On the way to the tent, Peter kept talking to himself.
“What if she really is the same princess? What if she’s the dragon’s princess?”
“What will I do then?”
“I’m glad I have my sword, but I don’t want to hurt that little old man. It wouldn’t be right to hurt someone so small—he’s not even as big as I am.”
“I wonder who he is.”
“And how did he find the princess?”
“He must have stolen her from Dallahan, the Irish dragon!”
Thinking about all this, Peter finally reached the bright scarlet tent.
The little man with the long braided beard was still there, rubbing his hands together. The sound was just like sandpaper scraping over wood.
“How would you like to see—” the little man began in a whisper.
Then he recognized Peter.
“Well! Did you find a golden ducat?”
“Yes,” said Peter.
He tried to make his voice sound deep and rough, although it trembled with excitement. He held up the gold coin between his thumb and forefinger.
“Give it to me!” squealed the little man.
He held out his hand, palm upward, while his bright eyes seemed to shoot sparks.
“Let me into the tent first,” Peter said.
The little man looked deeply offended.
“Oh, very well! If you don’t trust me!”
He stood up, wrapped his moldy green cloak around himself, and stuck his head through the tent opening.
“Come along.”
Peter followed him inside, keeping one hand on the hilt of his sword.
The sunlight shining through the canvas turned deep red, almost like blood. The grass inside the tent looked red too, and even the strange little man seemed to have been painted the color of blood.
Peter looked around carefully.
Where was the princess?
There were only two large blue boxes, both exactly the same size. Each had a golden lock.
In one corner stood several red sacks about the size of flour sacks. They were stuffed so full that they bulged out like giant round balls.
But there was no princess.
Peter tightened his grip on the golden coin.
The old man wasn’t going to trick him into paying for nothing.
Absolutely not.
The little man stopped beside the two blue boxes and held out his hand again.
“The ducat,” he croaked. “Then you may see her.”
“No.”
Peter shook his curly head.
“Show me the princess first.”
“But then you won’t pay me!” whined the stranger. “I need the money terribly. My wife has the measles, and my children have the mumps.”
Tears rolled from his eyes and ran down through his long beard.
Peter wasn’t fooled.
He didn’t believe a word about the measles or the mumps.
Finally, the little man had no choice but to call out sharply.
“Riggy!”
Someone came shuffling through a hole in the back of the tent.
Riggy was a very sad-looking boy. He had long, thin legs, long arms that hung almost to his knees, and yellow hair as bright as a buttercup. A little of that yellow hair was spread across his cheeks and chin like butter.
He looked almost as sad as the dragon had looked when Peter first saw him far away in the woodlot.
“Yes, sir?” Riggy said meekly.
He glanced at Peter with admiration.
Deep inside, the poor servant boy dreamed of becoming a knight himself and wearing shining armor.
“Help me lift up the princess,” snarled the little old man.
“And be careful this time, or I’ll tweak your nose and box your ears!”
Riggy and the little man each took hold of a corner of one of the blue boxes.
Together they lifted it upright.
Then the little man turned to Peter.
“Sit down on the ground.”
Peter sat.
“Now count to ten. Then add six. Then subtract six.”
Peter did exactly as he was told.
He had no idea why it mattered.
When he finished, the box was unlocked.
The little man opened it.
And there stood the most beautiful girl Peter had ever seen.
Of course, she wasn’t as beautiful as Peter’s mother.
Nobody could ever be as beautiful as his mother.
But she was certainly the next most beautiful person Peter had ever seen.
Her long golden hair fell all the way down over a red robe covered with magical moonstones.
The robe alone convinced Peter that this must be the dragon’s princess.
She stood perfectly straight with her enchanted eyes closed.
Still, Peter wanted to make absolutely sure.
“Show me her toes.”
The princess’s feet were hidden beneath tiny red slippers.
The little man held out his hand again.
“The golden ducat.”
“No,” said Peter.
“I’ll pay you after I see her real silver toes.”
The old man had no choice.
Slowly, he uncovered the princess’s feet.
And there they were.
Her toes were bright silver, shining like the finest knives, forks, and teaspoons.
Peter stared at them.
Now he knew for certain.
This was the princess.
But what should he do?
Should he accuse the little man?
Should he pretend everything was normal and wait for the right moment?
Or should he draw his sword, kill the little magician, and run away with the princess?
No.
He couldn’t do that.
The strange old man was so tiny.
Peter decided the wisest thing was to stay calm and wait.
“Well?” the little man demanded.
He showed his yellow teeth, looking like an ugly water rat.
“Have you seen enough?”
“If you have, give me the golden ducat. I want to go to bed.”
“Go to bed?” Peter asked.
“But it’s daytime.”
“I always sleep during the day,” the little man snarled.
“Stop poking your silly little nose into my business!”
“Give me the money and get out!”
He bent down to put the red slippers back on the princess’s feet.
Because he was looking down, he didn’t notice what happened behind him.
The princess slowly opened her eyes.
She looked straight at Peter.
Her face held the saddest expression he had ever seen.
She couldn’t seem to speak.
But Peter somehow heard her in his heart.
“Peter… Peter… help me.”
“Help me get away.”
Then her eyes closed again.
Her face became as pale as a white jasmine flower.
Peter looked at Riggy.
Riggy looked at Peter.
They understood each other immediately.
Peter handed the golden ducat to the old man.
The little man snatched it greedily and examined it carefully before hiding it somewhere inside the moldy folds of his green cloak.
Then he bowed Peter out of the tent while muttering strange words under his breath.
Peter walked up and down outside the tent.
He couldn’t stop thinking.
Finally, the old man shouted from inside.
“Stop pacing back and forth! Go away! I’m trying to sleep!”
“I’m sorry,” Peter called.
He walked away down the street of tents.
When he reached the very end, he stopped beside a sky-blue canvas tent.
The canvas shook.
A round yellow head suddenly popped out.
It was Riggy.
He pressed one long finger against his wide mouth.
“Shh!”
Then he pulled Peter behind the blue canvas.
Riggy had a terrible stutter.
I’m not going to write his stutter down every time he spoke, because stutters are easily embarrassed, and writing every little hesitation would take a whole page just to say yes or no.
So you’ll have to imagine the stutter yourself whenever you think it belongs.
“Oh, brave and noble knight!” Riggy cried.
He dropped down onto his sharp knees before Peter and grabbed his hand.
“You must do a noble deed today!”
“You must help me!”
Peter had never felt so manly, excited, and brave in his entire life.
Wouldn’t Johnathan be impressed when Peter told him about this good deed?
“I’ll do my very best to help you, Riggy,” Peter said.
“But first, tell me about that strange old man.”
“His name is Mig,” Riggy stammered.
“He’s a magic magician.”
“And all his brothers and sisters and cousins are magicians too.”
“I don’t need his whole family history,” Peter said.
“How did he get the princess?”
Riggy looked carefully around them.
Then he leaned closer and whispered.
“That is exactly what I want to tell you.”
“His old aunt, Aunt Thissy, the witch of the forest, enchanted the Princess Silver Toes first.”
“After Thissy was killed, a cave dragon found the enchanted princess and kept her in his cave.”
“Then Dallahan, the Irish dragon, stole her.”
“The cave dragon had left her alone because he had gone wandering into the future.”
“But how did Mig get her?” Peter asked impatiently.
“Give me a moment,” Riggy begged.
“The more excited I get, the worse my stuttering becomes.”
“You see, Mig is one of the worst kinds of misers.”
“All he cares about is gold.”
“Gold, gold, gold!”
“Those sacks you saw in the tent are filled with gold.”
“And in his home at the top of the world, he has enormous underground cellars filled with gold.”
“So Mig knew that if he owned the princess, with her enchantment and her silver toes, he could make even more gold.”
“He came up with a plan.”
“He knew he couldn’t fight Dallahan because the Irish dragon is much too big and powerful.”
“So he waited for the new moon.”
“Why?” Peter asked breathlessly.
“Because during the new moon, the Irish dragon changes into a huge black spider.”
“Why?”
“Because he can’t help it.”
“It’s just the way he was made.”
“Snakes can’t help shedding their skins.”
“Green worms can’t help changing into butterflies.”
“Tadpoles can’t help becoming frogs.”
“Dallahan has to change too.”
“Mig knew this, so he waited for his chance.”
“And then he captured him!” Peter exclaimed.
“Yes!”
“He caught Dallahan and put him inside a box.”
“Then he nailed the box shut.”
“When Dallahan changed back into a dragon, he grew as large as the box allowed him to grow.”
“But the box was too small.”
“So now he can’t grow any bigger.”
“He’s still trapped inside.”
“The poor fellow must be terribly cramped,” Peter said.
“Cramped isn’t even the word for it,” Riggy replied.
“He’s completely miserable.”
“I can hear him groaning at night.”
“He’s packed in so tightly that if the lid of the box were ever lifted, he’d shoot out like a spring from a clock.”
“And Mig took the princess too?”
“Yes.”
“He took her and has been displaying her at fairs and carnivals ever since.”
“Now this is where you must help, Sir Knight.”
“You saw the princess open her eyes a little while ago, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Peter said.
“She looked so sad.”
“She is dying from a broken heart,” Riggy said tearfully.
“You have to save her!”
“H-how?” Peter asked.
He swallowed with difficulty.
Riggy rubbed his chin.
“Well, that’s for you to figure out.”
“I’m not very good at figuring out things like that.”
“You can do it much better than I can.”
“Oh, but this is such a difficult problem,” Peter said.
“Have you ever killed a dragon?” Riggy asked.
“N-no,” Peter admitted.
“I… I never have.”
“A knight in beautiful armor who has never killed a dragon?”
Riggy looked genuinely disappointed.
“That’s strange.”
“I thought you must have killed dozens of them.”
“Your armor has so many dents.”
Peter didn’t want to explain that most of those dents had come from falling down.
So he simply said:
“N-no.”
“Are you an English knight?” Riggy asked.
“N-no.”
“A French knight?”
“No.”
“Then what kind of knight are you?”
“An American knight.”
“An American knight?”
“I’ve never heard of one.”
“Well, it’s a great country somewhere up the road,” Peter explained awkwardly.
“But let’s not talk about that.”
“We need to think very hard about the princess.”
“All right,” Riggy agreed.
But before he could say anything else, a sharp voice rang out.
“Riggy!”
“Riggy!”
Riggy jumped.
His face turned pale.
“That’s Mig calling me!” he whispered.
He was trembling so badly that his bony knees knocked together like drumsticks.
“He wants me to put him to bed.”
“Put an old man to bed?” Peter asked in disgust.
“Can’t he do that himself?”
“Oh, yes.”
“But he’s too lazy to put on his own nightcap or heat his own hot-water bottle.”
“Riggy!”
“Where are you?”
Mig’s voice grew louder.
“Come here, you scamp, or I’ll tweak your nose and box your ears!”
“Oh, dear me!” Riggy cried.
He hurried toward the scarlet tent.
“I have to go!”
“And we haven’t solved anything!”
“The princess’s heart is still breaking!”
“Can you stay here until evening, Sir Knight?”
“The fair will be over by then, and we’ll be moving on.”
“Maybe…”
“Yes,” Peter said.
“I can stay until evening.”
“I’ll sit here and think.”
“Maybe I’ll have an idea by then.”
“Will you meet me here?”
“Yes, indeed,” Riggy promised.
Mig called for him a third time.
“A-coming, sir! A-coming!”
Riggy ducked beneath the sky-blue canvas and ran away.
Peter found a little tree near a striped tent.
It had tiny white berries that looked like mistletoe.
The sun was warm, so Peter crawled underneath the tree and lay down.
He began to think.
And think.
And think some more.
This was the strangest thing that had ever happened to him.
Peter could hardly believe it.
He had rolled off the dragon’s back.
He had wandered into the fair by accident.
And now he had found the very princess everyone else had gone all the way to Ireland to search for.
And Dallahan was here too.
Poor old Dallahan.
He was trapped inside a box at least twenty times too small for him.
He was packed inside so tightly that Riggy said he would spring out like a clockwork spring if the lid were ever opened.
Peter stared up through the branches of the little tree.
His visor was pushed back.
A plump bird wearing a fresh coat of brown and red feathers hopped onto a branch above him.
It looked down at Peter with sharp, beady eyes and chirped something that sounded like:
“Hello! How are you? Doodle-de-do!”
“I’m very well,” Peter answered.
“But I’m thinking very deeply.”
The bird shook all its feathers and flew away.
Silence returned.
Peter kept thinking.
And thinking.
And thinking.
He thought so hard that his little brain began to ache like a toothache.
He imagined dozens of different ways to rescue the princess.
But every plan had some serious problem.
Mig was a magician.
And magicians were usually clever enough to find a way around almost any plan.
Peter kept thinking until the bright red sun slowly sank below the horizon.