The Return of the Dragon Read Free Page B

Emily said stubbornly. “Besides, he scared me.”
    The dragon slowly shook its head and made a tutting sound.
    “It seems to me,” it said judiciously, “that this person — these persons — are nothing to worry about. We should give them the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proven guilty, you know. Doubtless they will shortly realize that this is a private island and will then depart. The situation will resolve itself.”
    “But what if they don’t?” Sarah Emily asked. “Depart, I mean.”
    “Humans,” the dragon said loftily, “waste inordinate amounts of time worrying about things that never happen and dangers that aren’t really there.”
    “But the man
is
there,” Sarah Emily protested. “And all those tents and things —”
    Hannah put a restraining hand on her arm. “I don’t think that’s what Fafnyr means,” she said. “He means you’re imagining that the man on the boat is dangerous when he might not be at all. It’s a little like Mrs. Bernini, remember?”
    “Mrs. Bernini?” the dragon repeated.
    Sarah Emily nodded. “She lives in a funny little house at the end of our street back home,” she told the dragon. “I used to be really scared of her. She always wore black dresses and her yard was all tangly and full of weeds. I thought she was a witch. But she wasn’t at all. Once we got to know her, she was really nice.”
    “She makes peanut brittle,” Zachary said.
    “Precisely,” said the dragon. “Precisely, my dear. You worried foolishly about something that was never there. And what
was
there?”
    It waved a triumphant claw.
    “Peanut brittle,” it said.
    Zachary shuffled his feet restlessly. “But it never hurts to be careful,” he said. “We promised Aunt Mehitabel to keep the Resting Place secret and safe.”
    The dragon gave a little sigh. “This all reminds me . . .” it said. It wriggled its wings and settled itself more comfortably on the cave floor.
    “Perhaps,” it said diffidently, “you would like to hear a story? It may help put your fears at rest.”
    “We’d love to,” said Hannah.
    “We’ve missed your stories,” said Sarah Emily.
    The children sat down on the cave’s stone floor, snugly warmed by the dragon’s inner fire, and leaned back against Fafnyr’s golden tail. As the dragon began to speak, the cave walls seemed to shimmer and fade. There was a scent of dust and sun-warmed leaves — a foreign smell with a tang of licorice and lemon — and the twittering sounds of bird song and the
baa
-ing of sheep. The children, transported by the dragon’s voice, found themselves swept into another place and time, seeing the world through someone else’s eyes.

“Niko,” the dragon began, “was a shepherd boy. He lived long ago in the rocky hills of Greece, in the days when poets sang songs about gods and wars, and the great city of Athens, with its marble temples and crowded marketplace, seemed to be the very center of the world. Niko did not live in the city, though. He lived in a cottage in a little village, with his mother and father and his younger sister, Daphne. Around their cottage grew olive and lemon trees. Niko’s father fished in the sea and brought home a good catch every night, while Niko tended the family’s little flock of sheep, which wandered every day on the mountainside. But then one day trouble came to the village. . . .”
    Niko, perched on a rock overlooking his flock of nine sheep and four new lambs, was worried. It was a beautiful day, warm and lazy, the sort of day that Niko usually liked to spend napping in the sun or sitting in the shade of the trees, daydreaming of all the things he’d like to do or be. Perhaps someday he would be the captain of a swift red-sailed ship, traveling to strange and distant lands and coming home laden with gold and silver and jewels. Or a great warrior in a glittering helmet topped with dyed horsetails, setting off to battle the Persians. Or best of all, a brilliant philosopher