They rode along the king’s great highway beneath a brilliant sun. Birds sang everywhere, and huge, brightly colored wildflowers grew right along the edges of the white road.
Janet Jane knew the names of almost every wildflower in the meadow, the woodlot, and the little hills beyond their home. But she had never seen any of these flowers before.
“I’m completely mixed up about time,” Johnathan said, squinting up at the sun. “It feels like ages and ages since we left home before breakfast.”
“It feels like morning again to me,” Janet Jane said. “And yet we haven’t even been to bed.”
“It’s the morning of adventure,” Grandma said.
She took a deep breath of the crisp air. It smelled of flowers and fresh dew.
Somehow, Grandma seemed younger than she had been before. The delicate wrinkles on her face looked as if someone had gently ironed them away.
“Do you suppose we’re really going to have to fight Dallahan?” Janet Jane asked anxiously.
Grandma was just about to answer when Crubby crawled up over the dragon’s forehead and slid down his long green neck.
He landed neatly on his feet, sprang upright, and suddenly became very stern.
“This is no time to be talking about the time, the weather, or even what we suppose!” he shouted in a harsh military voice. “Everybody on your feet! Quickly!”
Everyone scrambled up.
“Stand at attention! Swords at your sides!” Crubby commanded.
Then he looked them over severely.
“If you’re going to outwit Dallahan and rescue the princess, you have to be in good physical condition. Nobody can go into battle and expect to win without training.”
“That’s right,” Grandma agreed.
Crubby clicked his heels together.
“Arms out!”
Everyone stretched out their arms.
“Take a deep breath! Hold it! Let it out!”
“Arms down! Arms up!”
“Take a deep breath! Hold it! Let it out!”
“Arms down! Arms up!”
“Take a deep breath! Hold it! Let it out!”
“Bend your knees! Straighten your knees! Bend your knees! Straighten your knees!”
“Down flat! Stand up! Down flat! Stand up!”
Crubby made them exercise so quickly that before long everyone was gasping for breath and doing everything wrong.
Grandma’s face had turned as red as a cooked beet.
But Crubby gave them no chance to rest.
“Now we’ll have a race!” he announced. “Run all the way down to the very tip of the dragon’s tail and back again. Ready?”
Everyone lined up.
“On your mark!”
“Get set!”
“Go!”
They raced down the dragon’s back.
They tripped over their swords.
They fell.
They scrambled back up.
Then they crashed down again.
Their joints squeaked and creaked like an entire chorus of baby mice.
At last they reached the tip of the dragon’s tail and turned around to race back toward his head.
But little Peter caught one foot on a dragon scale.
He lost his balance.
“Help!”
No one heard him.
The others were already racing toward the dragon’s head.
Peter tumbled off the dragon’s back and rolled over and over until he landed in the ditch beside the king’s great highway.
He sat up slowly.
The dragon was already far ahead.
He could see it as a tiny speck racing down the white road.
Then, in another moment, it disappeared completely.
Peter stood up and looked around, dazed.
The road was very quiet.
It was as quiet as the woodlot back home, perhaps even quieter, because there was no spring nearby making its familiar drip, drip, drip.
Peter was in serious trouble.
He was all alone in the Dark Ages, dressed in a suit of armor with a sword in his hand.
This really was a morning of adventure.
Peter was lost in a time that belonged to once upon a time, far, far back in the long ago.
He climbed out of the ditch and back onto the road.
For a moment, fear gripped him.
Then he shouted as loudly as he could.
“Grams!”
“Johnathan!”
“Janet Jane!”
“Dwagon!”
Of course, nobody heard him. They were already far away and completely out of sight.
Peter frowned and thought hard.
“Well,” he finally said to himself, “I guess there’s nothing to do but follow the dwagon’s footprints along the king’s highway until I meet an auto or a motorcycle.”
He stopped.
Then he laughed at his own idea.
“There aren’t any autos or motorcycles here.”
No, there certainly weren’t.
People in this age traveled mostly on horses.
When Peter played Sir Launcelot, he rode a horse too—but that horse had only been a broomstick.
Could he ride a real horse if one happened to come along without a rider?
Peter didn’t think so.
For one thing, he couldn’t imagine how he could possibly climb onto the horse’s back by himself. Most horses were very tall.
And being trapped inside stiff armor would make climbing up even harder.
So Peter started walking.
He lowered his head and followed the dragon’s tracks along the road.
“Why don’t they notice I’m gone?” he wondered.
“They must have noticed by now that I’m not with them.”
“Why doesn’t Mr. Dwagon turn around?”
He stared down the road, hoping to see the dragon coming back.
At last, a black spot appeared in the distance.
Peter’s heart lifted.
But as the spot came closer, it took on a different shape.
It wasn’t the dragon.
It was a strange little traveling company.
There was a pretty, dark-haired girl dressed like a gypsy.
Beside her walked a mountebank dressed in a bright red, green, and yellow costume covered with tiny bells.
And behind them came a black bear walking upright on his hind legs.
A silver ring was fastened through the bear’s nose, with a long silver chain attached to it. The girl held the chain in her hand.
When they saw Peter standing in the middle of the road with his sword held tightly in his hands, they stopped.
The mountebank suddenly turned a handspring in the dust.
Then he said in a high, squeaky voice, “Honored knight, we’re only poor show folk on our way to the fair. If you promise not to hurt us, we’ll put on a show for you free of charge!”
Then he stood on his head and made funny faces upside down.
“I won’t hurt you,” Peter said in his bravest little voice.
The girl immediately burst out laughing.
The mountebank flipped back onto his feet.
He shook his costume so that all the little bells jingled.
“Good Master Popinjay!” he cried. “He’s nothing but a child, heigh-ho!”
“I’m—I’m not!” Peter protested.
“I’m Sir Launcelot, and I’m going to kill Dallahan, the Irish dwagon!”
The girl laughed so hard that she could barely stand.
The mountebank threw himself into two complete somersaults and landed on his feet with a loud whoop.
Even the bear seemed to laugh.
He shook his big, fat sides with amusement.
There was no doubt about it. This was a very funny-looking bear, and he clearly knew how to appreciate a joke.
The mountebank pranced over to Peter and bent down to peek through his helmet visor.
“Whoops!” he exclaimed. “Here’s a little lad who’s lost in the Middle Ages. Where did you come from?”
The bear leaned over too.
He peeked through Peter’s visor and gave Peter’s little nose a lick with his long red tongue.
“I—I was going to kill the Irish Dwagon,” Peter explained.
“But—but I fell off.”
“You fell off?” the mountebank asked.
“Fell off what?”
“The roof?”
“The bridge?”
“The swing?”
“The branch, like a plum?”
“Make yourself clearer!”
He shook himself like a dog that had just climbed out of the water, making all his bells ring.
“Off the dwagon’s back,” Peter said.
“Whose back?”
“The Irish dragon?”
“No. My dwagon.”
“Your dragon?”
The mountebank suddenly became very serious.
“Do you own a dragon?”
“N-no, but—”
“Then why did you say you did?”
“I—I mean, it’s our dwagon. But—but I found him in a cave.”
By now poor Peter was thoroughly confused.
The pretty girl stepped in.
“I know, Beppo,” she said. “He was riding the dragon we saw running up the road a little while ago.”
“Were you?” the mountebank asked Peter.
He wriggled one ear while keeping the other perfectly still.
“Yes.”
“And you fell off?”
“Yes.”
The mountebank shook his head sadly.
“Dear, dear me. What a careless thing to do!”
“I was running a race, and I tripped,” Peter explained.
“Tripped?” the mountebank said.
“Then you can’t blame anybody but yourself, can you?”
“I don’t want to blame anybody,” Peter said. “I just want to find the dragon again. That’s all.”
“Oh, you can’t possibly do that,” the mountebank replied.
“He’s probably two thousand leagues away by now, more or less.”
“Which way is Ireland?” Peter asked.
“I don’t really know,” the mountebank admitted. “I suppose you just follow your nose.”
“I’ve never been there myself.”
“But I can tell you this—you’d never walk there in twenty years.”
He pointed toward the road.
“You’d better come along with us.”
The gypsy girl looked at Peter.
“Can you dance?”
“I went to dancing school once,” Peter said, “but I can’t dance.”
“Why not?”
“We need someone else to dance at the fair,” she explained.
She took a few graceful steps.
The bear joined her and finished with a high kick.
Peter watched them.
“Can you juggle hoops and balls?” the mountebank asked.
“No.”
Peter was beginning to feel completely useless.
“Can you swallow a sharp sword?”
“No.”
“Can you walk a tightrope?”
“No. I can’t do any of those things.”
He proudly touched his sword.
“I can only kill a dwagon with my sword.”
The mountebank cocked his head.
“Well, you can’t very well kill a dragon when there’s no dragon to kill, can you?”
He smiled.
“So come along with us to the fair.”
“Where is the fair?” Peter asked.
“Just across those hills.”
The mountebank pointed ahead.
“You can see the church steeple straight ahead if you simply use your eyes.”
Peter looked carefully.
Far in the distance, a thin point rose above one of the hills.
It looked like the blade of a sword.
Peter nodded.
“Heigh-ho!” cried the clown. “Let’s go to the beautiful show!”
He linked his arm through Peter’s, and together they started toward the fair.
The bear followed behind them with the pretty gypsy girl.
As they walked, the girl began to sing the sweetest song Peter had ever heard.