Army Brats: David, Pernilla and the Magic Dino Dragon

I blurted out everything. I told Pernilla and Olaf about the man who crashed into me by the bathroom door near the gymnasium at the prom, and then rode off on his motorcycle. I told them about the note. I even showed the photocopy of the note to them. And I told them how my father warned me not to give any more music performances for now and to be very careful. I told them how my being around them was putting them in jeopardy. "Some folks-- MPs maybe-- are going to be around your place to interview you and ask a bunch of questions. So just expect that. They are treating this like a case to be investigated," I said. The hardest thing for me to tell them was I thought I was responsible for what happened to Pernilla, and that if I hadn't been her friend or in her group nothing would have happened to her. I teared up as I said, "If anything were to happen to you again because of me--" My voice broke. They were both quiet for a couple minutes. That was unusual in and of itself. Finally Olaf commented, "We have to stick together." "We don't scare too easily," Pernilla said. "David, what happened to me is not your fault. I let my guard down. I won't let it happen again. Ever. But you can't take that on yourself. You can't blame yourself for what someone else did." "No, no, you can't," Olaf agreed. "That would be quite a burden. Let us take the note. We'll get Ava to feed the info into the magic dino dragon, then we'll return it to you the next time we see you." "Why would you need to feed that into the dino dragon?" I asked. "The more information the dino dragon has, the better," Olaf said. "That note was so hard to read," said Pernilla. "If the magic dino dragon can decipher that, it would be a miracle. We might have to assist by sounding it out." "We're not going to go looking for this person ourselves, are we?" I questioned. "I mean, that should be left up to the MPs-- the pros." "We have to solve our own problems," Olaf figured. "We can't wait for some oldsters to help us. The dino dragon might aid us in tracking down who hurt Pernilla. It could be the same person who wrote the note and the same person who rammed into you at the prom. Who knows, we could stumble onto something." "And we're not going to just sit on our hands, David," Pernilla said. "We're going to throw ourselves into living. We graduate in a couple days. If you think you're going to escape without a big hug from me on graduation day, pal, you're fooling yourself. And we're going to the carnival in Lawson City when it rolls into town. All of us are going, no chickening out. And we're going to work on our music together and play a gig here and there. And we're going to go swimming and bowling and play tennis and golf and slow-pitch softball. And go to the movies. And hiking in the mountains. All of us. You and me and Olaf and Ava. We're a team. We're a band. I forgot that once but never again. And you could come with us when Mom takes us on vacation to the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest and Painted Desert later this summer." "When it's a hundred and fifteen degrees out," Olaf said, dragging the back of his hand across his brow. "What am I going to do with you two?" I wondered. "You act like things are going to be back to normal. Didn't you hear what I told you my father wants me to do? No public performances and be very careful around you guys." "And what do you want to do?" asked Pernilla. "I want to do just what you described, if I can even keep up with you," I replied. "That sounds pretty busy, that schedule." "Then that's it, that's what you'll do." "But can you handle all that, so soon out of the hospital?" "Sure I can. I'm good as new. We are going to have a gas. Know what? Let's do more," Pernilla added.