked us a lot at the end. Maybe we could take care of them again sometime.”

Mo stared at her in astonishment. He was glad she wasn’t mad at him about all the spinning, but still ...

“When they’re older,” Flo added quickly. “We’ll just visit a lot until then.”