BACK

DRAGONA  9' A dragon and a sea serpent battle the enemy

After Michaela became friends with the sea serpent and they
saved the fishermen together, she rode on his back to the river.
Then they swam up river to the dragon's nest on the bank of the
river.

When the dragon first saw the sea serpent, he let out a loud
growl that shook the ground. He had never seen such a creature
before. Then the sea serpent let out a louder growl, raising up
out of the water ready to fight. But that made Michaela fall off
his back. So, both the dragon and the sea serpent dived toward
the water to save her. But instead of saving her, they growled
at each other again and readied themselves to fight.

"No!" shouted Michaela as she crawled out of the river onto a
rock, "No fight! No fight! Friend!"

She hugged the sea serpent and shouted, "Friend."

The sea serpent let out a low cooing sound. The dragon
immediately flew in and flipped Michaela into the air and onto
his own back, then let out his own low cooing sound.

"That's right!" exclaimed Michaela as she hugged the dragon's
neck, "Friend. I'm your friend. And he's MY friend. I want you
two to be friends."

At first, the two huge beasts looked suspiciously at one
another. The dragon let out a low growl. The sea serpent
growled.

Michaela shouted, "No growl! Friend! Dragon, this is your friend
Serpent. Serpent, this is your friend Dragon."

Then she stood up on the dragon's back and dived into the river
shouting, "Let's play!"

Immediately her friend Serpent dived in after her and when he
came up again, he had Michaela riding on his nose. Then, He
flipped her up in the air. But before she fell back into the
river, Dragon swoop down from the sky and caught her on his nose
and flipped her up in the air again.

The two great beasts played catch using Michaela as their ball.
And all she could do was laugh.

After a while, Michaela exclaimed "I'm hungry."

Serpent snorted and dived deep into the river, then appeared a
few seconds later with a fish in his mouth and layed it at her
feet.

"Why, thank you, my friend Serpent!" she exclaimed.

Immediately, he dived down again, and when he came up, he had a
much larger fish in his mouth. This one he layed at Dragon's
feet. Dragon let out his friendly deep cooing sound.
Immediately, Serpent dived again and came up with another fish
for himself and started to eat it. Dragon swallowed his fish
whole. But Michaela didn't eat. But Dragon, who had known her
for a long time knew why. Human's don't eat fish raw. He pushed
her away from the fish, then let out his firey breath toward the
fish. Within a few seconds, the fish was cooked and ready to
eat.

But the fire frightened Serpent. He was not able to breathe
fire. And he had never seen an animal breathe fire. So, he
backed away into the shallow water of the river, ready to swim
away.

Michaela knew that he was frightened, so she picked up her
cooked fish off the rock and carried it over to Serpent. She
tore off a piece of the fish and offered it to Serpent.

"Don't be frightened!" she said, "That was fire. Here, try some
fish from fire. You'll like it!"

Cautiously, Serpent open his mouth to receive the fish. Then,
after he swallowed it, he let out his friendly cooing sound.

After they ate, they played a game of hide and seek. Serpent was
better at hiding than the others because he could hold his
breath longer than the others. It was during this game that
Michaela discovered Serpent's big surprise. She climbed out of
the river onto a big rock and shouted, "Ally ally all set free.
It's time for me to go home! Good bye my friends!"

But Serpent didn't want her to go home, so when he came up out
of the water, his big mouth and long neck were filled with water
and he squirted it at her with great force. It knocked her off
the rock and into the water.

When she swam up to the surface, she was coughing and choking.

Both Serpent and Dragon put their noses under her and lifted her
out of the water. Then, Serpent backed away as if he was
ashamed.

Michaela replied, "That's okay boy. I understand, we'll play
some more tomorrow."

The next morning before the sun came up, the thundering of wagon
wheels and horses' hoofs awakened Michaela's family. They went
outside to investigate.

It was the king's royal coach pulled by four white horses. There
were two knights on black horses in front of the coach and two
knights on black horses behind. When the coach stopped in front
of the house, the footman jumped down from the coach and opened
the door. Out stepped the king himself. Michaela and her family
bowed down.

The king said, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but enemy armies are
invading our country. Michaela, I need your help."

"You need my help?!" asked Michaela, "I don't know anything
about swords or bows and arrows. How can I help?"

The king replied, "The kings in three different surrounding
kingdoms have combined forces to attack us from three different
directions at once. My army can fight against one or two of
those armies. But against three armies, we will surely fail. I
was thinking that your friend the dragon could fight better than
ten of my men. And your new friend the sea serpent might be able
to help too. Will you help us?"

"Yes! Yes, of course." replied Michaela.

The king showed Michaela the map of their country. One of the
armies was attacking in sailing ships by sea. Another army was
about to cross over a river. And the third army was now crossing
over the mountains.

"Most of my army is here near the mountains." said the king as
he pointed to the map. "But we have very few sailing ships to
defend against this attack by sea. And we have very few men to
defend this bridge across the river. Do you think you and the
beasts can help us at the bridge and at the harbor?"

"We'll do our best!" said Michaela as she ran into the house to
get dressed.

"Good luck!" shouted the king as his coach rode away noisily.

When Michaela came out of her house, she shouted, "Dragon! Let's
go!"

She rode on Dragon's back to the river, where she woke up
Serpent. There she jumped off of Dragon's back onto Serpents
back, then they swam down river to the ocean at full speed with
Dragon flying above. At the ocean they turned toward the fishing
village where Serpent's egg was found on the beach. Beyond that
beach was the harbor where the enemy navy was going to land with
their army aboard several ships.

By the time Michaela arrived, the enemy's sailing ships had
already sunk or destroyed nearly all of the kings ships.

Michaela pointed and shouted, "Dragon, burned them!"

Then dragon flew on ahead and breathed fire on the sails of the
enemy ships. By the time Serpent and Michaela arrived, all the
sails of all the enemy ships were on fire. Without sails to
catch the wind, the enemy ships couldn't carry the enemy army to
the harbor.

To put out the fires, enemy sailers tied ropes to the handles of
buckets and threw the buckets into the sea to fill them with
water. Once full, they pulled up the buckets and threw the sea
water on the sails to put out the fires.

But Michaela pointed and shouted, "Serpent, squirt them."

So, Serpent filled his mouth and neck with sea water and
squirted the soldiers as they tried to pull their buckets out of
the sea. The water hit the soldiers so hard that they dropped
their ropes and fell over backward. Without ropes, they lost
their buckets. Without buckets, there was no way to put out the
fires. So, all the sailers and soldiers jumped into the sea to
keep from being burned.

When the sailers and soldiers swam to land, they were captured
by the king's sailors.

Michaela stood up on Serpent's back and pointed and shouted,
"Let's go to the bridge over the river!"

Serpent swam at full speed up the river with Dragon again flying
above. By the time they got to the bridge, the second enemy army
had driven the king's army back nearly off the end of the
bridge.

When Michaela saw the king's army lighting big torches, she
asked, "What are you doing?!"

The leader replied, "The king told us that if we got driven back
off the bridge, we must burn the bridge down so that the enemy
army can't cross."

Michaela replied, "Please wait. If you burn the bridge, it will
take years to rebuild it. Let me and my friends try to drive
them back."

The leader replied, "I'll give you two minutes. But if they keep
coming, I'll have no choice but to set the bridge on fire."

With that, Michaela stood up on serpent's back and pointed at
the enemy army on the bridge and shouted, "Dragon FLY!"

Dragon flew high into the air, then swooped down toward the
bridge at high speed just inches over their heads. The wind from
his wings blew the soldiers off their feet. When they stood up
and aimed their bow and arrows at Dragon, Serpent swam up out of
the water and knocked them down again with gallons of water from
his mouth.

Finally, some of the enemy soldiers were able to shoot their
arrows and one of the arrows hit Dragon in the rump as he flew
by. Dragon growled angrily and swooped in with fire breathing
from his mouth.

"Retreat!" shouted the leader, "Retreat!"

They turned and ran back across the bridge. But when they got to
the far bank of the river, instead of running away, they found
small row boats up on shore and tried to row across the river on
both sides of the bridge.

Dragon landed on the bridge and breathed fire at the boats. The
soldiers avoided the fire by jumping out of the row boats into
the water. Those beyond the Dragons firey breath thought they
were safe, so they kept rowing their boats. But one bump from
Serpent's head tipped the boats over one by one. And soon ALL
the soldiers were swimming. And they were soon captured by the
soldiers of the kings army.

At a special ceremony after the battle, the king presented
medals of honor to Michaela and her friends Dragon and Serpent.
They were all now war heroes. 

©2008 Bob Snook. Conditions for use:
This story is free. Pay no fees or royalties.
Do not sell this story or rewrite it.
You may reproduce and distribute this story freely,
but all copies must contain this copyright statement.
http://www.bobsnook.org/kid  email: bob@bobsnook.org

BACK