Three Tales of My Father's Dragon

by Ruth Stiles Gannett

  My father waited a few minutes and then started down the beach because it was almost dark now, and he was afraid the mouse really would tell somebody. He walked all night and two scary things happened. First, he just had to sneeze, so he did, and somebody close by said, “Is that you, Monkey?” My father said, “Yes.” Then the voice said, “You must have something on your back, Monkey,” and my father said “Yes,” because he did. He had his knapsack on his back. “What do you have on your back, Monkey?” asked the voice.

  My father didn’t know what to say because what would a monkey have on its back, and how would it sound telling someone about it if it did have something? Just then another voice said, “I bet you’re taking your sick grandmother to the doctor’s.” My father said “Yes” and hurried on. Quite by accident he found out later that he had been talking to a pair of tortoises.

  The second thing that happened was that he nearly walked right between two wild boars who were talking in low solemn whispers. When he first saw the dark shapes he thought they were boulders. Just in time he heard one of them say, “There are three signs of a recent invasion. First, fresh tangerine peels were found under the wahoo bush near the Ocean Rocks. Second, a mouse reported an extraordinary rock some distance from the Ocean Rocks which upon further investigation simply wasn’t there. However, more fresh tangerine peels were found in the same spot, which is the third sign of invasion. Since tangerines do not grow on our island, somebody must have brought them across the Ocean Rocks from the other island, which may, or may not, have something to do with the appearance and/or disappearance of the extraordinary rock reported by the mouse.”

  After a long silence the other boar said, “You know, I think we’re taking all this too seriously. Those peels probably floated over here all by themselves, and you know how unreliable mice are. Besides, if there had been an invasion, I would have seen it!”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said the first boar. “Shall we retire?” Whereupon they both trundled back into the jungle.

  Well, that taught my father a lesson, and after that he saved all his tangerine peels. He walked all night and toward morning came to the river. Then his troubles really began.

  Chapter Five

  MY FATHER MEETS SOME TIGERS

  The river was very wide and muddy, and the jungle was very gloomy and dense. The trees grew close to each other, and what room there was between them was taken up by great high ferns with sticky leaves. My father hated to leave the beach, but he decided to start along the river bank where at least the jungle wasn’t quite so thick. He ate three tangerines, making sure to keep all the peels this time, and put on his rubber boots.

  My father tried to follow the river bank but it was very swampy, and as he went farther the swamp became deeper. When it was almost as deep as his boot tops he got stuck in the oozy, mucky mud. My father tugged and tugged, and nearly pulled his boots right off, but at last he managed to wade to a drier place. Here the jungle was so thick that he could hardly see where the river was. He unpacked his compass and figured out the direction he should walk in order to stay near the river. But he didn’t know that the river made a very sharp curve away from him just a little way beyond, and so as he walked straight ahead he was getting farther and farther away from the river.

  It was very hard to walk in the jungle. The sticky leaves of the ferns caught at my father’s hair, and he kept tripping over roots and rotten logs. Sometimes the trees were clumped so closely together that he couldn’t squeeze between them and had to walk a long way around.

  He began to hear whispery noises, but he couldn’t see any animals anywhere. The deeper into the jungle he went the surer he was that something was following him, and then he thought he heard whispery noises on both sides of him as well as behind. He tried to run, but he tripped over more roots, and the noises only came nearer. Once or twice he thought he heard something laughing at him.

  At last he came out into a clearing and ran right into the middle of it so that he could see anything that might try to attack him. Was he surprised when he looked and saw fourteen green eyes coming out of the jungle all around the clearing, and when the green eyes turned into seven tigers! The tigers walked around him in a big circle, looking hungrier all the time, and then they sat down and began to talk.

  “I suppose you thought we didn’t know you were trespassing in our jungle!”

  Then the next tiger spoke. “I suppose you’re going to say you didn’t know it was our jungle!”

  “Did you know that not one explorer has ever left this island alive?” said the third tiger.

  My father thought of the cat and knew this wasn’t true. But of course he had too much sense to say so. One doesn’t contradict a hungry tiger.

  The tigers went on talking in turn. “You’re our first little boy, you know. I’m curious to know if you’re especially tender.”

  “Maybe you think we have regular meal-times, but we don’t. We just eat whenever we’re feeling hungry,” said the fifth tiger.

  “And we’re very hungry right now. In fact, I can hardly wait,” said the sixth.

  “I can’t wait!” said the seventh tiger.

  And then all the tigers said together in a loud roar, “Let’s begin right now!” and they moved in closer.

  My father looked at those seven hungry tigers, and then he had an idea. He quickly opened his knapsack and took out the chewing gum. The cat had told him that tigers were especially fond of chewing gum, which was very scarce on the island. So he threw them each a piece but they only growled, “As fond as we are of chewing gum, we’re sure we’d like you even better!” and they moved so close that he could feel them breathing on his face.

  “But this is very special chewing gum,” said my father. “If you keep on chewing it long enough it will turn green, and then if you plant it, it will grow more chewing gum, and the sooner you start chewing the sooner you’ll have more.”

  The tigers said, “Why, you don’t say! Isn’t that fine!” And as each one wanted to be the first to plant the chewing gum, they all unwrapped their pieces and began chewing as hard as they could. Every once in a while one tiger would look into another’s mouth and say, “Nope, it’s not done yet,” until finally they were all so busy looking into each other’s mouths to make sure that no one was getting ahead that they forgot all about my father.

  Chapter Six

  MY FATHER MEETS A RHINOCEROS

  My father soon found a trail leading away from the clearing. All sorts of animals might be using it too, but he decided to follow the trail no matter what he met because it might lead to the dragon. He kept a sharp lookout in front and behind and went on.

  Just as he was feeling quite safe, he came around a curve right behind the two wild boars. One of them was saying to the other, “Did you know that the tortoises thought they saw Monkey carrying his sick grandmother to the doctor’s last night? But Monkey’s grandmother died a week ago, so they must have seen something else. I wonder what it was.”

  “I told you that there was an invasion afoot,” said the other boar, “and I intend to find out what it is. I simply can’t stand invasions.”

  “Nee meither,” said a tiny little voice. “I mean, me neither,” and my father knew that the mouse was there, too.

  “Well,” said the first boar, “you search the trail up this way to the dragon. I’ll go back down the other way through the big clearing, and we’ll send Mouse to watch the Ocean Rocks in case the invasion should decide to go away before we find it.”

  My father hid behind a mahogany tree just in time, and the first boar walked right past him. My father waited for the other boar to get a head start on him, but he didn’t wait very long because he knew that when the first boar saw the tigers chewing gum in the clearing, he’d be even more suspicious.

  Soon the trail crossed a little brook and my father, who by this time was very thirsty, stopped to get a drink of water. He still had on his rubber boots, so he waded into a little pool of water a
nd was stooping down when something quite sharp picked him up by the seat of the pants and shook him very hard.

  “Don’t you know that’s my private weeping pool?” said a deep angry voice.

  My father couldn’t see who was talking because he was hanging in the air right over the pool, but he said, “Oh, no, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that everybody had a private weeping pool.”

  “Everybody doesn’t!” said the angry voice, “but I do because I have such a big thing to weep about, and I drown everybody I find using my weeping pool.” With that the animal tossed my father up and down over the water.

  “What—is it—that—you—weep about—so much?” asked my father, trying to get his breath, and he thought over all the things he had in his pack.

  “Oh, I have many things to weep about, but the biggest thing is the color of my tusk.” My father squirmed every which way trying to see the tusk, but it was through the seat of his pants where he couldn’t possibly see it. “When I was a young rhinoceros, my tusk was pearly white,” said the animal (and then my father knew that he was hanging by the seat of his pants from a rhinoceros’ tusk!), “but it has turned a nasty yellow-gray in my old age, and I find it very ugly. You see, everything else about me is ugly, but when I had a beautiful tusk I didn’t worry so much about the rest. Now that my tusk is ugly too, I can’t sleep nights just thinking about how completely ugly I am, and I weep all the time. But why should I be telling you these things? I caught you using my pool and now I’m going to drown you.”

  “Oh, wait a minute, Rhinoceros,” said my father. “I have some things that will make your tusk all white and beautiful again. Just let me down and I’ll give them to you.”

  The rhinoceros said, “You do? I can hardly believe it! Why, I’m so excited!” He put my father down and danced around in a circle while my father got out the tube of tooth paste and the toothbrush.

  “Now,” said my father, “just move your tusk a little nearer, please, and I’ll show you how to begin.” My father wet the brush in the pool, squeezed on a dab of tooth paste, and scrubbed very hard in one tiny spot. Then he told the rhinoceros to wash it off, and when the pool was calm again, he told the rhinoceros to look in the water and see how white the little spot was. It was hard to see in the dim light of the jungle, but sure enough, the spot shone pearly white, just like new. The rhinoceros was so pleased that he grabbed the toothbrush and began scrubbing violently, forgetting all about my father.

  Just then my father heard hoofsteps and he jumped behind the rhinoceros. It was the boar coming back from the big clearing where the tigers were chewing gum. The boar looked at the rhinoceros, and at the toothbrush, and at the tube of tooth paste, and then he scratched his ear on a tree. “Tell me, Rhinoceros,” he said, “where did you get that fine tube of tooth paste and that toothbrush?”

  “Too busy!” said the rhinoceros, and he went on brushing as hard as he could.

  The boar sniffed angrily and trotted down the trail toward the dragon, muttering to himself, “Very suspicious—tigers too busy chewing gum, Rhinoceros too busy brushing his tusk—must get hold of that invasion. Don’t like it one bit, not one bit! It’s upsetting everybody terribly—wonder what it’s doing here, anyway.”

  Chapter Seven

  MY FATHER MEETS A LION

  My father waved goodbye to the rhinoceros, who was much too busy to notice, got a drink farther down the brook, and waded back to the trail. He hadn’t gone very far when he heard an angry animal roaring,

  “Ding blast it! I told you not to go blackberrying yesterday. Won’t you ever learn? What will your mother say!”

  My father crept along and peered into a small clearing just ahead. A lion was prancing about clawing at his mane, which was all snarled and full of blackberry twigs. The more he clawed the worse it became and the madder he grew and the more he yelled at himself, because it was himself he was yelling at all the time.

  My father could see that the trail went through the clearing, so he decided to crawl around the edge in the underbrush and not disturb the lion.

  He crawled and crawled, and the yelling grew louder and louder. Just as he was about to reach the trail on the other side the yelling suddenly stopped. My father looked around and saw the lion glaring at him. The lion charged and skidded to a stop a few inches away.

  “Who are you?” the lion yelled at my father.

  “My name is Elmer Elevator.”

  “Where do you think you are going?”

  “I’m going home,” said my father.

  “That’s what you think!” said the lion. “Ordinarily I’d save you for afternoon tea, but I happen to be upset enough and hungry enough to eat you right now.” And he picked up my father in his front paws to feel how fat he was.

  My father said, “Oh, please, Lion, before you eat me, tell me why you are so particularly upset today.”

  “It’s my mane,” said the lion, as he was figuring how many bites a little boy would make. “You see what a dreadful mess it is, and I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. My mother is coming over on the dragon this afternoon, and if she sees me this way I’m afraid she’ll stop my allowance. She can’t stand messy manes! But I’m going to eat you now, so it won’t make any difference to you.”

  “Oh, wait a minute,” said my father, “and I’ll give you just the things you need to make your mane all tidy and beautiful. I have them here in my pack.”

  “You do?” said the lion. “Well, give them to me, and perhaps I’ll save you for afternoon tea after all,” and he put my father down on the ground.

  My father opened the pack and took out the comb and the brush and the seven hair ribbons of different colors. “Look,” he said, “I’ll show you what to do on your forelock, where you can watch me. First you brush a while, and then you comb, and then you brush again until all the twigs and snarls are gone. Then you divide it up in three and braid it like this and tie a ribbon around the end.”

  As my father was doing this, the lion watched very carefully and began to look much happier. When my father tied on the ribbon he was all smiles. “Oh, that’s wonderful, really wonderful!” said the lion. “Let me have the comb and brush and see if I can do it.” So my father gave him the comb and brush and the lion began busily grooming his mane. As a matter of fact, he was so busy that he didn’t even know when my father left.

  Chapter Eight

  MY FATHER MEETS A GORILLA

  My father was very hungry so he sat down under a baby banyan tree on the side of the trail and ate four tangerines. He wanted to eat eight or ten, but he had only thirteen left and it might be a long time before he could get more. He packed away all the peels and was about to get up when he heard the familiar voices of the boars.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes, but wait and see for yourself. All the tigers are sitting around chewing gum to beat the band. Old Rhinoceros is so busy brushing his tusk that he doesn’t even look around to see who’s going by, and they’re all so busy they won’t even talk to me!”

  “Horsefeathers!” said the other boar, now very close to my father. “They’ll talk to me! I’m going to get to the bottom of this if it’s the last thing I do!”

  The voices passed my father and went around a curve, and he hurried on because he knew how much more upset the boars would be when they saw the lion’s mane tied up in hair ribbons.

  Before long my father came to a crossroads and he stopped to read the signs. Straight ahead an arrow pointed to the Beginning of the River; to the left, the Ocean Rocks; and to the right, to the Dragon Ferry. My father was reading all these signs when he heard pawsteps and ducked behind the signpost. A beautiful lioness paraded past and turned down toward the clearings. Although she could have seen my father if she had bothered to glance at the post, she was much too occupied looking dignified to see anything but the tip of her own nose. It was the lion’s mother, of course, and that, thought my father, must mean that the dragon was o
n this side of the river. He hurried on but it was farther away than he had judged. He finally came to the river bank in the late afternoon and looked all around, but there was no dragon anywhere in sight. He must have gone back to the other side.

  My father sat down under the palm tree and was trying to have a good idea when something big and black and hairy jumped out of the tree and landed with a loud crash at his feet.

  “Well?” said a huge voice.

  “Well what?” said my father, for which he was very sorry when he looked up and discovered he was talking to an enormous and very fierce gorilla.

  “Well, explain yourself,” said the gorilla. “I’ll give you till ten to tell me your name, business, your age, and what’s in that pack,” and he began counting to ten as fast as he could.

  My father didn’t even have time to say “Elmer Elevator, explorer” before the gorilla interrupted, “Too slow! I’ll twist your arms the way I twist that dragon’s wings, and then we’ll see if you can’t hurry up a bit.” He grabbed my father’s arms, one in each fist, and was just about to twist them when he suddenly let go and began scratching his chest with both hands.

  “Blast those fleas!” he raged. “They won’t give you a moment’s peace, and the worst of it is that you can’t even get a good look at them. Rosie! Rhoda! Rachel! Ruthie! Ruby! Roberta! Come here and get rid of this flea on my chest. It’s driving me crazy!”

  Six little monkeys tumbled out of the palm tree, dashed to the gorilla, and began combing the hair on his chest.

  “Well,” said the gorilla, “it’s still there!”

  “We’re looking, we’re looking,” said the six little monkeys, “but they’re awfully hard to see, you know.”