I ain't been dropping no eaves... okay, I was.

[lenora_rose]

I'm on the bus home from school today. A dad and son get on; the son, I first thought couldn't have been more than 4, but I suspect I was wrong on that count. They sit behind me. They start a game of let's pretend. The dad is thrown by the twists more often than I record, but the boy is at least this coherent, though he had trouble pronouncing some words, and had to stop and think out sentences. Or he says the first word then stops before coming out with the whole thing again, what I always think looks like children "Tasting" the words before they let them out. I keep my book open, but I fail to read one more word after the bit about the grizzly bear.

(I have no idea how accurate the individual words/sentences here will be, but the gist, even line by line, is darn close.)

Boy: I live by myself!
Dad: You do? Where are your parents?
Boy: They got lost in the woods. I think they were eaten by a grizzly bear, or maybe a tiger.
Dad: So now you're all by yourself? How long ago did they get lost?
Boy: About a year.
Dad: Well, how do you take care of yourself? How do you eat?
Boy: There's dragons. The dragons come and they give me dragon food.
Dad: Dragons? But why do the dragons like you so much?
Boy: 'cause I'm a dragon boy!
Dad: You're a dragon boy? How are you a dragon boy?
Boy: My mom and dad were a dragon mom and dragon dad.
Dad: How can you tell they were dragon people?
Boy: They looked just like people. Except they had dragon heads. And spikes. And scales.
Dad: But you don't have a dragon head.
Boy: I'm wearing a boy mask.
Dad: So if you took off your coat, I'd see green scales?
Boy: (In the tone of pointing out the obvious) I'd still be wearing my clothes.
Dad: But if you had to undress for your bath, you'd be all green scales?
Boy: I put my skin over it. All over.
Dad: Like a skin mask.
Boy: Everywhere. Except my eyes are the same. And my mouth.
Dad; (Peers closely at his son's mouth.) I thought dragons had big sharp fangs. You just have little boy teeth.
Boy: I put little masks on all of them.
(I nearly completely lose it at this point, but the dad is a bit lost, too, so there's a pause.)
Dad: And you live all alone?
Boy: I have a sister.
Dad: You do? And how old is she?
Boy: Three months. (Like he's not so happy he invented this. Which of course means he probably didn't.)
Dad: But if your parents got lost a year ago, how do you have a three month old sister?
Boy: Well, how old would she be, then?
Dad: A year and three months?
Boy: Yeah. A year and three months.
Dad; And you take care of her all alone? You change her diaper and everything?
Boy: ... yeah...
Dad: And how do you feed her?
Boy: (Pause, then, quickly) The dragons. That come and feed me and her too. They bring her dragon milk.
Dad: But you do everything else.
Boy: Since our parents got lost. They come and she gets dragon milk.
Dad: We have to get off now.
Boy: Maybe they got killed by a dragonslayer.

They get off one stop before me. I giggle the whole way home.

Comments

[frisky-turtle.livejournal.com]

He's got quite the imagination! That was really cute, I can see how it would be a bit of a distraction from reading your book...

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right for an articulate 4 year old... the repetition of a theme (masks), especially. In a couple of years there's more variation in their stories.

Love the dragon milk for his sister.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

The books was a very academic study on aspects of the Faerie Queene. It almost wouldn't have taken anything like this, but that the due date is looking closer than I'd like.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

Good to know I at least had it right.

I used to babysit a three of my cousins when they were 2-13, but the youngest, and the one I best remember as a 3 year old or 4 year old, was slow to develop language and the like - actually, slow to get out of diapers and the lot. That ended up being subconscious mental baseline for what 3 year olds can do, even knowing consciously that she was the exception.

(If she'd continued slow as a teen or adult, I'd remember, but she didn't and she's not - especially the last few years, when she made a major life change that made her a lot more comfortable expressing herself.)

[celticmyth8.livejournal.com]

lol,loved the story :-)

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but this one I can take no credit for, except to be at exactly the right place to listen in.