Free The Painted Boy by Charles DeLint

Paupau.”
    “Didn’t she realize how it would make you a magnet at school? The guy who ignores girls. And I know the girls would have talked about it because they had to have been interested in you. At least they sure would have been in my school.”
    “Better that than their finding out the real reason I was different.”
    “You don’t believe that.”
    He shook his head. “But Paupau did—you’d have to meet her to understand how you just don’t argue with her. When you try, it’s like you’re not even speaking.”
    “She sounds horrible.”
    “No,” Jay said. “It’s just a different culture. And then there’s that whole dragon business.”
    Rosalie nodded. “Godfather meets the Grinch.”
    Jay laughed.
    “I’m sorry,” Rosalie went on, “but how could she not know that all these things would guarantee that you couldn’t have a normal life?”
    “She knew. I think she felt bad about it, too. But the way she sees it, I can’t have a normal life. Not with what I’m supposed to have sleeping inside me.”
    “Well, what about the other people in your family that were dragons? What did they do?”
    “She never talked about them except in vague terms. And remember, I’ve never even seen the dragon on her back. Maybe Tío is right. Maybe it’s all some weird scam.”
    “But what would be the point?”
    Jay sighed. “I have no idea.”
    They didn’t say anything for a while. Rosalie patted Oswaldo. As the oldest and most dominant of her little pack, the big dog always had the place of honor next to her. Jay stared up into the starry sky.
    “Can you really feel it inside you?” Rosalie asked. “This dragon thing?”
    Jay took so long to answer that she didn’t think he was going to.
    “Yeah, I do,” he finally said. “I hear the whisper of its scales and . . . I feel something under my skin—like there’s something enormous sleeping inside me and if it ever wakes up, it’ll burst right out of me.” He smiled. “I feel like a puddle that’s hiding an ocean under its surface. An ocean that’s huge and . . . unfathomable. And really scary.”
    “That’s so creepy.”
    He nodded. “And the thing is, I can’t figure out if it’s real, or only my imagination. You know, because I’ve been brainwashed into believing it’s there.”
    “Tío didn’t mean anything by that.”
    “We both know that’s not true,” Jay said. “And just because something’s horrible, that doesn’t mean it isn’t also true.”
    “You shouldn’t have to suspect your own family.”
    “I know. And I don’t, I guess. But I think about it every once in a while. What makes me believe that I haven’t been brainwashed into believing all of this is how El Tigre really wanted to cut a deal with me. Why would he do that if I was just an ordinary kid? And then there was the woman who came up to me after I left the pool hall. I can either believe there’s this big conspiracy that includes my family and people I can’t imagine them knowing, or . . . you know.”
    “You’ve got a dragon sleeping inside you.”
    He nodded.
    “Which seems just as impossible,” she said.
    “If not more.” He sighed. “And that’s why I want a break. Why I want to pretend I’m just this kid from Chicago who’s working in your uncle’s restaurant and maybe making a few friends.”
    “You’re doing that.”
    “I know.” He smiled. “And it feels really good. It’d feel even better if Anna didn’t see a lunatic every time she looked at me.”
    “She makes up her own mind about things,” Rosalie said, “so you never know. She could still come around.”
    “You really think so?”
    Rosalie shrugged.
    “So how far is it to the desert?” Jay asked.
    He was obviously as ready as she was to change the subject.
    Rosalie made a lazy wave with her hand. “This is all the desert.”
    “You know what I mean.”
    Rosalie nodded and smiled. “We’re right on the edge of town here.” She pointed east. “The national