There was certainly plenty of excitement when the princess returned. Right there on the King’s Great Highway, back in the Dark Ages, everyone hugged and kissed everyone else. Even the usually grumpy white donkey seemed to be smiling.
Dallahan was the first to bring the celebration to an end.
“Now that I’m myself again,” he said, stretching his body a little longer, “I have to get back to my work. I have good deeds to do. So farewell, my old friend.”
He solemnly shook hands with the cave dragon.
“If you’re ever in Ireland, come and visit me. You’ll always be welcome.”
“And my cave will always be open to you, my friend from long ago,” said the cave dragon.
“Thank you,” Dallahan replied, bowing deeply.
Then he turned to the princess.
“Farewell, Princess Silver Toes. And I’m sorry that I stole you away.”
He hugged Peter next.
“I’ll always, always remember you. You are a brave knight. You should have lived in the days of the great King Arthur.”
He affectionately patted Peter’s curly hair.
Then Dallahan turned his long nose toward Ireland and started down the highway. His red-gold scales flashed in the sunlight like hundreds of rubies.
Far down the road, he turned around one last time and waved.
Then he disappeared.
“Pardon me,” said the white donkey in his usual disgusted voice, “but I’m leaving too.”
He shook his head.
“Mig magically dragged me out of a perfectly comfortable barn full of oats and hay, and I very much want to get back there.”
He looked at everyone.
“Goodbye, everybody. I’m very unhappy that I ever met you.”
With that, he trotted away, taking the cart with him.
Grandma looked around.
“Well, what are we supposed to do now?”
“We’ll have to find something to fight,” Crubby announced. “After all, we went to all the trouble of buying armor and swords.”
“Nonsense!” Grandma said.
“That’s no reason to go looking for trouble. We’re going home to sleep. Just look at those children.”
Under the poplar trees beside the highway, Johnathan, Janet Jane, and Peter were already asleep. Their heads had fallen forward, their eyes were closed, and the dogs were curled up nearby, sleeping too.
“They’ve had a very, very long day,” said the dragon softly.
He looked at the sleepy children with a wistful smile.
“Let’s take them back to the cave and put them to bed.”
“No,” Grandma said after thinking for a moment.
“We’ll take them back to the nursery.”
The dragon stared at her.
“Back to the nursery?”
“Yes. Back to where they belong.”
Grandma spoke gently but firmly.
“You belong here, Dragon. They belong there. They may travel back with you along the road of time, but they cannot stay here. You know that as well as I do.”
The dragon sighed.
“Yes, you’re right.”
He looked rather sad.
“Dear me. The world certainly is a strange place, isn’t it?”
“Don’t start feeling sorry for yourself,” Grandma snapped.
“You have your princess, and you have Crubby. Be happy with what you have.”
“Yes, you have me, always and forever, dear Dragon,” Princess Silver Toes said.
She wrapped both arms around the dragon’s neck.
“I’ll sing for you and dance for you forever and ever and ever.”
“Now, see that?” Grandma said with a smile.
“What could be sweeter?”
“If she sings forever and ever and ever, I’m leaving!” Crubby complained.
He was terribly jealous of the princess.
“Oh, stop that,” Grandma said.
“You know perfectly well you could never leave. Now come along, Dragon. Get the children onto your back. Just look at poor Peter.”
The dragon carefully picked up the sleeping children.
When they reached the cave, he turned his head and winked at Grandma before going inside.
Grandma winked back.
Then they plunged into the darkness of the cave.
They stopped only long enough for Grandma to pick up her famous rocking chair.
Once she was comfortably seated, the dragon started running again.
Down they went.
Lower and lower.
Deeper and deeper.
Darker and darker.
Faster and faster.
Only Grandma knew how fast they were really traveling. Perhaps Crubby knew too, since he was perched behind the dragon’s ear.
Everyone else was fast asleep.
Silver Toes was asleep too, cuddled safely among the children on the dragon’s warm back.
“YES, YOU HAVE ME ALWAYS, DEAR DRAGON!”
At last, far ahead in the darkness, Grandma noticed a tiny point of light.
It looked like a little round pinhole.
As they moved toward it, the light grew larger and larger.
At the same time, Grandma could feel the dragon becoming smaller and smaller.
The heavy armor from the Dark Ages seemed to melt away.
Grandma was wearing her lavender gown again.
The children were curled up beside her in their white nightgowns.
Grandma looked into the darkness.
“What’s that?” she whispered, sounding almost like a little child.
“That’s the drip, drip, drip of the spring shelf,” the dragon answered.
“Don’t you know where we are now?”
Grandma listened carefully.
“Yes, I know now.”
She smiled.
“It’s the first bend of the cave in the woodlot.”
She took a deep breath.
“We’re home again.”
“Yes,” said the dragon.
Suddenly, they burst out into sunlight.
Green trees surrounded them.
Morning had come again.
It was Sunday morning, and church bells were ringing everywhere. Birds flew through the bright sky.
As the dragon passed through the woodlot, the pixies scattered in panic and ran for cover.
One of them, in all the confusion, lost a little pink sunbonnet in the thimbleberry bushes.
That same morning, at the breakfast table, Dad Baxter finally had enough.
He raised his voice over the excited chatter of Johnathan, Janet Jane, and Peter.
“You children are talking the biggest nonsense I’ve ever heard,” he said.
“Where in the world did you get such wild imaginations?”
“It isn’t imagination, Daddy!” all three children protested at once.
They turned toward Grandma.
“Is it, Grams?”
Grandma sat quietly in her corner beside the window.
A sly little smile appeared on her face.
“Don’t argue about it, dears,” she said.
“We know what we know.”
“Yes,” Peter said solemnly.
“We know what we know.”
Outside, in the rose garden, the silver snail whispered something to the green grasshopper.
The green grasshopper whispered something back.
Then the polka-dot ladybug wrapped her tiny arms around her shell and began to chuckle.
And chuckle.
And chuckle.
At the mouth of the cave in the woodlot, there was a strange footprint in the mud.
It certainly wasn’t the footprint of a dog.
And it wasn’t the footprint of a pixie, either.
Perhaps it was only imagination.
But it looked very much like the footprint of a dragon.