Dreamcatcher | ONC 2020 Honourable Mention | ✔

Chapter Ten

The dragonette clung to Rav as he knelt beside her cave in the hillside. He tried to pry her off, but her claws only sank deeper. Rav glanced over his shoulder. Maybe if he gave her something of his, it would convince her to stay. His jacket was out of the question; the crew would ask questions if he showed up without it. And he needed it to do his work on the ship in the cold upper sky.

Rav unbuttoned the jacket. When he could wriggle his arms out, he pulled it up around his shoulders, wrapped the tiny dragon in it and scooped her off. He stripped off his shirt and tucked it into a nest in the cave. It took some coaxing to get the dragonette to leave the warm jacket for the damper, less comforting hollow, but with Rav's encouragement, she made the transfer. He donned his jacket again, shivering.

Step one: get back to his room and grab a new shirt before the crew realized he didn't have one. Step two: wash up as usual. Step three: show the captain what he had collected and hope to the gods it was enough to make the man stop asking. Rav emptied his whole bag and checked the inside for dragonette scales. He repacked it and set out back to the ship.

Dreamcatcher was quiet when he arrived. The repairs on her propellers had been finished while he was away; they were symmetrical once more, if sparse, like late-season flowers robbed of half their petals. The rudder was still unrepaired. Rav jumped as a line creaked. The ship swayed gently in a light breeze.

Rav scaled the rope ladder and swung himself over the railing onto the empty deck. He crouched by the hatch cover and set it open a crack, listening. The clank of wrenches echoed from the engine room. Empty food tins tinkled in a cupboard like an off-tune manjira, and farther off, the captain hummed to himself just as badly. That left Sanjay, but Rav wasn't worried about him. He slipped through the hatch. His room was four steps away, and in seconds he had eased the door shut behind him and leaned against it, able to breathe again.

Washing up didn't take long, but Rav stalled every moment he could. As long as he was the one with the samples he had gathered, he could have a hand in their safety. When they reached the captain's possession, that ceased. On a second thought, he put back the cloth he had gathered to wipe the slime from his bag. If it looked messy enough, it would give the impression that he'd spend the whole day searching diligently.

The captain was in the navigation room. Had every nerve in his body not stopped him, Rav would have snatched the notebook from his hands and slapped him with it.

"Sit," said the man without looking up from Rav's sketches.

Rav moved to the farthest chair.

"Closer."

Rav shuffled back. He set the bag on a chair and laid his collected samples out one by one. It felt like a surrender. The captain's eyes lingered on the most unusual-looking specimens, though Rav knew already that some of the plainer plants were in fact the most unique. The captain only liked the things that looked strange.

Maybe he could use that to his advantage?

No, that would mean collecting more. He never wanted to be sent out again.

"Are these all new species too?" said the captain when everything was on display. Rav nodded wordlessly. His face burned. His own interest had driven him to collect all the new and different specimens. He was worsening the damage. Why hadn't he thought of that?

The captain's keen eyes had turned to him while he knotted his hands in his lap. Rav drew himself smaller. He couldn't look up. Would the captain see he was still hiding something? Or how little he wanted to be here on the ship? How much of a disappointment was he this time?

Satisfaction padded the captain's voice. "I like you, boy. You're an interesting one, but I like you."

Interesting? Had he ever looked in a mirror?