Picture from Mariusz Matuszewski and Johannes Plenio.
The sound of the boys arguing was getting to be too loud for Brian to keep ignoring. He’d already shouted out twice for them to knock it off, but it sounded like he’d have to intervene himself. He washed the raw chicken off his hands and stalked down the hallway, wondering why these things seemed to pop up the days his wife worked late.
He located them easily in the hallway that separated their bedrooms. His older son, Erik, towered over his younger brother, yelling at him from six inches away. He even had one arm raised threateningly. Brian hurried forward and thrust an arm between them.
“Hey. Hey!” he shouted to get their attention. “What is going on here?”
“That dipshit completely trashed my England flag!”
“Whoa, Erik, language. We don’t call each other names,” said Brian.
Erik was holding a crumpled and tattered piece of red and white fabric in his hands. Brian’s eyebrows shot up as he looked at it. He could see that it had been ripped in places, but there was even a spot that looked like it had been singed. He turned to Cody who was looking up defiantly, his face streaked with a few tears.
“Did you do this?”
“No. I told him I didn’t but he keeps yelling at me,” Cody responded vehemently.
Brian crossed his arms, his stern dad expression settling easily on his face.
“Well somebody ruined your brother’s flag and I doubt he did it himself.”
“Of course I didn’t,” interjected Erik angrily. “It’s obvious he did it, Dad.”
Brian raised a hand to quiet the young teen and then sent him into the kitchen to finish dinner prep, of course not without an argument about how he was being unfairly punished for his brother’s crimes. When Erik finally stomped off down the hallway Brian turned back to Cody.
The eight-year-old had calmed down some. His arms hung limply at his sides and he was staring at the floor, a picture of guilty dejection.
“Cody I need you to tell me the truth. We all make mistakes sometimes, but the important thing is that we’re honest about it. Did you wreck your brother’s flag?”
“No,” his son said, shaking his head but refusing to look up and meet his father’s eye. Brian sighed.
“Do you know what happened to Erik’s flag?”
Cody’s shoulders hunched down a step more. He prodded the floor gently with the toe of his shoe a few times before he murmured, “Maybe.”
“Well?”
There was a faint murmur in response. He had to crouch down to and ask Cody to repeat himself before he made out what he said.
“My dragon friend didn’t like it.”
“Your dragon friend?”
“I told her not to do it but she was real mad.”
“Why would a dragon be mad at your brother?” asked Brian. He’d thought they were past the stage of these fantastical stories, but evidently not. He settled in for one of those strange conversations he never could have imagined before he became a parent.
When he told his wife about it as she undressed for bed, she didn’t take it very seriously at first, not until he described the damage in detail.
“He burnt it too?” she asked incredulously.
“Yup. I looked around for matches or a lighter but couldn’t find anything. But it’s not like we keep that stuff locked up carefully anymore.”
“I guess we’ll have to for a bit.”
Brian nodded in agreement, though as far as he knew there was maybe one stray pack of matches in the whole house.
“And he must have cut it with a knife or scissors to rip it up like he did. The material’s strong.”
“I guess a flag would be,” Michelle said, momentarily distracted. “I still don’t understand how Erik and his friends got so into soccer.”
“At least it’s not drugs, right?” Brian said with a half-smile. “But seriously, I’m worried somebody’s going to get hurt. Erik looked like he was about to punch Cody, for real, and after seeing what he did to the flag…”
“Okay. I hear you. Then what do we do about it?”
That was the million dollar question he didn’t have an answer to. “I talked to Cody but he wouldn’t admit anything, no matter what I said. When I told him we’d have to use his allowance to replace it, he even said that his dragon would destroy it again.”
They discussed their options in uncertain voices. Neither of them knew much about child psychologists, or whether they ought to talk to Cody’s school, or if they were completely overreacting. Brian hoped they were, but his younger son’s complete lack of remorse had him worried.
When they’d reached a decision, mostly that they would wait and see before calling in help, he relayed some of the funnier parts of his conversation with Cody.
“He said the dragon’s name is Tellervo Urpalainen and she comes from the North Pole.”
His wife’s face scrunched up as she laughed. “What?”
“That’s what I said. He calls her Telly for short, but he’s not sure if she’s okay with us using her nickname, since we haven’t met.”
Michelle was almost doubled over now, laughing near-silently with one forearm across her belly. It took her a moment to get her voice under control.
“So…so we’ll call her Ms. Urplane until we get to know her better?”
She dissolved into another fit of laughter and collapsed on the bed.
Though Erik was moody and sullen for a few days and Cody still insisted that an imaginary dragon was responsible, things settled down.
There hadn’t been any more incidents over the past week and a half, except the few times he’d noticed Cody fibbing about how much he’d eaten. Michelle hadn’t wanted to come down on him for that though. She was worried he might develop an eating disorder. And anyway they knew how growing boys ate, even if it seemed impossible given Cody’s size.
Brian stayed watchful though. He’d reminded Cody that when Erik’s new flag came he expected it to stay intact. Cody hadn’t answered. Instead he’d stared at his father with big, worried eyes, which worried Brian in turn. That day on his lunch break he watched a TED Talk from the mother of one of the Columbine shooters. He turned it off halfway through and scrubbed it from his browser history.
When he picked up Cody from his afterschool karate class a few nights later, he brought it up again. He’d gotten the email that Erik’s replacement had been delivered and figured he should get one last warning in.
“I’m sure Erik will want to hang it up right away. Your mom and I don’t want to see anything happen to this one. They’re expensive.”
“He’s home before us?” asked Cody. “Alone?”
Brian shot a look into the rear-view mirror. He didn’t like the way Cody’s voice sounded, like he was frightened.
“Yup.”
He thought he heard Cody mutter something about Telly being angry and he gripped the steering wheel harder, willing himself not be shaken by a little kid’s tales of an imaginary creature. It was strange that this alarmed him so much and made him worry more for Erik than Cody. A gruesome picture of his oldest son ripped open and burnt popped into his head and he stepped on the gas.
The house was silent when they entered. Normally that was something Brian welcomed, but today he wanted to hear Erik immediately. Cody hurried past him, not bothering to drop his backpack, and Brian swiftly followed. A chilling dread crept up his spine as they passed through the empty living room and into the hallway.
They both stopped in front of Erik’s bedroom door and stared. It had a perfectly intact but unfamiliar flag pinned to it. Next to him Brian sensed Cody’s posture relax and somehow that reassured him. They stood there silently a few moments more until the door swung open.
“Why is everyone staring?” asked Erik.
“What flag is that?” said Brian.
“Argentina.” When nobody moved or spoke, Erik shrugged his shoulders and added, “I decided I like them better. England's boring.”
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