That night, a full moon rose over the woodlot and poured silver light across the meadow. All the little owls were awake, chattering softly to one another.
The yellow-striped spiders were busy spinning enormous silver webs, hoping to catch the tiny diamonds of dew. I suspect the mushrooms were getting into some pearly mischief of their own in the silvery grass.
The night was as bright as a polished coin, the kind a miser keeps hidden away and polishes every day with a green cloth.
Upstairs in the nursery, the children were asleep—or at least you could call it sleeping.
Peter, Johnathan, and Janet Jane tossed and turned in their beds.
Across the hall, Grandma sat in her famous rocking chair.
Rock, rock, rock.
Creak, creak, creak.
The gentle sound of the chair filled the quiet house like the ticking of a clock.
Oh, Grams, what were you up to?
Your little eyes were wide and bright. Your fingers moved quickly in and out. Your silk gown rustled softly, and the peppermints in your pocket clicked together.
Rock, rock, rock.
Creak, creak, creak.
All night long, Grandma sat there watching the moon through her little window as it slowly climbed above the treetops.
Sometimes she looked like a pixie.
Sometimes she looked like an elf.
Sometimes she looked young and delicate, almost as if she had been spun from glass, like a fairy.
And yet, sometimes, Grams—
Oh, sometimes she looked like a dragon!
But what was disturbing the children?
What strange dreams were making them toss in their beds and breathe little sounds into the nursery?
Peter’s rocking horse seemed to notice. Its glassy eyes opened wide, and it rocked slightly on its wooden runners.
Janet Jane’s Raggedy Ann turned her head and began talking to Johnathan’s china pig, who looked terribly proud of himself because he was holding so many pennies inside his round china belly.
One o’clock.
Two o’clock.
Three o’clock.
The hours slipped away without a sound, tiptoeing toward that mysterious place where all the hours meet.
It was the place where all the yesterdays lived, along with the yesteryears, the once-upon-a-times, and the spirits of all the clocks that had finally stopped forever.
The moon began sinking toward the west.
In the east, there was the first promise of daylight.
The little owls knew what was coming. They put on their dark glasses to prepare for the terrible glare of the sun.
Four o’clock.
Grandma was still rocking.
Now her ears seemed to stand up sharply, like a dog’s ears.
Under her crooked lavender cap were two little bumps, almost like a pair of horns. They were soft and delicate, like the buttons of a mushroom.
Five o’clock.
A faint red ribbon appeared in the eastern sky.
Everything was so quiet.
So still.
If you listened very carefully, you might even hear the tiny heartbeat of a ladybug sleeping on the silk of a rose petal.
Then—
Tap, tap, tap.
What was that?
Was it the branches of the white oak tapping against the nursery windows?
No. It couldn’t be.
There wasn’t even a breath of wind, and the tapping was much too regular.
Tap, tap, tap.
Was someone throwing colorful pebbles from the creek at the nursery window?
No. That was too regular, too.
It had to be fingers tapping on the glass.
But what kind of hand could reach all the way up to the second floor?
Tap, tap, tap.
At once, three pairs of eyes opened in the nursery.
Three pairs of ears listened.
And three little hearts went—
Pump, pump, pump.
Johnathan, Peter, and Janet Jane sat straight up in their white nightclothes.
They stared at one another with the biggest, roundest eyes.
A little shiver ran through the roots of their bright hair.
Tap, tap, tap.
Then they saw him.
There, in the wide nursery window on the east side of the house, above the veranda, was the smiling face of the dragon.
One golden claw was gently tapping on the glass.
“Dragon!” cried all three Baxter children together.
They jumped out of bed and raced to the window.
Johnathan unlatched it and threw it wide open.
Three little mouths immediately kissed the dragon on his cheeks.
The dragon was standing on his hind legs. He was so tall that he could easily have rested his front legs on the roof of the Baxter house if he had wanted to.
“Dwagon! Dwagon! Where did you go?” Peter cried.
“Oh, just around the corner,” the dragon answered mysteriously.
“Around what corner, Dwagon?”
“Oh, the same old corner. The one just out of sight.”
The dragon winked.
“You know. There’s one everywhere.”
“Oh, that corner,” Johnathan said with a knowing smile.
“Yes, I know that one. I go around that corner all the time. It’s nice around there, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s always full of pleasant surprises. And it’s always different.”
The dragon smiled.
“But once you get around that corner, you find another corner. Then another one. So you keep going around and around.”
“Yes,” Johnathan continued. “Until you almost forget to come home.”
“And then you’re almost lost,” Peter added.
“And then your mother calls you,” Johnathan finished.
The dragon nodded.
“Yes. Then your mother calls you, and you have to go inside and wash your neck and ears.”
He gave them a solemn look.
“But by the sword of St. George, this is no time for moralizing. The sun is already warming my back.”
His voice dropped to a gentle whisper.
“So it’s time for us to go, children.”
“Go?” Janet Jane echoed.
“Go where?” Peter asked breathlessly.
“Go with me.”
The dragon smiled.
“On my back, for a long, long ride.”
For a moment, the children were completely astonished.
Their little red mouths hung open like baby birds waiting to be fed.
Then, somehow, it suddenly seemed perfectly natural.
Just as natural as it had felt when the dragon first appeared in the meadow.
“Will you come with me?” the dragon asked.
“Yes, Dragon!” the children answered together.
“Because we love you!”
“Shh!”
The dragon raised one golden finger to his lips.
“Not so loud. We don’t want to wake your father and mother.”
“They wouldn’t understand this at all, and explaining everything would take forever.”
He leaned closer.
“Now put your arms around my neck, and I’ll lift you onto my back.”
“But can we go like this?” Janet Jane asked, looking down at her white nightgown.
“Of course.”
The dragon chuckled.
“It will be wonderful to ride through the springtime world in nothing but your nightgowns.”
“Oh, yes!” Peter cried. “I like that!”
“So do I!” Johnathan said.
“But won’t we catch cold?” Janet Jane asked.
She was always the little mother.
“Not at all.”
The dragon laughed.
“My back is as warm as a stove. You know why? Because of all the fire I used to eat.”
He paused.
“And at night—”
“Ooh! Will we stay out all night, Dwagon?” Peter asked.
“Maybe.”
The dragon smiled.
“Who can say what you’ll do when you go riding on a dragon’s back?”
He lowered himself.
“Come along.”
There were giggles.
Breathless “Oooohs!”
Shrill little “Weeeeees!”
And then, in the blink of an eye, the nursery was empty.
The dragon’s face disappeared from the window.
Only the morning sunlight remained, shining into the room and falling across three empty beds, three dented pillows, and three sets of tangled sheets and blankets.
The dragon quickly walked around the house with his precious passengers safely perched on his back.
The dogs, Nap and Jerry, came racing from their round beds in the barn.
They stopped when they saw the three little Baxters riding on the dragon.
They looked amazed.
But they did not bark.
Instead, they began to smile, their tongues hanging out.
The dragon stopped and looked up toward Grandma’s window.
Nap and Jerry followed his gaze.
Then they leaped onto the dragon’s back and settled down happily at the children’s bare feet.
“Is it all right for Nap and Jerry to come too?” Janet Jane asked.
“Why, certainly!”
The dragon sounded almost offended.
“Do you really think we would leave them behind when we’re going adventuring?”
But the dragon was still staring up at Grandma’s window.
The children followed his eyes.
Slowly, the little window beneath the eaves began to open.
Very slowly.
As if invisible hands were gently pushing it outward.
But there were no hands to be seen.
Do you remember how apples bob up and down in the water after you have tried to catch them on Halloween?
They fool you.
They seem almost to laugh at you as they bob higher and higher.
That was how Grandma’s head appeared over the windowsill.
First came the lavender cap.
Then her soft white hair.
Then her bright eyes behind her steel-rimmed spectacles.
Then her crinkly mouth.
Then her proud, determined chin, covered with little wrinkles like crumpled silk.
Finally, her lavender silk shoulders appeared, wrapped in a lavender shawl decorated with tiny white butterflies.
What was Grams doing?
She was rising higher and higher.
Now her tiny hands appeared.
Then her tiny feet.
Grandma was sitting in her famous rocking chair, rising into the morning air like a bird.
Or perhaps like a giant mushroom that suddenly appears overnight.
Her knitting bag rested in her lap, filled with the strangest and most fascinating things beneath its bright balls of colored yarn.
“Grams!” the children cried in frightened amazement.
“Grams! Look out!”
But Grandma only smiled calmly.
She sailed right through the window in her rocking chair.
Down she came.
Straight toward the dragon’s back.
The rocking chair landed ever so gently.
It rocked once or twice and gave a happy little creak.
“Well!” Grandma breathed.
“Here I am!”
“Oh, Grams!” Peter cried.
“Are you coming with us?”
“Why, of course.”
Grandma smiled.
“I’m just like Nap and Jerry when it comes to adventures.”
She looked at the dragon.
“It was I who told Mr. Dragon where to hide until morning.”
“I knew that if he went back to the cave, perhaps none of us would have the courage to bring him out again.”
“So you sent him around the corner,” Johnathan said with a smile.
“Yes, my dear.”
Grandma nodded.
“Around the corner.”
Then she tapped one little slippered foot against the dragon’s back.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then one more tap with her toe.
It was a tiny magical rhythm.
“Are we ready, Mr. Dragon?” she called.
“Yes, indeed, Grandame!” the dragon replied.
“We’re off!”
He turned toward the road.
“Down the highway!”
Before the children even realized they had started, the world began sliding past them.
Faster.
And faster.
The hills became long streaks.
The trees became green lines rushing by.
When they looked back, their house had disappeared in the blink of an eye.
When they looked ahead, it seemed as if they were racing straight toward the rising sun.
It was Sunday morning.
And all the bells were ringing.