Digory the Dragon Slayer

by Angela McAllister

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  In Days of Old

  The Little Misunderstanding

  News Travels Fast

  A Few Words About Cleverness

  The Unhappy Day

  Arise, Sir Digory?

  Chapter Two

  Keeping Out of Trouble

  Then One Morning …

  The Kingdom of King Widget

  Digory Meets King Widget

  Just One Last Thing …

  Princess Enid

  The Picnic

  Can It Be True?

  Not Quite …

  Chapter Three

  Have We Forgotten Something?

  The Unimportant Thing

  The Usual Knightly Thing

  Chapter Four

  A Little Detour

  To the Sea

  Surprise, Surprise!

  Chapter Five

  The Fate Awaits

  The Tunnel to the D-D-Dragon’s Lair!

  HEEEEEEEEELLLLLP!

  Who Wants a Chance to Escape?

  The Trouble with Teeth

  A Fate Worse Than Death?

  To Be or Not to Be Gobbled

  Digory the Navigator

  Chapter Six

  The Dragon Meets His Breakfast

  Chapter Seven

  Digory Finds Himself in a Slimy, Dark Place

  Chapter Eight

  What??!

  Chapter Nine

  The King Remembers

  Digory, a Prince

  Time for a Happy Ending?

  A Note on the Author

  A Note on the Illustrator

  For Sam — A. M.

  For Lily — I. B.

  Chapter One

  In Days of Old

  In days of old, when knights were bold, there lived a boy named Digory. He came from a village where nothing much happened, and he was just a bit older than you.

  Digory had lanky legs, red hair, and a nose like a sausage. This made him very popular with the village boys.

  “Matchstick legs!” they called him.

  “Stick boy!”

  “Pumpkin head!”

  “Hey, marigold!”

  “Digory droopy-dangle!”

  “Nose jouster!”

  “Sausage snout!”

  Digory wore a felt cap to hide his red hair but he couldn’t disguise that nose, so he kept away from the village and spent his days playing alone in the forest.

  Digory loved the forest. Some days he’d build dams and tree houses. Other days he’d poke around with sticks and think thoughts. You might think he was lonely, but he had one friend who went with him everywhere—a battered old lute from his father that he carried across his back. When Digory thought some interesting thoughts, he’d turn them into a song, climb a tree, and sing to the sparrows.

  Now, no one in his family understood Digory at all. His older brothers, Arthur and Tom, were big and tough and bold. Arthur won prizes for hog leaping, and Tom was the local turnip-tossing champion. The thoughts they had were mostly to do with chasing bulls and arm wrestling, and the songs they knew were drinking songs, which had to be shouted wildly as you poured a mug of beer over your head.

  The only time Arthur called for Digory was to keep watch when he was stealing apples, and the only time Tom needed Digory was to pick up the arrows after archery practice.

  Even his sister, Ethelburg, captain of the Mucky Maidens’ Mudflinging team, had no time for Digory.

  “Ear shriveler!” she would cry whenever he played the lute, and she put a basket over her head.

  When he wasn’t in the forest, Digory would hang around the forge where his mother, Betsy the blacksmith, worked, hoping she might notice him. But nobody heard Digory strumming and singing except his father.

  “You know your mother, son,” he said gently as he hung up the laundry. “She likes iron and fire and sweat and muscles. She doesn’t have much time for thinking and songs.”

  “Unless they’re songs about iron and fire and sweat and muscles!” shouted his mother from the smithy, as she pounded her hammer on the anvil.

  But Digory’s songs weren’t like that. They had lines that went:

  See the happy swans that float,

  Around the castle’s rippling moat.

  Hear the water lilies sigh,

  As the dragonflies dart by.

  Well, nobody wanted to listen to that. So Digory’s family left him to wander with the forest animals, playing songs to himself, poking around in streams, and thinking thoughts.

  The Little Misunderstanding

  Digory never got into much trouble in the forest. Sometimes an acorn fell on his head. Sometimes he stepped into a pile of wild pig poo. But one day he found something that caused a little misunderstanding, something that changed his life forever, something that made him wish with all his heart that he’d stepped in a pile of pig poo instead.

  Digory had spent all morning making a stick bridge over a stream. Pleased with himself, he sat down and started to unpack his picnic. But just as he bit into a dandelion turnover, he noticed a white thing glinting on the mossy bank. Digory peered closer. It was a large, sharp, jagged tooth.

  Who does this belong to? he wondered, picking it up. Maybe it’s a rabbit’s tooth? But it was far too big for a rabbit. Then perhaps it’s a witch’s tooth, he thought, and maybe she’ll come looking to use it in a spell! But he remembered that witches always have rotten teeth, and this one was white and sharp.

  Suddenly, a creepy feeling made his hair stand on end. Suppose it’s a giant’s tooth. He trembled. And suppose the giant isn’t very far away … SUPPOSE I’M SITTING ON THE TOE OF HIS GREEN LEATHER BOOT AT THIS VERY MINUTE!

  Digory didn’t dare look behind him. But he trembled so much that he poked himself with the tooth. Wrapping a handkerchief around his finger, he began to laugh. Stupid dunderhead! He chuckled. This is much too pointy for a giant’s tooth. It must have belonged to an animal . . . a large animal . . . a large, fierce animal … something as large and fierce as a DRAGON!

  Digory decided that was his best thought. Yes, it’s definitely a dragon’s tooth, and he stuck it into his hat. Then, after all that difficult thinking, he scarfed a large piece of honeycomb cake and a bag of berry jelly beans.

  When the picnic was finished, Digory made up a song called “The Truth of the Tooth!” This was definitely not one of Digory’s greatest songs, but the words fit a tune that had been humming itself in his head for days, so he was very pleased.

  Later that afternoon, as he wandered along the lane, Digory met Noggy Bowlegs, the goose boy, leading his geese to market.

  “Don’t suppose the tooth fairy will notice that molar up there on your hat,” Noggy giggled. “Better put it under your pillow when you get home.”

  “That’s not my tooth,” said Digory, giving Noggy a grin to show that he had none missing. “That’s a dragon’s tooth!”

  At the mention of the word “dragon” Noggy’s knees began to quiver.

  “Oooh! Oddsbodikins!” he gasped. “Now don’t you s-s-say another word there, Digory,” he stuttered. “You’ll s-s-scare the geese so much they’ll be as thin as sh-sh-shoelaces by the time I get them to market.”

  Poor Noggy looked so awestruck that Digory couldn’t help himself.

  “DRRRAAAGGGONS!” he cried, waving his arms wildly. And before you could say “duck, duck, goose,” Noggy and his birds had flown off down the lane.

  News Travels Fast

  Now, when Digory got home that afternoon, all the villagers stared. They pointed at his hat, nudging and whispering. At first Digory, humming the tooth song to himself, didn’t notice. Then someone started to cheer. People came running from
the market and began to clap and whistle. Digory felt uncomfortable. He looked around. No, there wasn’t an Important Person behind him. Even the village boys were cheering Digory.

  Soon crowds had come out of their shops and cottages to get a glimpse of Digory passing by.

  “Three cheers for Digory!” they cried.

  “Digory killed the dragon!”

  The children jumped up to touch his hat.

  “Look at the tooth, just like Noggy said! Digory has saved us from the dragon! Hurray, we’re saved!”

  Digory suddenly understood.

  “But… but…,” he protested. “You’ve got it all wrong. I just found the tooth. I didn’t even see a dragon.”

  However, it was useless to argue. No one would listen. Digory found himself lifted onto the shoulders of the crowd and carried like a hero into the square, where the whole village had gathered, and where Squire Paunch himself was waiting.

  Digory had always been shy of Squire Paunch. The Squire wore yellow vests and a black beard and slapped people on the back to be friendly. Digory wanted to run away, but there was nowhere to hide. The Squire brought his big bearded face close to Digory’s nose and peered at him with a puzzled look.

  “Is this him?” he asked the crowd.

  All the villagers cheered.

  “YES!” they cried. “That’s him!”

  So the Squire shook Digory by the hand and, sure enough, slapped him heartily on the back (denting the lute and knocking all the breath out of him).

  “Well, well,” the Squire laughed. “Who’d have thought that young carrottop here would single-handedly save our village from the dragon!”

  “The bloodthirsty dragon!” cried a plowboy in the crowd.

  “The bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragon!” bellowed the butcher.

  “The jaw-gripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragon!” cackled an old dame at the back.

  The villagers roared.

  But all this flesh-ripping talk made Digory feel dizzy.

  “Speech, speech!” shouted the crowd.

  The Squire pushed Digory forward. All the villagers hushed to hear his words. Digory stared at their eager faces.

  “I think . . . I think … I … eeuuurgh …” He swayed, he swooned, and he fainted on the spot.

  At that moment Digory’s mother arrived. She pushed her way through the crowd with a hot poker.

  “Make way, make way! Where’s my boy? Where’s my little Digory?” And with a sweep of her strong arms, she picked Digory up off the ground, shook the dust off him, and heaved him onto her shoulder. The crowd cheered again.

  “You should be very proud of your son, Betsy,” said the Squire. “He’s a great hero. He has saved this village from the jaw-gripping, flesh-ripping, bone-crunching, snout-snarling, bloodthirsty dragon. We’ll have a feast in his honor. Why, we’ll make him a knight and name him ’Sir Digory the Dragon Slayer!’”

  Digory’s mother beamed brighter than a furnace, and a hot tear sizzled down her face.

  “That’s my boy,” she sniffed proudly. “I didn’t know he had it in him.” Then, curtsying to the Squire in her leather apron, she carried Digory home to dunk him in the water barrel.

  A Few Words About Cleverness

  Now, the name of Digory’s village was Batty-by-Noodle, which may give you some idea of the sort of people who lived there. No one from Batty had ever done anything clever.

  One night Farmer Ragwort saw a shooting star fall into the pond, but, though he fished all night, he never caught it. And Meg the cowgirl claimed she could talk to cows, but nobody was interested to hear what a cow had to say, so they didn’t think much of that.

  People thought Squire Paunch was the cleverest man in the village because he was the Squire. But none of them was clever enough to know how clever he really was. And the Squire himself, if he was clever, didn’t know anyone cleverer to compare himself to, so how could he tell? Well, you get the picture.

  So when Digory came home with a dragon’s tooth in his hat, no one thought too hard about it. Somehow it slipped their minds that Batty-by-Noodle never had dragons living nearby. In fact, it was quite the wrong sort of a place for dragons altogether. There were no rocky caves, the forest was thin and weedy, and most days it drizzled with rain—which of course is not healthy for a dragon’s fiery breath. Who’s going to be afraid of a dragon that only snorts steam from its nostrils?

  But, you see, you would need to be clever to know this sort of thing.

  So when the Batty villagers saw a tooth and heard it came from a dragon, they believed without a doubt that they’d all been spared a horrible fate.

  The Unhappy Day

  Meanwhile, a feast was arranged, with a ceremony to make Digory a knight, and nothing Digory could say would convince anybody otherwise. If he tried to explain the truth, people just thought he was being modest, which made him even more of a hero.

  Arthur and Tom were very jealous that their younger brother had fought with a dragon. They tried to make Digory tell them about it by twisting his arm in twelve painful ways. But as there was nothing to tell, Digory didn’t say a word. At last they gave up and shook his poor numb hand in admiration.

  “You’re a good fellow, brother Digory,” they said. “Nobody likes a person who boasts about what he’s done. You deserve to be a knight. We’re proud of you.”

  And so he won even the respect of his bold, tough brothers.

  But poor Digory didn’t want to be a knight. In fact, he didn’t even know what knights were expected to do.

  He asked his father, who was collecting eggs in the henhouse. His father sat down and scratched his head.

  “Well now, Digory,” he puzzled, “I could tell you what the baker does, or the miller, but I’ve never met a knight, son. They say knights are always chivalrous, but I don’t know what chivalrous is.”

  “It sounds like the sort of thing you feel when you have coughs and sneezes,” said Digory glumly. His father agreed.

  (Poor Digory. He might have felt better if he’d known that “chivalrous” really meant kind, honorable, and brave. Still, that wasn’t the worst of it…)

  “Well then,” continued his father, “when they’re feeling all chivalrous, they ride around the land saving damsels in distress.”

  Digory’s heart sank. The only damsel he knew was Ethelburg, and she was certainly never in distress. In fact, some people might say that Ethelburg and her friends caused quite a bit of distress around the village with their mudflinging and wild rampaging games. Digory always tried to keep away when distress was happening.

  “Oh, yes,” his father remembered, “and you probably have to marry a princess, too. That won’t be so bad, son, will it?”

  Ugh! A princess! Digory felt even more miserable. He tried to imagine Ethelburg cleaned up a bit, with a crown on her head, but this only made him feel worse. With a heavy heart he went off to the woods.

  As he shuffled through the leaves Digory thought about what had happened. How did everything get into such a mess? he sighed. I was having a simple sort of life, a Digory sort of life, with songs and trees and picnics. Now I have to go and be a knight, feeling shiverous and looking for distress. If only I hadn’t picked up that tooth in the forest. And, climbing up into an acorn tree, he composed a sad song called “The Unhappy Day.”

  * * *

  Meanwhile, Digory’s mother hammered away to make him a suit of armor out of some scraps that were lying around in the smithy. The armor was quite a good fit, although it squeaked and had a handle on the back that looked suspiciously like part of a watering can. But her pièce de résistance was the helmet, on top of which she had welded the dragon’s tooth!

  When Digory put the armor on, it felt cold and clammy inside. Maybe this is what shiverous means, he thought gloomily. But his mother was so proud, she actually gave him a hug. (Although Digory couldn’t feel the hug inside his tin suit.)

  “Oh, it fits like a g
love, son!” she sighed happily. “I suppose I could have built a couple of extra inches into the tin boots but, never mind, no one will notice when you are sitting on your horse.”

  All knights, of course, must have a horse for their adventures, and Squire Paunch kindly gave Digory a trusty steed. Barley the carthorse knew as much about adventures as Digory did about being a knight. She was old and gentle, and she was deaf as a pumpkin. (Well, at least she won’t have to listen to Digory’s songs, Betsy thought to herself.)

  Arise, Sir Digory?

  The big day arrived. Digory woke up and pinched himself, but it was all real. He looked at Arthur and Tom snoring away like happy warthogs. Maybe I’ll just slip away, he thought. No one would really miss me. They could make Arthur a knight instead. He’d be much better at shiverousness than me …

  Digory didn’t have to think too long to decide that running away was, in fact, a very good idea. Quiet as a mouse, he wrote a note to Squire Paunch, explaining that he wanted his brother Arthur to be the knight instead. Then he packed everything he owned into his best handkerchief and tied it to the end of a stick. Whispering good-bye to his sleeping father, he crept quietly out of the cottage to make his escape. But at the door he met Betsy, who had been up all night polishing the armor.

  “Spit and elbow grease, nothing to beat it!” she beamed. “Today’s the best day of my life, son. You’ve made me as proud as a big, brass bell!”

  Poor Digory smiled weakly. You can’t run away from that, can you?

  Squire Paunch had announced that the day was to be a holiday, so the village was decked with flags and flowers, and the inn served free ale and roasted hog.

  At midday, a procession arrived at Digory’s cottage. With a ring on her anvil, Betsy sent Digory off, squeaking gently on toothless old Barley, to be knighted by Squire Paunch.

  In the square, the rest of the villagers had been waiting impatiently. Everyone cheered loudly when Digory arrived, but the Squire himself did not appear. They waited and waited. Digory shut his eyes and wished with all his heart that the Squire had changed his mind and gone fishing instead. However, the Squire eventually arrived in a great fluster, with a red face and drooping whiskers.