Chapter 1
There are many different types of tears.
There are tears when you are angry. Tears for when you want to yell and scream and kick something because the others just won't leave you alone and you want them to stop right now.
There are tears when you are frustrated. When you want to say something and all these thoughts are piled up inside you like mountains. Mountains and mountains of words that you want a chance to say but you can't say them and you don't know how to.
There are also tears when you are depressed. There are happy tears. There are even tears when you are just plain sad. There are selfish tears because you want attention.
There are also tears when you are grieving. These kinds of tears are when someone you love is gone and they're never, ever coming back. These are the kinds of tears that rack your body with sobs and you're shaking and you can't stop and you want it all to stop coming at you so fast and you have an empty ache in the pit of your stomach.
"I'm sorry, Pebble," my mother whispers into my ear. Her voice sounds like dolphins singing. "It was just his time." But I know that it was not his time. His time was cut way too short.
Mother tries to be strong in front of me. But at night, when she thinks I'm asleep, I can hear her sobbing. I know she loved my father a lot. She is loving right down to her core. You only have to look at her to see the love radiating out of her like light.
A lot of other dragons are coming to our house. They give my mother presents and sometimes they give them to me, too. I hear a lot of whispering. "That poor dragon," they say. "She has enough grief in her life."
I know they are talking about my mother when they say that poor dragon. I also know that they're talking about me when they say she has enough grief in her life.
I want to tell them that just because I'm a little different doesn't mean I'm deaf, that I can hear what they're saying. I can also understand it. I want to tell them it's not my fault I am the way I am.
I don't know exactly what's so different about me. My scales are a little dull, and the ones that glow in the dark don't do so very brightly. I don't talk much. I think I'm so different because I can never get my mouth to say what I want it to say, like yes or no or stop teasing me, please.
I can't talk in a way that people understand me.
I don't get what's so confusing about the way I talk. We speak the same language, don't we? I guess the things I say are just a little bit, well... muddled on the way they come out.
My mother's name is Cascade. She is the prettiest dragon in the world, in my opinion. She has sky blue scales and patterns that look like little splashes on her wings. She is wonderful and I love her so much. But I can never get the words "I love you"to come out. I really wish I could say that now. She looks like she needs it.
As I lie in my bed of seaweed, the water feels cold between my scales. My father used to come tuck me in every single night. He'd never miss a single one. He would kiss my neck and whisper into my ear: "I love you, my little firefly." He used to call me that because when he told me not to feel down about myself, that every dragon was different, he said, "Every firefly has its own light." That was his favorite way of putting it.
Somehow the phrase always reminded me more of my father than me. He had dark blue scales like the bottom of the ocean, and his scales were always glowing brightly, flashing excitedly. But now, as I look through the dark waters to my own dimly glowing scales, I kind of understand what he meant.
I can hear my mother shuffling down the hall; her crying is muffled through the walls.
Every firefly has its own light.
Her talonsteps are coming closer. Thump, thump, thump, thudding dully on the ocean floor. Thump, thump, thump.
A moment, a heartbeat, a tiny scrap of time-
My mother peeks inside my room. Are you awake, Pebble? she flashes.
The moons are awake, I answer, my scales flashing feebly in the dark water. The sun is asleep, but what difference does that make? I have no more sunlight in my life.
Oh, Pebble, my mother sighs. You have school tomorrow. You have to get your rest.
If I sleep, the waters will swallow me up, I respond.
Pebble. Please, just go to sleep! My mother's scales flash irritably and her head disappears out of the doorway. A moment later, I hear her shuffling away.
Now it's back to an empty room. The water is pressing in on me. I breathe out a steady stream of bubbles. The water feels cold, like diamonds trying to stab their way in between my scales. I flash my scales: one under my tail, two on my underbelly, another under my tail, and the ones right behind my eyes.
The- sand- is- falling.
When I close my eyes, I see it. A tall hourglass. Sand is slowly dropping down into the lower portion. Grain by grain by grain. The sand is falling.
My talons shiver in the cold water. I can hear and feel my heart beating quietly, softly, steadily. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The sand is falling.
. o O o .
Sometimes, when I'm missing my father, I like to sit by the seashore. Father loved that. We used to sit together, our tails twined together, as the foamy waters rushed over our talons.
Now it feels lonely without him. I'm all by myself, sitting at the ocean shore.
With a sharp pain, a shell stabs in between my scales and I whirl around. Two dragons are standing there. The first is seafoam green, with cruelly sharp talons and a wicked grin. The second has sapphire scales and is leaning down to pick up another shell.
The sapphire dragon cocks back her arm, sneering at me.
I duck, and the shell whizzes above my head, landing with a plop in the water. I yank the second shell out from between my scales, and I feel slightly lightheaded as I see the shell covered in blood.
"Hey, I heard something happened to your father," the seafoam dragon crows. "What happened? Did he actually have the sense to leave you and your pathetic mother?"
"He was killed in battle, idiot," says the sapphire dragon. "He's just as pathetic as this freak here."
I want to yell at them, to scream: you can insult me, but you can't insult my father. Leave him alone! If anyone's pathetic, it's you, you evil, snide, stupid-
"You sons of jellyfishes," I cry. "You will sink to the bottom of the ocean! Your bubbles will pop and your squids will lose their ink! Your pathetic shells will dissolve into sand!"
Both dragons look at each other and guffaw. The sapphire dragon pelts another shell at me, and then they both turn and walk away. The shell just ricochets off of my scales this time, but I'm filled with a fiery anger and I rush over and grab a shell from the pile.
Clutching the shell in my talon, I turn back to the water and throw the shell as hard as I can. It lands several feet away, sinking below the surface with a tiny splash. I'm having trouble breathing evenly.
I glare down into the water. My own face reflects back at me. My scales are blue-gray, and my eyes are shining with tears. Sometimes I just wish things were normal. I wish I were normal.
I close my eyes tightly, like maybe when I open my eyes, things will be different, and I will be normal, and my father will be standing there next to me, laughing his gentle, kind laugh.