Two days after their last meeting, the co-authors of our story met again at Sam’s house. The houseguests had come and gone, and the big living room was free again. Sam brought out her copy of the story so far, and they read it together. “This is really good,” said Kim.

“It’s just what we acted out together,” replied Sam, blushing.

“But you wrote it all out like a real story-writer,” countered Kim.

“We all did it together. I just wrote what was on the paper, what we said.”

“No, you said some of it better,” said Seth.

“I had to change a little bit of it, to make the story flow better,” admitted Sam.

“Why didn’t you ever skip a grade or two in school?” asked Jess.

“I’m small for my age,” said Sam. “Maybe that’s why I like being a big dragon in our story. Plus, I’m only average in math.” Sam was actually better than average in math, and had helped most of the gathered friends with their math homework at one time or another, but they got her point. She may have been good at math, but she wasn’t a full grade level ahead. “Kim, did you read any more of that book about Lincoln?” Sam asked.

“Yes, I did! He was very smart!” replied Kim.

“Let’s talk for a minute,” Sam suggested, and took Kim off to a corner. After they talked quietly for a while, Sam emerged from the corner, and addressed the room: “So, are we ready to go?”

They were ready to go. They found themselves at the gates of the gray castle, having recently left the farmer’s house. They rushed inside to find King Tony and Queen Linda.

The news of the attack was received grimly, but without much surprise. The kingdom was used to news of dragon attacks by now. Curriers were dispatched with food to keep the farmers’ pantries stocked, and workers and supplies were sent to rebuild the buildings. Extra cattle were also sent, and everything possible was done to leave the farmers better off (physically, at least) than before the attack. Samantha didn’t need to be told to start using the first alternate farm. She figured, correctly, that Hausraucher would now leave the kingdoms alone until after the council hearing.

Immediately after they delivered the news of the dragon attack, the four friends inquired about having a copy of the map made. As it turned out, because the kingdoms were at peace (except for the dragon attacks, which required little in the way of maps), the royal cartographers were glad to have the work. An excellent copy was presented to Lady Jessica early the next morning. The Dragon Council hearing was that night, and the friends decided they needed the map to be in the cave that day, so that Samantha would have a chance of retrieving it before the meeting.

They arrived at cave about two hours before noon, and left the folded map just inside the mouth of the cave, showing clearly from under the rock they placed to keep it from blowing away. It was invisible from outside the cave, but difficult to miss once one entered. When they arrived back at the castle, they had nothing to do but wait. Half an hour after they got back, Lady Kimberly heard Samantha’s voice: “Got the map.” An hour or so later, she closed her eyes, and saw the map hanging on a natural stone wall, possibly in another cave. Samantha was staring at it intently, probably memorizing it.

That night, right around sunset, Samantha’s friends gathered in a small room in King Tony’s castle, and Lady Kimberly closed her eyes. “I think she’s getting ready,” she said. “She’s pacing back and forth, and mumbling things about dragon law that I don’t really understand.”

“Well, we’re early,” said Sir Seth. “Let’s wait a bit and check in later.” That’s what they did. Half an hour after sunset, Lady Kimberly observed that Samantha was out of her cave and flying over the forest. Fifteen minutes later, she was sitting at the designated spot, and quietly waiting.

As she waited, Samantha tried to keep herself calm. She knew that the sight of Hausraucher would be unnerving, but she didn’t want it to show. Samantha felt it was possible, even likely, that Hausraucher would try to provoke her into an attack, and she knew she must not allow that to happen. So Samantha strove for inner peace. She took deep breaths, and let them out slowly, her eyes closed. During these intervals, Lady Kimberly had nothing to report.

Finally (and right on time), Hausraucher arrived. “Follow me,” she said calmly. “I know you can keep up.” Hausraucher flew off without another word, and Samantha followed. As predicted, Samantha had no trouble following her rival. Hausraucher made no effort to fly slowly, but Samantha was well-rested, well-fed, and uninjured.

They flew without a word almost due east for nearly two hours. Less than an hour into the flight, they were well beyond the boundaries of the either of their territories, on ancient rights-of-way established just for this kind of travel. They were still owned by other dragons, and those who traveled them were not allowed to land – but the owners, in turn, were not allowed to attack those who passed over and stayed within the established fifty-mile-wide channels.

With half an hour left in the journey, a mountain came into sight. They turned toward it, still flying nearly due east. As the mountain drew nearer, Samantha could see that the southern side of the mountain, to her right, had a thousand-foot sheer drop to the bottom. At the top of this was a large ledge, a flat space big enough for ten or twelve dragons to move around comfortably. There were three dragons visible on the ledge as they approached, and several more perched on smaller ledges higher up the mountain. When she was almost to the ledge and Hausraucher was landing on it, Samantha saw that the entire cliff face had been artificially smoothed, and it was, as far as she could see, impossible to climb. The face of the mountain above the ledge, as well as to the left and right of it, were also very smooth, and only the small ledges, each with about enough room for one dragon, were left above. Each of these was at least a hundred feet from the main ledge.

This ledge was quite possibly the most isolated spot Samantha had ever seen. She could think of no way that a human could reach that spot, especially if the ledge was guarded. She suspected, correctly, that it always was.

When she landed, Samantha saw that there was a sixth dragon on the ledge, inside a cave that she had not noticed before. The dragon in the cave looked very old. When Samantha arrived, the three dragons Samantha had seen from a distance all backed away, as if to show that they were not a part of the proceedings, but that they were still watching carefully.

The old dragon in the cave spoke quickly but clearly, with a tone of voice suggesting that he had spoken those same words many times before. His voice was echoed and amplified by the cave, which gave even his rote recitations an extra air of authority.

“My name is Gegendrichter,” he said. “I will lead this hearing, and my authority is to be respected. My decision, once I reach it, will be final. You arrived in peace, and, at the conclusion of this hearing, you are to leave in peace.

“You are here to settle a dispute. As you know, we divide the lands between the two great oceans into territories to reduce the need for these disputes. The peace has been maintained for thousands of years, mainly because of this division of land. The method or fairness of determining the territories is not relevant to this case. The divisions have been as they are now, with only minor changes, for centuries, and are now a part of the law.

“Disputes over territory are rare. It is even more rare for us to be approached with a request for a hearing. We refuse to hear even most of these, because the law is clear enough that a hearing is almost never necessary. Your case is being heard because we have determined that there may be a legitimate dispute worth hearing.

“You will each be given five minutes to state your case, beginning with the dragon Hausraucher, who brought the complaint. No interruption is to be made during either of these opening statements. From this point, the hearing will continue as the Council sees fit.

There was a long pause – or it felt long to Samantha. She had a burning question, and was working up the courage to ask it, when the old dragon, as if reading her mind, added, in a less formal and practiced tone: “This is a special case, in that it is possible for Friedenfeuer to lose all of her territory, and her only means of making a living. Should Friedenfeuer lose the dispute in a way that does not merit extreme punishment, Hausraucher has agreed to yield her own smaller territory to Friendenfeuer, as a precondition for the Council hearing her case. The peace, as it has lasted all these centuries, depends on every able-bodied dragon having some territory. A dragon without territory spells trouble for everyone.”

This answered Samantha’s question, but it did nothing to reduce her determination to win. Hausraucher’s territory was small, and few people or animals were left. Samantha saw no way to make a living in that territory from the gratitude and generosity of the people living there. She would have to steal, and possibly even terrorize, or die. She also knew that her friends and all who depended on her would suffer greatly if Hausraucher took over her territory. Samantha could not afford to lose.

“Without further delay, let us continue,” declared the dragon in the cave. “Hausraucher, you have five minutes to tell Friedenfeuer and the Council why you have brought your complaint.”

“I thank the Council for hearing me,” said Hausraucher. It is my hope that the facts that I am about to recount will establish to the Council my right to claim the territory of Menschenbrenner and Frauenfresser, provided that they had no legitimate heir. I also hope to show that the treachery of young Friedenfeuer invalidates her claim to the inheritance, and thus satisfies the provision that there be no legitimate heir. If I succeed in establishing both of these assertions, I hope the Council will agree that, as established facts, they make me the rightful owner of the territory in dispute. I also hold it likely that the treachery of young Friedenfeuer may be deemed a capital offence.”

Lady Kimberly finished repeating that last sentence as best she could. It was difficult to listen and talk at the same time, but it was the only way she could keep up. Sir Seth was clearly fuming. “That dirty dragon’s trying to get Samantha killed so she can keep both territories!”

“Well, let’s just see…” started Lady Kimberly before she had to get back to Hausraucher’s statement.

“Over three years ago, an estimated two days after the deaths of Menschenbrenner and Frauenfresser, I found them on a raft at sea. It took only a quick study of ocean currents and tides to estimate where the raft had started its journey. Very near the estimated entry point, on the shores nearest a white castle inhabited by humans, there was evidence of the departure. Dragon blood stained the sand, and I could see where the rafts had been dragged to the ocean. The castle bore the marks of a dragon attack. The stone was charred, and there was wood ash evident inside the castle gates. The damage was not extensive. It looked like the battle had been short.

“On the other side of a forest, a short flight away, was a gray castle, much more extensively damaged. The attack had been intense enough to kill every human inside, but, by the time I got there, large work crews were already hard at work fixing the damage. The king was holding court outside, probably due to damage to the castle, and there were no royal funerals. In short, the castle had been thoroughly attacked, with no apparent deaths. The castle must have been empty at the time of the attack.

“All this spells treachery and betrayal. Both the emptiness of the gray castle and the shortness of the battle at the white castle indicate that the humans knew of the upcoming attack. They concentrated their forces in one place, and had a plan for defeating the dragons.

“One final point: Friedenfeuer was just the right age to attack her first castle, yet her parents performed the attack instead. I submit that this is because Friedenfeuer refused to attack. Whether it was because she was already in league with the humans or because she draconified them in her mind, her parents would have no choice but to disown her. No self-respecting dragon would tolerate such disrespect from a child. If she was disowned, she has no right to her inheritance. If she conspired with the humans to get her parents killed, she is guilty of capital treachery, and clearly has no right to her inheritance.

“To sum up, I have ample evidence for two reasons why Friedenfeuer is not worthy of her inheritance. I believe both of them are true, but, if even just one of them is true, my claim to the territory is the only legitimate one, and it has been legally mine for over three years. Once again, I thank the Council for hearing me.”

After a thoughtful pause, Gegendrichter said, “Before I allow Friedenfeuer to speak, I have a question to ask. Hausraucher, the Council has noticed that you are freshly injured. Did Friedenfeuer attack you on your own territory?”

“She attacked me on territory that I claim as my own.”

“But she did not attack on your undisputed territory?”

“No, she did not.”

“Did she attack without provocation?”

“There was no provocation other than my mere presence.”

“Friedenfeuer, is this true?”

“It is not true. I never attacked without seeing dragon fire first. She was not merely in the disputed territory, but using its resources as if they were already hers,” replied Samantha.

“I will amend my statement from before,” said Hausraucher. “There was no provocation other than my presence, and my use of resources I believed to be mine.”

“Thank you both,” said Gegendrichter. We will consider this further if it proves relevant. Friedenfeuer, are you ready to begin your statement?”

“I beg the Council for a few moments to gather myself.”

“You have five minutes to begin,” said the old dragon.

Samantha thanked him, and then fell silent. She was surprised at how much Hausraucher had gotten right. Whether she had done it on purpose or not, however, she had twisted many of the facts. Samantha was more determined than ever to win.

Back in the castle, Samantha’s friends discussed the matter. “Do you think the Council’s going to believe old House-poker?” asked Sir Seth.

“Samantha’s smart. She’ll make sure they hear her side of the story,” said Lady Kimberly.

“That’s what her statement is for,” said Sir Seth.

“Yes,” said Lady Kimberly, “and I’m saying she’ll do a good job.”

“I wish we could do more than just sit here and listen,” complained Lady Jessica.

“Well, we can’t,” Sir Seth shot back. “We’ll do what we can when we can.”

“Why do you always have to be so…”

“Shhhh!” interrupted Lady Kimberly. “She’s starting again!”

Slowly, Samantha stepped forward to speak.

“I thank the Council for its patience in waiting for me to start my statement. I’m still sad, every day, about the deaths of my parents. I still cry about them sometimes. The Council is very generous for giving a young dragon time to gather herself after the shock of these amazing and hurtful accusations. That time has allowed me to realize that I have no reason to be hurt. I did nothing wrong, and, despite some very creative story-telling, Hausraucher has provided absolutely no evidence that I did.

“The day before my parents were attacked, they did ask me to attack the castle. I beg the Council to remember that I was only a baby dragon at the time. I had never seen a castle attacked. I didn’t feel ready. I failed in my duty to my parents, but they did not disinherit me. I wonder every day if I could have prevented their deaths by being more respectful that day. I may never stop suffering for that decision.

“But my parents did not tell me that they were planning an attack. I could have guessed, but I did not know – so how could I have warned anyone of it? I have no reason to dispute Hausraucher’s finding of my parents’ bodies, or how the two castles were attacked. I don’t know if she has necessarily proved that the gray castle was empty, or that my parents’ final battle was short – but it doesn’t matter. The inferences she makes from these facts, if they are, indeed, facts, are ill-founded and self-serving. Even I, knowing full well that I did nothing wrong, thought that Hausraucher would have better evidence than this.

“I thought I would have more to say, but my opponent has given me nothing further to argue against. I put my trust in the Council.”

Lady Jessica listened, wide-eyed, to Lady Kimberly’s rendering of Samantha’s words. “Nice comeback,” Lady Jessica said, “but she lied.”

“How did she lie?” asked Sir Seth.

“She DID get disowned by her parents. They were going to kill her.”

“No,” said Lady Kimberly. “Samantha thought they were going to kill her. But they never actually attacked her. And they did stop taking care of her – but, in Council, she just claimed that they didn’t disinherit her. As far as I know, they didn’t. Maybe Samantha was being a bit tricky, but she seems to be fighting outright lies without lying herself. If she has to leave out a bit of the truth to make her defense, I’m not going to blame her!”

“I still think she was a bit…”

“Later!” interrupted Lady Kimberly. “They’re starting again!”

The dragon in the cave, Gegendrichter, spoke again. “Friedenfeuer, please step forward.” Samantha obeyed. “The Council reserves the right to deliberate for days or weeks, but we have deemed it unnecessary. Before we render our decision, however, we need to advise you about deceiving the Council. Samantha opened her mouth, but he cut her off before she even made a noise. “If it is necessary for you to speak further, we will ask you to speak,” he said sternly.

“We did not fail to observe how carefully-worded your statement is. It is our guess that you did not tell an outright lie, but did withhold the truth. However, it is not relevant to our decision, and we will speak of it no more, except to warn you that the Council will never forget its suspicions, and, should you ever need to give testimony in the future, your words will be scrutinized more carefully because of it. It is not wise to try to deceive the Council, especially when you believe your cause to be just.

“Now, Hausraucher, please step forward.” Hausraucher stepped forward, and Samantha backed up to her former place. “We agreed to hear your case because there is precedent for treachery to invalidate the right of inheritance, and you also gave us reason to believe you had evidence that Friedenfeuer had been disinherited. We believe you have failed to give valid evidence for either treachery or disinheritance.

“First, you seem to base some of your argument on the idea that there are laws about how a dragon keeps his or her territory. There is no requirement that a territory be run wisely, efficiently, or with consideration to other dragons’ territories. Even with shared resources, such as lakes and rivers, the Council rarely agrees to hear a case. Dragons are expected to take care of themselves, and to take unfairness in stride.

“You presented evidence that Friedenfeuer was friendly with the humans, and was well-loved in the territories. Some dragons sleep unnoticed in caves for years at a time. Others broker deals with humans, and honor them. Not everyone agrees that these are good strategies, but we do not prohibit them – so how could we prohibit treatment that the humans perceive as kind, or even loving? It is not the Council’s place to tell a dragon how to manage his or her territory.

“You argue that Friedenfeuer has draconified the humans, considering them to be as important as she is. The Council does not, and never will, hold that view. We will never rule in favor of a human or grant one territory – but we also have no rule requiring any level of sanity or competence to rule a territory. Friedenfeuer may or may not have a delusion. The Council has not seen conclusive evidence either way, though we have noted that she has made no statements during the hearing that draconify humans, and this shows that she is at least aware that the Council places no intrinsic value on any human or group of humans.

“Other dragons have laid waste to their territories, sometimes in a single fit of rage, but we’ve never seen fit to take their territories away. The complete destruction of a territory, to the point where it cannot even sustain enough life to support a dragon, seems insane, but we do not prohibit it. Somehow, a baby dragon in a hostile land managed not only to survive but to thrive. The Council sees absolutely no reason to question her methods.

“As for the allegation that Friedenfeuer schemed to have her own parents killed, we might be inclined to investigate this further, because killing another dragon to gain territory is a serious violation of the peace we work so hard to maintain. However, Friedenfeuer’s youth at the time is a mitigating factor. For virtually all offenses, parents are held responsible for their offspring.

“Even if we believed it was the Council’s place to interpret family dynamics, we would be forced to conclude that Friedenfeuer’s parents are responsible for their own deaths. Even if Friedenfeuer were an adult responsible for all her own actions, she did not contribute materially to their deaths. She did not poison them or injure them or ask the humans to do anything they would not gladly do of their own accord. If the humans had extra information that helped them, the most that can be said is that human lives were saved by it. From what the Council can determine, Menschenbrenner and Frauenfresser flew into the humans’ trap in a blind rage. A little caution and clear thinking would have saved their lives.

“Finally, the Council will touch briefly on the theory that Friedenfeuer was disinherited. Normally, the Council needs to be notified for any such action to be considered valid. But, since it could be argued that Friedenfeuer’s parents died before they could notify the Council, we were open to exploring the matter a bit further.

“In the end, however, the Council finds the evidence presented entirely unconvincing. In fact, it is difficult for us to imagine a scenario that would be convincing. Once again, it comes down to the fact that there is no dragon law on how territories or families are managed. What you consider normal practice, even if you are correct, is not the law, and we have no reason to assume that the Friedenfeuer’s parents were following those conventions.

“In fact, it is quite normal for parents who have been defied to go through all the motions of disowning their offspring. They may stop feeding them, they may blow fire at them, and they sometimes keep the pretense up for weeks. It is often quite effective. Even if we had a sworn witness testify to hearing both parents say, ‘You are no longer our daughter.  You are disowned and disinherited,’ that would not be credible evidence that the parents really meant it. This is one of many reasons why the Council requires official notification of disinheritance.

“Given all this, Hausraucher, the Council is disappointed in your case. You have wasted the Council’s time. However, we also have no evidence that your concerns were not genuine. You may have honestly believed your evidence was valid. We will give you the benefit of the doubt this time, but do not make the same mistakes again. The Council will remember.

“The Council therefore rules that Friedenfeuer retain the territory long held without dispute by her parents. In addition, Hausraucher will retain her own territory. Hausraucher is advised to be content with it. Many dragons make a fine living with less. This is the final ruling of the Council. The hearing is concluded. Return in peace to your territories.”

Hausraucher launched herself immediately from the ledge, and was soon lost in the darkness. Samantha thanked the dragon in the cave, the only part of the Council she had seen. Gegendrichter remained quiet, and she couldn’t tell whether he had heard her or not. So she left, too, but flew slowly. She remembered how she had come, so there was no need to catch up to Hausraucher.

She had won. She flew in a daze. She could not hear her friends back at King Tony’s castle shouting and celebrating. They, in turn, thought little of her silence. Even if her tears had sizzled down her cheeks instead of streaming noiselessly behind her, Lady Kimberly would not have heard them. They were not words. Before they had been celebrating long, however, Lady Kimberly heard Samantha say, “The cave were you left the map – at dawn – please.” Samantha repeated it several times on her way home. Lady Kimberly heard it each time, but Samantha had no way of knowing that for sure.

This quieted the celebration. Samantha’s tone worried Lady Kimberly a bit. The friends made plans to wake early enough to reach the caves by dawn. They were happy enough with the win to think nothing of the imposition, and they were all up and ready in the darkness of the early morning, despite how little sleep they were able to get.

When they arrived, Samantha was waiting for them inside the cave. She was far enough back that they had trouble seeing her. They ran to greet her, but she stopped them. “Please stay outside,” she said, with some urgency. They backed up to the mouth of the cave. Samantha’s voice echoed like the dragon at the Council meeting.

“What’s going on?” asked Sir Seth, with concern showing in his voice.

“I’ve spent three wonderful years with you,” said Samantha. “You’ve been wonderful friends. I was so happy the day I grew big enough to carry all four of you on my back. Remember that? I could barely go a mile that day. We had to walk back home.” Her friends smiled and nodded. “You took care of me. You loved me, and you taught me so much. I will treasure your friendship forever.”

Samantha paused. Her friends grew uncomfortable. Something in her tone, in her choice of words, troubled them. Lady Kimberly opened her mouth to speak, but Samantha continued, “I don’t deserve friends like you.”

She was interrupted by a chorus of “Are you kidding?”, “Yes, you do!” and “What are you talking about?”

Samantha waited for the chorus to die down, and she spoke again. “Thank you for thinking so, but I don’t. I was treacherous. I did kill my parents.”

“The judge-dragon said you didn’t,” said Sir Seth.

“The old dragon didn’t care one way or another. Any decision that kept the peace was good enough for him.”

“So? He was right.”

They could not see her tears in the darkness of the cave, but they could hear the sizzle. “No, he wasn’t. My parents didn’t abandon me. They weren’t going to kill me. They were just trying to change my mind, to get me to do what they told me to do – like any parent does. They used tough techniques on an ungrateful and disrespectful dragon.”

“You think you should have killed us?” asked Lady Jessica.

“No. But I didn’t have to kill them, either.”

“You didn’t,” said Lady Kimberly. “We… I mean the people in the castle killed them.” Lady Jessica let out a silent sigh of relief. They had never told Samantha of their direct role in killing her parents, and she felt that now was not the time to tell her.

“They were killed because I turned on them,” said Samantha. I had other options. I could have told them I wasn’t ready yet, or sabotaged their efforts, or saved your lives some other way. But I jumped straight to notifying two separate kingdoms of the attack I felt was coming, and I gave them time to plan an attack of their own.

“Do you know who took care of me before you did? Do you know who loved me before I ever met you? My parents did. They made me into the little dragon you came to love. Nobody else can take the credit for that. My parents weren’t bad. How could they love me so much and be bad?”

For a few moments, Samantha’s sobs echoed through the cave. She choked them back, and continued. “I once argued to them that you were just as important as any dragon. But how could I say that if I didn’t also believe that they were as important as any human? They were misguided. They were stuck in ways that were no longer correct, and were out of date.”

“They were stuck in views that were never correct,” said Sir Seth.

“SETH,” she shouted, and fire flew from her nostrils. The friends were startled. It was rare enough for Samantha to grump or grouch at them. She had never shouted at any of them before. They knew she had held back her fire with unrelenting self-control. It flew out only a few feet, and didn’t even come close enough for them to feel the heat. “Is this really the time to argue with me?” she continued. “You must have no idea how old the race of dragons is. Long before you spoke or built buildings or made fire, we dragons existed. Our history goes back that far, and our legends go back further still.

“But most dragons don’t know that humans are no longer animals. My parents were just stuck in old ways. They’d never hurt anyone they knew was a person.”

“But you knew,” said Sir James.

“No, I didn’t. I just guessed. I guessed right, but really I was no different from the farm girl who screams at the slaughter of a cow or a pig.”

“Maybe the farm girl is right, too,” said Lady Kimberly.

“Maybe she is, but you still eat beef and pork. You still fed them to me. And I still ate them.”

“We’ll help you,” said Lady Kimberly. “We don’t know all the answers, but we love you and we’ll figure this out.”

Samantha continued as if she hadn’t heard her. “They should still be raising me. They should still be loving me and teaching me. I miss them so much, and it’s my fault they’re gone!” Samantha sobbed and sizzled while her friends looked on uncomfortably. They didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m sorry,” said Sir James at last. “The hearing reminded you of a very difficult time in your life.”

“I hope you can remember the happy times, too,” continued Lady Kimberly.

“And I hope you remember that it was a very hard time for you,” continued Lady Jessica, “and that there were no easy choices, even for a grown-up dragon, and you were just a baby.”

“Thank you,” said Samantha. “I understand everything you’ve been telling me. It’s what I’ve been telling myself ever since the day they died. I’m just not sure it’s true. I’d love to believe I’m as blameless as you say – as blameless as I thought I was. I can’t take it on faith anymore. I have to work it out for myself. It will take some time. I need to be alone.”

Samantha walked slowly to the mouth of the cave, and her friends stepped aside almost instinctively, to avoid touching her face, which tended to get boiling hot whenever she cried or got emotional. She took a quick step between them and jumped into the sky, without saying another word.

The four started back in deep silence. No words were necessary, and it felt like none were possible. After a quarter mile or so, Lady Kimberly stepped off the path and closed her eyes to see the treetops through Samantha’s eyes. She saw nothing but the red-orange of the sunlight through her eyelids, and the ghosts of dreams that we all see when we close our eyes.

She sat on the forest floor, as if she no longer had the strength to stand. Her friends stood around her, waiting to help if they could. “She’s gone,” she said.

“For a while,” said Sir Seth, laying a hand on her shoulder, “until she figures some things out.”

“She’s gone from my mind,” said Lady Kimberly solemnly. “I can’t see her. I’m alone in here.”

The four sat in a tight group, drawing what comfort they could from each other’s presence. It was a long time before any of them moved or spoke.

Finally, they stood up, said brief goodbyes, and separated, going home to sleep in their own beds, in two groups separated by miles of forest. Samantha was also doubtless miles away, though none of them knew how far, or in what direction. They were all too tired to deal with the fact that they might never see Samantha again, so they slept, hoping to catch up on their sleep and maybe wake with a new perspective.

Dinner time was almost an hour away when the five friends finished writing. Sam took the stack of papers, and bound them neatly in a notebook she had started using for that purpose. They still had homework they could work on, but they felt like they could handle it on their own. Sam’s friends looked at her, as if asking what happens next. She shrugged. She didn’t know any better than they did. The dragon character had surprised her. They agreed to call and meet again soon, but none of them knew when “soon” would be.

 

Finally, Sam and her friends were back together. It had taken a week for everyone to be free to meet again, and they had to meet at Jim’s house. Sam’s parents needed to keep the house clean for company coming the next day. Jim was beginning to rethink calling himself James, because he liked having a special name for his character, but Sam was still trying to get everyone to call her Samantha. Jim’s living room was not as big as Sam’s, but they could make it work.

They were bursting with ideas for how to carry the story forward, so they got right to it. They made it night time, and they all lay down, except for Sam. Couches and chairs became royal beds, and Sam grew wings and protective scales, and was soon circling high above the gray castle. A large television disappeared with the living room walls without anyone giving it a second thought.

For a while, Hausraucher attacked somewhere almost every night. Dragon fire is visible for miles, however, and Samantha was able to arrive at the scene of attack within minutes of its start. Virtually every time, she showed up in time to catch Hausraucher in the act. At first, every fight was violent, injuring both dragons, and ending when Hausraucher finally fled, hurt too badly to fight anymore.

After the first two weeks or so, however, the fights became, as a rule, less violent – as if Hausraucher were simply testing Samantha’s resolve in patrolling. Her resolve in fighting to the finish, and her ability to do it, had apparently been proved to the invader’s satisfaction. Every once in a while, Hausraucher would try to surprise Samantha by fighting fiercely again, but Samantha always seemed ready for the worst.

With time, the attacks also became less frequent. Samantha patrolled as vigilantly as ever, all night; but, eventually, it seemed as if Hausraucher had never existed. Then, one night, right around midnight, Samantha became aware of a dragon flying quietly at her right. Turning quickly to attack, she noticed another above her, then below, to the left, ahead, and behind. She was surrounded by a team of six dragons. She saw no point in fighting. “What do you want?” she asked.

“Just keep flying as you are,” replied the dragon above her. “Remain calm. You are in no danger.” Samantha felt tense, despite the reassurance.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“This is a simple summons. You are to appear at the Dragon Council three nights from now, two hours before midnight. The territory you are patrolling is under dispute.”

“But my parents…”

“Please don’t try to argue your case now. That is what the council hearing is for. Do you have any questions that don’t involve the dispute itself?”

“I’ve never been to Dragon Council. I don’t know how to get there.”

“You will fly with Hausraucher. She will meet you an hour after sunset at the edge of the forest nearest the white castle.”

“But she’s the one…”

“She will be peaceful and cooperative. The penalties are severe if she is not. I hope I do not have to point out that the penalties are equally severe if you are not peaceful and cooperative.”

“No, no need to point that out. I am curious about one thing, though.”

“What is that?”

“Why did it take six of you just to deliver a message? Why did you have to sneak up?”

“Six dragons? That’s what you see? There are twenty of us in all, in strategic positions. We have a difficult job – approaching a dragon in home territory – a dragon who is perfectly within his or her rights to attack if we don’t identify ourselves first. We do what we have to so that we have our target outnumbered and surrounded before they know we’re there. We deliver our message quickly, make sure everything’s clear, and then leave. As a matter of fact, it’s time for that now. Is everything clear?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. All you have to understand now is that you need to show up. Anything else will be explained at Council. Most dragons appearing before the Council are appearing there for the first time. Many dragons live out their whole lives in one territory, and never have to appear before Council. We’re used to explaining things. We will see you in three nights.”

Before Samantha could even think, the dragons had all swerved off in different directions, and had disappeared in the blackness of the night.

Lady Kimberly heard the whole thing – the voices had woken her up. She ran to wake up Sir Seth, who was staying in the same castle. “What can we do?” asked Lady Kimberly after she had told him all she had heard. “We can’t call Samantha. She can call us. But what if she doesn’t call us? How can we talk to her?”

“What can we do for her, really?” replied Sir Seth. “We don’t know anything about the Dragon Council. We can’t really go with her. She probably realizes this. But if she calls us, we’ll be ready, of course!”

“No, we need to do more than that. She needs to know we’re there for her. She needs to know we’re watching. She needs to know we’ll do all we can do, even if that turns out to be nothing.”

“Doesn’t she already know that?”

“Probably. But it can’t hurt for to hear it – to know for sure.”

“So you think that would help?”

“I know that would help.”

“Maybe we can catch her where she eats. Let’s talk to Jessica and James tomorrow.”

So it was agreed. Lady Kimberly and Sir Seth started for King Tony’s castle an hour after dawn, when they judged the danger from dragons to be minimal. They reached the castle without incident, and decided to try to meet Samantha that night. Lady Kimberly knew that Samantha stopped for a big meal every night just after sunset, to prepare her to patrol all night with only light snacks to keep her going. They decided to wait in the barn, then sleep there after talking to Samantha, to avoid being out at night. They loaded a pony with all the pillows, blankets, and bedding they would need, and another with dried meat and clean water.

“It’ll be like camping out,” said Sir James.

“I think there are only two horses in the horse barn right now,” said Sir Seth. “That’ll make it easier to sleep in than the cattle barn.”

There was no discussion. It seemed like a good plan to everyone else. By mid-afternoon, they were holed up in the horse barn, with all the supplies they needed. There was a large hay loft above the stalls on half of the barn. The two horses in residence were on the other side. At one end of the hay loft stood some large storage cabinets, empty but designed to be locked. They kept their ponies directly below them, with plenty of hay in case they got hungry. They stowed most of their gear in the storage cabinets, and prepared themselves an early supper before settling in to wait for Samantha. Lady Kimberly closed her eyes after supper. “She’s still sleeping,” she said, and they sat on the bed rolls they’d brought, and took turns telling stories to pass the time. Every half hour, Lady Kimberly closed her eyes again, to see what Samantha was up to.

Finally, about an hour after sunset, Lady Kimberly said, “She’s up and flying over the forest. She’s late today.”

“Well, at least she’s coming,” said Lady Jessica, who had gotten tired of sitting around.

“The farm’s in sight,” said Lady Kimberly. “We should move out now.” Two large sides of beef had been set out for Samantha to eat that night, and the friends took cover in a small chicken coop nearby. The chickens were not overly alarmed, and soon settled down. Samantha landed lightly within fire-breathing distance of the meat, and was soon all business, barbecuing it to perfection.

When the roar of the flames died down and Samantha began to eat, Lady Jessica called out, “Hey, Samantha!” Samantha was startled for only a moment, instantly recognizing the voice.

“You shouldn’t be here!” Samantha growled. She did not look at the chicken coop, but appeared to still be intent on her meal. “Hausraucher is probably watching this spot, trying to figure out how I’m getting my meals!”

“We don’t care. I heard all about your council meeting coming up,” said Lady Kimberly. “We had to come and tell you we’re here for you, no matter what you need. We know there’s probably nothing we can do, but, if you think of anything, just let us know. We’ll be listening to the whole thing: I’ll tell them what’s going on.”

Tears, which had been welling up in Samantha’s eyes, began to spill over. She tried not to show it, but the sizzling gave it away. “I already knew that,” she said, trying to sound grumpy. You didn’t have to risk your lives to tell me.”

“Now you sound like Seth,” said Lady Kimberly. “He’s such a boy! Of course we had to come out. Also, we have to have a way to meet from time to time.”

“Well, it can’t be here. You should never, never come here again!”

“All the more reason for us to work something else out,” retorted Lady Jessica. “You’ll have to set up the meetings, because you can contact us, but we can’t contact you.”

Samantha thought for a moment, and grumbled, “Well, I guess I’ll have to work out something, or you idiots will come back here again.” The chicken coop remained silent. Not even the chickens had any reply to make. Samantha thought some more. “Do you have a map of the forest – a nice big one, with numbered grids?”

“Yes, we have one in our castle,” offered Lady Jessica. It takes up a whole wall of our war room. It has letters on the top and bottom, and numbers down both sides.”

“Perfect,” said Samantha, sounding upbeat for the first time in the conversation. “I need you to have a copy made. It doesn’t need any of the fancy artwork – just any streets or pathways that are on your map, plus any other landmarks – and the same grid pattern. Leave the copy inside the cave we hid in when Hausraucher first found us. Can you find it?”

“Yes,” said Lady Jessica.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes!” the four friends replied in unison.

“Good! When I want to meet you, I’ll say, ‘Meet!’, then I’ll give you a letter and a number. An hour after dawn or an hour before sunset, whichever is first, meet me at the southwest corner of the grid square I indicate. It’s up to you to figure out where that is.”

“We can do it.”

Samantha looked doubtful, but the friends, still hidden in the chicken coop, couldn’t see. “If I want to meet at a different part of the square, or at a different time, and I’m alone, I’ll say so. Otherwise, all you’ll get is ‘Meet!’ and the letter and the number.”

“Got it!” they said.

“Good. Now get under cover, and stay there all night! Blast it, you shouldn’t be here!” She sounded angry. “I’m grateful for the support, and I’m glad we have a way to meet, but you have no idea what a risk you’re taking! Please don’t ever do this again!” She gulped down her last bite of beef, said, “I’ve got to go!” and flew off without another word.

It took them only seconds to reach the horse barn, and, after a few minutes, they were fairly certain they had not been seen. They pulled their sleeping gear out from the tall cabinets, and settled down to sleep on loose piles of hay.

Lady Kimberly began drifting to sleep to the familiar sight of the forest and villages in Samantha’s territory. Her dreams began to merge with the quiet scenery passing below Samantha’s watchful eye. Dark ponds and lakes became bright blue, and she quietly knew the blue couldn’t be coming from Samantha. Sometimes, two blue ponds close together would change shape and become Sir James’s eyes. Other times, a dark patch would become the cave she and her friends had hidden in, and she would see her friends’ faces peering out of the darkness. Off in the distance, another dark patch became bright and colorful – yellow-orange, this time, not blue, and her mind’s eye raced toward it.

No, it wasn’t her mind’s eye – it was Samantha’s eye, and Lady Kimberly was startled awake. She kept her eyes closed, but everything dreamlike disappeared quickly. The yellow-orange was clearly dragon fire, and Lady Kimberly knew she was about to watch another fight. She thought it would probably be a quick fight like the recent ones had been, but she had no way of knowing for sure. Samantha’s field of vision shifted erratically, and Lady Kimberly soon realized that Samantha was flying as fast as she could. This was unusual. She usually hurried straight to the scene of any attack, but saved some energy for the fight. Samantha was saving nothing for this fight – she was putting everything she had into just getting there. The burning building looked familiar.

Suddenly, Lady Kimberly felt sick to her stomach. She felt consciousness try to slip away as the room began to spin furiously around her. But a fierce instinct of self-preservation overcame her dizziness, and her eyes opened wide. The flames Samantha was racing to reach were replaced by the dim interior of the barn, and her friends sleeping quietly in the hay loft. Her senses seemed heightened. She felt she could see everything in the barn as clear as day.

She didn’t waste another second. “Wake up!” she whispered urgently. She shook Lady Jessica and Sir James. “Wake up!” Lady Jessica was awake quickly, and shaking Sir Seth awake.

“What is it?” asked Sir James, still in a fog.

“It’s House-moker! She’s here!”

“House-WHAT?”

“Sorry, Hausraucher! She’s burning the cattle barn! We have to hide, and be quiet!” Lady Jessica began to pile up hay to hide under, but Sir Seth began tossing all their gear into one of the cabinets.

“In here!” he insisted, and they all realized it was a better idea. They did their best to hide all signs that they had been there, then each hid in a cabinet with some of their gear.

“She’s seen us!” said Sir James.

“No,” said Lady Kimberly. “She went for the cattle barn first. She’s after Samantha’s food. We need to hide and be quiet!”

No more was said. Sir Seth latched three of the four cabinets, and pulled and held his shut. They heard a mighty roar, answered by a cry of rage, and knew that Samantha had arrived. Lady Kimberly closed her eyes, and remained silent. She had to recount the battle later. This was not a quick or easy fight. Samantha and Hausraucher fought savagely. Samantha’s jaws snapped shut on Hausraucher’s tail, and she breathed searing-hot fire into the fresh wounds. Dragons’ insides are vulnerable to fire, but their blood, exposed to heat, hardens into a shield more effective than their skin. Hausraucher counter-attacked with equal fierceness, and Lady Kimberly, able to see only one side of the fighting, had trouble following what was going on.

The cattle didn’t have a chance. Lady Kimberly watched in horror as Samantha and Hausraucher gulped down whole cows and bulls, as fast as they could, as if it were a contest. If it had been a contest, Hausraucher would have won. After the first three or four cattle consumed, Samantha seemed unable to keep up. The cattle barn had collapsed by the time that grim contest ended, and Hausraucher burst through the chicken coop in which the four friends had so recently hidden, and sucked all the chickens into her mouth before they could do a thing. They were all gone in less than a second.

Hausraucher then burst through the door of the horse barn, a noise that was deafening to the four friends inside their cabinets. Samantha just watched as Hausraucher gobbled up the two horses and two ponies in the barn. Hausraucher looked up into the hay loft from the other half of the barn, and, in a huge blast of flame, set the piles of hay on fire. She left the barn and aimed a parting blast at the foundation of the barn, insuring that it would burn to the ground.

She scurried toward the farmhouse, shouting, “Such is the fate of all who assist Friedenfeuer!”

Samantha took to the air, swooped down upon Hausraucher, and caught her head between her jaws, snapping them shut with overwhelming force. A blinding burst of flame followed. Lady Kimberly expected Hausraucher’s head to be a crushed and charred mess, and tried to close her eyes, forgetting for a moment that they were already closed. But Hausraucher’s head was still intact, though dotted with pitted fire-scabs, including a particularly nasty one in her right eyelid.

Yes, it appeared that Samantha had taken out an eye, an amazing feat – dragons have very strong eyelids. Samantha didn’t pause for a moment, but continued her aerial attack, biting Hausraucher’s tail, head, and wings in a barrage of snapping jaws. It appeared that Hausraucher could not fly – either her wings were damaged, or she was too heavy with devoured cattle and horses.

Between attacks, Samantha shouted, “I can use my territory as I wish! I can demand tribute from any that I choose!”

“This would be true,” countered Hausraucher, “if this were your territory!”

“We will see in two nights!” replied Samantha. Hausraucher blew a blast of fire at the farmhouse. Half a second into the blast, Samantha blocked it with her body. The house did not catch fire – Samantha had saved it. “Go away – right now!” she demanded. “I have the upper hand. You are injured and too heavy to fly. If I have to drag your lifeless body to the council, I will, and we’ll see if they think it was justified. Right now, I don’t care. Go now, or you will not leave this spot alive!”

Hausraucher turned and sulked away. Samantha gave chase, just to speed her up. She patrolled the next night, but saw no sign of Hausraucher.

Back in the horse barn, Sir Seth burst out of his cabinet as soon as he heard Hausraucher leave the barn. The hay in the loft was burning fast, but the surrounding wood was catching fire only slowly. The bigger danger came from the fire started outside the barn. It had spread to the end of the hay loft with the ladder, and Sir Seth knew they would have to drop to the ground right near the cabinets, which he wasted no time in opening. “Quick! Down here!” he shouted, as he dropped to the ground. The others followed quickly. They all rushed out from the barn. They heard fighting near the farmhouse, so they ran to the other side of the barn, where they would not be seen, at least until the barn burned down.

Long before that happened, however, Hausraucher rushed by, followed closely by Samantha. Lady Kimberly opened her eyes when she judged that they were several miles away. The four friends wandered, as if in a daze, to the farm house, the only building left standing. The owners of the house still lived there, and had been instrumental in seeing to it that Samantha was fed. They had been paid generously for the use of their land, and new cattle were supplied steadily from both royal houses. No doubt their destroyed buildings would also be replaced. Samantha would have to use a backup farm, and the whole strategy for feeding her might have to be re-evaluated – but nobody was worried about that right then.

The four young friends were welcomed warmly, and given a place to sleep. They were exhausted, and slept late into the morning. The farm family were hours into their morning chores by the time their guests stirred from their beds. The four discussed what to do, and decided that they would not part company until after the council meeting. After breakfasting on the meal the farmers called lunch, the friends thanked their hosts again, and left for King Tony’s castle.

“Pretending to eat? It’s time to eat for real! Dinner time!” interrupted Jim’s father. “It’s only lunchtime,” insisted Jess, before shifting her perspective back to the living room. Jim considered pleading for ten extra minutes, but he realized that the Council meeting would require much more time to act out and write down.

So, unlike their counterparts in the story, they had to part company before the story continued. The five friends solemnly agreed to meet as soon as they possibly could. Sam had company coming over the next day, but they thought the day after that might work. Seeing the dragon Samantha through her ordeal had become a kind of sacred duty to them. The characters living inside their minds would not tolerate another long wait.

As they went to dinner in their separate houses, none of them had any idea what would happen next. They could not wait to find out.

 

Sam’s house became the favorite place for her friends to meet, once they decided they liked to act out and write stories together. She decided to start calling herself Samantha, like the baby dragon she had acted out earlier. Jim started to call himself James, Jess became Jessica, but Kim decided to stay Kim, even though her character had been Lady Kimberly.

After they composed a sequel to the story of Friedenfeuer (who, in the sequel, renamed herself Samantha), they were inspired to read other stories, more challenging and more interesting than the ones they had been reading.

Seth spoke up when they met again. “I read a story called ‘The Mine Field’. The title is kind of a joke, because it’s about a boy who’s friends with two other boys, but he has to move away. He can’t take all his stuff with him. He tells one boy he can have his football, because he has a newer football where he’s moving to. He tells his other friend he can have everything left in the garage. But he forgets and leaves the football in the garage, and the second friend takes it home. The rest of the story is about how they fight over that football.”

“So what happens?” asked Samantha.

“They finally figure out that the friend who got the garage stuff doesn’t care much about most of it. So they sell most of the stuff from the garage, including the football, and get enough to buy two new footballs.”

“I read a story called ‘Time for the Stars’,” said Samantha. “It was from a grown-up book. I read a version that was re-written for children¹. It was about two twins who are so close they can read each other’s minds, only they don’t know it, because they think they’re just whispering. One of them goes into space and the other stays home, and the one that stays home can still talk to the one in space. It works better than radio – faster, I think. And the twin who stays at home gets real old, but the one who goes to space doesn’t. I don’t know why.”

Jessica had read a story about King Arthur and his knights. “There’s lots of action,” she said. “The girls don’t do much, but if we acted out a King Arthur story, we could change that.”

James had read about Saint George. “I first got interested in the story because there was a dragon in it,” he said, “but you never learned much about the dragon. It was just the bad guy, mostly. But it was cool when the people fed it sheep to keep safe. It was a good agreement, until the dragon wanted their children, too.

Kimberly had started a book about when Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer before he was President, but it was a long story and she hadn’t gotten too far into it. But she had already concluded that Lincoln was very smart.

“So,” said Samantha, who seemed to have become the informal leader of the group, “we could make a new story about space, or about kids like us, or people in Lincoln’s time, or Saint George’s time, or King Arthur’s time – or we could write more about our own world.” Consensus was quick. Everyone wanted to write more about Samantha and her friends.

They took their places in the big living room. They improvised props as necessary, and their imagination provided the rest. As before, they took turns writing down what happened and what was said.

The day the celebrated dragon Samantha lost her parents, she was large enough to fly with one passenger. Lady Kimberly had been the first, but, soon enough, all three of Samantha’s other close friends, plus a few others, had had a turn. She was well loved and well cared for. She grew quickly, and was amazingly clever with anything anyone tried to teach her. Within six months, she could carry two passengers. Within a year, she could carry four passengers. Lady Kimberly, Lady Jessica, Sir Seth, and Sir James spent many happy hours together on Samantha’s back, shuttling between castles, over the forest, or around the many nearby villages. They could land anywhere within the two kingdoms and be guaranteed a warm and joyous reception. Samantha and her friends were loved everywhere.

Both kingdoms had belonged to Menschenbrenner and Frauenfresser’s territory. With both of them gone, the territory fell to Samantha, their only heir. Dragons are very territorial, and her family’s territory had not been fought over for centuries. Since Samantha kept mainly to the center of her territory, and since she traveled mainly during the day, while most other dragons flew at night, she felt safe. She had a wonderful place to live out the rest of her life in peace.

One bright summer day, about three years after Samantha had first flown with Lady Kimberly, the five of them woke and breakfasted together at King Tom and Queen Judy’s castle, the white one where Samantha’s parents had died. They decided to fly over to King Tony and Queen Linda’s castle, which had now been fully rebuilt. The air was still and they knew the forest would be green and fragrant before the heat of the day set in.

They were in high spirits, speeding over the forest, when they were surprised from behind by another dragon. “May I presume that I have found Friedenfeuer, daughter of Menschenbrenner and Frauenfresser?” the dragon asked, before Samantha could react. “Yes,” said Samantha. “But you have me at a disadvantage.”

“I am Hausraucher, Terror of the Eastern Skies. You brought some snacks, I see,” said the new dragon.

“I apologize for not being a better hostess,” replied Samantha. “I did not know you were coming, and I did not bring enough snacks for the both of us.”

“You seem very friendly with your snacks,” said Hausraucher, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice. “How will you break the news to them when the time comes to eat them?”

“Forgive me again,” said Samantha, with more than a note of sarcasm. “I was going about my business in my own territory, as is my right, and was giving no thought at all to what other dragons might think of it, given that I wasn’t expecting any other dragons.”

“What you do in your own territory is, indeed, your own business,” replied Hausraucher, “and I wouldn’t have dreamed of questioning the methods of either Menschenbrenner or Frauenfresser. However, you took over this territory as a baby, and are still a child. You might benefit from a bit of advice. In addition, I’m not at all convinced you’re entitled to the territory you claim.”

“Who else would be entitled to it?” Samantha asked coldly.

“I would be,” replied Hausraucher, “as the discoverer of your parents’ remains, floating in the ocean, traceable by ocean currents back to the castle where they were killed. I found them over three years ago, and, at the time, the evidence of the battle was fresh, and it was clear that their bodies had been dragged to sea and set afloat on rafts.”

“I know enough of dragon law to know that no claim supersedes inheritance.”

“But the territory must be left to a capable heir, and even their original intent to leave the territory to you is not clear to me!”

“It does not have to be clear to you,” growled Samantha through clenched teeth. She was trying to control her anger, but flames were beginning to show through the gaps. “And it’s also not your job to judge my capability. I have survived and thrived in this territory, and that is all the proof anyone else will need!”

“We will see about that. You were not disinherited in front of the Dragon Council as is normally necessary for the rights of a blood-heir to be taken away – but exceptions have been made in the past for cases where the parents were clearly unable to make it to the Council. Your parents were killed the very day they disinherited you, before they could possibly suspect what an ungrateful and treacherous daughter they had.”

“You have no proof of that!”

“You have no idea what I have,” Hausraucher replied smugly.

“I know you have no valid proof, because it is not true,” replied Samantha, not missing a beat.

“I’ll discuss my proof, over these snacks!” said Hausraucher, shouting the last word, and simultaneously releasing a powerful blast of flame toward Samantha’s unprotected passengers. Samantha was able to dive out of the way just in time.

“They’re my snacks!” insisted Samantha, “and, if I didn’t want to share them before, I certainly don’t want to share them now! I decide when to kill them, when to cook them, and when to eat them!” With that, she took another sudden dive, into the forest. Under cover of the trees, she took refuge in a well-hidden cave.

The forest shook with Hausraucher’s cry of rage. “COME OUT!” she roared. “You have no right to evade me like this! She blasted fire into the nearby woods, but the forest was green and fertile, so she could not get the fire to spread. She laid waste to a circle of forest about a quarter of a mile wide, and finally gave up. She didn’t know how far Samantha had managed to travel, and decided she would not find her. “You have declared war,” shouted the frustrated dragon to the empty forest, killing one last tree with one last blast of flame. “Unconditional surrender is now your only way out. I came ready to bargain, but I cannot bargain with a treacherous, lying pretender at dragonhood, a murdering, unprincipled thief!”

The forest rang with the echoes of that last word, and then all was silent. Any creature that would normally have made a noise had long ago been scared away or burned to death. None of the friends in the cave had ever experienced such silence in the forest, and it was oddly troubling. The friends maintained the silence for a while, as if afraid to break it.

Lady Kimberly spoke up first. “If I have to be somebody’s snack, I’m glad I’m yours. But I still hope you don’t eat us for a long time.” Four confused pairs of eyes stared at her. Samantha’s confusion was touched with astonishment. “Come on!” she continued. “I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit!”

“Snacks???” said Sir Seth. “What in all of heck are you talking about?”

After a pause, Samantha asked, “Who here understood what the other dragon and I were talking about?”

“All that spitting and growling?” asked Sir James.

“Well, I don’t know what Dragon Council and all that are, but I think I know…” Lady Kimberly trailed off as the others stared at her. “What?”

“When did you learn dragon talk?” asked Samantha, looking straight into Lady Kimberly’s eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Hausraucher and I were speaking a dragon language.”

“Really? I never learned it. Do I have a magical gift?”

“There’s no such thing, as far as I know. Dragon talk is just a language, like any other. Humans have learned it before, but only rarely, because so few get long-term exposure to dragons.”

“I got long-term exposure to you.”

“But I always just used your language. I never tried to teach you dragon talk, or even used it when you were around.”

“Maybe you didn’t.” Everybody looked confused. “Quick! Get down on the ground!” Samantha cried out.

Instantly, Lady Kimberly plunged to the ground. She lay flat, and covered her head. Her three companions looked on with puzzlement, then alarm. “What are you doing?” asked Sir Seth.

“What are you doing? Get down here! Samantha said…”

“I’m sorry,” Samantha interrupted. “You can get up, Kimmy.” I just used an ancient dragon tongue, one you couldn’t have possibly known, or heard a single syllable of, before now. But my parents taught a bit of it to me when I was still a tiny dragon.” She stopped. “I want to talk about it more, but I have to go for a while. Wait here. Don’t move.”

This time, everyone understood her, so she must have been speaking English. It was only mid-morning, but they all found themselves exhausted by the ordeal. They all found places to lie down, cleared the stones and pebbles away as best they could, and tried to rest. Within a minute, they were all fast asleep.

Within a minute and a half, they were all awake again, because Lady Kimberly had screamed, and sat upright.

“What? What is it?” asked Sir James, his concern showing despite the sudden scare. “Was it a bad dream?”

“I guess so. It seemed so real. It was that dragon we just met – what’s her name – House-Rocker?”

“House-something,” said Sir Seth.

“Anyway,” continued Lady Kimberly, “I was fighting her, I guess.”

“Fighting her?” Sir Seth was incredulous. “She could gobble you up in half a second without even trying.”

“I know. But I think I was a dragon, too – maybe even Samantha. I could only see parts of me, and those parts were definitely dragon parts. It was hard to tell what was going on. I couldn’t feel anything, or control anything.”

“Did it hurt?” asked Lady Jessica.

“I couldn’t feel anything!” repeated Lady Kimberly, half-shouting.

“Calm down,” said Sir James. He put a tender hand on her shoulder, and she did calm down. Feeling safe again, she closed her eyes, and suddenly screamed. Her eyes opened wide.

“I’m still fighting!” she said. “Samantha is still fighting. I’m sure it’s her!” She closed her eyes again, this time, knowing what to expect. “I can see it now,” she continued. “It isn’t a dream – unless I’m dreaming you guys, too.”

“A daydream?” suggested Sir Seth.

“I never had a daydream like this. I think it’s real. Where did she learn to fight like that?”

“Maybe from her parents. You know what a fast learner she is. Maybe she even learned something from that House-Burner dragon while she was fighting her. She’s that good.”

“I think Samantha’s got her on the run. House-whatever is squinting. I don’t think she likes the bright daylight. Yes, she’s flying off, and Samantha’s letting her go. She’s way past the forest, maybe back in her own territory. Samantha’s coming back.”

“You say it like it’s real,” said Sir Seth.

“I think it is. Let’s see when she gets back. She’s over the forest. I can see the circle of burnt trees. It’s so real. The sky looks funny though. She’s almost here!” Lady Kimberly opened her eyes.

Samantha appeared at the mouth of the cave. Three gasps escaped three mouths, as if one of Lady Kimberly’s dreams had just come true.

“What’s wrong?” asked Samantha.

“Kimmy can see you!” replied Lady Jessica awkwardly.

“Of course she can! I’m right here!”

“No, she can see what you see!”

“Of course she can! I’m right…”

“No!” interrupted Lady Jessica irritably. “She can see what you see, through your own eyes!”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know,” answered Lady Kimberly. It was the only honest answer she had. “I just close my eyes, and I see what you see.” After a pause, she added, “You were fighting the other dragon, right? It looked fierce. Are you hurt?”

“No, it’s all right. The sun was bright, and I could see that it bothered her. I kept toward the sun, but made sure my shadow never fell across her eyes. She couldn’t look at me, and could only attack when I attacked her. I made quick strikes, and retreated. She finally had to leave. But I know she’ll be back.” She started out into the forest. “Let’s go. I want to get you guys home. King Tony’s castle is closest. Is that all right with everyone?” The friends all nodded, and followed her into the trees.

After a few minutes of walking, Samantha spoke up again. “I think your mind is linked to mine, Kimmy. I’ve felt a connection for a while. I sensed your feelings more strongly than I sensed anyone else’s. I just thought maybe I knew you better, like maybe you were my favorite. But I think there’s more to it. I think we have a mental connection.”

“You mean we’re reading each other’s minds?” asked Lady Kimberly.

“Yes, in a way. Or you’re reading mine, anyway.”

“But how?”

“Look how big my head is compared to yours. My head is just as full of brain as yours is, which means my brain is much larger than yours. Dragons are sometimes able to form telepathic connections with that extra brain power.”

“But dragons can’t read each other’s minds,” protested Lady Kimberly. “Otherwise, they’d attack in coordinated groups, and you would not have been able to hide a while ago, or help us against your parents three years ago.”

“Dragons devote more brain power to preventing telepathy than to allowing it. There is a natural defense against dragon-to-dragon mind-reading. And dragon-to-human mental communication is also very rare. Most dragons aren’t interested in communication with humans, but in eating them. Most dragons want their attacks to be a surprise. I was taught to always guard my thoughts. But I don’t need to with you – with any of you. I don’t know why Kimmy is the only one I share my thoughts with.”

“Think something,” said Lady Kimberly. She paused. “Whenever you’re ready.” She stared intently into Samantha’s eyes.

“I already was. I was counting to five in my mind.”

“It didn’t work.”

“No, but I was just talking in dragon talk again when I told you about counting to five. I guess I have to be really talking for you to hear my mind.”

Lady Kimberly rested from concentrating. She leaned against a tree and closed her eyes. “I can still see what you see,” she said.

“What do you see?” asked Samantha.

“I see the forest – but different. Samantha, look at Seth. Whoa, you’re GLOWING!” Lady Kimberly paused, trying to process what she was seeing. “Seth, hold up some fingers. That’s three, three fingers. Now four. Now seven.”

“Right, all three times!” said Seth. Not only were Lady Kimberly’s eyes closed, but she was facing away from him. It seemed to confirm that his friend really could see through Samantha’s eyes. Or did she have a code set up with Samantha or one of their other friends? But why would she bother to trick him?

“Samantha, why is everyone a different color? And why do the people glow?”

Samantha closed her eyes. “Look around, Kimmy”, said Samantha. Lady Kimberly turned around slowly, taking in the forest around her, and took a few extra moments to look at her friends. “I can’t see what you see, Kimmy. Do you know another language?”

“I know a little Spanish.”

“That will do. Talk in Spanish.”

“¡No nos coma, por favor!” said Lady Kimberly.

“I didn’t understand a word. What did you say?”

“I asked you not to eat us.”

“I won’t. But I can’t see what you see, or understand what you say in another language. It looks like our connection is one-way.

A little more experimentation revealed that the powers worked at a distance. With her eyes closed, Lady Kimberly could see what Samantha saw, and she could understand what she said or heard in any language. But she could not hear all sounds – only spoken words. When Samantha, about a mile from Lady Kimberly, stood next to a waterfall, it was silent to Lady Kimberly – but she still understood when Samantha asked her to hug the nearest tree, though Samantha could barely hear herself over the roar of the waterfall.

When they finally finished their experiments, Samantha asked about the glowing.

“It’s cool in the forest,” answered Samantha. “So you stand out.”

“Stand out?”

“Yes. You look puzzled.”

“I am. We stand out because the forest is cool?”

“Yes. And because you’re warm.”

“It’s like warm is another color.”

“Yes, warm is kind of like a color, except that it changes more than other colors.”

“Plus, you can feel warmth.”

“You can feel warmth, I guess. We can’t. Not with all the fire we breathe, and with our skin immune to fire. If we couldn’t see heat, we wouldn’t have any sense of temperature at all. I wish I could see what you see, so I could know what it’s like to see like a human sees.”

“It’s a lot like you see, except we can’t see warmth, and it looks like you can’t really see blue. You’re really missing something in Sir James’s eyes.”

“I don’t know if I am,” said Samantha. His eyes are quite striking, how pale they are, with the flecks of green and gold. Look at what I mean. Samantha looked into Sir James’s eyes, and Lady Kimberly closed hers.

“I see what you mean,” she said. “But I like them even better with the blue.”

“Too bad for me,” Samantha replied lightly.

Soon, they reached the edge of the forest, and Samantha watched until her friends passed through the castle gates, before turning around and disappearing into the forest. She passed the rest of the day under cover of the trees, and got some well-needed rest. Immediately after sunset, she began to patrol the territory.

Samantha had seen that Hausraucher did not like the sunlight, and Samantha had also shown that she knew how to use that to her advantage. Most likely, Hausraucher had ventured into the daylight only because she knew that was the best time to meet Samantha. How much does that dragon know? Samantha had no way to know.

She had guessed correctly, however. That very night, Samantha saw dragon fire in a distant village, and rushed over to protect it. Hausraucher was back, and was terrorizing a group of farmers in the village square. Samantha flew overhead just in time to hear her ask, with an air of mirthful cruelty, “Which one of you should I eat first?”

Samantha swooped down without a word, and savagely bit the back of Hausraucher’s neck. Hausraucher broke free, and Samantha fled to the middle of an open field, away from the villagers. Hausraucher followed in a blind rage. “It’s not polite to play with your food,” growled Samantha, and snapped at Hausraucher again. This time, she missed, and her jaws snapped shut loudly. “It’s even less polite to play with my food!” she continued.

After that, both dragons were too busy to talk. Samantha had no clear advantage, and both dragons fought with everything they had. Both suffered injury, but neither was able to deliver a decisive blow. But, as the fight wore on, it became clear that Hausraucher was still bothered by the injuries she’d received earlier in the day, and Samantha’s youth and determination finally began to overcome Hausraucher’s cunning and experience. Once again, Samantha chased Hausraucher back to her territory, and the rest of the night was quiet.

Despite seeing all that Samantha saw whenever she closed her eyes, Lady Kimberly rarely had trouble sleeping. The patrols were long, repetitive, and boring. That’s how it was even that first night, until the battle started. By the time the battle moved to the middle of the field, Lady Kimberly was fully awake, and astonished by the fierceness of the battle, until Hausraucher was finally chased away. Naturally, then, she was still awake when Samantha tried her distance voice out again, saying, “I need to meet you, at the edge of the forest, where I parted with you – tomorrow at noon.”

All four friends had spent the night at the gray castle, so it was easy to assemble them in the morning and get to the edge of the forest by noon. Samantha was waiting for them.

“I can’t meet with you openly anymore,” said Samantha. “I’ll have to patrol at night, because that’s when Hausraucher will likely be out, and I need to eat and sleep. But I can’t count on that. Hausraucher isn’t about to write me up a schedule. I’ll miss you all, but, until this is over, we will have to meet in secret, and as little as possible. I will need a way to eat – hopefully a way that looks like I’m stealing livestock, like other dragons sometimes do when the time isn’t right for eating people.”

“We can set something up,” said Lady Jessica. Everyone here loves you, and we’ll find a farmer that’s willing to help you out. Let’s meet again tomorrow – same time?”

“Maybe an hour before sunset,” replied Samantha. “I don’t know what I was thinking, meeting you at noon. Probably, I didn’t think. I had just finished…”

“I know,” said Lady Kimberly. “I saw the whole thing.”

“I imagine you did.”

“Hey,” interjected Sir Seth. “How come you never knew until yesterday that you could see what Samantha saw?”

“Samantha used to sleep at night,” replied Lady Kimberly, “and I can’t see her dreams.”

“But didn’t you ever close your eyes during the day?” asked Sir Seth.

“I’m sure I did. But I don’t know how long ago the connection started. And, if nothing exciting happened, I probably didn’t notice. Don’t you sometimes see random things when you close your eyes?”

“Yes. But what about hearing her talk?”

“I really never talked except when I was with you,” said Samantha. “Anyway, I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow, an hour before sunset.”

So they said goodbye to Samantha, and she went off to rest. They felt like they had found out all they could about Lady Kimberly’s mental connection with Samantha. The rest was a mystery for the time being.

It didn’t take them long to find a farmer willing to lay out food for Samantha in the quantities she needed. In fact, they had several backups, in case the first farm didn’t work out. The four friends, who had been feeding and caring for Samantha since she was a tiny dragon, knew what she ate, and how much. As a result, they had very little to discuss the next evening.

They told her which farm to go to, and where on the farm to look for the food. As a fallback plan, there were guidelines about what she could eat if she needed food and none had been set out. Finally, they told her where the backup farms were. They finished their business within two minutes. There followed a long pause. They had known that things were changing, but it was finally coming home to them. They wouldn’t see her every day. They might go for weeks without seeing her at all. At that moment, they didn’t know when they would see her again.

They embraced her about her neck, but Samantha had to end that quickly. Sizzling tears were streaming down her face, and she didn’t want to burn her friends. They climbed onto her back, as if they were going for a ride, and lay there, arms spread out. Very little was said as they lay there, their eyes streaming like Samantha’s. She moved quietly into the forest until the trees covered her completely. Her wings folded themselves around them, and they stayed there until the sky grew red from the sunset. Then they slid to the ground, and Samantha leaped into the sky to start her patrol. They trudged back to the castle in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Lady Kimberly fell asleep to the hypnotic vision of the countryside passing silently beneath her, and nothing disturbed her sleep that night.

“It’s almost time for dinner,” announced Sam’s mother. “Hey, is everyone asleep?”

Sam stopped circling the living room, and said, “No, we’re just acting out another story.”

“Another one with the dragon?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you need to wrap it up. It’s time for everyone to go home.”

Sam’s friends got up off the couch and love seat and chairs, and got ready to go. Seth finished writing, and added his papers to a stack on the coffee table. Sam gathered them up to compile the story, and they all agreed they had to meet again very soon. They had a lot of loose ends to tie up.
_________________________
¹As far as Steve knows, there is no children’s version of this book, though it is commonly counted among Heinlein’s “Juveniles”.

by guest author Stephanie Ann Frieze¹

The fierce, proud dragon Menschenbrenner² was known for burning his victims alive at the first sign of trouble. He could throw the fire he breathed farther than most men could throw a stone. Still, he never burned a man or woman that he was not going to eat. He felt that a cow or horse made a much more satisfying meal. He longed to try an elephant someday, but there were no elephants to be found in the lands where he lived.

The fearsome Frauenfresser was a dragon known for gobbling up women as fast as she could. I can’t say that she never had such a feast. I can’t even say that she didn’t enjoy it when she did. But she also knew that gobbling up every woman around was no way to manage her lands. Not unless she wanted all the humans gone. Of course, she didn’t.

Until the first time they met, it didn’t matter to anyone that Menschenbrenner was a he-dragon and that Frauenfresser was a she-dragon. They both flew around their lands every night, to make sure everything was all right. They shared a long border that went from north to south. The night they met, he was headed north along the border and she was headed south. He wanted to meet her again, so he flew south along the border the next night. This time, she was headed north. Their eyes met, and they stopped to talk a moment, and then went on their way. From then on, they always met at the northern end of their border and headed south, talking the whole way.

Soon, they decided to share more than a border. They decided to get married. Dragons from thousands of miles around came to the wedding. The feast lasted for days. Once they were married, their lands were joined together. They both tended to all of the land, and they flew over it together each night.

After many happy years together, they had a child. This is where our story really starts. This baby girl dragon was breathing fire from the moment her egg was cracked open. She was the first child born into the peace they had created together, and they named her Friedenfeuer.

Now, a dragon remains a baby for six or seven years, and can learn a great deal in that time. Friedenfeuer’s parents watched with pride and joy as she explored and learned every day. But they couldn’t watch her every minute. They had to find food, and they had to watch their lands. It could be that they didn’t spend enough time watching what she learned. But they didn’t see anything wrong with all the time little Friedenfeuer spent watching the humans. They had spent some of their own youthful hours watching humans the way a human child might watch ants.

But little Friedenfeuer was amazed at what the humans could do. What wonderful hands they had! Those tiny hands were able to do so much more than her own hands, or even her parents’ hands, could do! What complex noises the humans made with their mouths! It was so much like talking, she could hardly believe that it wasn’t! As it turns out, her father told her later that humans could talk, but not to be fooled by that. They could only talk about very simple and primitive things.

She thought about these things a lot, but she could tell that her parents didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t know why. They just seemed disturbed or upset whenever she brought up the subject. So she learned to keep these thoughts to herself. She made a game of watching what the humans did, and imagining the thoughts behind each action. She pretended that they lived, loved, traded, and made all they could of their lives, even the short lives that humans were given.

She never noticed when this stopped being a game to her and she started to believe it. But, once she knew she believed it, she couldn’t stop believing it. To her, humans were thinking, feeling individuals, just like dragons. Her parents’ arguments sounded hollow and false, even though she could not argue against any of their excellent points. It was just a feeling she could not shake.

Because she never argued with her parents, they had no idea how seriously she took her ideas. They saw a bright, inventive little squiggly-worm. They were delighted by her cleverness and curiosity. Her parents never really noticed when she stopped eating humans. She never argued about it, but just set them aside and ate other things instead. There were always plenty of cows and pigs and chickens to eat. They didn’t eat humans that often, anyway. It was a small thing, and she was careful not to make it obvious.

One day, there was a disturbing change in the Western Kingdom. This was in the area that Menschenbrenner had protected before merging lands with Frauenfresser. The king there started allowing humans living near the castle to house the animals they raised within the safety of the castle walls at night.

The dragons had no reason to worry about running out of food. There was plenty of food to be had in the country, and the king of the Eastern Kingdom had made no such change yet. But the two adult dragons believed there was a pattern that had to be stopped. If the humans learned that a few stone walls could protect the animals they raised, smaller fortresses would begin appearing all over. Breaking down stone walls is hard work, even for a dragon. No dragon wants to work that hard every day.

The adult dragons thought they knew just what to do. The Western king’s castle was a white fortress built into an enormous hill. It was the perfect target for their new baby warrior to take on! What better place could there be for her to learn her fighting skills? Even tiny baby Friedenfeuer could burn the life out of every animal in that castle before the sleepy creatures even knew what was coming. The dragons would have enough cooked food to last for days, and their baby would come out an expert fighter. It was perfect!

The moment before Menschenbrenner took his daughter aside, he had no idea that his daughter would resist him. He expected a short and easy discussion. He was completely unprepared for the ideas he was about to hear from his beloved baby. At that same moment, Friedenfeuer considered her ideas private. She was not thinking about telling her parents about any of them.

Menschenbrenner started out, telling her, “You know we rarely bother the humans in any big way. We just attack here and there so they remember who’s in charge.”

“Yes, Papa. I think that’s wise.”

“Well, it’s time now to do something more. The humans are hiding the other animals behind big stone walls to protect them from us.”

“So, we’re going to break down those stone walls?”

“We could, but it’s hard work, and they’d just build them back again.”

“Well, can’t we just find food out in the country, where there are no stone walls?”

“Yes, again, we could. But the humans are smart little beasts. If we let them succeed, they’ll start building stone shelters all over. More and more of their animals will be protected. Soon, it will be difficult to get so much as a mouthful without breaking down a big stone wall. Have you ever broken down a stone wall? You get a big bruise every time. A bruise per mouthful will leave us either battered or starved, and possibly both. Plus, those humans learn by doing. Every time we knock down a wall, we’ll be teaching them how to build stronger walls, even more difficult to knock down.”

“How do you know all that’s going to happen? Has it happened before?”

“Not exactly like this, but it fits the human pattern. Give my centuries of experience some respect. I may not have all the details just right. But, if we do nothing, they’ll make it harder and harder for us to get our dinner. Make no mistake about that!”

“Okay, so what do we do?”

“We take out their castle.”

“Take it out of what? And where do we put it?”

“No, we destroy that white castle, and every animal in it.”

“No, please, I don’t want you and Mama to do that.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Your mother and I have no plans to destroy that castle.”

“You don’t? But you said we have to…”

“I shouldn’t have said ‘we’. I should have said ‘you’.”

“Me? You want ME to destroy the castle? I’m still just a baby!”

“Yes, a very smart, brave baby! You’re just the right age to destroy your first castle! What do you say? It’ll be fun!”

“I want to talk to them first.”

“What? Talk to whom?”

“Talk to the humans. If they know what they’re doing to us…”

“TALK to them? I told you, little fireball, their language is….”

“I know their language. It’s much more expressive than you think.”

“Expressive – F’resser, can you come talk to your daughter?”

Frauenfresser had been close enough to hear most of what had been going on. “How did you learn their language, Squirmy-Wormy?”

“Just by watching and listening. Mothers talking to little ones helped a lot.”

“You talk just like they’re dragons, Sparky-Sweet!”

“Well, of course they’re not dragons. And maybe they’re not as smart as dragons…”

“Maybe?” interrupted her father.

“Maybe!” declared Friedenfeuer. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t met enough dragons.”

“Take my word for it,” he replied. “They’re nowhere near as smart as we are.”

She thought for a moment. “Is it okay to kill a stupid dragon?”

“Well, one that’s stupid enough to wander onto our lands…”

“’Brenner!” interrupted Frauenfresser in a warning tone.

“No, I mean a dragon on his own lands, minding his own business, but maybe too stupid to watch out for himself,” clarified Friedenfeuer.

“Well,” considered her father, “a dragon not watching out for himself usually deserves what he gets. But he shouldn’t have to watch out for other dragons. That’s why we have laws. I could get in big trouble for attacking another dragon on his own lands, even a stupid one.”

“Is that the reason?”

“Is what the reason for what?

“The fact that you could get in trouble – is that the reason you don’t attack stupid dragons all the time?”

“Well no, of course not. I leave other dragons alone because it’s the right thing to do.”

“That’s why I want to leave the humans alone – or at least talk to them first. Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“But it’s different. There is absolutely no rule…”

“Because…it’s…the…right…thing…to…DO!”

“But they’re not…” she glared at him. “They have no…” she glared even harder. “You go attack that castle RIGHT NOW!”

“There’s some good parenting!” said Frauenfresser. “Brenny, it’s not even dark yet!”

“Well, then, attack the castle tonight! This very night!” he revised.

“Still not too tactful,” said his wife. “Li’l’ Torchie, where did you ever get it into your head that humans are anything more than really smart animals?”

“Really smart animals with FEELINGS,” added the baby dragon.

“Different feelings – animal feelings.”

“How do you know? Can you tell what they’re thinking – or what they’re feeling?”

“Listen, Friedie”, said her father gently. “You are projecting your own feelings onto them. They look like they’re having dragon-like thoughts and feelings. That’s why you think they are. You feel for them, so you think they can feel for themselves. But it’s just not the same thing.”

“I don’t just think it,” said Friedenfeuer. “I know their language. I understand it. If you can say they don’t have real feelings, I could say the same about you. All I know about your feelings comes from what you say and what you do. Maybe all this time I’ve been projecting myself onto you!”

“A baby dragon shouldn’t even be able to talk like that,” mumbled Frauenfresser into her husband’s ear.

But Friedenfeuer heard her. “It’s a good thing I can,” she said, “or you might decide I was just some kind of animal that looked like a dragon.”

“Just think over what we’ve talked about,” said her father. “Your mother’s right. You have some time before it gets dark. Maybe by then you’ll change your mind.”

“I won’t.”

“Let’s just see.”

They watched the sun set behind the castle, turning it all kinds of lovely colors. The two parents watched their daughter from a distance, wondering what she would do. They were quiet until about midnight.

“Hey, fireball,” said her dad. “It may take a few hours to get through the castle. You should get started.”

“I’m not going,” she said.

“Are the humans going to be any less dead if your mother and I attack the castle?”

“No, probably more dead – and I can’t stop you. But please just let me talk to them. What can it hurt to talk to them?”

“You have until tomorrow morning to finish the job. If you want to eat, that’s where your food is coming from.”

“I’m not that hungry,” she said.

Dawn came, and the castle was even more beautiful, not being in silhouette this time. Menschenbrenner flew out and came back with two large bulls. He and his wife enjoyed them side by side. Friedenfeuer watched in silence. Her stomach was rumbling, but she tried hard not to let them hear it.

Her parents flew off toward their cave to sleep, and she started to follow.

“No,” her father said. “You’re not sleeping in our cave. Find your own place to sleep.”

“Papa?”

He stopped and landed. His daughter and wife landed nearby. He faced the baby dragon. “Yes?”

“I love you, Papa. I love you, too, Mama. I don’t know what else I can do to help you see what I see. I also don’t know how to stop seeing what I see. Each human is a living, feeling, important being, as important as you or me. You think I’m too little to understand, but I won’t change. I don’t want to defy you, but I can’t think what else to do. If you won’t feed me, I’ll find food. If you won’t give me shelter, I’ll find that, too. If you won’t let me stay on your lands, I’ll leave them. I’ll find some place to be. But I won’t attack humans who’ve done me no wrong – not ever.”

Her parents took to the sky again, off toward their cave to sleep. She just stood there, wondering what to do next. There was a great, wide world out there. Somehow, she would find a place in it. She didn’t know how, but she had time to figure that out. The big decision was made. Humans were her equals. She would never again treat them as animals. The rest would work itself out somehow. There was no need to agonize over it anymore. She curled up in the long meadow grass. She let the fear and worry wash over her. She could deal with her troubles later, when she woke up. But, for now, it was time to sleep. So she did.
_________________________
¹This is the work mentioned in Five Friends and a Book, and its earlier version.  The author resents allegations that she is not real, even though she has not yet heard any.  She asserts (and quite rightly so) that she is every bit as real as the dragons she writes about.

²Experts in the tongues of dragons have told the author that this name would be more accurately represented as “Menschenverbrenner”. Ms. Frieze, however, has not seen fit to alter her text, which had already been published, and the authors of the following sequels have kept the name the same. Similarly, the experts say that “Friedenfeuer” should be “Friedensfeuer”. Human understanding of dragon tongues is, however, incomplete at best, and the authors stand by their decisions.

Sam’s friends came over to study and work on homework together; but they didn’t start work right away.  They were tired from school, and they relaxed for a bit.  But Kim did seem to start right away.  While others were snacking and playing games, Kim was writing.  Finally, Sam’s curiosity got the best of her.  She had to see what her friend was composing.  She seized the paper, and read out loud:¹

Seth and Jim came to Sam’s house. Kim and Jess came, too. Jim said to Kim, “What do you want to do?”

“We can play a game,” said Kim.

“We can eat a snack,” said Seth.

“We can play out in the yard,” said Jess.

“We can read,” said Sam.

“I do not want to read,” said Jim.

“Why not?” asked Sam.

“It is a bore,” said Jim.

“Yes, books are a bore,” said Kim.

Jess and Seth got out a game and started to play.

“Books are not a bore,” said Sam. “My books are fun.”

Sam stopped reading.  “Why are you writing like a first grader?” she asked.

“I’m supposed to write a children’s story,” answered Kim.  “I thought I’d write about what we were doing here.”

“But why don’t you write a good story?  What we’re doing here isn’t very exciting, and you made it even more boring.”

“Well, it has to be easy to read, or little kids won’t understand it.”

Jim added, “Yeah, show me a children’s book that isn’t boring.”

Sam walked to a nearby bookshelf.  “Come over here,” she said, and showed Kim and Jim a book about a baby dragon that refused to attack its first castle.  They read silently for a short while.

“Do you know all these words?” asked Jim.

“Some of these words look very hard,” declared Kim, “not like a children’s book at all.”

“This is one of my favorite books,” said Sam, “so I know most of these words by now. When I first started reading it, my mom had to help me with a lot of the words, but I almost never have to ask anymore.”

“That does look like a fun book,” said Kim. “Let’s read it together.”

Sam and Jim and Kim sat down and took turns reading pages. Sam helped Jim and Kim with any words they didn’t know. When they were all done reading, Jim exclaimed, “That’s about the coolest book I’ve ever read!”

Kim said, “I love that the baby dragon decides that the lives of the people in the castle are as important as her own, and defies her parents. (Thanks, Sam, for telling me what ‘defy’ means!)”

Seth and Jess looked up from their game. “What kind of book are you reading?” asked Jess. “That doesn’t sound like the kind of book I ever get to read at home!”

“That’s because it’s not,” said Seth. “I’ve seen your books.” After a pause, he added, with a sheepish grin, “They’re just like my books!”

“I’ve told my mom that my books are boring,” said Kim. “She says that books will get more exciting when I get to be a better reader. I ask her how I’ll ever get to be a better reader if I never want to read now.”

“Good question!” exclaimed Jim. “What did she say back?”

Kim pouted a bit. “She says I’ll read whether I like to or not, and that’s how I’ll get better.”

“She’s right, I guess,” sighed Sam, “but you’ll get more practice if you like to read.”

“I heard some of the book you were reading,” said Seth. The dragons in that book talked like real people would talk, well, if they were dragons, I mean.”

“My dad says the people in my books don’t talk like real people because I don’t know all the real people words yet,” said Jess.

“Why are all those books so careful not to use any words I don’t know?” asked Jim. “I liked learning new words – the words I already knew how to use, but not how to read, like ‘dragon’ and ‘castle’, and the new ones I didn’t even know how to use yet, like ‘defy’ and ‘agonize’.”

“The baby dragon agonized over killing people,” said Kim. “The books I read make me agonize over being bored! Sometimes I want to defy my parents, too!”

“I liked the baby dragon story, too,” said Seth. “I stopped paying attention to the game. But Jess didn’t like it so much.”

“That’s okay,” said Sam. “We can’t all like the same things. What didn’t you like, Jess?”

“I guess I like books with more action. It seemed like the characters in this book didn’t do anything but talk.”

“I understand that,” replied Sam. “I still like this book, because I think about the action that might happen. Let’s look for a book you would like more!”

Kim smiled with sudden inspiration. “I know how we can find a book we’ll all like!” she said.

“How?” demanded a simultaneous chorus of four eager voices.

“We can write our own! We can act it out, and take turns writing down what happens!”

There is a moment of collective epiphany that occurs when a simple idea that had been just beyond the reach of everyone present is finally expressed. That moment had just happened in the family room of Sam’s house. As if they’d all been given a script, the players took the stage. Whatever character rotated out to be the scribe was instantly invisible to the others, and the walls of the family room soon melted away. A pristine white castle was visible on the horizon.

The baby dragon, Friedenfeuer, had made a mess of things. Her father, Menschenbrenner, and her mother, Frauenfresser, were not at all pleased with their daughter, and refused to take care of her anymore. Dragons are immune to dragon fire, or the little baby might have been burned up on the spot. Very likely, she escaped only because her parents figured they could find her later.

It was while she was wandering through the tall grass of the meadow near the forest that she came upon Lady Jessica and Lady Kimberly, who had come from the white castle on the hill. They didn’t see the unfortunate baby dragon until she was almost upon them, and she jumped back she when heard them scream. Sir Seth and Sir James, alarmed by the screams, rushed up to see what was wrong.

“’Tis a dragon, I’ll warrant!” exclaimed Sir James.

“No tizzing or warranting. We need to talk regular talk,” said Sir Seth.

“Okay, you’re right,” said Sir James.

The two knights and two ladies quietly examined the baby dragon, who did not seem inclined to attack. “What’s your name?” asked Lady Jessica.

“I’m Friedenfeuer,” said the baby dragon, “but that’s my dragon name. I don’t want to be a dragon anymore.”

“I’m Lady Jessica, this is Lady Kimberly, and these two brave knights are Sir James and Sir Seth. You’re a dragon, and I guess you’ll always be a dragon. But why don’t you want to be one?”

“My mom and dad wanted me to attack that castle up on the hill.” A collective gasp escaped from the four humans as the dragon continued. “I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t want to kill all those people who never did anything to hurt me, ever.” Huge, sizzling tears slid down from her eyes. “But now I don’t know what to do. My mom and dad won’t take care of me anymore, and I’m afraid they’ll kill me if they find me again. I’m also afraid they’ll attack that castle tonight, and it won’t matter that I didn’t attack it earlier.”

There was a moment of silence as the four friends absorbed all that had been said. Lady Jessica finally spoke up. “We were all asleep in the castle last night – all of us. If you had attacked the castle, we would all be dead.” All four of the grateful young nobles stopped to hug the brave baby dragon. “What should we call you?” asked Lady Jessica. “You have a long name. You said … Feederfire … was your dragon name? Do you want a different name? You have to be a dragon, but you don’t have to have a dragon name.”

“Friedenfeuer is my dragon name. Can you call me Samantha? It’s the prettiest name I know.”

Lady Jessica smiled. “That is a pretty name. I love it. We will call you Samantha from now on. Samantha the Friendly Dragon.”

“Just Samantha, please; I don’t know if I want to be friendly yet. I just don’t want to kill people.”

“Just Samantha, then; but we can’t just stand around and talk. My daddy – father, I mean – is king of the castle up there. I have to warn him, so we can try to fight the dragons.”

Lady Kimberly paused, frowning, then smiled. “My father is a king, too – of a different castle. Jess – Lady Jessica – is my friend. I was sleeping over at her … castle. My father has a really big army, with lots of the best arrow-shooters…”

“Archers,” interjected Sir Seth.

“…archers in the land. But his castle is far away. Can you fly, Samantha?”

“Yes, but I’m just a little dragon. I can’t carry all of you.”

“Just carry me, then,” replied Lady Kimberly.

Samantha hesitated. Tears began to well up again in her huge, catlike eyes.

“It’s your mom and dad,” said Lady Jessica. “If the archers slay them, they might be dead.”

“Slaying is killing,” interrupted Sir Seth. “They would be dead.”

“Just let them talk,” said Sir James. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“They’ve got to learn sometime,” Sir Seth mumbled.

“Thank you for understanding,” said Samantha, as sizzling tears began to stream freely. “My mom and dad took care of me every day of my life. I never killed anybody, but some of the meat I ate might have been people you knew. I loved my parents. I still love them. But they’re not more important than you are. And they will kill me if they see me again.” She sobbed quietly. “Don’t hunt them down. I ask that much of you. But if they attack your castle, do what you have to do.”

“Then you’ll help us?” asked Lady Kimberly.

“I’ll help you,” said Samantha.

Carefully, the princess climbed onto Samantha’s back. The young dragon straightened her back, spread her wings, and gave a mighty leap. Not used to the extra weight, she wobbled in the air, flapped harder, and just barely cleared the trees as she reached the forest. The two knights returned to the white castle, with Lady Jessica safely between them. They told their story to King Tom and Queen Judy, Lady Jessica’s parents. They quickly prepared for battle, and made room for their expected guests from the neighboring kingdom. Then they waited.

Just as the sun began to set, King Tony arrived, leading his armies, with Queen Linda and Lady Kimberly at his side.

“Just in time!” said Sir Seth, as Lady Kimberly joined her friends. “Where’s Samantha?”

Lady Kimberly told her story. Samantha had stopped flying some distance from the castle, to avoid being shot down. Then the princess had jumped lightly off her back, and led the dragon to the castle. The castle guards were afraid that the dragon had Lady Kimberly under her spell, but finally allowed them to pass, noting that Samantha was only a baby dragon.

King Tony and Queen Linda looked very carefully at their daughter’s eyes for signs of dragon hypnotism, but the telltale swirling spirals were entirely absent, and the less-common wavy squiggles were also not to be seen. Lady Kimberly had to finish the tale, because Samantha was crying inconsolably in the corner. Steam rose slowly, and small flames brushed harmlessly against the stone walls.

In the end, Samantha could not bring herself to accompany them, and possibly watch either her parents or her new friends get killed. She was overcome by the conflict inside her, and crawled quietly down a hallway as everyone in the palace prepared to leave.

“Everyone?” interjected Sir Seth.

“Yes,” replied Lady Kimberly. “We couldn’t leave anyone in the palace unguarded, so we took everyone with us.”

“Good idea!” exclaimed Sir James. “So that’s why there are so many people coming in!”

It was a full hour after the great castle gates clanged shut, two hours after sunset, when the unmistakable glow of dragon fire was seen far above the forest. Each deep orange jet of flame was closer to the castle than the last. It was soon clear that there were two dragons approaching, and everyone not ready to fight took refuge deep inside the castle. The fires disappeared from the sky, and every knight and soldier tensed for battle. Lady Jessica and Lady Kimberly had pretended to go inside, but were waiting near their friends.

The entire castle was swallowed up in darkness as everyone waited for the attack that was sure to come. With blinding light and searing heat, the moment finally came as the dragons attacked the main courtyard from opposite directions, saturating the area with deadly flame. As they passed, thousands of bowstrings were let loose, and thousands of arrows were heard whistling through the air. Empty, smoking armor still glowed in the courtyard.

But there was no time to mourn the dead. Two enormous crashes were heard, outside the castle grounds on opposite sides of the courtyard. Sir Seth and Sir James stood open-mouthed, leaning on their spears, staring at the smoking armor. Their fathers and uncles were among the archers who had stood ready to fight, and there was no way to know how many of them were reduced to ash in the courtyard right at that moment.

Realizing that their young friends were in shock, and could not be counted on to listen or to fight, Lady Jessica and Lady Kimberly held a very quick conference, then grabbed the speechless knights’ spears and rushed off in opposite directions to the top of the castle walls. Each saw an enormous dragon writhing on the ground, arrows sticking out like quills on a porcupine. Each watched as the dragon before her struggled to regain its composure, still shocked, gaping open-mouthed in disbelief. Each young lady hurled a spear deep into a dragon’s mouth.

As the dragons gasped, sighed, and collapsed, the knights on the walls rushed down as fast as they could climb, and finished the job. Then torches were lit, and the bravest knights went back to survey the grim remains in the courtyard. But all they found was armor and wood ash. As it turned out, the generals had not assigned anyone at all to the courtyard, but had instead ordered a few of their most trusted knights to place empty armor there, propped up to look like soldiers. The real archers were ready just beyond, in more protected positions. So, not a single knight or soldier was killed. Lady Kimberly and Lady Jessica were celebrated for their quick thinking, and a great feast was scheduled for the next day at King Tony’s castle. Nobody has ever figured out a good way to cook dragon, so the two dragon bodies were set adrift at sea, and were never seen by human eyes again.

As the procession reached King Tony’s castle late the next day, however, they could see that something was wrong. Smoke was rising from inside the walls. They got closer, and saw that no wooden roof or door, and not a stick of furniture, remained in the entire castle. They guessed that the dragons had seen the armies leave during the day, and had decided to attack the unguarded castle – but, finding it empty of all people, had rushed to their original target, the pristine white castle of King Tom, enraged at being tricked. There, they were tricked again, and their killing days were ended forever.

A frantic search was made for Samantha, who had stayed alone in the castle, unable to face the conflict to come. From the heights of the towers to the deepest dungeon, they searched and found no sign of life – until a large stone tile rose from the floor of an empty dungeon cell, with a dragon head under it. Samantha had buried herself under the dungeon, and was safe.

The reunion between Samantha and her four new friends was bittersweet. All her friends were fine, and she no longer needed to fear her ruthless parents. But her mom and dad were gone, and she had nobody left to care for her. But, of course, she did. Her friends would learn all they needed to know to feed her and see to her every need. She was a hero in both kingdoms, and was greeted with cries of joy wherever she appeared.

As the five fast friends quietly contemplated what to do next, they heard a telephone ring. The walls of the family room returned, and Sam’s parents – not the dead dragons, but her real, human parents, entered the room. “It sounds like there was quite a battle in here!” they said. “But Seth’s parents say dinner is almost ready and it’s time to go home. Dinner will be ready soon here, too, so Jim, Kim, and Jess, you should probably also go home.” Kim finished writing the last sentence of the story on a piece of paper, and handed it, along with a stack of other papers, to Sam, who was designated to transcribe all the notes and convey the whole story in her own words.

They hadn’t gotten any homework or studying done, but they were happy with what they had done.  Kim decided she couldn’t use the new story for her assignment.  Instead, she stayed with her original idea of writing about their afternoon – but it had become a much more interesting story.

The next time they met, they each had a favorite book from the library. They’d convinced their parents to let them try books outside their stilted curricula, and they were all bursting with ideas for their next story. Some were more sequels to the baby dragon story, and others were entirely new stories, based on the books they all read to each other.

Whenever the walls of the room they were in melted away, you never knew where they would end up next.
_________________________
¹The block quote following the first paragraph was the beginning of the original version of this tale.  From a fable about the follies of making every children’s story too accessible came a new story, and it seemed right to make the beginning of the story fit better with the rest.

When I’m in a contemplative mood, even those who know me well sometimes mistake my somewhat neutral mood for misery, and ask, “What’s wrong?” It took my own family years to stop asking. I offer this as a potential explanation, or partial explanation, for the fact that a total stranger walked up to me and said, “Have a fantastic day, or don’t! The choice is yours!”

I was startled by the intrusion of that bumper sticker into my audio world. It had shown itself visually many times, and had been categorized in my mind with other sayings that are “partly true”. I acknowledge that a whole lot of one’s experience in life comes from how one chooses to react – but, when, say, an unexpected bullet rips through one’s chest, it’s a real stretch to find a positive take on it. So I took that saying for what it was worth. It’s worth at least a little, since most days aren’t quite as bad as the hypothetical getting-shot day.

I think it was because I’d categorized it as “partly true” that I was startled. It didn’t seem worth stating out loud, especially to a total stranger with no context whatsoever. If someone had accused me of taking that comment out of context, I would have replied that there had been no context to take it out of.

I looked up, already starting to reason that the comment must have been directed toward someone else; but no, there stood the comment’s source, looking right at me. He was a man, somewhere between his mid-thirties and mid-forties, with sideburns from the 1970’s, anachronistic as might be for a man his age.

He had a huge grin on his face, the kind that irritable people often feel like punching. Fortunately, I was not feeling particularly irritable that day. I looked up from the park bench I was sitting on, and he looked down at me. I didn’t move to stand, he didn’t move to sit, and that seemed to suit us both just fine.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just sometimes look sad when I’m thinking.”

“Fine is no better than a speeding ticket,” he replied, and this time, instead of being startled, I was confused. That was so dumb that nobody would even bother making a bumper sticker out of it; yet I had just watched his sincere-but-smiling mouth form the words. At that point, I did stand up, because I had just noticed that his smile and his eyes did not match. Just looking into his eyes, I could see that he was dead inside. As healthy as he appeared to be physically, his soul was covered with spiritual flies and was being eaten through by spectral worms. Though he was clean and well-groomed (the sideburns notwithstanding) outside, the noise and stench inside were sickening.

I looked again to be sure. Knowing how my own neutral, contemplative moods had so often been misinterpreted, I wanted to avoid making the same mistake. He didn’t look contemplative – his grin was not a contemplative grin; and his eyes expressed no depth, either, though I very much wished they did – at least six feet of depth, so those flies would leave him alone.

I wondered what the problem might be, but I knew I couldn’t ask him directly. It was clear that he would deny that there was any problem, and that he would then quote another bumper sticker, or worse. “So how are you?” I finally asked, unable to think of anything better.

“FanTAStic!” he replied. His voice contained a clear echo of a time when he was trying to mean it, and perhaps a more distant echo of a time when he actually did mean it. He was not lying, I realized. It was the automatic response of a mind no longer in possession of a self. I wondered if there was any hope for him – normally, you cannot wake the dead, but it’s hard not to hold out hope for the dead who still have healthy bodies.

It made me think of Thanatopsis, the poem by William Cullen Bryant. That poem never gave me much comfort. In more than 80 lines of elaborate verse, the poet never seemed to establish more than that you re-enter the ecosystem; that all the great people who died before you are part of the same ecosystem; and, further, that everyone who lives after you will end up there, too. The best thing he can say about pushing up daisies is that daisies are, indeed, being pushed up.

But maybe this gives some hope to the man who was standing before me. Maybe this poor individual, who had struggled through every less-than-fantastic day certain that all the day’s faults were of his own choosing – who had toiled under the stress and pressure of that guilt – could yet be saved. I dared to look into his eyes once more. “It’s not your fault,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”

He smiled even bigger, and said, “Okay, then!” I never got any indication whether or not my seed had taken root. But maybe, in that healthy body, a new spirit can grow. Maybe there is, within his still-functioning brain, a mind that can be awakened with new life, and maybe the person he was can be remade into a happier, more balanced individual who does not feel the need to make every day into a fantastic one.  In short, maybe he has enough “ecosystem” within him to grow another soul.

I hope so. He seems like he could be a nice guy, and the world could use a few more nice guys.
________________
Note: This piece is dedicated to Moon, who wanted more!

Have you ever considered what it would be like to have an ability that is unique in the whole world?  Now, I realize that no two people are exactly alike, and that every person in the world is thus uniquely qualified to be that one unique person – but I’m not talking about that.  I’m talking about an ability that can be expressed in general, simple terms that anyone can understand.

Most people we consider uniquely talented are just the best at what they do, by one measure or another.  Setting aside the fact that most of these claims are arguable, you’re still left with the fact that, if the best jazz musician in the world suddenly lost her or his abilities, there would instantly be another best jazz musician in the world.  So, I’m not talking about being the best at something, or even about being the only one who can perform a specific task, such as play a particularly difficult piece of music.

A doctor in a certain theater may be the only one in the world who can save the life of the lead actor who’s just collapsed on stage, but that’s based on being in a particular place at a particular time, and that’s not what I’m talking about either.  Generally, there are thousands, or millions, of doctors out there who could have done the same thing if they’d been there.

Given all the common scenarios I’ve ruled out, you may think I’m talking about something purely hypothetical, but I’m not.  I’m talking about me.  I don’t know how I could be talking about anyone else, really.  I’m not sure I could believe anyone else if they told me.  There’s no way to prove, even to yourself, that you have a completely unique talent.  You just have to come to believe it over time.

If there are others in the world, with their own unique talents, I’m sure their stories are different.  I don’t know if a common thread could be found or not.  But, for me, the message has been out there, clearly communicated, since I was a child. I’ve just chosen until now to ignore it, or to look at it as being metaphorically or generally true – but I’ve just been fooling myself.  Decades of denial are coming to an end.

You might expect that I had a mentor approach me, someone in the know, like in the movies or on television, who could tell me what my abilities are and how I can use them.  But it’s not like that in real life, at least not for me.  I have received no guidance on how to use my abilities, or where best to use them.  I haven’t figured any of that out for myself yet, either, so much of my story remains to be told.

There’s a mysterious quality to how I came to know of my unique ability.  The message comes to me through standard media channels.  I’ve heard the message on the radio.  I’ve seen it in print, on TV, and even on billboards.  I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it, in more recent years, on the Web.  The message does not have my name on it.  I don’t know how they managed to tailor it to me.  It seems impossible that they could have, but the logic is undeniable.  Somehow, they did it.

Many questions remain unanswered.  My ignorance of how and where to use my ability is fundamental.  I have only the vaguest ideas on how to proceed, and none of them would lead me to believe that my ability is unique – so I think I must not be on the right track.  I also wonder what the radio, print, TV, billboard, and Web spots are saying to everyone else, to those for whom the message is not tailored.  It seems important that I figure out how to proceed.  Whatever Smokey the Bear is saying to everyone else, I’ve come to know that only I can prevent forest fires.

Jake’s house was just over the hill from his bus stop. It was late fall and, even at 2:30 PM, the sun hung low in the sky. From the top of the hill, he could see his house. It was blue with white trim. The back yard was overgrown with weeds, and there was a faded blue kiddie-pool in the far corner. There were about six inches of leaves floating on three inches of water, and the pool covered a circle of grass that had been brown and dead for weeks.

He felt in his pocket for the key, and had a moment of apprehension – but no, he’d remembered it. He sighed with relief. Lately, the back door had been locked, too, and he didn’t dare break another window – not after last time. Without the key, he would have had to wait for Jenn to get home, and then find a place to be until their parents arrived, hours later. Jake and Jenn were quiet and polite enough, but, even so, their neighbors had become tired of providing them shelter.

But today, because he’d remembered his key, he had a half hour of peace and quiet before his sister came through the door. He locked the door behind him, made himself a snack, and plopped down on the living room couch. He needed to stay near the door so he could hear when Jenn knocked. The TV remote was missing, and he didn’t feel like looking for it. He closed his eyes, and was nearly asleep when the knock came.

He woke up just enough to shuffle to the door, unlock it, and lock it again once Jenn was sprinting up the stairs to her room. He plopped down on the couch again, and something deep inside it made a loud snapping noise. The couch didn’t feel any different, and Jake was unconcerned. He tried to think back to when he was eight and in third grade, a virtually eternal gulf of four years, and to remember if he had had that kind of energy back then.

When his dad got home in a few hours, he would have to pretend to have more energy. His dad was prone to tell him things like, “You’re twelve years old! You should be ready to conquer the world! Instead, you wave a white flag and say, ‘Come get me, world. You beat me!’” Jake didn’t necessarily feel defeated, but what would he do with the world if he did conquer it, and what would he bother to change? It just seemed best right then to save his energy for the time when he needed it.

He was just beginning to weigh the benefits of climbing the stairs to get to his room – he would get added privacy, and his bed was more comfortable than the couch, but he would have to get up and climb the stairs to get there – when his sister bounded down the stairs again. The girl barely weighed sixty pounds. How did she make so much noise?

“I’m hungry,” she announced, way too loudly.

“The kitchen’s over there,” he replied, pointing vaguely.

“I can’t reach the mac and cheese.”

“Get a chair.”

“And Dilly’s hungry too.”

He glanced over, and, yes, she had that stupid armadillo cradled in her arms. He closed his eyes again. “Dilly’s a stuffed animal. He’s fabric and fluff. He doesn’t get hungry.”

“I eat for both of us. And I don’t want to climb a chair.”

“I guess you’re not that hungry then.”

“Pleeeeaaase get us some foooood!” pleaded a sweet, high-pitched voice.

“I saw your lips moving,” snapped Jake.

“Your eyes weren’t even open!” Jenn shot back.

“But I know you moved your lips. You always move your lips when Dilly ‘talks’,” said Jake with a sneer and big, sarcastic air quotes.

“Dilly needs help, that’s all.”

“You need help!”

“You just told me I didn’t.”

“You don’t need help to get food. You need mental help.” He gave up any hope of rest and sat up, looking at her. Then he looked past her to the kitchen table. “Mr. Chair,” he called out with honey-sweet politeness, “will you please slide over to the pantry so poor little Jenn doesn’t have to push you there?”

“Grow up!”

“You grow up! Talking to a chair is no more stupid than talking to stupid fake armadillo! Real armadillos aren’t even soft and furry like that. They’re hard and spiny.”

“That chair’s not a part of you. You were just talking to the chair to make fun of me.”

“You’re eight years old! You’re not four. You need to give up your stupid stuffed animals!”

“You’re twelve years old, not two! It doesn’t hurt you one bit when I talk to Dilly, so why do you care?”

“It’s time for you to give him up. It was time two years ago.”

“You’re not allowed to parent me. Don’t make me tell Mom and Dad you’re trying to parent me!”

Jake paused. He had to choose his words carefully. He truly despised those lectures he got about not trying to parent Jenn.

“No, I’m not – I’m not trying to really tell you what to do. It’s just – well, how long are you going to keep this up?”

“I don’t know. But even teenagers keep stuffed animals.”

“Mostly girls…”

“I’m a girl!”

“They keep them like decorations – they don’t talk to them!”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know anyth…” Suddenly, she paused. She saw something in his eyes, something beyond big-brother meanness, and she was surprised to see it there. “It’s not true. I’m sorry. You know lots of things.” She paused again, and asked, respectfully, really wanting an answer, “Why do you care?”

Jake had been ready to snap back at her, but her new tone caught him off guard. “It just doesn’t seem right,” he ventured. “You’re old enough to know he’s not real.”

“But nothing else bothers you like Dilly. I have books from when I was in Kindergarten. You never say a thing when I read them. I have blocks from when I was even younger, and, sometimes, when I stack those up, you even play with me. It’s only Dilly and maybe my dolls that bother you.”

“’Dilly and the Dolls’ – it sounds like a really bad rock band.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just tell me why.”

“I guess it’s because you’re old enough to know they’re not real. I saw your science book, when you were working on animals. You know the difference. You know your stuffed animals are toys, not animals. You know your dolls aren’t people. But you talk like they are. And you never stop pretending they’re real. They’re no more alive than the rocks in our front yard. You should know that by now.”

“Jake, I’ve always known that Dilly isn’t like a real animal.”

“So, you know he’s not real?”

“I know he’s not a real animal. But he’s real.”

“But you talk to him. You talk for him. You only pretend he eats and talks and thinks.”

“He needs my help to eat and talk and think. That doesn’t mean I’m pretending.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Dilly doesn’t have a brain inside him, I know, and he doesn’t have a mouth that opens, or a voice, or a stomach. I have to do all that stuff for him. But when he thinks, it’s not just me thinking. It’s a special part of my brain just for Dilly. That part of my brain decides what Dilly is going to say, and what he likes to eat. It decides when he’s hungry. The Dilly part of my brain only works when Dilly is around.”

“Okay, so what if somebody stole Dilly? How would he know what to say and think and eat?”

“Nobody can steal all of Dilly. They can only steal the stuffed animal part. If they played with him, they’d make a new part of their brain for Dilly. He’d have a whole different personality.”

“But all that’s just fake!”

“No. If it were fake, I could make Dilly talk and think when he wasn’t around. But I can’t.”

“You really can’t?”

“I could fake it, but it wouldn’t be the same. I bet even you could tell the difference.”

“Even me? I thought we were being nice.”

“Yeah, sorry. I meant even though you don’t believe me, you’d still see the difference.”

“Okay.”

“So, I guess I know that Dilly’s brain is really part of my brain, but I like to think of that part of me as just Dilly’s brain. And, if I didn’t have Dilly, I might lose that part of my mind.”

“I think you already – no, sorry, being nice.”

“Good catch, Jake.”

“Thanks.”

“And you see why I get so upset when you insult him, or take him away. You insult part of me, and steal away part of my mind. So, do you think you can stop being mean?”

“Well, not forever.”

“Of course not forever; you’re still my brother. You’ll always be mean sometimes.”

“So will you.” Jenn nodded in agreement. Jake continued, “But I think I can put up with Dilly now that I know he’s an extra part of your brain. You need all the extra brain you can get.”

“Jake!”

“Just kidding. So, Dilly’s still not going to be my favorite part of your brain.”

“That’s okay. Only one part can be your favorite. We’re still hungry, though.”

“All right. I’m awake now.”

Jake walked over to the kitchen, and pulled down a packet of macaroni and cheese. Three-and-a-half minutes later, Jenn and Dilly had a snack.

Jake went up to his room to find a book to read. He was about to flop down on his unmade bed when he turned suddenly toward his closet. Rummaging way back in the corner, on the top shelf, he found Ruff, right where he thought he would be. With that impulse out of the way, he was ready to flop down again, and he did. The box springs protested loudly.

He lay there with the brown floppy dog in front of him. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” he said.

“I’ve been right here,” replied an oddly dog-like voice.

“I’m sorry. I guess I thought I didn’t need you anymore.”

“Maybe you didn’t.”

“But I’m glad you’re still there.”

“Me too.”

Jake scratched Ruff behind his ears, and his head moved in appreciation, as convincingly as any living dog could manage. From an unknown location deep inside Jake’s closet, another voice came to him. “Can I talk to you, too?”

Jake was unprepared for this part of his mind to reassert itself, but he recognized the voice immediately. It was Mr. Smiley, a round, yellow pillow with round, black eyes and a wide black grin. “Sure,” replied Jake, but he realized that one wall after another was being knocked down inside him just so that the soft and cuddly face could talk.

“This is a lot of work,” said the pillow. “Do you think you can help me? It’s like you’ve forgotten how to be happy.”

“I didn’t forget. I just learned what real life was like.”

“Real life has happiness.”

“Every time I learn something in school, there are two more things I’m falling behind in. For every friend I have, there are five kids who make fun of me, and ten more who can’t even see me. My only purpose at home is to give my little sister everything she wants, or pay the consequences when Mom and Dad get home. Every time I try to be happy, I’m just fooling myself.”

“You did forget. Happy things are just as real as sad things. There are just as many happy things. You just have to remember how to find them.”

Jake crawled out of bed again. He rummaged around in his closet for a full five minutes until he found Mr. Smiley, flattened under a box no human had touched for over three years. He fluffed up Mr. Smiley, and brushed off as much dust as he could. Jake still felt sluggish and tired. Even the combined powers of Ruff and Mr. Smiley could not turn Jake’s mood around instantly.

Jake snuggled quietly under his blanket, with Ruff under one arm and Mr. Smiley under the other. He slept. The first bit of happiness he found was warmth and comfort. There followed two hours of sleep more restful than any full night had been for quite some time.

When his dad came home, Jake woke feeling refreshed. He didn’t have to pretend to have energy. His energy was real. He bounded down the stairs, heedless of the noise he was making.

“Did you have a good day?” asked his father.

“It’s a good day now.”

The man was positively beaming. “Good!” he said, simply. Jake realized that it didn’t take so much to please his dad after all.

Jenn was setting the table for dinner with one hand while she cradled Dilly in the other. Jake ruffled Dilly’s head, smiling. “Thanks, big guy,” he said aloud.

“Thanks for whaaaat?” asked that sweet, high-pitched voice, but Jake didn’t answer.

Ruff took up residence on top of Jake’s dresser, where he appeared to be a tangled, furry, brown decoration. Mr. Smiley became Jake’s top pillow. They were there to greet him every morning and talk about his day each night. He didn’t carry them around, but those parts of his mind were exercised every day, and he was happier because of it.

A few weeks later, Jake walked off to his bus stop again. He climbed the hill carefully, because an inch or so of snow had fallen the previous night. He felt in his pocket, and the key was there. At the top of the hill, he glanced back toward his house. Both the roof and yard looked better for the fresh white covering of snow. The pool still covered a circle of dead grass, and contained six inches of leaves over three inches of water and ice – but on top of that was an inch of snow, and that made all the difference.

All that came from a glance. He spent more time looking forward, with shops and stores to the right and tall trees to the left – as much freshness and beauty as he could take in. He pondered the fact that, a scant month ago, he would have stumbled wearily through his morning without noticing any of the fresh beauty around him. Behind him, down the hill, he heard a distant bark and felt a warm smile. “It’s going to be another good day,” he said to himself.

Just a quick note: This short article is densely written.  I couldn’t really find a way around that, other than not to post it, but I really do hope somebody will take enough interest to say whether they think it’s valid or not.  So, if you venture inside (and I hope you do), please take your time, follow the links, and have a look at the supporting material, especially the article referenced in the first paragraph (after this one), where I first tried to tell you what I’d been thinking about.  So, without further ado, the article itself:

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Not long ago, I came across new (to me) material that seems to support my speculation that there are trans-Euclidean geometrical models possible, which make positive and negative infinity the same. My previous article depends on the idea that an infinitely large circle could be equivalent to a straight line, and thus that the number line, with which most of us have been familiar since first grade or earlier, could be looked at as an infinite circle.

A couple of months ago, I was participating in an online version of a college bull-session, when I was referred to two different books about the study of infinity throughout the ages: The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless by John D. Barrow and A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable by Brian Clegg. I found both books fascinating, and both mentioned an early Renaissance thinker I hadn’t known about, known to Latin-friendly English-speakers as Nicholas of Cusa.

This thinker, in a philosophical work finished in 1440, called On Learned Ignorance, talked about the equivalence of an infinite straight line and an infinite circle. He also equated a triangle having an infinite base with a straight line, and did a number of other neat geometrical tricks, all in the name of thinking about God. An article I found online, called Nicholas of Cusa and the Infinite by Thomas J. McFarlane, summarizes his views on infinity along with the history of the study of the infinite before and since.

In short, I think that Nicholas of Cusa would like my idea. On Learned Ignorance has a very Zen feel to it – the reader is asked to embrace contradictory ideas, and ideas that on their own don’t seem to make sense. But, instead of a Zen Koan to shock the mind out of logical thinking, Nicholas invokes the idea of infinity to make the impossible seem possible, and the absurd seem plausible. The idea that a triangle with an infinite base is a line, for example, is used as an illustration of the Trinity – how three persons could equal one God.

Given these Zen-like goals, what could be more opposite than positive and negative infinity? This is the coincidence of opposites carried to its logical extreme. I couldn’t find any reference to a number line in On Learned Ignorance, but this isn’t too surprising, since René Descartes, of Cartesian Coordinate fame, wasn’t even born for another 150 years.

The reason I’m writing this, though, is not to assert that Nicholas of Cusa would like my argument, but to demonstrate that there’s a precedent for thinking of an infinite circle being equivalent to a straight line. I’ve looked at numerous references to this, from works cited above to little, one-paragraph “Doesn’t this just blow your mind?” blurbs, and I haven’t seen any mention of it being contradicted or refuted since it was written. Now, mathematics has progressed quite a bit in the last 570-odd years, so I can’t say that On Learned Ignorance validates my idea. But at least I have a philosopher, still known and respected, who wrote about a major basis for my idea.

Maybe having a real philosopher to reference will interest someone in commenting on the idea. I still haven’t found anyone to give an opinion about whether the idea is valid or not. Maybe the name of Nicholas of Cusa will stimulate discussion that so far has gone unstimulated. Can the infinite, properly analyzed, be equated with its own opposite?

Part of the explanation was that I was intentionally playing dumb. Those financial matters, who got paid what, were clearly none of her business. And it’s not as if she can exactly keep a secret. She may be getting older and more mature, but my favorite little girl in the world still lets pretty much everything that goes into her ear come back out of her mouth. You can’t set your watch by it, but you can essentially count on it coming out eventually. So, anything I want kept from the world at large has to be kept from her, too.

On the other hand, I really was having trouble understanding the question, and that played an equally strong role in why I wasn’t answering it. I think she was after something like salary independent of expenses, but the way to express that in the language of a seven-year-old is elusive, and I just wasn’t getting it. But, rather than blame the limitations of the linguistic tools at her disposal, she blamed the man trying to listen.

“A stupid daddy, even dumber than you, would get it!” she declared.

“Does that mean I’m even dumber than a guy who’s dumber than me?”

“YES!”

Now, normally, I’d believe I’d caught her in a contradiction, but this is a girl who’s been wrestling with the idea of the infinite for some time. For any finite level of stupidity, it’s not possible for me to be dumber than a daddy who’s dumber than I am. But, for the infinitely stupid, such a thing is possible.

This may also be one of those times when intuition trumps logic. Even in the real world, it’s possible for the “dumber” of two people, whose intelligence is measured by any criteria you please, to understand something that the “smarter” one fails to grasp. The old Far Side cartoon comes to mind, with a student pushing with all his might on the front door of a school for the gifted. On the door is a sign that says “Pull”.

But that’s really just a matter of two different criteria for intelligence being used. The apparent contradiction isn’t real. But it also somehow makes intuitive sense to say that that someone is so dumb that, not only is it impossible for anyone else to be dumber, it’s even impossible for someone else who is dumber to be dumber – or even quite that dumb. Again, it doesn’t make sense logically at all, so you have to banish logic from your intuition for it to make sense. Really, it’s just a long way of saying someone is impossibly dumb.

So, I think that’s what was going on. She invoked infinite regression to declare that I’m impossibly dumb.

Well, I’ve been called worse.