"Eggs" 1

“Whisk three eggs with a quarter cup of milk in a medium bowl. Add a teaspoon of salt, optional. Pour into a pan on medium heat. Stir.” Vivian looked between the recipe on her phone and the carton of eggs. Nope; nothing here about—this. The thing wasn't having any of that. It was there, a little too big for the dimple that held it and its bits of broken shell. "Dragon," Vivian said. It wasn’t scaly, exactly, but she couldn’t tell whether that was because it was so young, or because it was leathery instead. Its wings seemed to be stuck against its yellow hide. The lizard held her gaze with its black eyes, and then it shrieked. Vivian flinched back from the creature's needle teeth, and her phone dropped from her fingers to clatter on the marble floor. The thing's neck pumped as it strained toward her. Vivian covered her ears against the racket of—of a hungry, baby bird, but it wasn’t a bird. It was—

           “A dragon.” Its cries drowned out her voice. Vivian took a step back. She managed another step before the baby dragon turned on one of the eggs beside it. The shell gave away and the creature belly-flopped into the egg white. Vivian froze in place to watch it devour the yolk. Its flailing limbs and tail broke open most of the other eggs around itself, and it plunged into their innards. It soon lied among the ruins as a sated lump.

          “A dragon,” Vivian said again. Did dragon yolks look different from chicken yolks? This had to be the only dragon egg in the carton, or there would be another dragon here, now. Right? The creature didn’t respond to her voice, nor did it snap at her when she ran a shaking fingertip over its wedge-like head. It did squawk when she jumped at the slam of a door.

         “Hey, Viv!” Her mother’s voice, from the back porch. Vivian stared at the—the dragon. Panic, the same kind of panic that came from wetting the bed, hit her. Vivian slammed the carton closed. She swept the tea towel on the counter across the mess of shell and egg whites; then, she wrapped it around the carton to muffle the dragon’s squeals. “Vivian?” Before her mother emerged into the kitchen, Vivian scampered up the stairs. She ducked through the curtain over her doorway with the carton crushed to her chest.

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