“I wonder what’s keeping Peter so long in the woodlot?” Janet Jane wondered. She was thinking about the little pixie in the pink sunbonnet.
“I don’t know,” said Johnathan. He was thinking about the strange presence he had felt behind the bend in the black cave.
“I bet he’s eating thimble berries,” Billy Rose guessed. “That’s not fair, you know.”
“I’m not going to play anymore!” announced little Susan Oliver.
She tossed her dark head, dropped Queen Guinevere’s train, and stood there looking miserable. Susan was the kind of child who always threatened to ruin a game at exactly the wrong moment.
“Let’s play something more exciting,” suggested Mary, still wearing her bareback-rider costume. “How about playing circus?”
“No!” thundered Johnathan. “Wait until Sir Launcelot comes back. He’ll tell us how he slew the dragon. That’ll be exciting enough.”
“I’m going straight home,” wailed Susan Oliver.
Her face puckered up as if she had just bitten into a sour crab apple.
“All right,” Janet Jane began. “But if you go home, Susan Oliver, you won’t be Queen Guinevere next Saturday—”
“Here comes Peter!” somebody shouted.
Every child turned toward the woodlot.
Peter was coming toward them with a very important stride. He held his wooden sword firmly in one hand, and his round, shining face wore a triumphant smile.
Nap, the setter, and Jerry, the airedale, began barking. Their fur stood straight up.
“Look!” cried Billy Rose. “What’s that behind him?”
“Where?”
“There!”
All the children gasped.
“Why, it’s a—it’s a—”
“It’s a real dragon!” squealed Janet Jane.
The others immediately joined in.
“A real dragon! A real dragon!”
Susan Oliver’s mouth opened into a big red O, and she began to scream.
Nap and Jerry turned and fled, yelping.
The children scattered in every direction.
Peter stopped and lifted his wooden sword high above his curly head.
“Hey, Johnathan! Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Johnathan!”
Behind him, the last dragon chuckled.
“Look at them running from me, just like old times,” he said, with the faintest hint of pride in his voice.
Then his voice became sad.
“If they only knew.”
At the edge of the meadow, the frightened children stopped.
They looked back carefully, just to make sure they really had seen a dragon.
They saw little Peter shake his blond head sympathetically. Then he reached over and gently patted the dragon on his broad green back.
Johnathan and Billy Rose were standing together near the willow clump.
“He looks like a very nice dragon, don’t you think?” Johnathan said.
“Yes,” Billy agreed. “And he looks very tame.”
“I think he’s smiling.”
“Peter’s patting him!”
“He can’t be very vicious.”
“He doesn’t seem to breathe fire,” Johnathan observed. He knew quite a lot about dragons.
Peter called out again.
“Hey, Johnathan! Don’t run away!”
“I’m going back,” Johnathan announced, sticking out his chest.
“Come on, Billy.”
“Sure!” Billy replied. “Who’s afraid?”
The two boys started across the meadow.
The sun was shining brightly again.
The cowslips and Johnny-jump-ups stood tall in the grass, and the Jenny wrens chirped happily in the maple trees. A cheerful little breeze danced through the green meadow.
There was no terror now.
There was no mystery.
Everything seemed perfectly clear.
There was simply a dragon standing in the woodlot.
Peter and the last dragon met the children in the middle of the meadow.
When Janet Jane saw Johnathan and Billy Rose coming back, she followed them. That gave the other children courage.
Susan Oliver came last.
She tiptoed forward, ready to run at the slightest sign of danger. Her little feet kept shifting nervously over the grass like bits of thistledown.
Soon the children formed a crescent around the dragon and stared at him.
Jerry politely sat down beside Nap.
Neither dog barked.
They simply stared at the dragon with their tongues hanging out.
Peter began making introductions.
“Mr. Dwagon, this is Johnathan Baxter, my brother.”
Then he turned to Johnathan.
“Johnathan, I want you to meet Mr. Dwagon, the last dwagon in the whole, whole world.”
The dragon smiled again.
“Delighted to meet you, Johnathan.”
He looked closely at the boy.
“You have Peter’s little nose, don’t you? And there’s something about your eyes that looks like Peter’s too.”
Then he noticed the crown.
“But why are you wearing a crown?”
Johnathan blushed.
“Oh, I was just playing King Arthur,” he explained.
“Ah, King Arthur,” the dragon sighed.
“There was a king!”
“Oh! Did you know him?” Johnathan asked excitedly.
“Very well indeed.”
The dragon paused.
“Of course, he was a great enemy of my family. I was taught to hate him from the time I was born.”
He slowly winked.
“But deep down in my heart, I really admired him.”
Janet Jane spoke breathlessly.
“And—and did you know Queen Guinevere?”
“Oh, yes. She was a very beautiful queen.”
The dragon’s eyes became dreamy.
“I saw her once wearing a bright red velvet gown and little gold slippers.”
He looked at Janet Jane.
“Is that who you’re pretending to be?”
“Y-yes, sir,” Janet Jane answered shyly.
She lowered her sandy-colored head and nervously tugged at her pink dress.
Peter continued with the introductions.
“Mr. Dwagon, this is my sister, Janet Jane Baxter.”
The dragon tilted his head.
“Yes, I can see the resemblance.”
He looked at her nose.
“The nose again.”
Then he looked into her eyes.
“And the eyes.”
He smiled.
“Pleased indeed to meet you, Janet Jane.”
“And the boy with the freckles is Billy Rose.”
“Delighted to meet you too, Billy.”
The dragon looked Billy up and down.
“But I’m sorry to see that your armor is rusty.”
Billy glanced down at his costume.
“You should take better care of it. In my day, knights were very careful about their armor.”
He paused solemnly.
“Those who were careless soon lost their heads.”
“Y-yes, sir,” Billy stammered.
At last everyone had been introduced, including Nap and Jerry.
Then the questions began flying.
“Were you in the woodlot all this time?” Janet Jane asked.
“No, not all the time,” the dragon replied.
“I know!” Johnathan cried. “You were behind the first bend in the cave, and you blew out my candle!”
“I can’t answer that correctly,” the dragon said. “I’m not even sure where I was.”
He thought for a moment.
“You see, I got lost. Then I went to sleep for ages and ages and ages.”
“Oh, I see.”
Johnathan looked at him curiously.
“Are you really the last dragon in the whole, whole world?”
“Don’t ask him that, Janet Jane!” Peter scolded.
“He’ll cry if you ask him that. See?”
The dragon’s large blue eyes were already filling with tears.
He blinked hard and managed to hold them back.
Then he spoke in a trembling voice.
“I’m the last dragon because we lost our purpose in life.”
The children listened quietly.
“When something loses its purpose, it eventually dies out.”
He looked toward the distant meadow.
“Once upon a time, brave knights used to go out and fight dragons. That was our purpose. We helped make heroes, you see.”
He sighed.
“But that time is long gone.”
Despite his efforts, a tear slipped down his cheek.
“So you see, I’ve become gentle and sweet.”
He lowered his head.
“And I don’t think I like myself very much this way.”
“Oh, but we like you!” the children cried together.
Nap and Jerry barked excitedly, trembling from head to toe.
The dragon’s face suddenly brightened.
“Do you honestly?”
“Oh, yes, we do!”
“Well, that makes me very happy.”
He stretched out his great golden claws and purred contentedly, just like a sleepy cat.
Billy Rose suddenly asked a practical question.
“What do you eat, Mr. Dragon? I thought dragons—”
The dragon interrupted him.
“Well, I used to eat fire from volcanoes.”
He sighed.
“But most of the volcanoes are extinct now, so I’ve had to start eating grass.”
He looked disgusted, as if he had been forced to eat milk toast every day of his life.
“Is—is that what makes you so green?” Janet Jane asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
The dragon smiled.
“My dear mother was green. I take after her.”
“Did she have blue eyes too?” Janet Jane asked.
“Yes.”
The dragon’s expression softened.
“She was a very beautiful lady.”
He looked down sadly.
“People said all sorts of cruel things about her, but she really had a fine soul.”
“What happened to her?” Johnathan asked quietly.
“She was killed by a knight who carried a flaming sword.”
The dragon shook his head.
“It wasn’t a fair fight at all. The sword was a magic one.”
“Oh, how unfortunate,” Janet Jane said sympathetically.
Her voice trembled.
“Oh, please don’t cry,” the dragon begged.
“Because if you cry, I’ll cry too, and I’m trying very hard to break myself of that habit.”
He was already blinking rapidly with his long eyelashes.
The children could actually feel a tiny breeze against their cheeks.
“But—but what are you going to do now?” Johnathan asked quickly.
He felt that he needed to change the subject.
The dragon thought for a while.
He seemed to find the question very difficult.
He turned his head from side to side.
He looked up at the blue sky.
Then he looked down.
He blinked.
He smiled.
He sighed.
He reached down and picked a Johnny-jump-up.
He held it beneath his long green nose and smelled it.
Then he tossed it aside.
Finally, he said rather shyly, “I—I’d like to stay with you children for a while.”
“Oh, that would be fine!” Johnathan exclaimed.
“But—but Mother says we can’t have any more pets,” Janet Jane said sadly.
“Jerry was the last one.”
“A dragon isn’t a pet,” Billy Rose pointed out practically.
Then he grinned.
“But if you don’t want him, I’ll take him!”
A wonderful idea had already appeared in Billy’s mind.
He imagined a circus sideshow with a huge canvas sign across the front:
THE LAST DRAGON
He would stand outside in long checked trousers and a tall silk hat, shouting to the crowd:
“Here you are, folks! Here you are! The only dragon in the whole world! Step right up, folks! Step right up!”
But before Billy could say anything more, the Baxter children cried together:
“But we do want him!”
“But you just said you couldn’t have any more pets,” Billy argued.
“And you just said a dragon isn’t a pet!” Janet Jane shot back, tossing her head.
“Well, in a way it isn’t, and in a way it is,” Billy replied.
“I found him, didn’t I?” Peter demanded.
He glared at Billy Rose.
The dragon chuckled.
His whole body seemed to tremble with laughter.
“Don’t fight over me, children.”
He smiled warmly.
“I belong to all of you.”
Then he turned toward Peter.
“But of course—”
His smile grew wider.
“Peter really did wake me up.”
The dragon looked fondly at the little boy.
“He believed I was asleep in the cave, and because he called me, I came out.”
Peter looked puzzled.
“He doesn’t think he really believed I was there, but—”
The dragon reached out one huge arm and gently pulled Peter into a hug.
The hug was so soft and careful that the other children immediately lost their fear.
Before long, they were climbing all over the dragon.
Some sat on his back.
Others leaned against his sides.
The dragon purred happily.
“I tell you what we’ll do!” Johnathan announced.
He pressed his cheek against the dragon’s cheek.
“Mother’s out shopping right now.”
He looked around conspiratorially.
“We can hide Mr. Dragon in the nursery without her knowing anything about it.”
“But there’s Grandma,” Janet Jane reminded him.
“Oh, Grandma’s all right,” Peter piped up.
He pressed his cheek against the dragon’s other cheek.
“She knows lots of stories about dwagons.”
“Oh, she does, does she?” the dragon asked.
His eyes brightened.
“I’d like to meet your grandmother, then.”
“You certainly may!” Janet Jane said excitedly.
“She’s awfully sweet.”
She thought for a moment.
“She has peppermints in her pocket, and she even keeps some under her pillow at night.”
“She’ll probably give you one.”
“Peppermints?” the dragon asked.
“Yes. Little round candies.”
Janet Jane nodded seriously.
“They’re good for indigestion and things like that.”
“Then I’ll ask her for one,” the dragon said.
He rubbed his stomach.
“I never used to have indigestion when I ate fire.”
He sighed dramatically.
“But since I started eating grass—oh, me, oh, my!”
A look of remembered pain crossed his face.
“Do you want to come and hide in our nursery, Mr. Dragon?” Johnathan asked timidly.
“Yes, if I won’t get you into trouble,” the dragon replied thoughtfully.
“I’m afraid your mother won’t understand if she discovers me in the nursery.”
“We could explain it,” little Peter said.
“We explained a squirrel once.”
He began counting on his fingers.
“And a long pink worm, and—and—”
“And a potato bug!” Janet Jane shouted.
“Yes, an’ a potato bug.”
Peter nodded seriously.
“Now, it’s awful hard to explain a potato bug!”
“But it’s harder to explain a dragon,” the dragon said.
He sighed.
“I know. I’ve had experience.”
Johnathan looked up at the sun.
“Well, if you’re willing to take the chance, we have to do it right away.”
He pointed toward the sky.
“It’s almost twelve o’clock, and Mother will be home soon to make lunch.”
He looked earnestly at the dragon.
“Please come with us, Mr. Dragon.”
“Well, all right—if you insist!” the dragon replied.
And so the last dragon started toward the house.
Little Peter marched proudly ahead of him, his wooden sword clutched tightly in his hand.