Although the two opponents were very unevenly matched, the fight was exciting and not one-sided at all.
Little Peter fought with the ferocity of a tiger and looked remarkably confident, even though everyone had agreed beforehand that Sir Launcelot was supposed to win.
Galahad had won the previous Saturday.
With a strong thrust of his wooden sword, Peter knocked Billy Rose from his horse.
Billy Rose performed a spectacular fake fall and landed flat on his back, with his arms and legs sticking up in the air like a giant beetle that had been turned over onto its shell.
Peter was on him in an instant.
He drove his wooden sword into him, pulled it out, and wiped the imaginary blood from the blade on his sky-blue cape.
Billy Rose then performed an elaborate death scene, kicking and twisting in every direction. It delighted both the royal court and the watching crowd.
His death scene lasted a very long time.
Several minutes passed before Sir Galahad finally lay still enough for the victorious Sir Launcelot to place one foot on his fallen enemy and raise his sword in salute to the king.
King Arthur lifted his scepter.
“Go now into the forest and find the dragon that eats a maiden from our happy village every week!”
Sir Launcelot bowed and marched toward the thick trees of the woodlot.
Something strange and frightening happened just as chubby little Peter reached the first maple tree, the one that stood apart from the others and stretched out into the meadow.
A very black, heavy cloud suddenly moved across the sun.
It seemed to come from nowhere.
The sky had been clear and blue only a moment before.
A breeze sighed through the maple leaves and whispered through the thimbleberry bushes.
The meadow grew dark.
Peter tightened his grip on his sword.
He stared straight ahead.
Then he looked back.
The court, the crowd, his rival Sir Galahad, and the two dogs seemed to be miles and miles away.
They had become shadowy, blurry figures in the distance.
Peter suddenly felt completely alone in the great wide world.
And very small.
What chance did he have against the lion he had heard roaring in the thicket that frightening evening?
Then he remembered his sword.
He had always wanted to perform noble deeds.
Hadn’t he?
Wasn’t he jealous of Johnathan because Johnathan was a Boy Scout and did a good deed every day?
Killing a lion would certainly be a good deed, wouldn’t it?
Well, that was true only if the lion was actually about to eat someone.
If the lion was simply minding its own business, then killing it would be a different matter.
Peter looked ahead again.
Then he looked back.
“On With the Fight!”
King Arthur pointed his scepter toward the woodlot.
His voice sounded strangely distant, almost like a command coming from inside a dream.
“Do not stop, Sir Launcelot! Go and kill the dragon!”
“All right, King,” Peter answered in a tiny, trembling voice.
He took a few more steps.
He passed the first maple.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Now he was inside the woodlot, almost completely hidden from his companions.
How terribly quiet it was.
The wind had finished whispering through the thimbleberry bushes and had disappeared.
Not a single leaf moved.
Far away, Peter could hear water dripping from the spring.
He thought about the black cave.
He remembered what Johnathan had told him about the strange thing that lived somewhere beyond the first bend.
Peter stopped.
His heart was beating so loudly that he could hear it.
To give himself courage, he spoke aloud to himself in his familiar little lisp.
“Go on, Peter Baxter. Don’t be scared. Don’t you know there aren’t any more dwagons? There aren’t any dwagons anywhere in the whole, whole world. They’re all dead.”
But even as he said the words, Peter wasn’t sure they were true.
If pixies existed, then dragons could exist too.
Why should all the dragons be dead?
People were still alive, so why should dragons have disappeared?
To little Peter, dragons seemed far more important than people.
Yes.
Somehow, somewhere, dragons must still be alive.
And there was no reason why one couldn’t be living in this dark woodlot, right alongside the lion and the pixies.
Peter cautiously followed the twisting path toward the spring.
Before long, he had safely passed the thimbleberry thicket.
That was a relief.
Nothing had disturbed the silence except Jerry, the Airedale, barking somewhere behind him.
That was actually comforting.
Still, Peter couldn’t understand why Jerry and Nap hadn’t followed him.
They usually did.
That was very strange.
And now he saw the spring.
There was the dripping shelf of stones and black earth hanging over the water, all held together by countless tiny roots.
And just beyond the shelf was the entrance to the cave.
Peter planted his short, sturdy legs in front of the black opening.
He swallowed once.
Then twice.
He gathered all the courage he could find.
In a squeaky little lisp that was supposed to sound like a deep, terrifying growl, he shouted,
“Come forth, Dwagon!”
He gripped his wooden sword tightly.
Nothing happened.
Peter tried again.
“Come forth, Dwagon!”
Still nothing.
Feeling a little braver now, Peter stepped closer to the mouth of the cave.
He thrust his wooden sword into the darkness.
Then, making his voice as deep and fierce as he could, he cried for the third time,
“Come forth, Dwagon!”
A long, drawn-out hissing sound came from inside the cave.
Peter jumped backward.
The hissing slowly faded away.
What was wrong with him?
His imagination was playing tricks on him.
He hadn’t really heard a hissing sound.
He hadn’t really heard anything at all.
Well, he had done his duty.
He had called the dragon three times, and nothing had happened.
He would go back to the court and tell the king what had happened.
Peter turned around.
Then, from deep inside the cave, came a long, deep sigh.
Then a yawn.
Then another deep sigh.
Before Peter even had time to think, that enormous sigh ended in the most delightful little chuckle.
Two fiery eyes suddenly appeared in the darkness.
Peter froze.
A long green nose slowly pushed out of the cave.
Then came a broad, lazy smile.
The eyes emerged into the daylight.
The fiery glow disappeared from them.
They were a soft, pale blue, as blue as the sky.
They looked as though they had only just opened after a long, deep, dreamless sleep.
“Did you call me, little boy?” the dragon asked.
More and more of him slowly oozed out of the cave.
He was enormous.
And he was bright green, almost exactly the color of the meadow grass.
“Y-yes, sir. I did,” Peter gasped.
“But—but I didn’t think—”
The dragon continued smiling at him.
He smiled so sweetly that tears began to gather in his pale blue eyes.
“You didn’t think dragons were still alive,” he said with a sigh.
He stretched out his enormous golden claws like a sleepy cat.
“And you’re almost right.”
The dragon paused.
“I am the last dragon in the whole world.”
Two enormous tears, each as large as a cup of clear water, rolled from his eyes and fell to the ground.