"So you can't eat me. I'm whole," protested Carl.

The two dragons looked at each other. "We'll have to dismember him before we eat him," they said in unison.

Frederick clung to the only straw in this whirlpool. "But then I can't show you the way."

"Well, that's true," said the first dragon grumpily. "You carry him first, Smitar. We'll have to find something to eat along the way."

"Road-food always gives me gas," said the other dragon.

"Good. We'll need it," said his companion.

Carl found himself in the airborne again, despite the not-entirely-honorable discharge. Well, airborne again, anyway. Without the benefit of a parachute. "Take us to Fort Campbell," instructed the dragon.

This had to be the strangest weed he'd ever grown. "Man, it's more like you're taking me."

"Which way?" asked the dragon carrying him.

"Uh. Northwest," he answered.

"Northwest it is," said the dragon obligingly. "So which way is that?"

Swales was a small town. It wasn't entirely true to say that it was a one horse town. The horse had died some years before, but Beth Camero had some nice pictures of it. Now it briefly became a two dragon town instead. Well, the diner on the edge of town became a two dragon diner. A two hungry dragon diner.

"What's that?" asked Bitar, pointing to the billboard with a faded burger painted on it.

"It's a hamburger," said Camero, who had emerged from the diner with a shotgun for company.

"Can you eat it?" asked Bitar, tasting the edge of the billboard.

"I make ones you can eat. Cheeseburgers too." Beth swatted his nose away from her sign with the shotgun.

"What about maiden-burgers?" asked Smitar, keeping a coil around their guide-captive-half-meal.

"You big snake! Mind what you say to a lady." Camero was acting as if dragons landed in her diner's parking lot every day. "Now, what'll it be?"