Children's Story: Sparky the Baby Green Dragon

One sunny afternoon Christina and Maria were walking home to their house in the village of Achinos near Stylida, where they were spending their holidays with their brother Costa and their Auntie Eleni and Uncle Vangelis.

As it was very hot in Achinos, they had been into Raches, the next village, to buy some chocolate ice cream for themselves and Costas. As the ice cream was melting fast they decided quite naturally not to wait until they reached home and sat down in an olive grove under the shade of an olive tree to eat their ice creams.

They hoped that Costa’s ice cream would not melt away into nothing before they could give it to him. Maria suggested to Christina that if the ice cream was almost melted by the time that they had finished theirs, that they should eat Costa’s for him. Christina thought that was a nice thing to do for Costa because at least the ice cream would not be wasted.

Suddenly a skinny dog ran into the olive grove. Maria who loved dogs felt sorry for it and got up and started to follow it with the intention of offering it some of Costa’s ice cream. Within seconds she had disappeared. Christina who was deeply engrossed in thoughts of castles and beautiful princesses did not notice Maria's disappearance at first. By the time she realized that Maria had left she had lost sight of her.

Christina got up from where she was sitting and looked around the olive grove. Maria was nowhere to be seen. Then Christina noticed something moving in an olive bush not far from where she was standing. She walked towards the bush thinking that perhaps there was a bird or a rabbit moving in the bush.

When she reached it she very slowly moved around the bush so as not to frighten whatever was there. Suddenly she froze. She looked hard not believing her eyes. Barely visible but unmistakably green in color, just visible under the bottom most branch of the Olive bush was a kind of foot. She edged closer and then stopped. She had seen a foot like that before in a book. It had three green claws, like toes and a kind of rough bumpy green skin joined together by green webbing.

Christina scratched her head trying to remember which book she had seen this kind of foot before. Then she remembered.

"No, she thought, this can't be true. This is the foot of a dragon, a green dragon and what’s more a baby green dragon.” For the foot was only twice as big as hers. "I wonder if baby dragons like chocolate ice cream,” she thought.

“We do!” said a voice. Christina jumped out of her skin.

“Who said that?” She thought.

“I did, little girl” said the voice again.

Christina was confused. She was certain that she had not said anything out loud. “Could dragons, and baby ones at that, hear thoughts?” She wondered.

“Of course we can! Said a voice from just out of sight, we can do most things better than little girls”.

With that the baby dragon stepped out from behind the Olive bush right in front of Christina. Christina stepped back. She stared at the sight before her. Facing her was indeed a baby dragon.

It stood about twice her height and was quite green all over, except for its eyes, which were a sort of angry red color. It had two funny looking feet, green with three toes and green webbing between its toes. It stood on these funny feet waving a stubby pair of green skinny arms around as if to keep its balance. The arms ended with a kind of hand that had six fingers. It seemed to have wings folded down its side, fairly small baby wings. Its neck was longish and its head had short pointy ears, a high forehead, no hair, funny red eyes and a long snout ending in a big mouth full of baby teeth. Oh! And there was its tail. It was longer than its body and lay along the ground behind it, twitching back and forth. The end of the tail had an arrowhead point to it. It looked quite dangerous to touch.

“Have you finished?” said the dragon.

“Finished what?” asked Christina.

“Finished staring at me,” replied the dragon.

“Sorry, said Christina. You surprised me that’s all. I never expected to see a real live dragon, especially a baby one.”

“Well, said the dragon, now you can see me.”

Christina was thinking fast, well fast for her at least. She wasn’t scared, not much anyway. “I wonder if baby dragons breathe fire and smoke.” She thought. Then another thought crossed her mind. “Do dragons have names?”

“Sparky” said the dragon.

“What!” said Christina.

“My name is Sparky and I can breathe fire and smoke.”

Christina giggled. “What sort of silly name is that?” She thought.

Sparky snorted and said. “If you’re not careful with your thoughts I’ll breathe fire at you.”

Christina giggled again. Then she said. “I don’t believe you can, you are only a baby dragon.”

Immediately she said it, she regretted it. Too late, Sparky raised himself up to his full height then leaned forward towards Christina, his mouth opening wide.

Christina shrank back expecting to be burnt to a cinder from Sparky’s fiery breath. Her eyes were as large as saucers. When the baby dragon’s mouth was only a couple of feet from her, a small wisp of smoke came out of its mouth accompanied by a squeaky noise, and no fire.

“Oh no!” cried the dragon. “Not again. I’ll never get the hang of this. It’s so embarrassing.”

Christina let out a nervous laugh. She actually started to feel sorry for Sparky.

“My name is Christina.” She said. “And I don’t mind if you can’t breathe fire, in fact I quite prefer it.”

“I wish I could learn to breathe fire.” said Sparky. “You see I have lost my mother and father a month ago at a fancy dress party and I have been looking for them ever since.” “They were about to teach me how to breath fire and now they are gone, I have no one to teach me.” “I also lost my pet dog today, so I’m all alone.”

“I think I know where your dog is.” said Christina. “I think my sister Maria saw it earlier and went after it.”

Just then they both heard a shout. It was Maria calling for Christina.

“I’ve got the dog, I’ve got the dog,” shouted Maria from behind some Olive trees.

“Come on,” said Christina to Sparky. “Let’s go find Maria, bet she found your dog.”

“We’re coming Maria” shouted Christina. “Where are you?”

Maria emerged from behind an Olive bush, clutched in her arms was the little dog. When she saw Christina and especially her green companion she stopped dead in her tracks. Sparky on the other hand on seeing that his pet dog was safe and sound in the arms of a little human girl, became very excited. He started to flap his tiny wings and waddled at speed towards Maria, making little squeaking noises.

Maria did not know what to do, she did not know that the little dog she had found belonged to Sparky, and she had no idea that Sparky was not really a bad dragon, and a baby one at that. However Maria was brave, she stood her ground as Sparky hurtled, well waddled, towards her. Now, Christina too was running towards Maria. To her surprise she was actually catching up with Sparky. Christina tried to work out if she would catch Sparky before he reached Maria.

“If I’m running at 5 miles an hour and Sparky is running at 4 miles an hour and Maria is standing still…hmm I should overtake Sparky…. hmmm” She tried to reason. “It’s no good. I can’t do sums and run at the same time.” She conceded.

Meanwhile, Christina was indeed catching up to Sparky; she was almost at his tail. “Perhaps I should stamp on his tail,” She thought.

She tried but kept missing. It’s difficult to stamp on a dragons tail while you’re running. You try it! Suddenly, a lot of things seemed to happen at once. Costa appeared out of nowhere, just behind Maria, carrying his giant water gun. He brought it up to eye level, took aim, and squirted a jet of water right into Sparky’s face. Sparky stopped dead in his tracks. It all happened so quickly that Christina didn’t have time to think or react. She ran headlong into the back of Sparky. It was like several cars crashing together. With the force of Christina hitting him in the back, Sparky slid into Maria with Christina still on his back. He knocked Maria sideways into Costas and they tumbled over. Costa’s water gun went flying and so did the little dog that Maria was holding. As they sprawled on the ground Sparky landed on top of them with Christina still attached to his back.

Poor Costa, one minute he was shooting green dragons with his water gun, and the next thing he knew he had Maria, Sparky and Christina piled on top of him.

“Wish my dad was here.” He thought. “He’d be strong enough to get this little lot off of me.”

“Well call him,” said Sparky.

Costas was shocked. Then Christina whispered. “The dragon can hear your thoughts Costas, so don’t think!”

“Don’t be silly Christina” said Costa. “Dragons can’t hear thoughts, nobody can hear thoughts.”

But Costa was not certain. He had tried to sound confident, but inside he was a little scared.

“Can he really hear my thoughts?” He wondered.

“You are a silly human boy,” said Sparky. “Of course dragons can hear thoughts.”

“If you can hear my thoughts,” shouted Costas. “You know that my leg hurts. So get off me right now!”

When Christina heard this she started to feel sorry for her brother. She realized that as she was the one on top of the pile, it was up to her to do something. After all it should be easy for her to get off Sparky’s back. How she could get Sparky off her brother was another problem altogether.

She furrowed her forehead and closed her eyes in a great effort to think what to do. For Christina this was a monumental effort. Then suddenly she stopped thinking about what to do and wondered about Sparky. Why was he not commenting on her thoughts? Why was he not commenting on Maria or Costa’s thoughts either? He was simply squirming around and trying to flap his silly wings. She opened her eyes and glanced quickly at Maria and Costa. They both had their eyes closed. She closed her eyes again.

“Why isn’t Sparky hearing our thoughts?” She wondered. Then it came to her. He can’t hear our thoughts when our eyes are closed. She decided to test her theory out.

Keeping her eyes closed she thought. “Sparky, do you have any other names?”

Not a sound from Sparky.

This time she opened her eyes and thought the same thought.

“Yes, Sparky Junior the third,” said Sparky.

Christina smiled for the first time in quite a few minutes. She closed her eyes and began to think of ways to get Sparky to move.

Suddenly she had a thought. Two thoughts in one day were exceptional for Christina. “Sparky? She said, keeping her eyes wide open.

“What!” shouted Sparky.

“Have you ever flown at all?” questioned Christina.

“I can’t fly. I already told you that,” said Sparky. “I can’t fly, I can’t shoot fire from my mouth, I can’t do anything dragon like an ordinary dragon, and I’ve lost my parents,” moaned Sparky. “Wait a minute! I did fly once by accident.”

“How did that happen?” said Christina. “What were you doing at the time?”

“I was sleeping in my father’s favorite hammock, which was hung between two tall trees near Karpanisi. It was quite high, at least 15 meters from the ground,” added Sparky.

“And?” asked Christina. “Did you fly up to the hammock?”

“No, my father took me up to it.”

“Did you fly off the hammock then?”

“Sort of.” “I must have rocked the hammock too much in my sleep, and fell off. Next thing I knew I was falling to the ground at great speed. I was so scared, I squeezed my eyes tight shut and suddenly I was flying. When I opened my eyes I was near to the ground and landed on my feet unharmed.” “That’s the only time I’ve ever managed to fly,” sighed Sparky.

Christina smiled. “That’s it!” she cried.

“Great,” said Costa. “You two go ahead and chat, while my leg withers away from the pain and the weight of you all on top of me.”

“Wait a minute Costa,” shouted Maria. “Christina has thought of something.”

“About time,” moaned Costa. “I hope her thoughts did not hurt her too much,” sniggered Costa.

“Shut up Costa and listen,” shouted Christina.

“Sparky!” said Christina. “I have an idea. Why don’t you close your eyes and try to fly.”

“Ha, ha, ha” laughed Sparky. “That’s a crazy idea!”

“Just try pleeeeeease.” begged Christina.

“Okay,” said Sparky in a resigned voice. “I’ll try.” With that Sparky closed his eyes and flapped his little wings. Nothing happened for a minute, and then Sparky began to rise up like a helicopter, then he dipped his wings, and flew a few feet, before landing softly on the ground.

“There you are,” cried Christina. “You CAN fly! And thank you for remembering I was on your back and for not flying very high.”

Costa and Maria picked themselves up and stood and stared at Sparky.

“Bravo Sparky,” cried Costa and Maria in unison. “Well done Christina, you do have the ability to think now and again.

“Grrrrrrrr,” thought Christina. They are always teasing me. “What are you going to do now Sparky?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” said Sparky.

“Would you like to come home with us and have something to eat?” offered Christina.

“Thank you, I would like that a lot.” said Sparky, beaming a toothy smile.

“What do you like to eat?” asked Costa.

“Most things, answered Sparky. I love rats and mice, and my mother does a really delicious bat soup.”

The children stopped in their tracks. Christina looked at Costa and grimaced. Maria just stared at Sparky.

“Yuk,” thought Christina.

“Hmm, said Costa sarcastically, I don’t think spaghetti is going to go down so well.”

“What’s wrong? Said Sparky, Don’t you like meat?”

“Yes we do, said Maria, but not that sort of meat.”

“Wait.” Cried Sparky suddenly, and he started running towards the olive tree where Christina had first seen him. “I’ve forgotten my travel bag.”

Moments later Sparky emerged into view with small green travel bag hanging of his shoulder.

“You don’t wear clothes,” said Costa, “so what do you need a travel bag for?”

“There are other things I need,” said Sparky, as he opened the bag. “Look!”

They looked. Then they looked again and then they looked at each other. In the bag were two items. A large brush like object and a large bottle filled with a clear liquid and labeled ‘Dragon Gas Toothpaste.’

Costa spoke first. ‘What’s this?’ He asked, pointing at the brush like object.

‘It’s my toothbrush,’ answered Sparky.

‘And this?’ asked Maria, pointing at the bottle of Dragon Gas Toothpaste.

‘I don’t know,’ said Sparky. ‘My mum packed my bag but I haven’t used it yet.’

‘Oh let’s go,’ suggested Costa. He was looking at Christina as he said it because he noticed that she was getting an idea. She was thinking hard, he could tell because her eyes were shut tight. He figured that three thoughts in one day would be too much for her. So it was better that they continued towards their home.

So Costa, Maria and Christina, followed by Sparky’s dog, led Sparky by his wing tips, out of the olive grove, and down the road towards their village of Achinos. None of them spared a thought of what the villagers might do when they entered the village with a baby green dragon.