The Return of the Dragon

by Rebecca Rupp

  Mrs. Jones packed a picnic basket, stuffed with all their favorites: hard-boiled eggs, pickles, peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, and oatmeal cookies. Cheerfully, they set off across the island, Zachary in the lead, wearing his backpack, Hannah and Sarah Emily swinging the picnic basket between them. Hannah began to sing a song about how she loved to go a-wandering.

  “I can’t wait to get there and see that boat gone,” said Zachary.

  They turned right and cut through the fields, heading for the beach, just south of the place where Mr. King’s company had made their camp. They climbed over a tumble of rounded rocks — Sarah Emily said they looked like baby hippopotamuses — and then scrambled to the top of a sandy dune, overgrown with scrub and grass, that sloped down to the beach. The tents were gone, but the great white yacht still rode at anchor off the shore.

  “I knew it was too good to be true,” Zachary said. He dropped down on the sand. “He never gives up, just like everybody says.”

  “Oh, come on, Zachary,” said Hannah. “I think it’s going to be all right. He got Aunt Mehitabel’s letter and he’s packing up. They took down the tents, didn’t they? I bet he’ll be gone by this afternoon.”

  “I hope so,” Sarah Emily said.

  Zachary looked skeptical. “We might as well eat,” he said.

  As the children finished the last bites of their sandwiches, a figure appeared at the rail of the yacht’s upper deck. It climbed down the metal ladder attached to the boat’s side and dropped into a waiting motorboat. There was the sputter of a starting motor, and the boat turned in a wide smooth curve and headed toward the shore. As it grew closer, the children could see that the driver was Mr. J.P. King. When he was within hailing distance, he cut the motor and raised one hand, signaling to the children on the beach. “Permission to come ashore?” he shouted. He looked fit and friendly, like a kindly grandfather who took time to go to an exercise club.

  The children exchanged worried looks.

  “I suppose so,” said Hannah.

  Zachary stood up and lifted a hand in answer. “OK!” he shouted. “Temporarily!”

  Mr. King landed the boat and sprang lightly out onto the sand. He was dressed as he had been at their previous meeting, in khaki slacks and a blue sweater, but now he wore a white cap with a black visor trimmed with gold braid. He walked briskly toward them across the beach and sat down on a rock next to the children’s picnic site.

  “A lovely place,” he said.

  “Did you get a letter from our aunt?” Hannah asked bluntly.

  “I did indeed,” said Mr. King, “and she made her position quite clear. Which is why, of course, I ordered my employees back to the yacht. I hate to think that there might be . . . unpleasant accusations later. However, in light of your aunt’s uncooperative letter, I would like to discuss the present situation with you three. Let us put our cards on the table. You and I both know about the . . .” — he paused —“extraordinary beast . . . hidden on the island. Clearly your aunt is also aware of its existence. She, however, may not understand the implications of this animal’s presence here. She is very elderly, is she not?”

  “Aunt Mehitabel is old,” Hannah said. “But she isn’t senile. She understands everything. And if there were an extraordinary animal here, she would know what’s best to do about it.”

  Mr. King nodded understandingly. “Of course,” he said. “I’m sure her intentions are admirable. The very old, however, sometimes become — how shall I put it? — a bit hidebound, reluctant to move with the times. Or perhaps your aunt is simply unwilling to share her good fortune? That is what we’re talking about, is it not? Sharing?”

  “What do you mean?” Sarah Emily asked.

  “The creature who lives on this island,” Mr. King continued, “is a great natural treasure, perhaps the very last of its species alive on earth. Knowledge of its existence is a great wonder that all people on the planet have a right to share. Would it be right for one person to keep — let us say, the Grand Canyon — all to themselves? Besides, the care of this creature is too great a responsibility for one elderly woman and three children. It should be protected by the very best that modern science and technology have to offer.”

  He paused and glanced behind him, upward toward the rocky peak of Drake’s Hill.

  “What if this creature were to become ill, had you thought of that? Or if it were injured? Why, you children might not even be here to tend to it. By the time you finally arrived, it might be too late.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened in concern, but she said nothing.

  “I propose,” Mr. King said, “to establish a special nature preserve, a vast territory devoted to this creature alone. There it would be utterly safe — and people would be able to see it and learn from it. Perhaps people could learn wonderful things. Surely you have studied about endangered species in school. Any scientist would tell you that this is the right thing to do.”

  He looked fixedly at each child in turn.

  “This amazing animal deserves the best — the very best that money can buy. And I am willing to provide it. Don’t say anything now. Just think about it. I’ll get back to you in a day or two.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Zachary as Mr. King rose to go. “All of this sounds generous and fair. But we don’t like some of the things you’ve done. What about all those people on the island? Sneaking around all over the place? Spying?”

  “That Ben was mean too,” Sarah Emily put in. “He yanked Zachary’s arm and broke his tape recorder.”

  “How unpleasant,” Mr. King said. “I apologize. I was carried away by the excitement of my discovery. I will take care of the matter.” He looked up toward the hill once more. “I am sure,” he said, “that we can negotiate in an aboveboard, civilized manner for the best of all concerned.”

  He nodded to the children. “Good day,” he said, and walked back across the sand to the motorboat. He climbed in, started the motor, and chugged rapidly away.

  The children sat, silent, around the empty picnic basket.

  Then Zachary said, “I never thought of that before. Maybe we are being selfish. Think of all the special efforts being made to take care of endangered animals.

  Like the California condor and the Siberian tiger and the spotted owl. Doesn’t Fafnyr deserve the support of the whole world? Wouldn’t he be safer?”

  “He is safe,” Sarah Emily said. “He’s protected, right here. Aunt Mehitabel trusted us to protect him and keep him and his cave a secret.”

  “But what if Fafnyr got sick?” Hannah said. “We wouldn’t know what to do. Mr. King is right. We might not even be here. Fafnyr could die and we wouldn’t know.”

  “I don’t know what’s the right thing to do,” Zachary said miserably. “What if Aunt Mehitabel is wrong?”

  “We don’t have to do anything for a day or two,” Hannah said. “Not until Mr. King comes back.”

  “Let’s go see Fafnyr,” Sarah Emily said.

  “It’s too late today,” said Zachary. “We’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “She,” said Hannah firmly. They were standing on the wide ledge above the ocean at the entrance to the dragon’s cave. “Don’t get mixed up because she doesn’t like it. It’s she. Remember?”

  The third dragon head, as the children had learned last summer, was female.

  The three children stepped through the dark entrance of the cave, and Zachary switched on his flashlight. They trudged steadily downward, breathing in the spicy odor of dragon: wood smoke, cinnamon, a tangy whiff of incense. Soon the flashlight picked up the scintillating flash of golden dragon scales. There was the sound of a heavy body shifting on the cave floor and a hissing noise, like the sound of a gas stove turning on. The dragon flamed and the cave filled with soft light. The third dragon head was awake. Its eyes were a cool luminous silver. It lowered its head toward the children, bending down first to Sarah Emily, then to Zachary, and finally Hannah.

  “We are delighted at your return,�
� the dragon said ceremoniously. It surveyed each of the children assessingly, then gave an approving nod.

  “Field hockey?” it said. “Rockets? Piano lessons? Excellent. It is always rewarding to see the young improving their minds.”

  Then, suddenly, it bent even lower, bringing the silver eyes level with the children’s faces. Its voice became filled with concern.

  “Something is wrong,” it said.

  “Oh, Fafnyr,” Sarah Emily said, her voice breaking. “Everything is so awful.”

  “The insufferably persistent person in the boat?” the dragon said. It wrinkled its nose in distaste.

  “He knows all about you,” Zachary said. “He seems to know everything. And he has this plan . . .”

  “Tell me about it,” the dragon said.

  The children explained.

  “He says that you could be the very last of your kind.”

  “An endangered species.”

  “All the world deserves to know about you, he says. It’s selfish of us to keep you a secret all for ourselves.”

  “And what if you were sick or hurt? We wouldn’t know how to help you.”

  “So he wants,” Zachary summed up, “to build a special nature preserve, just for you. A place where you’d be taken care of. And you’d be safe forever.”

  The dragon listened patiently, unmoving, except for the slow blinking of its silver eyes.

  “I see,” it said when they had finished.

  A silence fell.

  Then Sarah Emily ran forward and threw her arms around the dragon’s leg, pressing her face against the golden scales.

  “We don’t know what to do, Fafnyr,” she said. Her eyes were filled with tears. “We don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong. Everything is muddly.”

  The dragon lifted a golden claw and gently smoothed Sarah Emily’s hair.

  “I think,” it said, “that I should tell you a story.”

  “But, Fafnyr . . .” Zachary began.

  The dragon stopped him with a lifted golden claw.

  “We’ll get to all that,” it said. “First, listen.”

  The children sank down on the warm cave floor. Zachary sat cross-legged. Hannah and Sarah Emily leaned back against the dragon’s golden tail. As the dragon spoke, the cave walls seemed to shimmer and dissolve. The children felt a breath of warm wind on their cheeks. There was a sound of soft laughter, a sweet smell of honeysuckle and gardenia flowers. The children again found themselves in another place and time, seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

  “Sallie,” the dragon began, “was born a slave. Her great-great-grandfather had been brought to North America from Africa in chains in a slave ship. Sallie was dark brown, the color of milk chocolate, with bright brown eyes and curly black hair in pigtails, tied up with scraps of calico. She lived with her mother and father and her little brother, Jamie, in a tiny cabin in back of the Big House on a cotton plantation in Alabama in the days before the Civil War. Sallie’s mother worked in the kitchen of the Big House, and Sallie’s father was a blacksmith. He could make anything out of iron: horseshoes, hinges, shovels, nails, even garden gates. . . .”

  There were children in the Big House, too. The daughter of the family, Harriet, was just Sallie’s age. Harriet’s life was very different from Sallie’s. Harriet wore muslin dresses with long silk sashes, embroidered pantalettes, and satin dancing slippers. She had a governess named Miss Witherspoon. Harriet studied geography, arithmetic, and French, and she was learning how to play the harp. Harriet complained all the time about her lessons. It didn’t seem fair, Sallie thought. Sallie would have given anything to go to school. She wanted to learn how to read.

  Harriet couldn’t understand why Sallie was unhappy. After all, everybody knew that this was just the way things were. Sallie had plenty to eat and a place to live. Harriet’s father was a good master. The slaves even had special parties every year at Christmastime. But Harriet, Sallie thought, simply didn’t know what it was really like to be a slave. Nothing, Sallie knew, could make up for the biggest difference between them. Harriet was free. No one could ever sell her away from her mother and father.

  Today the sun was hot in the dooryard of the little cabin, but Sallie was so cold that she had goose bumps on her arms. She was afraid. A rumor was flying through the slave quarters. The news came from Martha Jane, Harriet’s mother’s personal maid. Martha Jane always knew everything that went on in the Big House. Harriet’s father had gambling debts, Martha Jane said. He owed thousands of dollars and he had no way to pay. Some of the slaves would have to be sold. “Who?” people already were asking each other secretly. “Who will it be?” Sallie knew that her father, a trained blacksmith, was a very valuable slave. And Sallie’s mother was in tears. There had been long whispered conversations at night in the dark after Sallie and Jamie were thought to be sound asleep. Sallie had kept quite still beneath her patchwork quilt, trying to breathe evenly, listening with all her might. Her father spoke of the free territory in the North, of secret paths and hiding places, of the Underground Railroad. Her mother spoke of fugitives, of whippings, of slave catchers, and bloodhounds. Sallie knew that her parents were planning to run away. And she knew that they were afraid.

  “Sallie!” A call came from the terrace of the Big House. “Sallie!” It was old Eliza, who had taken care of Harriet’s mother when she was a little girl, then of Harriet and her brothers when they were babies. “The young mistress wants you!” Harriet, Sallie thought, probably wanted her to braid her hair — or to help her dress her dolls or to mend a torn gown.

  Not now, Sallie thought. I can’t stand to go to the Big House now. Let Harriet think that Eliza couldn’t find me.

  She jumped to her feet and whisked around the corner of the cabin. Unnoticed, she edged along the log walls, then scampered across the garden, grown tall with beans and corn, and into the woods on the far side. As soon as she was hidden by the trees, she ran until she could run no more. Then she sat down on a fallen tree trunk and cried. She felt angry and helpless and frightened. What if they ran? They would be leaving their home, their friends. The plantation was all that Sallie had ever known. But what if they stayed? They would sell her father. Maybe even her mother. She and Jamie would be left alone. Or maybe they would sell Jamie too. He was a strong, healthy little boy, even if he was only six years old. Sallie wiped her face on her apron. She felt as though she hated the whole world.

  When she looked up, she realized that she was lost. Nothing looked familiar and there were no paths in sight. She got to her feet and began to walk, wandering, not knowing what to do or where to go. The forest grew denser. The trees were bigger and closer together. The underbrush was thicker. Thorns pricked her bare feet and tore at her apron and her red calico dress. Finally Sallie came upon a tumbled pile of rocks. A hill, she thought. If I climb to the top, I’ll be able to see a long way. Then perhaps I can figure out where I am. She started to scramble up the sun-warmed stones. Halfway to the top she stopped and stared, her eyes wide with fright. There was a gaping hole in the rocks — a cave — and sunning itself in the cave door was a creature like nothing Sallie had ever seen before.

  It was huge and it was pure gold. It was covered with glittering scales. It had a long arrow-pointed tail, a pair of smooth webbed wings, and — Sallie gasped — three heads on long golden necks. Two of the heads were coiled low on the creature’s shoulders, the third stretched out straight in front of its body. As Sallie watched, the third head opened its eyes. They were a pure gleaming silver, the color of the tea set in the Big House parlor. Sallie had to polish that tea set sometimes, when Harriet’s mother was expecting company. The silver eyes were looking, Sallie realized, straight at her.

  For a moment, she was deathly afraid. Then her heart stopped racing and she grew calm. It doesn’t matter, Sallie told herself. Everything is so dreadful. I might as well be eaten by a monster. Things could hardly be worse.

  She must have spoken out loud, because the cre
ature replied.

  “I do not,” the creature said in outraged tones, “eat children. Especially not sniveling little girls.”

  Sallie felt her temper rise. “I am not sniveling,” she snapped.

  “Sniveling,” the creature said. “Most definitely.” It had lifted its golden head. It glared at Sallie, and Sallie glared right back.

  Then Sallie’s temper evaporated, overcome by curiosity.

  “What are you?” she asked. “I’ve never seen anything like you before.”

  The creature flexed ten polished golden claws. “I,” it said, “am a dragon. A tridrake, to be precise. Tri means three, in Latin. It refers to the three heads. The sleeping heads belong to my brothers. I, of course, am female. And you?”

  “My name is Sallie,” Sallie said. “I live on the plantation. . . .” She tried to gesture. Then she dropped her hand. “I’m not sure where it is anymore,” she confessed. “I think I’m lost.”

  “And how did you come to be wandering through this — previously quite private — part of the forest?” the dragon asked.

  Sallie suddenly started to cry again. She put her face down on her knees and sobbed. Then she heard a voice above her head. It was the dragon.

  “My dear child,” the dragon said. “My dear young lady, please don’t cry. Whatever I said — please accept my apologies. Is there anything I can do?” A golden claw reached out and gently stroked Sallie’s hair.

  Sallie shook her head. “There’s nothing anybody can do,” she said. And then, because the dragon had a kindly listening look, she told it all that was happening. She told about Harriet and the Big House, about Harriet’s father and his gambling debts, about the slaves being sold, about wanting to learn to read, about wanting to be free. About her parents’ secret plan to run away. About the slave catchers and the whippings. About how frightened she was. The words tumbled over each other as Sallie talked. She felt as though no one had ever listened to her so carefully before.

  When she had finished, the dragon heaved a great sigh and turned its head away from her, staring off into the forest.