Allan the armorer was a wise little hunchback who kept his shop along the king’s great highway. He wore a large ruby right on the tip of his long, hooked nose, and he thought it looked very handsome there.
“People wear jewels in their ears,” Johnathan reasoned when he first saw it. “So why not wear one in your nose?”
Allan was terribly busy that day. A war was going on—the siege of the castle the children had seen from the dragon’s back—and soldiers were pouring into his shop for armor.
Crubby had to beg and plead for quite a while before Allan would stop his work long enough to measure the little Baxters and Grandma for suits of mail.
The excitement inside that shop was something the children had never seen before.
“It’s just like a department store at Christmas,” Janet Jane said, “only much worse, I think.”
The noise was almost unbearable. Everyone had to shout just to be heard.
Knights came thundering through the doorway on horseback. Others rushed in on foot, their armor banging and clanging with every step.
“Get my armor ready!”
“I need a new helmet!”
“Where are my gauntlets?”
“Fix this breastplate at once!”
Little pages, much like messenger boys, raced everywhere, shouting for their masters’ armor.
“But you said he could have it at five o’clock!”
“I didn’t!”
“You did!”
“I didn’t!”
“You did!”
“It isn’t five yet, anyway!”
“It is! It’s five and then morning!”
“No, it isn’t!”
“But he has to have it! He has to fight all morning and all afternoon, and he can’t go out wearing that old suit. It’s full of holes, and the knees are all baggy!”
The back room was even noisier.
That was where the tailors worked. They sat with their legs crossed like a pair of scissors while they hammered, bent, tightened, and polished pieces of armor.
Instead of needles and thread, they worked with hammers, bolts, pincers, pliers, iron, and steel.
It sounded less like a tailor’s shop and more like a blacksmith’s forge.
Clang!
Clang-clang!
Hammers rang against metal. The forges glowed red, shooting out little tongues of flame while sparks flew through the air.
Allan himself was far too busy to look after Crubby’s party, so he turned them over to his brother-in-law, Lars the Red.
Lars had hair as bright as fire, and his temper was just as fiery.
He grabbed the children and turned them this way and that as he fitted their armor, paying little attention to whether they liked it or not.
But when he came to Grandma, everything changed.
Grandma gave him one terrifying look over the top of her steel-rimmed spectacles.
Lars immediately became gentle.
And extremely polite.
When Grandma asked him a question, he bowed almost double before answering.
Even his wild red hair, which had been sticking up in every direction, seemed to settle down and lie flat.
After that, Lars selected the finest ready-made armor in the whole shop for Grandma.
He carefully adjusted every piece.
He made sure the shoulders fitted properly.
He checked that the visors opened and closed smoothly.
He oiled every joint.
He tightened every bolt.
The dragon was absolutely delighted when he saw Grandma and the children putting on their armor.
Even the dogs received little steel coats that wrapped around their bodies like blankets.
The dragon was so touched that his eyes filled with tears.
“They look so beautiful,” he murmured.
Johnathan and Peter were thrilled when they were given real swords.
Peter happily traded his wooden sword for a slim blade of Damascus steel.
Janet Jane was not nearly so pleased.
She had never liked swords.
She didn’t like guns, either.
She reluctantly drew her sword from its sheath, but once she had it out, she had an awful time trying to get it back in.
Grandma received a sword too.
Whenever Lars started becoming fiery again, she simply pointed it at him.
That usually worked.
Meanwhile, Crubby marched up and down like a tiny military officer.
His chest was puffed out.
He stood on his very tiptoes.
He wagged his finger as he gave orders in his shrill little voice.
“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
At last, everyone was properly fitted.
Grandma looked extremely strange in her black armor. Her sharp nose stuck out through the visor, and somehow the armor didn’t fit her quite right in several places.
And her mysterious knitting bag certainly did not match her armor at all.
The children, however, had been fitted perfectly.
They wore small suits of armor made especially for them.
When they saw themselves in the tall mirror standing in the corner, they could hardly believe their eyes.
They looked like real little knights.
Beside the mirror stood two strange creatures.
They looked somewhat like monkeys, except they had no tails, and they were much larger than any monkeys the children had ever seen at a zoo.
Allan had captured them in the black forest during a boar hunt and trained them to be excellent servants.
One was named Booh.
The other was named Shoo.
The children were still admiring themselves when even the dogs came over to look.
The dogs stared into the mirror.
Then they barked.
They apparently didn’t recognize themselves in their little suits of armor.
“That’s enough showing off,” Crubby snapped.
“It’s very late, and we have a long way to go.”
“Come along, children,” Grandma said.
“Obey at once.”
Everyone climbed back onto the dragon’s back.
While they were getting settled, Crubby paid the armor bill.
He reached into a pouch hanging from the belt around his round little middle and pulled out a handful of coins.
They were old copper coins, each one stamped with the picture of a dragon.
Then Crubby swung a brown sack over his shoulder.
It was filled with oil cans and tools for repairing and oiling armor.
He climbed up behind the dragon’s ear and settled into his usual place.
A moment later, the dragon spread his wings.
Allan and Lars shouted after them.
“Good luck!”
“Good luck!” Allan called again.
Then Lars cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted,
“I hope Dallahan doesn’t eat you! But I’m afraid he will!”
That was certainly not the kind of farewell anyone wanted to hear.
Janet Jane looked frightened.
“Did you hear that?”
“Bosh!” Grandma said.
And with that, the dragon flew on.