After the dragon finished his lunch, he grew so hot that everyone riding on his back felt like slices of toast browning in an oven.
“We’d better find somewhere cooler,” someone suggested. “You know a cave, don’t you?”
The dragon nodded.
“Yes. There’s a cave I know about. We can get off my back and rest there.”
The cave was beyond the volcano, far to the west, on the shore of a black, black lake.
It was enormous, filled with stalagmites and stalactites that rose like brightly colored columns. There were strange, fantastic chambers everywhere, and a black river ran slowly and sadly through the cave.
When the dragon entered, it was so dark that the children could not see a thing.
Then the dragon opened his mouth.
A flaming torch suddenly leaped out and lit up the darkness for a great distance around them.
Far, far back inside the earth, beyond the first bend, then the second, and then the third, the dragon had a cozy little home.
At least, he called it little.
Johnathan lost count of the twists and turns before they finally reached it.
The dragon’s home had three rooms—a parlor, a bedroom, and a kitchen.
Of course, everything was cozy on a dragon’s scale.
The three rooms were actually large enough to hold the entire Baxter house, with enough space left over for a garage and a backyard.
And yet the dragon insisted that it was only a modest home.
“All my relatives live in much larger and more beautiful places,” he explained. “I’m just a modest dragon with a modest income. I don’t have much of a reputation, either. I’m nothing like St. George’s dragon.”
When they reached the parlor, the dragon stretched himself out flat on the floor.
“Now, make yourselves perfectly at home,” he said.
He stretched his enormous body until he gave a long groan.
“I’m pretty tired after that long run backward through time.”
“I can certainly believe that!” Grandma said.
She reached into her mysterious knitting bag and pulled out a small bottle.
She shook it vigorously.
“What you need is a good alcohol rub, and I’m going to give you one.”
“Oh, no!” protested the dragon.
“There is far too much of me to rub. You’ll be exhausted before you’ve finished.”
“Exhausted? Nonsense!” Grandma snapped.
“Besides, the children can help.”
“Oh, yes! Yes!” the children shouted.
They rushed around the dragon.
Grandma poured a little clear liquid into each of their open hands.
Then everyone began rubbing.
Up and down.
Back and forth.
They rubbed and rubbed and rubbed.
They rubbed his back.
They rubbed his chest.
They rubbed his ribs.
They rubbed the entire length of his tail.
They even rubbed the tired soles of his enormous feet.
And the dragon absolutely loved it.
He lay there happily while all those kind little hands worked over his aching body.
He purred like a kitten being stroked in exactly the right direction.
But the dragon’s scales had to be rubbed the right way, too.
If someone rubbed the wrong way, it tickled him.
Then he would roll around helplessly, laughing so hard that the whole cave seemed to shake.
Everyone was so busy rubbing the dragon that nobody noticed a little round door opening in the wall.
A tiny head poked cautiously through the opening.
It was brown and round, about the color and shape of a hazelnut.
The little creature peered out just like a mouse peeking from its hole before making a dash toward the cupboard where the cheese was kept.
Then a round, fat little body squeezed through the doorway.
It was a tiny old man dressed completely in brown, the color of earth.
He was only about twelve inches tall, but he carried himself with tremendous dignity.
Small creatures often do that, if you’ve ever noticed.
His face and hands were lumpy, almost as if someone had hidden pebbles underneath his skin.
His tiny eyes were bright and shiny, like little creek stones stuck into the face of a mud-pie man.
Still unnoticed, the little man marched pompously across the room.
He stopped beside the dragon’s enormous pointed ear.
He could have crawled right inside it.
Then he bent down and whispered something in a voice that sounded no louder than the buzzing of a gnat.
The dragon’s face immediately broke into a huge grin.
He sat up.
“Crubby!”
“My old friend Crubby!”
With one of his golden claws, the dragon carefully picked up the tiny man and held him close to one enormous eye.
He studied him affectionately.
But Crubby looked extremely serious.
“Where have you been, sir?” he demanded.
“Give an account of yourself.”
The dragon answered meekly.
“I’ve been looking ahead, Crubby.”
“Oh, yes,” Crubby replied sarcastically.
The tiny old man’s face wore the most knowing expression imaginable.
“You always were ahead of your time.”
“Yes,” the dragon agreed.
Tears nearly rolled down his cheeks.
“But I went too far ahead this time.”
Crubby looked grimly pleased.
“Hmm. I thought so. I thought so!”
He folded his arms.
“Well, smarty, what did you learn by looking ahead?”
“Very little that was pleasant,” the dragon admitted sadly.
“I discovered that I was completely out of date and very, very lonely.”
He paused.
“That is, I was lonely until I found Grandame and the children.”
“Oh,” Crubby muttered.
He did not sound pleased.
The dragon quickly continued.
“You see, they believed in me, Crubby. They gave me a place in their world. Do you understand?”
“If their mother and father hadn’t sent me back to the Dark Ages, I might have stayed there in the future forever.”
“It’s just as well that they sent you back,” Crubby said.
“You don’t belong there for a moment.”
The dragon sighed.
“Maybe not. Maybe not.”
Then his face brightened.
“But, Crubby, let me introduce you to my new friends. They’re fresh from the future.”
He held out his claw.
“Turn around, Crubby.”
Crubby did not seem particularly excited about meeting Grandma and the children.
He took his time turning around on the dragon’s palm.
Then he stood straight and stiff, like a Fourth of July speaker standing on a platform.
He pressed his right hand against his chest, spread his fingers, and gave them a very distant little bow.
“This is Crubby,” the dragon announced proudly.
“He’s my most intimate friend.”
Johnathan immediately thought of a mouse and an elephant.
Mice and elephants, he thought, weren’t exactly supposed to be friends.
“Oh, isn’t he the cutest little fellow!” Janet Jane cried.
She genuinely meant it.
Crubby did not like that at all.
His pride was wounded.
Without saying a word, he deliberately snubbed Janet Jane—and everyone else—by turning his back on them.
Then he faced the dragon again.
The dragon looked at him lovingly.
“Dear old Crubby, I’m so happy to see you again.”
“And I’m so grateful I didn’t take you with me when I went looking ahead.”
“I wouldn’t have gone if you’d asked me,” Crubby said impudently.
He tilted his little nose into the air.
“You would have had a miserable time,” the dragon said.
“I don’t doubt it,” Crubby snapped.
“Just look at what it’s done to you!”
The dragon frowned.
“What exactly do you mean by that, Crubby?”
“Do I look so terrible?”
“You certainly do!”
The dragon looked genuinely upset.
“How?”
“Have I lost my good looks?”
Grandma leaned toward Peter and whispered:
“I think Crubby has a very mean disposition.”
But Crubby continued without mercy.
“In the first place, you’re completely out of condition.”
“You?”
“A perfectly healthy, athletic dragon?”
“And you were exhausted after a little run like that!”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
The dragon looked embarrassed.
“It wasn’t a little run, Crubby.”
“It was a very long run.”
“I traveled all the way from 1927 back to 1227.”
Crubby waved the explanation away.
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“From now on, I’m going to make you run up the volcano and back every morning before breakfast.”
“We’re going to harden those muscles again.”
“What would happen to you if some knight suddenly decided to fight you?”
The dragon looked frightened.
“Am I really that soft?”
“You make me afraid!”
“You ought to be afraid,” Crubby replied.
“You’re soft and you’re fat!”
“Fat?” the dragon cried.
“How could I be fat?”
“I was nearly starving!”
“All I had to eat was grass!”
“No more excuses!” the little man commanded.
He shook a finger at the dragon.
“This is no time for excuses.”
The dragon stared at him.
“What do you mean, Crubby?”
“What happened while I was away?”
“Oh, something terrible happened,” Crubby said.
“And it’s all your fault for going digging around in the future.”
The children were suddenly very interested.
This sounded like the beginning of another adventure.
Led by Grandma, they quietly tiptoed closer.
They wanted to hear every tiny chirp of the little brown gnome’s voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me, Crubby!” the dragon begged.
But Crubby took his time.
He cleared his throat.
He adjusted his brown belt.
He paced slowly back and forth a few times.
Then he planted his feet firmly apart and finally spoke.
“Your Princess Silver Toes is gone.”
“What?” the dragon cried.
“Silver Toes?”
“Gone?”
“But I was saving her as a beautiful surprise for the children!”
“How could she be gone?”
“She was enchanted!”
“Yes, she was enchanted,” Crubby replied.
“But an enchanted princess can still be stolen, can’t she, you idiotic fellow?”
“Who stole her, Crubby?”
“Who stole my Silver Toes?”
The dragon looked deeply distressed.
“Now who do you suppose?” Crubby demanded.
“Have you forgotten your enemies already?”
“Yes,” the dragon admitted sadly.
He looked ready to cry.
“I’ve forgotten my enemies.”
“And I’ve forgotten the magic formula that changes my shape and makes me invisible.”
“Oh, my beard and my nose!” Crubby exclaimed.
He didn’t actually have a beard.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Just imagine if I’d forgotten it, too.”
“You’d be in a terrible mess, wouldn’t you?”
“But you haven’t forgotten it, Crubby!”
“Please tell me you haven’t!”
“Well…” Crubby drawled.
He deliberately kept the dragon in suspense.
“I wonder.”
“I just wonder.”
“Maybe I have forgotten it.”
“But your memory has always been much better than mine!”
“You know you haven’t forgotten it,” the poor dragon stammered.
At last, Crubby relented.
“No, I really haven’t,” he admitted.
“Which is certainly fortunate for you.”
“However, that isn’t the important thing right now.”
The dragon nodded eagerly.
“The important thing is Silver Toes.”
“Who stole her, Crubby?”
“Please tell me.”
For another agonizing minute, Crubby kept everyone waiting.
Then he finally spoke.
“Come to the door with me.”
The dragon immediately obeyed.
Grandma and the children followed, puzzled and excited.
Outside the cave, where the black river flowed out, the ground was thick with mud.
Crubby pointed to a large footprint in the mud.
Johnathan stared at it.
The print looked strangely like a four-leaf clover—or a shamrock.
Crubby pointed at it.
“Now, what does that look like?”
The dragon’s brow furrowed as he studied the footprint.
“That’s the footprint of Dallahan, the Irish dragon!”
“Yes!” Crubby hissed.
“Dallahan!”
“Now what do you think of that?”
The dragon grabbed his head.
He swayed back and forth as if he had suddenly become dizzy.
He nearly fell into the river.
“Dallahan!”
“Oh, me!”
“Oh, my!”
“Dallahan is the most powerful and resourceful dragon in the entire Dark Ages!”
“What can we possibly do?”
“Do?” Crubby shouted.
“We’ll find him!”
“And we’ll take the princess away from him!”
The tiny man thumped his puffed-up chest with both fists.
Then he turned toward Grandma and the children.
He pointed a stern finger directly at their amazed faces.
“And you’re going to help us!”
The children stared at him speechlessly.
“Don’t think you can travel backward into the Dark Ages without risking your lives,” Crubby warned.
“You’re going to get your share of adventure.”
“Lots of it!”
Grandma put her hands on her hips.
She thrust out her sharp chin.
“Don’t think you can frighten us!”
“Adventure is exactly what we came here to find!”
Her fierce, defiant expression startled the tiny old man so much that he stumbled backward.
He rubbed his chin, looking completely puzzled.
From that moment on, Crubby had a deep respect for Grandma.
And he listened very carefully whenever she had something to say.