Tiny Dragons 1: The Sky Dragons

On a warm day in Brumbleton, with the sun high in the air and a light breeze gently swaying the maple tree branches in her backyard, Alana O'Neil folded her hands under her chin and sighed. She watched her big brother James through the sliding glass doors in her kitchen. He was bouncing up and down on the trampoline in their backyard, waving and smiling with every bounce, laughing at her because he was allowed outside to play, and she was not.

Alana sighed again. Just past the trampoline
was an old shed filled with tools and yard equipment and a broken lawn mower, and past that shed, a field covered in white flowers that ran all the way to the tall, thick trees of Brumbleton Woods. The woods were thick as a forest and the home of all sorts of wildlife. Deer could often be seen grazing in the field and it seemed like hundreds of foxes and squirrels and badgers spent their days running in and out from between the trees.

The back
yard had more to offer than just the trampoline. There was a jungle gym with monkey bars that begged to be climbed on, a sliding board glistening in the sunlight that simply needed to be slid down. Scattered soccer balls, and hula-hoops, a scooter with tassels and a horn, and several water guns, all within in a few feet of the closed sliding doors, but to Alana, they might as well have been in another state. Or even another country.

The obstacle to Alana going outside
, and the key to her freedom, was sitting directly in front of her. Right there on the kitchen table, a massive bowl of steamed broccoli. The most awful food in existence.

"
Alana, did you eat the rest of your dinner yet?" her mother called down from upstairs.

Alana
half-heartedly stabbed the nearest bushy green stalk with her fork and sighed again. She'd eaten broccoli just last week and it had been a terrible thing. Today, she'd had to pinch her nose and close her eyes and think of pizza in order to eat just one. Now, there were at least five more small trees left in her bowl and her mother refused to let her up from the table until they were all gone.

"H
ey, Alana!" James shouted from the backyard as he bounced his highest bounce yet and kicked both his legs wide in the air. "Aren't you done yet?"

Alana
grumbled and grunted as she picked up the broccoli with her fork and made ready to pinch her nose. It was going to be a very long evening.

Even
Mister Six, the family's sleek gray cat, was having a better time than she was. Mister Six was curled up on the top of the sofa, stretching out his long legs and licking them until all his fur stood straight up. The cat purred as he looked at Alana, hoping she'd pet him, but Alana just frowned at him and said, "I wish you were a dog. Then you'd eat my broccoli for me."

Mister Six ignored her and just kept right on licking.

Finally she
was finished eating and showed her mother the empty bowl. Alana raced to the kitchen doors and yanked them open, her bright smile greeting the open air, only to see James climbing down from the trampoline and getting ready to go back inside. "I'm beat from all that bouncing," he said, wiping his forehead with his hand. "Do you want to play some video games?"

James was
almost a teenager. He was twice Alana's age and twice as tall as her, and ever since Father had left, he had a bad habit of thinking he was the man of the house. Worst of all, their mother had recently started letting James babysit Alana for short periods of time. Lately, it seemed that whenever Mrs. O'Neil had to run to the supermarket or the post office, James was left in charge. That was when he said things like, "You better do what I say," or "You can't have that" the most. Alana's usual response was to stick her tongue out at him and do what she wanted anyway.

"Stay out here with me," Alana said.

"I can't, I'm hot and thirsty," James said. "Are you coming in?"

Alana ignored him and climbed onto the trampoline, bouncing as high as she could, showing him how much fun it would be. James
shrugged, said, "Suit yourself," and vanished back inside the kitchen.

Alana
jumped down from the trampoline and tried kicking a soccer ball against the shed and sliding down the slide, but it just wasn't as much fun without someone else to do all those things with. She decided she might as well go inside and play video games after all. Alana gave the soccer ball another kick, but it missed the shed and rolled into the tall grass out of view.

"Aw, nuts," Alana mumbled as she headed off to retrieve the ball. Much to her surprise, the ball suddenly came rushing back out of the grass and rolled under the trampoline.

Alana put her hands on her hips and smirked at the ball. She knew exactly what was going on. James was always playing these kinds of pranks on her. It would be just like him to have snuck out the front door, come around the side of the house, hidden behind the shed, and then try to leap out of the grass and scare her.

"Nice try, big brother,"
Alana whispered, deciding that this time, she was going to get him instead.

Alana
crouched low and crept on her tippy-toes around the corner of the shed, grinning with anticipation at turning the tables on her big brother and getting him to be the one that yelled in surprise this time. She pressed herself against the shed's door and took a deep breath, then jumped around the corner and shouted, "I got you!"

A shining black lizard
-thing as big as Alana shot its head up from the grass in fright and cried out. The creature's wings expanded from its side wider than its body, wobbling backwards as it reared up on its hind legs, trying to balance.

Alana opened her mouth to
holler in surprise at the sight of the thing, but almost as soon as it was up on its back legs, it toppled out of sight into the grass with a loud grunt. Alana heard the creature moan, "Ouch."

"Are you okay?" Alana said. She inched forward to get a better look at the creature and saw its
smooth, shining, black skin that glistened like her mother's car after they washed and waxed it.

It was no bigger than a dog, really
, and as Alana made her way toward the front of the creature's face, now buried in fright under its wings, she realized it wasn't a lizard at all. It was actually a tiny dragon.

A field of shining stars covered the dragon's
wings, sparkling in the sunlight as the creature covered himself and tried to hide. "I can't believe it," Alana whispered, staring at him in astonishment. "You're a real dragon!"

"I can't believe it
either," the dragon muttered. "You're a h-h-human." The dragon was shivering under its wings and said, "Please don't eat me. Don't turn me into a rug or a pair of shoes, and most of all, please, I beg you, please don't make me go to that horrible place!"

Alana
saw the dragon was terrified and instantly felt sorry for scaring him. She bent down to him and said, "Of course, I'm not going to hurt you. What horrible place are you talking about?"

"Your r-r-room!" the dragon groaned.

"My room?" Alana said in confusion. "What's wrong with my room?"

"Every dragon knows that when a human child gets in trouble their parents threaten to send them to
their room
." The dragon's whole body shuddered at the mention of the words.

Alana shook her head
and laughed, "That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. Here, look at me."

The dragon
slowly uncovered his eyes and looked up at Alana. He had bright green eyes the color of emeralds with wide, thick eyelashes. "Okay," he whispered.

"Don't you have a room in your house?" Alana said.

"My
house?
" he said.

"Your house. Where you live with your family?"

"You mean my cave?" the dragon said.

"That must be it," Alana said.
"Do you live with your family in a cave?"

"No," the dragon said. "I live with the other dragons there. My parents are away right now."

"Oh," Alana said. The dragon's sad tone made her have to think very hard of something nice to say about it, and she decided to say, "It must be interesting to live with other dragons."

At that moment, the
porch door to Alana's house slid open and her mother called out, "Alana? Where are you?"

"Oh no," the dragon whispered. He flattened himself against the ground and
started to shiver.

"What's wrong?" Alana said. "My mother won't hurt you."

"She can't see me!" the dragon said. "You have to hide me!"

Alana could hear her mother coming down the porch steps as she called for her again. "Alana? Are you hiding?"

Mrs. O'Neil was only a few feet away from the shed, and Alana had to think quickly. She ran out from the tall grass and leaped in front of her mother and shouted, "Boo!"

M
rs. O'Neil laughed and said, "You got me! All right, it's getting late. Now I need you to come inside and take your bath before bed."

Bath time? Alana thought with dread. Baths were the only known thing in the whole world that were worse than broccoli, but as she glanced over her shoulder she saw that the dragon was slowly backing away in the tall grass, trying to make his escape. Alana took a deep breath and said, "Sounds good, Mommy."

"It does?" Mrs. O'Neil said with a crooked smile. She playfully put her hand to Alana's forehead and said, "Are you feeling all right?"

Alana nodded and said, "I left my soccer ball back there. I'll go get it and come right in." She ran behind the shed and waited until
Mrs. O'Neil was safely back up on the porch before she whispered, "Mr. Dragon?"

"Over here," the dragon whispered back. "And my name's Star. I'm
a Sky Dragon."

Alana looked back to see her mother standing in the yard waiting for her. "Are there other kinds of dragons?"

"Sure. There's water dragons, fire dragons, earth dragons. Gold dragons. There's even black dragons but no one's seen them for a hundred years."

"Wow," Alana said, looking at him. His skin was black, and covered in light blue shapes that decorated his back and trunk, and she said, "But aren't you a black dragon?"

Star laughed with embarrassment and said, "Me? Of course not. I'm black with blue squiggles. Anyway, real black dragons can do things no other dragon can do, and I'm just normal."

"Alana?
Let's go," her mother called from the porch.

"Shoot," Alana said. "I have to go
take a bath. Will you be here tomorrow?"

Star looked up at her for a moment, quietly wondering whether or not it was safe to trust the small human child, but then his snout wrinkled up into a smile and he said, "
I'll try."

Just before she left, Alana wrapped her arms around the dragon's short neck and
hugged him tightly. "I'll see you tomorrow!" she said.

Chapter 2: The Sorcerer and His Assistant

Alana barely slept that night, and when she did, she dreamed of a thousand dragons filling the sky, all of them offering to swoop down and pick her up and carry her wherever she wanted to go. The dreams were so real that when she woke up, she looked around her room and was surprised to be there instead of sitting on the peak of some distant mountain, or circling high above the oceans of another continent.

"Alana, it's time to get up and go to school," her mother said
, flicking the light on in the hallway outside of her bedroom.

Alana loved school, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and it seemed
unthinkable to go to anywhere else when there was something as fantastic as a dragon in her back yard. "Mommy?" Alana called out in her weakest voice. "I don't think I can go to school today."

"
Are you sick?" her mother said. She came into the bedroom with a look of concern as she looked down at her little girl. Alana's mother had fine, chestnut hair that she always wore pulled back in a long ponytail. She was tall and graceful and always sat like a lady and did not need to be reminded to wash her hands or brush her teeth or not to punch boys who made faces at her. Her fingernails were long and clean and perfectly painted and she loved to wear flowery dresses that twirled when she turned.

Alana's nails were short because she always got
them dirty and she couldn't sit still long enough to get them painted. And she hated dresses. She hated dresses worse than baths or broccoli.

Mrs. O'Neil
sat down on Alana's bed and pressed her hand against the little girl's face. "You don't feel warm, honey."

Alana
frowned, trying to think of any excuse in the world that didn't include the word
dragons.
"I don't have a fever," Alana admitted.

Mrs. O'Neil
lifted Alana's pajama shirt and put her fingers on her daughter's stomach. "Is it your stomach? Does it hurt when I touch it?"

"No."

"Do you feel like you're going to be sick?"

"No."

"Does your head hurt?"

"No."

"Hmm," her mother said. She looked at Alana with one eyebrow raised, the way she always did when she was figuring something out. Finally, Mrs. O'Neil said, "Alana, do you want to stay home from school because you don't feel well or just because you don't want to go to school?"

"I just don't," Alana said.

"But honey, you love school. Your teacher, your friends. You have library and music class today."

"All right," Alana sighed. She got up from her bed and pulled off her pajamas, waiting for
Mrs. O'Neil to pick out her outfit for the day. Alana's bedroom window looked out over the backyard and she stood there for a minute, staring at the woods, wondering if her friend would actually return.

By the time Alana came downstairs for breakfast,
there were two bowls of cereal sitting on the table and James was grinning slyly at her. "You told Mom you wanted to stay home just because you
felt
like it?" he said.

"Yeah. It didn't work."

"No kidding. Why didn't you just say you were sick?"

Alana's face contorted, "Because that would
be a lie."

James shrugged and sunk his spoon into his bowl, "You'll never pull it off just saying you want to stay home. The easiest thing to fake is a stomach ache. You should try that one. Don't say you have a fever or she'll stick a thermometer in your mouth. They're scientific. You can't fool them."

"I'm not faking anything," Alana said defensively. Her cereal was getting soggy and starting to sink under the surface of the milk.

"Why did you want to stay home today anyway?"

Alana shrugged and concentrated on eating, trying to ignore her older brother's quizzical look.

"Come on," he said. "You can tell me."

"I just wanted to, okay?" she snapped.

"I'm gonna find out, you know," he said. "So you might as well tell me now."

Alana took a bite of her mushy cereal and shrugged. If she were going to tell anyone about the dragons, it would probably be James, but she wasn't ready to yet. It was too soon. Plus, she liked the idea of it being her discovery, and hers alone. "I just thought it would be fun," she finally said.

"It's really not," James said knowingly. "When I was a kid like you I thought the same thing, but it gets really boring, really fast."

That day in school she paid little attention to what was going on in class. The teacher spoke, but all Alana could do was draw pictures of dragons with stars on their wings. She leaned close to the page to get the stars pointed just right when she realized the classroom had fallen silent and when she looked up, everyone was staring at her.

"Alana? Are you going to answer the question?" the teacher said.

Alana quickly slid her drawing under her
folder as every child in the class was turned in their seats, eagerly waiting for her to give her answer. Alana swallowed and took a deep breath, her mind racing with what to say. She didn't even know what subject they were on. Was it math? she thought. It was probably math. She folded her hands on the desk and calmly said, "I believe the number is…three."

All of the children
immediately turned back in their seats to look at the teacher, waiting for the verdict on Alana's completely made-up answer. Even the teacher looked slightly confused as she slowly nodded and said, "Actually, that is correct. I hadn't thought you were paying attention, Alana. So, yes, in fact, there are Three Musketeers. Who can name them?"

The teacher's voice trailed off once more as Alana slid her drawing back out on the desk and started working on the stars once more, trying to get them exactly right.

By the time school let out, Alana was positively bursting with excitement to get home and look for her new friend. She
whipped her schoolbag across her shoulders and ran out of the classroom, running right past James as he stood waiting for her in the hallway. "Hey, where you going, kid?"

"I gotta get home fast," she called out over her shoulder.

James started to run behind her, needing to hurry to catch up, "I thought you said you felt fine. Is your stomach hurting you?"

Alana ignored her brother and kept running all the way into the playground
, racing toward where her mother stood waiting for them. "Were you two having a race?" Mrs. O'Neil said.

"No," Alana huffed
.

"Okay,
you just felt like running?" Mrs. O'Neil said. "Who wants to stop for water ice on the way?"

"Me!" James shouted
, coming up behind them.

"Not me," Alana said as she climbed into the backseat of the car.

Mrs. O'Neil and James both got into the front seats and Mrs. O'Neil adjusted the rearview mirror to look at Alana. "Honey, are you feeling all right? You're making me nervous."

"
I'm fine. I just don't want water ice!" Alana said sharply. "Can't a person just want to get home without everybody thinking she's got a mythical creature in her back yard or something?"

Both her brother and mother turned around in their seats and looked at her with strange expressions. "
What kind of mythical creature, dear?" Mrs. O'Neil said with a soft, patient smile.

"Nothing," Alana pouted. "It was just something I said."

Mrs. O'Neil kept looking at Alana, about to say something else, but James interrupted and said, "Aren't you a little old to have imaginary friends?"

Luckily, when they got home,
James had a ton of homework to do and Alana had very little. She made quick work of her math assignment and hurried up the stairs to her mother's bedroom, about to knock on the door when she saw Mother sitting at her desk, holding a picture of Daniel, her father. "Mommy?" Alana said.

Mrs. O'Neil
quickly put the picture back on the desk and said, "Yes, honey. What do you need?"

Alana showed her the paper and said,
"Can you check this please?"

"Of course," Mother said. She looked down at the answers and nodded several times as she scanned the page until she finally said, "It all looks right.
It's a little sloppy though. Did you rush?"

"A little," she said.

"To go see your friend in the back yard?" Mother said.

Alana's eyebrows raised in surprise, trying to figure out what she could say, but Mother winked at her and said, "I had imaginary friends when I was your age too.
Go ahead and play. I'll call you in before dinner."

Alana looked at the photograph of her father, his handsome face covered in soft stubble, smiling at her from behind the glass frame. She wanted to say something else, but
Mrs. O'Neil kissed her on the top of her head and said, "Go ahead, honey. Enjoy yourself."

Alana
bolted down the stairs and ran for the kitchen sliding doors. She yanked them open and then shut them again and raced past the trampoline and jungle gym and quickly turned the corner behind the shed, only to see…nothing.

No dragon. Nothing but tall grass.

She looked every which way for Star, but did not see the small, black creature anywhere. She was about to call out to him when an angry sounding man said, "Where in the deuces is that blasted dragon?"

Alana ducked down behind the shed and
peeked over the grass in time to see two men walking along the edge of the woods, looking up into the branches of the trees all around them. The first one, the one who'd spoken, was dressed in a tattered black robe, a strange man with a sharply bent nose topped off with a large gray wart on the tip of it. He had shiny silver hair and a pointed beard, with little ears that looked to Alana like bite-sized pretzels. His voice was high-pitched and nasal when he whined, "I thought you told me it was out here yesterday, you buffoon!"

T
he second man was short and round, with puffy, red cheeks and a small, button nose. He was wearing a dirty shirt that looked like something an old servant in a castle might wear. In fact, Alana thought, they both looked like they were dressed up to play some game. They certainly weren't wearing anything she'd ever seen before. "Um, I thought I did see him, boss," the second one said. His voice was cartoonish, like he was pretending to be a dimwit, but from the confused look on his face and slightly crossed eyes, Alana wondered if it wasn't all too real. "And I remember it was right here, because there was lots of trees."

"A lot of trees?" the angry man said.

"Yeah, and they was all green."

The
silver-haired one in the robe clapped his hand to his forehead and shouted, "This is a forest, you nincompoop! There are green trees everywhere! Why do I insist on keeping you around in the first place? Why have I not simply changed you into a frog, Herman. Or a housecat? At least then you could catch mice and do something useful around the castle!"

"
Um, but I'm allergic to kitty cats, boss," Herman said.

"
Well, you wouldn't be if you were one, now would you?"

"
But how do you know?"

"Because you can't be allergic to yourself!"

"But I wouldn't be myself if I was a kitty cat. And if there's one thing you don't like, it's sneezes." Herman held up his chubby fingers and counted on them as he spoke, "You don't like sneezes, questions, popcorn, and oh, you don't like children. Did I miss any?"

"
Dragons, Herman," the angry man said with a sneer. "I most certainly do not like dragons."

"Right, boss," Herman said. "I forgot about
the dragons. Dragons is the worst."

"Let's go," the tall man said. "You may add forests to the list of things I do not like, Herman. Put forests between questions and popcorn."

Herman looked down at his chubby fingers and tried to figure out how to move one from the other, but rather than angering the other man, he just nodded and said, "Okay."

Alana watched the two men
turn around and disappear into the woods, still talking to each other. She waited until they were far enough away before she finally stood up and sighed with relief. A tiny voice spoke from not-too-far-away in the grass and said, "A-Are they gone?"

Star
was stretched out flat on his belly, covering his face with his wings. "Yes, they're all gone," Alana said. "Who was that horrible man who was being so mean to his friend?"

"That was Prospero the Sorcerer," Star said.

"Sorcerer?" Alana whispered. "You mean, he's like a wizard? Can he do magic?"

"Not by himself," Star said. "He needs special ingredients to make potions that give him powers."

"What kind of ingredients?" Alana said nervously, because she was afraid she already knew the answer.

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