by Rebecca Rupp
There before them, flashing gold in the morning sun, stood the dragon.
It was much larger and more frightening than Gawain or Eleanor had expected. It had a long heavy arrow-pointed tail, smooth golden wings folded over its gleaming back, and three heads. One head, angrily awake, was glaring directly at the children. Its eyes were a piercing blue. The other two heads were curled low on the dragon’s shoulders. They seemed to be fast asleep.
Gawain’s legs felt as if they were made out of soft putty. His mouth was dry with fear. But he wanted to win his knighthood, and he knew it was up to him to protect Eleanor. He drew his borrowed sword — it looked much smaller and flimsier now than it had in the castle armory — and stepped bravely forward.
“Dragon!” he shouted in a voice that sounded wobbly and strange. “Dragon! Prepare to meet thy doom!”
The dragon snorted. It sounded crusty and annoyed.
Eleanor, behind him, gave a little shriek. “Gawain!” she shouted. “Look out! Dragons can breathe fire!”
But the dragon breathed out no incinerating flames. Instead, as Gawain ran forward, sword held high, it swung out its tail with a quick twist. The sword catapulted out of Gawain’s hand and soared high into the air, tumbling end over end, and finally plummeted into the center of a blackberry thicket. Gawain looked after it in dismay.
“For heaven’s sake, young man,” the dragon snapped. “Whatever is the matter with you? No breakfast? Got up on the wrong side of the bed?”
The dragon lowered its head so that it could look Gawain directly in the eye.
“Time hanging heavy on your hands, so you decided to try a spot of murder and mayhem?”
Gawain heard Eleanor’s voice behind him. It shook a little.
“You . . . you can talk,” she said.
“What did you expect?” the dragon asked sarcastically. “Grunts? Moos? Twitters? Mindless babble?”
Eleanor stepped forward to stand beside Gawain. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think.”
“Humans seldom do,” the dragon said in a disgusted voice.
“Well, everyone knows what dragons are like,” Gawain spoke up defensively. “Gallant knights are always fighting them in all the legends. Look at the story of the dragon and Saint George.”
“Saint George,” the dragon repeated coldly. “A hoodlum. A brain like a pea.”
“And what about the princesses?” Gawain said. “Dragons are always kidnapping princesses.”
“Not any dragon I know,” the dragon said. “What would a dragon want with a princess? They’re dull creatures. They whine. They wear silly shoes.”
It raised one golden claw and made a twirly motion in the region of its ear.
“And they’re always fussing with their hair,” it said.
Eleanor shot Gawain a triumphant look. “I told you so,” she said.
The dragon waved its claw in an admonishing fashion.
“A dragon,” it said, “is polite and considerate. Tolerant, unassuming, and impeccable in the matter of personal hygiene. Brave and industrious, gentle and modest . . .”
At that moment, there was a loud sound of crashing in the bushes and the noise of pounding hooves. Into the clearing burst Sir Tristram, mounted on his white charger. He looked magnificent. His armor glinted in the sun; the scarlet plumes on his helmet fluttered in the wind. His sword was drawn and waving overhead.
“Dragon!” Sir Tristram bellowed. “Prepare to die!”
The dragon briefly rolled its eyes heavenward. “Not twice in one morning,” it muttered. Again it lifted its golden tail and swung it neatly to one side. It knocked Sir Tristram off his horse. The white charger came to an abrupt halt and, after one horrified look at the dragon, turned tail and galloped rapidly off the way that it had come. Sir Tristram landed with a jangle of clashing metal. He tripped, stumbled, tried to recover his balance, and fell clumsily on his own sword. The blade pierced his thigh between the heavy plates of armor. He gave a howl of outrage and pain.
Gawain and Eleanor rushed to help him as he struggled to get to his feet. Blood dripped into the grass.
“Villain!” Sir Tristram was shouting at the dragon. “Unprincipled beast! Pewling blackguard! Monster!”
“Oaf,” the dragon snapped back. “Bully. It serves you right.”
Then, ignoring the knight’s furious bellows, it turned to the children. “I suppose I cannot in good conscience let the idiot bleed to death,” it said. “Help him out of that ridiculous metal suit.”
Sir Tristram sank back down on the ground. Eleanor pulled off his helmet. His face had gone pale. The children helped him stretch out in the grass and wrestled to undo the buckles and straps that held on his armor. The wound was a deep slash in his right thigh. It looked painful.
“Wash it with clean water,” the dragon directed. “Then pack the wound with old moldy bread — there’s some in that basket — and wrap the leg in bandages.”
“Moldy bread?” repeated Eleanor.
“I bake,” the dragon said. “Whole wheat.”
“That can’t be right,” Eleanor said. “Moldy bread? That awful blue stuff? It might kill him.”
The dragon sighed and shook its head. “That blue-green fuzz that you humans have been so foolishly throwing away,” it said pompously, “is a most valuable organism. Eventually one of you will doubtless figure out that it produces a disease-combating substance.”
“Just do what it says,” Gawain whispered. “It seems to know what it’s doing.”
“I do,” the dragon said. It glared at Gawain down the length of its golden nose.
Obediently Eleanor found the basket and packed Sir Tristram’s wound with moldy bread. Then she tore her cloak into long strips and wrapped the leg gently in cloth bandages. Gawain brought Sir Tristram a drink of cold water, carried in his helmet. The knight drank thirstily. Then he lay back in the grass and closed his eyes.
Gawain and Eleanor sat down beside him. Gawain, for the first time, glanced around the clearing. At one end, there was a lean-to built of sticks. It contained several baskets, a table made of stacked flat stones, and an assortment of leafy plants in pots.
Gawain turned to the dragon. “Do you live here?” he asked.
“Not permanently, young man,” the dragon said. “And just as well,” it said. It looked pointedly at Sir Tristram. “I was attempting to commune with nature. I was camping.”
Gawain looked puzzled.
“I was trying,” the dragon said plaintively, “to escape from the stresses of modern life.”
Eleanor sighed. “What do we do now?” she said. She gestured toward Sir Tristram, now soundly asleep with his mouth open. “We can’t get him home,” she said.
“You will have to stay here until he heals,” the dragon said in resigned tones. “In two weeks or so, barring any other unexpected visits.”
Then it said more cheerfully, “We will have an exciting time. You can tell me all about yourselves. And I will teach you to bake.”
Gawain and Eleanor spent two weeks in the forest with the dragon. They went on nature walks, picked berries, fished, and told stories and sang songs around nightly campfires. The dragon taught both children to bake a respectable loaf of bread, though some of their earlier efforts went dreadfully wrong. Gawain built a simple catapult that they used to fling the blackened failures at a target pinned to a tree. The dragon enjoyed this, and once burned an entire batch of muffins to provide them with more ammunition.
Sir Tristram’s leg grew stronger every day until finally he was ready to return to the castle. His warhorse, looking sheepish, had come back to the clearing. Sir Tristram mounted cautiously. His sword and armor were tied in a neat bundle behind him on the saddle. He thanked the dragon and the children politely for their care. He planned to leave immediately on a crusade, where he hoped to regain his self-respect. He invited Gawain to go with him as his squire, but Gawain only shook his head.
The dragon looked downcast as the knight gallop
ed away.
“A crusade,” it said, in tones of contempt. “They never learn.” It heaved a discouraged sigh, staring into the forest in the direction Sir Tristram had gone.
“Thick as a post,” it said.
Eleanor turned to Gawain. “What did I tell you?” she said.
The dragon, too, turned its blue gaze toward Gawain. “And you?” it said. “You didn’t seem eager to accompany him. I thought your fondest wish was to be a knight, galloping off to battle.”
Gawain looked down and shook his head.
“I always thought fighting looked so glorious,” he said. “I wanted to be a hero.” He looked at his feet. “I wanted to slay a dragon too. But it all looks different when you think about the other side.”
He sighed. “Now I don’t know what I want to do.”
The dragon patted him kindly on the shoulder with a polished golden claw. “There are heroes and there are heroes,” it said. “You’ll think of something. You both will. Don’t worry about that.”
It paused for a moment, gazing solemnly into their eyes.
“It’s not fighting that’s so difficult,” the dragon finally said. “It’s deciding what’s worth fighting for.”
The children shifted on the cave floor and stretched their arms and legs. It felt as though they hadn’t moved for a long time. The dragon’s voice had ceased.
“Then what happened?” Zachary asked. “Did Gawain ever become a knight?”
“No,” the dragon said. “He changed his mind after his stay in the forest. Instead, he and his wife became great healers, physicians. Between them they saved many lives.”
“Who did he marry?” asked Sarah Emily.
“Eleanor, of course,” said the dragon. “They were quite made for each other, those two. She never could manage embroidery, but she had a fine hand for surgery.”
“What about Sir Tristram?” asked Hannah.
The dragon gave a chortling little snort. “He rode off on a crusade,” it said, “and was captured in the middle of his second battle. He was sold into slavery in Baghdad and ended up marrying the youngest daughter of the household. Her name was Zenobia. They had four daughters and Sir Tristram became a date merchant.”
“A date merchant,” said Sarah Emily in dismay. “That’s not very romantic. It’s not like the Round Table stories at all.”
“Poor Sir Tristram,” said Hannah.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the dragon said. “Perhaps after the bloodshed of the crusade, fighting didn’t look so glorious to him either anymore. Perhaps at last he began to use his head. I like to think I may have had a hand in bringing him to his senses.”
The dragon gave what might have been a little giggle. “Four daughters,” it repeated. “And every one of them could wrap him right around her littlest finger . . .”
Sarah Emily was staring at the gleaming golden fleck in the center of her right palm.
“Did they become Dragon Friends?” she asked suddenly. “Gawain and Eleanor?”
The dragon nodded solemnly.
“Of course,” it said. “I was honored.”
Zachary said musingly, “What’s worth fighting for . . .”
“Lives,” said Sarah Emily suddenly. “That’s it, isn’t it, Fafnyr? All those people’s lives — babies and sick people. That’s what Gawain and Eleanor decided was worth fighting for.”
For an instant, the dragon’s eyes glowed a deeper, brighter blue. Then it settled down on the cave floor and gave an enormous yawn.
Hastily, Hannah brought up the problem of Mr. King. “The man on the yacht, Fafnyr. Mr. J.P. King. Do you know why he’s so determined to keep hanging around? Did he see something?”
The dragon’s gold turned faintly pink. “I fear I may have been a trifle careless,” it mumbled. “I slipped out for a bit of exercise and a snack — quite early in the morning,” it said indignantly, “well before he had any business being up, and there he was, pacing about on the deck of that overblown boat. He was looking into the sun, so I hoped he was confused about what he saw.”
“We were afraid he’d seen you,” Zachary said.
“Not well,” the dragon said. “Not in all that glare. And if nothing else happens, he’ll decide that it was all his imagination and he’ll leave. It’s happened before. People are notoriously reluctant to believe.”
“This time, I hope so,” said Hannah.
“I don’t know,” said Zachary worriedly. “Mr. King never gives up on anything. At least, that’s what the newspapers say. That’s why he’s so successful.”
The dragon yawned again and the blue eyes began to droop. “I will, of course, consider this problem,” the dragon murmured. “A bit later. After my nap.” Its eyes closed farther.
“Do come again soon,” it said. “My sister is anxious to see you.”
“Good night, Fafnyr,” Sarah Emily said. The only answer was a snore. The cave had gone dark.
Zachary switched on the flashlight, and the children picked their way carefully back to the cave entrance. As they emerged, blinking, from the cave into the spring sunlight, they looked down into the blue ocean, where, far below them, the white yacht still floated, rocking gently up and down on the waves.
“He seemed like such a nice man,” Hannah said regretfully.
“He’s a technological genius,” Zachary said. “Everybody says so.”
“Genius shmenius,” said Hannah.
“I knew there was something funny about those puffins,” Zachary said.
Sarah Emily said, “I wish we’d hear from Aunt Mehitabel.”
A letter in burnt-orange ink, filled with exclamation points and underlinings, arrived from Aunt Mehitabel:
Dear Children,
I have received a letter from Mr. J.P. King, announcing that he has been lurking off the north shore of the island in his yacht and would now like permission to land and explore Drake’s Hill! I have written back, explaining that under no circumstances do I ever allow uninvited visitors on the island! I trust he will not risk trespassing again! He sounds a most determined person, much too accustomed to getting his own way.
The Anna of the photograph that you found in the Tower Room — I had thought it was long gone — is Anna König, a woman who grossly deceived me and who, due to my foolishness, could have been a terrible threat to F! I met Anna long ago on a tour of archaeological sites in China. We both had a deep interest in dragon artifacts — mine, of course, because of you-know-who — and we soon became bosom friends. I even invited her to join me on Lonely Island, along with her son, Johann Pieter, a bright young boy of ten. The photograph that you describe is of the three of us, taken at the beginning of that fatal visit.
In my excitement at meeting a kindred spirit, I fear I dropped some unfortunate hints about the special denizen of the island that led Anna to become curious. Soon I discovered that she was prowling about the house late at night, searching for clues! (It was then, most providentially, that I first locked the door to the Tower Room.) Then she and her son took to exploring the island! I tried to protest but did not want to call too much attention to my distress — I felt that would only confirm her growing suspicions.
She spoke of capturing you-know-who and of immense riches and fame. I argued that magical creatures were only found in fairy tales and implied that I myself, though desperately wanting to believe, had been proven wrong time and time again and had become convinced that F and his kind are simply imaginary. Gradually, I believe, she came to agree with me. Her visit was at last drawing to a close, and I allowed myself a sigh of relief.
Then one morning Johann Pieter, who had risen at sunrise for a final walk along the beach, came racing into the house incoherent with excitement. He had discovered tracks on the beach, he said, immense clawed footprints that could only belong to a you-know-what — one who perhaps lived in a cave beneath the sea. His mother and I went with him to examine the miraculous tracks, but when we arrived, the water had washed them away. If, indeed, they were eve
r there — Johann Pieter was a most imaginative little boy and very eager to please his mother.
Anna, by then, however, had come to see her quest as a waste of time, but when she and Johann Pieter departed the island, I saved the photograph as a reminder to myself never to be so careless again! It was a narrow escape and one that I have never forgotten!
I wish I could be there to help, but I am still incapacitated with my broken ankle! The doctor tells me that it will be at least another four weeks before I can attempt to walk on it! (I have done some experiments privately, and I suspect that he is correct.) In any case, I trust that you will be able to handle things on your own, in the best interests of F.
With fondest regards,
Aunt Mehitabel
“What a nasty person,” Sarah Emily said. “That Anna. Sneaking around like that. And lying.”
“The worst is that she wanted to capture Fafnyr,” Zachary said.
“I don’t think the Awful Warning helps us much, though,” Hannah said. “We didn’t invite Mr. King here. He just came.”
“Maybe he’ll go away,” Sarah Emily said hopefully. “Now that he’s got Aunt Mehitabel’s letter.”
The children were sitting on the bed in Hannah’s room. Buster, looking like a furry balloon with a smirk on its face, was comfortably asleep in Sarah Emily’s lap. Zachary was tinkering with his tape recorder, which hadn’t worked properly since Ben had jerked it out of his hands and dropped it on the sand. Something inside it seemed to be stuck. When Zachary pressed the PLAY button, it buzzed like a sick bumblebee or made sad little whirring sounds.
“Maybe he already left,” said Hannah, looking brighter.
“Let’s take a picnic to the north end of the island. We can see if the yacht is still there.”
“I give up,” Zachary said, tossing the tape recorder into a bureau drawer. “Let’s go.”