Free Sagaria by John Dahlgren Page A

spoken in the tone of affectionate frustration Dad and Mom sometimes used when they were vexed with him. The words had been harsh, contemptuous, intended to hurt.
    They maybe explain why Webster is the way he is , thought Sagandran.
    Then Grandpa was thrusting a mustard-slathered hot dog into his hands and he forgot all about Webster and his family.

    After lunch was over, Grandpa had a few chores to do. Sagandran lay in the hammock with a book open on his chest, but he was not reading it. Instead he was looking up through the treetops at the oval of blue sky they framed. The intrusion of the O’Malleys seemed to be a long time ago and very far away, as if it had happened to someone else. For now, everything was just fine.
    A branch snapped behind him. Curious, he sat up in the hammock, which slewed crazily beneath him. Clutching its side, he looked around.
    No one was there.
    Sagandran could hear Grandpa’s voice softly singing from inside the cottage as he pottered about doing his tasks, so it hadn’t been him.
    Must have been a wild animal. Maybe a deer .
    Then he grinned. I’d not put it past Grandpa to say it was one of the Little People, pausing at the edge of the woods to spy on me before carrying on his way. No wonder people sometimes say he’s a little addled in the pate. Puts food out for the fairy folk too. I know, I’ve seen him do it. “Always keep them happy,” Grandpa once said, his face perfectly serious, “and they’ll leave you alone – and maybe even help you when you least expect it.” Perhaps he was right. Who knows?

    They went out fishing that afternoon on the lake in Grandpa’s beat-up old row boat. There weren’t many fish in Eagle Lake so they didn’t expect to catch anything, but they both held fishing rods anyway. It was congenial sitting out on the water, watching the birds and the ripples and chewing the fat, as Grandpa put it. Talking about the hundreds of inconsequentials of life that were too unimportant ever to mention until you actually did. A few ducks paddled around paying them no attention, sometimes bobbing their heads for insects. Occasionally, Grandpa would make a great show of moving the boat a little, as if that would increase their chance of getting a bite.
    They were bobbing near a clump of reeds when a little green dragonfly landed on Sagandran’s knee, right on top of the patch his mom had sewn on last night. He made to wave it away, but Grandpa stopped him with a raised palm.
    “Leave it be, lad,” the old man said softly, plucking absentmindedly at the gold chain around his neck. Sagandran had often wondered what was on the end of that chain, hidden under Grandpa’s shirt. Was it a stone, like the one that hung on his chest? Somehow, he’d never liked to ask.
    “It’s not doing you any harm,” Grandpa was saying, “and maybe it’ll do you some good. Take a good look at it, Sagandran. See how beautiful it is?”
    Sagandran peered at the little insect. It was beautiful. Its body was like a twig that was a different shade of shiny dark green, depending on how you looked at it. The wings were flakes of gauze.
    “You know they live only a single day?” murmured Grandpa, leaning over so Sagandran could smell his hot dog and mustardy breath. “That’s why they’re always so busy. They have just a single day to accomplish everything they’re ever going to accomplish in life.”
    But my life is going to be so many thousands and thousands of days , thought Sagandran, knowing what Grandpa was telling him without having to hear all the words. So I don’t have to be busy all the time, like this tiny insect does. Sometimes, you get the most out of life when you’re not busy doing things, like now .
    Grandpa nodded, as if hearing Sagandran’s thoughts.
    “This little fella,” he continued, “decided it was important that he come and show off to you, so you could admire him all dressed up in his best and brightliest-colored gladrags.”
    They watched in