The Adventures of Lando Erif :: The Day I Hosted a Tour (Pt. Two)

Well. Would you look at that. Friday again already and we've somehow gotten through the second week of June.

And I may or may not have completely forgotten to write the second half of this story until today. OOPS.

But with a couple of word wars and a few inspirational vegemite sandwiches (technically they were cheesy-mite scrolls but pfft anyway) it has been written and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I made myself laugh and I am completely shameless.

:: Part One ::

What would you do, if you were in my place?

Several different options went through my head in those few moments. A lot of them included screaming and running the opposite way, grabbing a dragon and flying away to find a private floating island and becoming a hermit for the rest of my life.

It was tempting, but I resisted.

I vaulted over the bench and tumbled out the window, starting to run as soon as I touched the ground. The visiting families and ReLocators pushed in around the barrier between them and the dragon bay. I didn’t have any time to waste.

It was a race between me and a dragon

And currently, the dragon looked like it was going to win.

Ducking, I slipped beneath the caution tape and sprinted across the sand. Kyle was just standing there, holding the sandwich out toward the charging dragon. He was completely insane. How did he not realise that he was about to get fried into a crisp?

The dragon flared it wings out and I saw it suck in a deep breath. Deep breaths meant flames and flames meant fried cousin and fried cousin meant that my life would be more worthwhile living out as a hermit in secret.

“RUN,” I yelled.

The dragon looked around toward me for a moment and I heaved out a stream of flames to keep its attention. Heat rushed through my throat and then I ran out of breath, doubling over and staggering dizzily on my feet.

The only warning I got was a hiss of scattering sand before the dragon’s tail thumped me right in the side, sending me flying sideways. I choked on a mouthful of sand but managed to stumble up.

What I saw made me wish I’d kept down for just a bit longer.

A line of dragons were charging across the beach, sand flicking up behind them like a storm. All of them were headed toward Kyle and his sandwich. He was going to get shredded.

But I couldn’t let that happen on my watch.

Slipping in the soft sand, I dashed toward Kyle. He finally seemed to get the picture and started running, but way too late. At this rate, the leading dragon was going to get him in ten more seconds.

Squinting my eyes half closed against the flicking sand from the closest dragon, I started running faster than I’d run before. A tail swept sideways in front of me and I grabbed onto it, finding myself swinging through the air. No no no, which way was down? Which way to the sandwich?

In the background I could hear people screaming and yelling out but I tried to block it out.

I needed to focus on getting that sandwich.

I caught sight of Kyle and let my grip slip, tumbling through the air. Everything went blurry with speed for a moment and then I smashed bodily into Kyle. We went backward onto the ground, Kyle’s elbow smashing into my nose. Stars of pain streaked across my vision but I grabbed out blindly, snatching the sandwich from him.

Rolling to the side, I got up to my knees and threw the sandwich as high into the air as I could.

A giant sweep of flames converged above, every dragon lunging for the sandwich at the same moment and colliding midair. Someone grabbed the back of my shirt but before I had time to react I went sprawling backward into the ocean.

I flailed my arms uselessly for a moment before managing to get my feet beneath me. Gasping in a breath of air, I dashed my hand across my eyes. The dragons were tackling in a massive pile on the sand, like a bunch of kittens after a ball of wool. Only bigger and…slightly more violent and less cute.

And all over one little sandwich.

Kyle was standing beside me, significantly less wet, but significantly more pale.

“Man, are you okay?” I asked quickly.

“Yeah,” his voice croaked.

“You saved me,” I realised. “I could’ve gotten flattened under that.”

Kyle looked at me, blinked, and shook his head. “Your shirt was on fire.”

I stared. He pushed me in the water because my shirt was burning? So much for heroic. A stream of flames shot over my head and I ducked, the heat drying my soaking hair. Time to get out of the firing range.

Grabbing Kyle’s arm, I dragged him through the edge of the water. I skirted well around the fighting dragons and pushed Kyle under the caution tape, slipping under and taking a deep breath.

And then I realised that the crowd wasn’t screaming in terror. They were…cheering?

Someone clapped me on the shoulder. “Wow man, that was amazing. I’m definitely coming back next visiting day if I get to watch things like that.”

“Kid, you could be the new superhero.”

“You aren’t Peter Parker by any chance?”

I found myself mobbed by voices and people. “Um no sorry, I just—”

“I got the whole thing on video,” someone yelped from the side and I gulped.

Oh man. Sir George was going to go into panic mode.

I stopped Kyle with a hand on his shoulder. “Man. Never do something like that again. What were you thinking?”

He jerked away from me. “How the heck was I meant to know they were dangerous? You work here. They wouldn’t let you intern with actual dangerous creatures.”

I choked over my sentence. “You honestly thought they were safe?”

“I was just going to feed it.”

Before I managed to get an audible reply, Sir George himself came into sight, hurrying through the crowd. He laid eyes on me and looked instantly relieved. “Lando, Kyle, come with me now.” He jerked his head to the side and I had no choice but to follow.

Out of earshot from the crowd, he lifted his hand and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know what you were thinking, I don’t know how you could manage to save the day so perfectly, but good job.”

I stared at him, my mouth half falling open.

Did Sir George just say that or was I dreaming?

“How you stopped the dragons and saved Lando at the same time…it was brilliant,” he continued, clapping Kyle on the shoulder.

“Wait— what?” I blurted.

Kyle still looked dazed, and nodded silently.

Sir George turned on me and narrowed his eyes. “And you. You should know better by now than to cause such mayhem. And on a day like this especially. Do you have any idea how much trouble we could’ve gotten into if young Kyle here hadn’t stopped disaster?”

I gaped, unable to think of anything intelligent to say.

Footsteps pounded up behind me and I glanced over my shoulder to see the twins coming to a panting stop. “Sorry— we got caught in the crowd—” Titus gasped for breath.

“And I’d say you two had something to do with it too.” Sir George turned his glare on them.

Titus and Thomas looked taken aback. “What?” they replied at the same time.

“I will think up a fitting discipline later, for all three of you,” Sir George said warningly. “Just you wait.”

“Hold it, what’s going on?” Thomas demanded. “You’re punishing us for what?”

“As if you don’t know.” He glared and rested his hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “I must escort this young man to my office to rest, he doesn’t look too well, and no surprise either.”

I just stood there and stared as he steered a bewildered Kyle away in the direction of his office.

The twins both looked at me questioningly and I lifted my shoulders. “Don’t ask me.”

“Is he blind or something?” Titus asked. “It’s like he legit thinks that Kyle did some sort of superhero act.”

“Well, he stopped my shirt from burning,” I mumbled.

“Woohoo.” Thomas rolled his eyes. “And now we get to look forward to Sir George’s decision.”

“My favourite pastime.” Titus slumped.

“Brilliant job,” Scarlett interrupted my thoughts, appearing behind me.

I twisted and shrugged. “I was just trying not to have anyone killed.”

“And tackling your cousin into the dragon bay and then standing like an idiot and letting him save you from your own moronic self totally helped that.”

“Pardon?” I squinted at her.

I thought over the last part of the scene on the beach, and realised that to someone who’d only seen the very end it might actually look like Kyle was the hero.

“I was being sarcastic. And you’ve got blood on your lip.” Scarlett smirked and jogged away in the direction that Sir George had taken.

I frowned and scrubbed my upper lip, watching her leave. “You know…”

The twins both perked up at the tone of my voice. “Yeah?”

“Someone got a full video of that,” I said slowly.

Titus instantly straightened. “YouTube here we come. We’ve got only one chance to make Sir George believe us, and that’ll be perfect.”

Thomas grinned. “Oh yeah.”

I turned back toward the crowd. “No harm, I mean, we may as well try it, right?”

Haha. No harm. Sir George only grounded us for the next three weeks, but our channel got three hundred subscribers so it wasn’t completely useless. And Kyle’s mother decided that I was a bad influence on her precious son, and the next time she went away, he stayed at his friend’s house instead.

To be honest, he wasn’t all that bad really, but I wasn’t complaining anyway.

I was just happy that the next visiting day was still six months away.

- end -

I think my brain is officially in superhero mode because I've been thinking about my new superhero character and now Lando is acting like one.

And I blame Spiderman: Homecoming for the Peter Parker reference. YouTube has made it a favourite pastime to show me the trailer every time I listen to one of my playlists so Spidey has been haunting me over the past few weeks.


Would you take on a dragon to get your sandwich for lunch?
(I'm curious to know, guys. xD)
How is your June going so far?