The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

Chapter 7

Some things about Ordinary Farm hadn’t changed at all. One of them was the hard, hard work.

As the long summer days passed, Lucinda and her brother quickly fell back into the farm’s routine-they had no choice because at Ordinary Farm everyone had to do his or her share, most definitely including the two young visitors. Feeding the animals meant following daily schedules that could not be broken- “A sea-goat doesn’t care if you didn’t get your own breakfast,” as Gideon liked to say, “he just wants his.” The bleating capricorns could be snappy when they were hungry, too, and they fought over each fish, so that some days they had to be taken out of their pool and fed individually. The dragons needed twice-weekly deer carcasses and the unicorns had to have their daily fodder and supplements. And the bonnacon’s cage had to be cleaned out everyday, which-since the buffalo-like creature’s dung burst into flame once it was out in the air, then lay smoldering for hours-was absolutely no one’s favorite job.

Lucinda and Tyler spent much of their day tending to the smaller creatures in the Reptile Barn and elsewhere, taking some of the load off Mr. Walkwell, Ragnar, and the others who also had to care for the big animals. But even the small animals could be a lot of work. The jingwei, white Chinese birds with long tails, had got loose from their cage in the Reptile Barn some weeks before, and each day they did their best to fill the biggest water trough, Meseret’s, with small stones, swooping down in turn to drop pebbles with a plink, plink, plink that went on all day as if someone was using a tiny hammer. Each afternoon Lucinda or her brother climbed into the trough and removed them all, but the jingwei could fly in and out through the empty spaces in the vast barn and so they always found more.

“The Chinese believed this bird was a drowned princess trying to fill the ocean so no other would ever lose her life there,” Gideon informed them, frowning at a rising island of stones near one end of the trough. “Mythological or not, I wish we could get them out of the Reptile Barn. They’re a dang nuisance!” But the beautiful, fast-moving jingweis refused to be caught, so every day one of the children went swimming in Meseret’s greasy trough and shoveled out the stones so she wouldn’t swallow too many of them and get her insides plugged up. Dragons didn’t even notice things that small going down.

Even after feeding time was over many other chores awaited: Lucinda and her brother spent three long, hot afternoons of their second week on the farm whitewashing a new barn for the unicorns. Five hornless, staggering foals had been born that spring and Gideon wanted the young ones and their nursing mothers to have a place they would be safe from summer storms.

And of course Gideon’s greater concern for security added to the work load as well: the electric gates and fences that kept strangers out and animals in had to be checked regularly to make sure they were secure-even a branch across the fence could shut down a large part of the system.

Lucinda was thrilled to be back on Ordinary Farm, but the chores were hard and she was equally happy when Sunday rolled around, her first free day since they’d arrived. Spared for once from early egg duty, it was hard even to drag herself out of bed. Only the threat, relayed by Tyler, that all the breakfast things were going to be cleared and washed in ten minutes finally drew her downstairs, where Azinza gave her some eggs, a fruit muffin, and a glass of milk. She had forgotten the notebook she meant to use for dragon-communication observations, so after returning the plate to the kitchen she plodded back upstairs to get it.

A few minutes later, as she made her way down one of the back staircases, notebook in hand, she heard voices coming from the room full of pictures of Gideon’s wife-the “Grace Shrine”, as she thought of it. The first voice was clearly Gideon’s, then, quieter but just as distinct, the cool tones of Patience Needle. Lucinda paused, her heart suddenly beating fast. What were the two of them doing in the seldom-used parlor? And what if they thought she was spying on them? For a moment Lucinda considered turning around and heading back the way she’d come.

But that’s not fair! she thought. I haven’t done anything wrong. Beside, they’re probably talking about bills or something, anyway.

She slowed as she reached the parlor door-she was feeling a bit curious now about what the two might be discussing so far from the rest of the household.

“… But I do not approve, Gideon.” That was Mrs. Needle, and she sounded angrier than usual, her voice with a hard, piercing ring like metal. “With all due respect, you are not a young man.”

“I assure you, Patience, I’m far more aware of that than you are,” Uncle Gideon told her. “These days, even my aches have aches. You’re right-I probably don’t have very long left to me. That is precisely why I’m going to do this now.”

Something in his tone and what he said frightened Lucinda badly. Was Uncle Gideon sick? Dying? He upset her sometimes, made her frustrated and even angry, but she couldn’t imagine the place without him.

Apparently, Mrs. Needle felt the same way. “You’re in no danger, Gideon. In fact, you’re quite healthy for a man your age. But what would become of this place if… if something did happen to you now? An accident, perhaps? Before the children are really ready? Are you certain you want to see the lawyer and change everything without thinking about it a bit longer…?”

Gideon sounded amused but not cheerful. “I have been thinking, Patience. That’s why I don’t want to wait any longer. The children would have all the help they needed-Simos to look after the animals and the land, and you to keep an eye on the business end of things. And of course you and Colin will always have a place here, no matter what. So I can rely on your help if such a day ever comes, can’t I, Patience?” Lucinda thought she heard a little edge in his voice, as though he was giving her a test of some kind. What were they talking about? She couldn’t make sense of it. Were she and Tyler the children they were talking about? And why a lawyer…?

“Of course.” Mrs. Needle said it very quickly. “Of course you

… they… would have my help, Gideon. I would hope by now that goes without saying.”

“Goes without saying, of course.” Gideon sounded pleased. He cleared his throat. “But before we discuss the details, I need a glass of water. I’m dry as a bone… ”

“I’ll get it for you,” said Mrs. Needle, her chair scraping on the floor. Lucinda heard the housekeeper’s footsteps and realized she had only seconds. She looked around, but there was nowhere to hide nearby. With no other alternative, she simply turned and bolted back down the hall in the direction she had come.

Lucinda didn’t stop until she reached the entry hall, where she threw herself down on one of the old velvet stools that stood against the walls and tried to get her breath back and listen for pursuit, but for half a minute she heard nothing but her own pounding heart. Finally she could think clearly again.

He must have been talking about this house, Lucinda realized. This farm. About what happens if he dies. The children-that must be us! She paused as the thought finally showed itself-a huge thought, a huge surprise.

Giving us this farm someday. That had to be what Uncle Gideon was talking about. That much seemed unmistakable. But like everything else important that happened here, they had only learned about it by accident or spying, by listening to whispers in back rooms.

But what did that mean? Had he really forgiven them for all the times they’d screwed up…? Then someday the dragons-Desta, Meseret-and all the other animals will belong to us, Lucinda thought in sudden excitement. To us!

She couldn’t wait to tell Tyler.

Lucinda had two complicated gates to open, pass through, and then lock behind her, and plenty of time to think on her during the long walk, so some of her first excitement began to wear off before she reached the Reptile Barn.

What if something happened and she and Tyler did inherit Ordinary Farm one day? Suddenly that seemed such a huge thing that she felt overwhelmed. It wouldn’t just be having a giant farm to run, although that would be challenge enough for anyone, let alone kids their age. And as strange, wonderful, and dangerous as they were, it wasn’t even the dozens of different kinds of mythical animals that was suddenly worrying her: Lucinda had helped with them enough to know it could be done (although it took a lot of work and money.) The thing that suddenly frightened her was that whoever inherited the farm from Gideon would also inherit all the farm folk as well, because Gideon Goldring’s farm was a refuge for misplaced people as well as creatures. Every single one of the farm’s inhabitants except for Gideon himself had come from another place, another century-some, like Haneb and Ooola and Mr. Walkwell, from nearly forgotten ages of the distant past. Gideon had plucked them all from their original eras at the moment of what had seemed like their certain deaths, hoping that way he would cause minimum upset in the flow of time. The farm’s inhabitants might sometimes resent Gideon and his high-handed ways, but he had saved the life of every one of them, and now they were all stuck in the modern world with no way to go back home and no way to prove they belonged here.

The responsibility was terrifying and Lucinda decided she didn’t want to think that much right now. Time enough later when she found Tyler and told him about it. She hurried the last yards to the Reptile Barn, anxious for the distraction.

She didn’t linger, but trotted to the back of the cavernous barn where the dragons were housed. They were by no means the place’s only exotic residents, but Lucinda wasn’t much interested in flying snakes and poison-breathing basilisks.

Meseret was lying on her side in her huge pen like an airliner docked for service, her fiery eye half-open and following Lucinda as she approached. The baby dragon was harnessed in her own pen a short distance away. As Lucinda approached, Little Haneb waved in his usual bashful way, scarcely looking up from the cheerful chore of shoveling dragon poop. Full-grown dragons like Meseret didn’t eat very often, but when they did, they pooped out piles the size of a sports car. Haneb wore a bandana over his face as he shoveled the ill-smelling black and green mess into a wheelbarrow. Gideon had told her that after it had been properly treated dragon poop made safe and excellent fertilizer-they even used it on the farm’s vegetable patch. That had been more about the subject than Lucinda had wanted to know, and it had also kept her off greens for days.

At Ordinary Farm, even the salad has secrets…!

She pushed away her worries about the conversation she had overheard between Mrs. Needle and her great-uncle. Hello, Meseret, she thought. Can you hear me? Do you remember me?

The golden eye stared, blinked slowly, stared.

Lucinda tried to remember how it felt the first time she had made the dragon understand her-the first time she and the huge creature had shared thoughts. I rode on you, do you remember that? “Rode” was a bit of an exaggeration, of course-“held on for dear life” would have been closer to the truth. I helped you get your egg back-do you remember? Lucinda let her gaze slip over to Desta, curled on sand and hay. I helped bring back your daughter.

Meseret’s immense yellow eye blinked again, then closed and stayed that way: The dragon wasn’t going to talk to her, that was clear, but whether she just didn’t want to do it or Lucinda had lost the knack, there was no way to tell. Lucinda shrugged and moved over to Desta’s much smaller pen.

“Not too close to them, Miss,” called Haneb as he trundled his wheelbarrow past. “Remember what happened to Master Colin.”

Of course I remember, she thought. It was my fault. “I’ll be careful. Neither of them would hurt me, Haneb.”

That was called “wishful thinking” and she and Haneb both knew it; still, the small man nodded shyly at her and went on his way. “Just

… careful, please, Miss.”

She turned to the baby dragon, who was watching her with the same seeming disinterest as her mother had shown. “Hello, Desta,” she said, both out loud and in her thoughts. She remembered the day the baby dragon had been born, how excited they had all been when she pecked her way out of her leathery egg, and tried to make those memories into pictures so Desta could “see” them too; but the dragon showed no signs of noticing.

Lucinda continued her efforts for most of an hour, talking with both her thoughts and her voice, trying everything she could think of and making notes about each failed approach, but it was like calling over and over in the center of an empty room: nothing came back to her but echoes. The dragons seemed happy to ignore her. At last she gave up and stood by the rail of Desta’s pen, fighting back tears. She had looked forward to this so much all year, had got through so many boring classes with the knowledge that this was ahead of her-that once again she would have the chance to be special, to be Lucinda, the Girl Who Talks to Dragons! Had it all just been an accident, a fluke?

“Don’t feel bad, Miss,” Haneb said. “They are not friendly. They are dragons. But the little one…” He hesitated. “With the little one-there is a secret… ”

Lucinda sniffed and quickly wiped her eyes. She was ashamed to have Haneb see her feeling so sorry for herself. “A secret…?”

“So she like you better. To… touch her. To be her friend.”

Lucinda’s heart jumped. Ragnar had once told her Haneb had come to Ordinary Farm with Meseret and Alamu when the dragons were younger than Desta was now, that they all came together from the ancient Middle East. Was he finally going to share the secret of communicating with them? Magic words? Some special hand-movements? “Yes, Haneb, tell me! Please!”

The animal handler looked at Desta, then turned toward Lucinda in that odd way he had, looking at her only from the corner of his eye. “She… she likes carrots.”