by Rebecca Rupp
“Whoever lives here hasn’t been gone for very long,” she said.
“Whoever lives here is coming back,” said Will. “Listen!”
There was a rustling, shuffling sound, growing louder as it approached the hut. There was a weighty feel to the sound. It seemed to quiver and vibrate through the ground beneath their feet. It was a sound of something threateningly large.
“That doesn’t sound like a person,” quavered Hitty.
“It isn’t!” hissed Will. “Let’s get out of here! Let’s hide!”
But it was too late. As the children emerged from the hut, its owner rounded the curve of the path and came into view. For one heart-stopping moment, no one moved or breathed. Then Will and Hitty clutched each other, and Hitty burst into tears.
There before them, with an unmistakable expression of annoyance on its face, stood a dragon. Its scales flashed dappled gold in the sunlight filtering through the branches of the trees, and on its back was folded a pair of polished golden wings. Its eyes were a cool silver gray. In its front claws it carried a basket filled with abalone shells. It set the basket down, wiped its claws on the grass in a fussy manner, and gave an impatient snort.
“For heaven’s sake, young lady,” the dragon said in a snappish tone of voice, “please stop that unsightly snuffling.”
Will put a brotherly arm around Hitty’s shoulders. “She’s scared,” he said stoutly. “In all the fairy tales and legends, dragons eat maidens. Are you going to eat us?”
The dragon glared at them scornfully. “Certainly not,” it said. It gestured at the sign at the hut entrance. “Trespassers,” it announced pointedly, “will be prosecuted. Not eaten. Dragons are not savages.” It tossed its head and muttered angrily to itself. “Really . . .” Hitty and Will heard it saying indistinctly, “no privacy these days. . . . The unbelievable ignorance . . .”
“Please, sir,” Will said apologetically, “we didn’t mean to intrude. We were just trying to find help. Our father . . .”
But the dragon had drawn itself up and was looking, if possible, even more peevish than before. “You may address me,” it said haughtily, “as ma’am. Sir is, of course, appropriate for my brothers, but I prefer my proper title.”
“Brothers?” said Will, looking sharply over his shoulders, but Hitty nudged him and pointed. The dragon had three heads. There, almost hidden beneath the folded golden wings, were two more heads, necks coiled low, eyes closed, sound asleep. “I think those must be her brothers,” Hitty whispered.
“Precisely, young lady.” The dragon nodded. “We are a tridrake. Our name is Fafnyr. Fafnyr Goldenwings.”
“I’m Will,” said Will, “and this is my sister, Hitty.”
“I’m sure I would be very pleased to meet you,” said the dragon, “if I had any interest in company. However, I deliberately chose this island for its lack of human beings. I need solitude for my scientific and artistic pursuits.” The dragon glared resentfully at the children, down the full length of its golden nose. “It seems,” it said crossly, “that there are no safe places left. You creatures take up an indecent amount of space. You spread across the globe like . . . ,” it paused for a moment, searching for a word, “like ants.”
“Well, we’re not here on purpose,” Will said. “We never intended to come here at all. We were on our way around the world by airplane. Our plane crashed on the beach and our father, who was flying it, was injured.”
The dragon looked unsympathetic. “And that,” it said snootily, “should teach you to stay on the ground, where your kind belongs.”
“You don’t understand,” Hitty cried, her eyes filling again with tears. “Our father is hurt. And we don’t have anywhere to sleep or anything to eat or anything!”
Without a word, the dragon stalked past the children and entered the hut. Will and Hitty could hear it thumping crossly about inside, opening and closing cupboard doors. Presently it reappeared, holding a small glass bottle. “Give him two of these tablets every four hours,” the dragon said, “for fever and pain. As for food and shelter,” the dragon looked Hitty and Will coldly up and down, “you look to be strong and competent children. Use your heads.”
The dragon vanished indoors. “Good-bye!” it snapped, its back turned. It was clear that the meeting was over.
“Good-bye!” Hitty and Will echoed dismally. Then, holding the little bottle of pills, they retreated back down the trail toward the beach. They continued to peek back curiously as long as the hut was in sight, but the dragon remained invisible. Then, faintly, there came the sound of a piano.
The dragon was playing “A Bicycle Built for Two.”
Father was awake when the children returned to the beach, but he was burning with fever and barely able to speak above a whisper. Hitty and Will gave him a drink from the water bottle and two of the dragon’s little white pills. “I’ll be better in the morning,” Father whispered weakly. “We’ll make some plans. . . .”
“It’s all right, Father,” Will said. “Everything’s fine.”
“Just rest,” said Hitty. “Go to sleep.”
As Father slept, the children sipped some of the bottled water, ate crackers, and discussed what to do.
“We need a hut, like the dragon’s,” Hitty said suddenly and decisively. “And I think I know how to build one. We can prop up some fallen branches like a tepee and hold them together with vines. Did you see the dragon’s roof? It was vines, woven in and out. Over and under, just like making potholders on the loom at school.”
Will looked at her with new respect. “All right,” he said. “Let’s collect some branches and vines. I’ll help you.”
By the time they finished their hut, it was dark and a full moon had risen. The hut was small, but snug, and it felt safe and cozy to be together under a roof — even if they were lost somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with no way of getting home. Hitty and Will curled up next to Father on the warm sand, using rolled-up jackets as pillows.
“Crackers again for breakfast,” Will murmured sleepily.
“We’ll think of something,” Hitty whispered back. “Remember what the dragon said. We have to use our heads.”
When Will woke the next morning, Hitty was gone. Following her tracks in the soft sand, he found her down at the water’s edge, lying on her stomach on some rocks overlooking a deep tidal pool.
“Hitty! I was worried. I didn’t know where you were. What are you doing?” asked Will.
“Shh,” said Hitty. “I’m fishing.” She held a long forked stick in her hand, at the end of which was fastened a small net.
“Where did you get that?” asked Will. He squatted down on the rock next to Hitty and peered hopefully into the water.
“I found the stick on the beach,” said Hitty, “and the net is the string bag I had my bathing things in. It makes a wonderful fishing net.” Slowly she dipped the net into the pool. Suddenly she made a quick scoop and hoisted the net out of the water. There, thrashing in the string bag, was a fat fish.
“Breakfast!” said Hitty proudly.
They cleaned the fish with Will’s pocketknife and cooked it on pointed sticks over a fire of driftwood. Father woke up briefly and had a few bites of fish, half a cracker, a drink of water, and two more of the dragon’s white pills. Weakly he tried to smile. “Thanks, kids,” he said. Then he slept again.
Over the next several days, Will and Hitty learned to live on the island. They found coconuts and cracked them open with pointed rocks, drinking the sweet milk and eating the white meat inside. Hitty went fishing every morning and Will dug clams on the beach, which the children roasted over the coals of their fire. Hitty collected wide flat shells to use as plates and Will used his pocketknife to whittle forks and spoons out of driftwood. They made three sleeping mats for the hut, from layers of soft broad leaves, and each night before bed, they sat outside on the sand, listening to the slow roll of the waves and watching for falling stars. Hitty made them each a hat out of woven palm frond
s, to protect them from the sun. They stopped wearing shoes.
When their bottled water ran out, they went exploring once again and found a tiny freshwater stream that, followed back through the trees, led to a miniature sparkling waterfall. A series of deep pits was dug in the stream bank, and there were confused marks of large clawed tracks and a trail of something being dragged. “Look, Hitty,” said Will, “this must be where the dragon gets her clay.”
Hitty was already scrabbling in the muddy holes. “I’m going to dig some too,” she said. “We can make pots and bowls of our own and dry them in the sun.”
Each day they hoped for a passing ship — “They must be looking for us by now,” Will said — but no one came.
“We can’t go on like this,” Hitty said finally one morning. “There are thousands of tiny islands in the Pacific. They may never find us. I think we should go ask the dragon for help.”
“She doesn’t want to see us,” said Will. “She doesn’t want people around.”
“Well, maybe she’ll help us just to get us out of her hair,” Hitty said.
This time as they rounded the path to the dragon’s hut, they heard a voice, reciting. The dragon was home. “‘My heart leaps up when I behold,’” she was saying flutily,“‘a . . . something . . . in the sky.’ . . . Drat . . . !” There was a hasty rustle of pages. The dragon was memorizing poetry.
“It’s rainbow,” Hitty whispered loudly to Will. “‘My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.’ William Wordsworth. We had to learn it at school.”
The dragon poked its head out of the hut. It held a red-covered book in one claw. “Ah,” it said in unenthusiastic tones.“Visitors.”
“We’re sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” Will said politely.
“We were just wondering,” Hitty said, “if you could give us some help.”
The dragon closed the book with a snap. “You don’t look,” it said, “as though you need any. You seem healthy and well fed. Doing quite well for yourselves, I would say. Except, perhaps . . .” The dragon critically surveyed first one child and then the other. “I would suggest more regular baths.”
Will looked at his bare feet and Hitty blushed.
“It’s not that,” Hitty said. “At least, we’ll try to. Take baths, I mean. Our real problem is getting off the island. We don’t want to stay here forever and I know you don’t want us around. And our father needs to see a doctor. Couldn’t you help us get back home?”
The dragon snorted and puffed out an impatient cloud of smoke. “Impossible just now,” it said. “I am in the midst of a series of botanical experiments, studying photosynthesis in seaweeds. Pho-to-syn-the-sis,” it repeated distinctly, when Hitty and Will looked puzzled, “is the process by which plants convert sunlight into food.”
“You mean,” said Hitty, her voice rising in dismay, “that you think weeds are more important than people?”
The dragon glared at her coldly. “I am afraid,” it said, “that you lack the scientific mind.” It turned and swept briskly back into the hut. Over its shoulder, it spoke one last time. “For heaven’s sake, use your heads,” it said. “Have you tried signaling?” Then the sound of rustling pages began again.
“Well,” said Will, “I guess that’s that.”
“Signaling,” Hitty said thoughtfully. “I think I have an idea.”
There were parachutes in the cockpit of the plane. Will watched as Hitty gleefully pulled one from its pouch and spread it out on the sand, an enormous stretch of white-and-orange silk, fastened to a canvas harness. Hitty rocked back on her heels and grinned up at Will.
“We should have thought of this before,” she said, gesturing at the opened parachute. “Look at this. It’s a perfect signal flag.”
“You mean just leave it here on the beach?” Will said. “I don’t see what good that will do.”
“No.” Hitty shook her head. “We’re going to fly it. If we get it up to the top of one of those palm trees, the wind will billow it out like a flag. Anyone passing by should be able to see it from miles away. Look how bright it is.”
It was awkward climbing with the parachute bundled in her arms, but Hitty managed, clinging to the tree trunk with her free hand and bare feet, like a monkey. At the top of the tree, she wrapped the canvas harness straps tightly around the stubby branches, spread the parachute silk as best she could, and flung it upward into the air. The wind caught it and filled it out, a huge ballooning mushroom of orange and white. Below her on the beach, Will jumped up and down and cheered.
“You did it, Hitty!” he shouted. “A signal flag!”
Hitty dropped down beside him on the sand. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before,” she said.
The signal flag flew day and night above the palm tree, snapping and flapping in the ocean breeze. Father was better now, able to sit up for short periods at mealtimes and once even to hobble out onto the beach for a nap in the sun. The children built a small fireplace of flat stones, collected from the shallow water on the north side of the island, and arranged logs around it to serve as benches. They made a rack of branches tied with vines, on which they hung their clothes to dry after washing them in the ocean. Hitty fashioned a set of clay checkers — half marked with the letter H for Hitty, half with a W for Will — and the children played on a board drawn in the sand with a stick.
The days passed slowly, with no sign of rescue. No ship sailed by and no plane flew overhead.“It looks like we’re here forever,”said Hitty. Will sighed.
Then one afternoon they had an unexpected caller. Father, still weak, was asleep in the hut. Will and Hitty were on the beach, bowling with a pair of coconuts for balls and a set of driftwood chunks for pins, when a great shadow swept across the sand. There was a thunderous sound of beating wings overhead and a scent of spices and smoke. The dragon landed. For a moment it studied their little camp: the hut, the fireplace, the drying rack, the row of clay pots arranged on a log bench, the grass basket filled with fruit, the checkerboard, outlined with pebbles, in the sand. Then it looked up at the parachute waving overhead as a signal flag.
Slowly it gave an approving nod.“Well done,” it said to the children.“Very well done. No young dragon could have done better.” It looked again toward the hut.“Your father is inside?” it asked. “I should like to meet him.”
Father had heard the sound of the dragon’s landing. Painfully, leaning on a stick, he limped out of the hut. “Will!” he called. “Hitty! What . . . ?” Then he simply stood still, gaping open-mouthed at the dragon.
The dragon politely inclined its head.“I trust your health is improved, sir?” it inquired.
Father gulped unbelievingly and nodded. “Yes,” he said, in a choked voice.“Thank you.”
The dragon settled itself on the sand. “Upon reflection,” it said, “I find that I have been a bit hasty. Inconsiderate. Even”— the dragon looked down at its feet —“neglectful of duty. It is always important to help those in need.” It shuffled its front claws in an embarrassed manner. “Therefore,” it said, “I have reconsidered your problem and I have a proposition to make.”It curled and uncurled its golden tail.“You would like to return to the mainland. I will take you there. However, there is a condition.”
“What condition?” asked Will.
“What do you mean?” asked Hitty.
“As you know,” continued the dragon, “I value my privacy. I will not have shiploads of strangers or persons in those . . . ,” it paused, looking pointedly at the crumpled wreck of the airplane, “aerial contraptions . . . crashing about on my island, disturbing my peace, and interrupting my experiments.” The dragon sighed. “There are so few places left,” it said.
“We would never tell anybody,” Hitty began, but the dragon held up an admonitory claw.
“We dragons have a talent,” it said. “We can cause you to forget.”
“You mean like amnesia?” asked Will. “We won’t remember where we were or anything that happene
d?”
“How do you do it?” asked Hitty.
“Just look into my eyes,” the dragon said, and turned its cool silver gaze on Hitty. “Just look into my eyes.”
As Hitty stared directly into the dragon’s eyes, they seemed to grow deeper, wider, cooler, until she was engulfed in a swirl of silver. Her own eyes began to blur, and the world around her swayed softly out of focus, becoming more and more dreamlike and far away with each passing moment. Nothing seemed quite real. . . .
With a jerk of her head, Hitty tore her eyes away. She felt dizzy and disoriented. The beach seemed to waver up and down under her feet.
“You see?” the dragon said. “I can take away all your memories of the island. Of me.” It waved a claw at the little camp.“Of all this,” it said.
Father cleared his throat. “It’s fine with me,” hesaid.“There’s nothing here I want to remember. As long as we can all get back home again.”
But Hitty ran forward and laid a hand on the dragon’s golden scales.“Oh, please, no!” she cried. “Please! I’ll never tell! I promise! As long as you’ll let me remember you!”
Will stepped forward. “And me,” he said. “I don’t want to forget you either. I promise too, Fafnyr.”
The dragon looked slowly from Hitty to Will and back again. It studied their upturned faces. Then it nodded its head.
