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As everyone knows, dragons hatch from eggs just like spiders do
- well, maybe more like frogs do.
The eggs are round as a ball.
They look like lemon Jello.
The mother dragon lays a whole clutch of eggs all at one time, a whole bunch - well, maybe two or three eggs at least - if she's lucky. It all depends on how she's feeling. Peppy mothers may even lay four eggs, two boys and two girls. The mother dragon, her name was Roberta, but everybody called her Mrs. Commo (that was her last name), Mrs. Commo first scraped up a nest. She always chose a spot in the back of the forest near a waterfall. She liked to shower before going to bed. The father dragon, if he wasn't out terrorizing villages, sat on the hill watching for airplanes. He liked to chase them. If he caught any he spit them out. The mother dragon's nest was on the ground not in a tree. What tree is that big? It was twigs and old leaves and whatever else that was lying on the forest floor including a good bit of the ground itself. When the father dragon swooped down to help, she shooed him away. She wanted to do it herself. Mother dragons are known for being independent. With her tail and nose, she pushed the litter into a mound. It was about as high as an automobile. After all, dragons are largesh beasts. In the middle of her mound nest, Mrs. Commo poked a hole for her eggs. Then she covered them up with dirt and leaves and waited. Even though dragon eggs are quite small, about the size of a jellybean, they take a long time to hatch. The mother dragon had to wait all summer long. The father got tired of waiting and went looking for villages. Goats were his favorite snack. There are always goats around country villages in the wilderness of New Jersey. Roberta sulked around by her nest picking her huge teeth with small trees and munching on toads and grasshoppers if they happened by. She got pretty hungry, but she guarded her nest until it was almost time for children to go back to school. When dragons are born, they are tiny and delicate, no bigger than the end of your finger. They can't even fly because their wings haven't popped out yet. They look like really little red lizards with very short tails. Dragons are red until they're eight years old. Then they get spots. They don't turn all green until they twelve or thirteen. Baby dragons don't eat anything but raspberry leaves and cookies. Since mother dragons don't know how to bake cookies, baby dragons have to survive on leaves. Of course the boys sometimes eat butterflies. Then they grow up to be nasty and grumpy. It's a good rule to avoid eating butterflies. You never know where they've been. When they're first hatched, it's hard to tell girl dragons from boys. Later the boys grow a little beard and smell bad. The girls get a stripe and smell bad. In fact, all dragons smell pretty bad unless they're showering under a waterfall and scrubbing their scales with big stones. When the father dragon came back he found the nest was dug open, but there was only one tiny baby dragon. He wondered if it had been worth all the waiting and fuss, one minute baby after three months of sitting around? Where was the whole clutch? Wasn't there supposed to be a whole clutch? He'd brought home a goat to have for dinner - well, really, it wasn't a goat. It was a girl, but dragons aren't known for their genius. Goats and girls, it's all pretty much the same. He'd caught the girl riding her bike near the village. She looked like she'd make a tasty lunch so he brought her back to share with the mother dragon. The trouble was that Melissa, the girl, had slapped his nose and poked him in the eye. He'd had to drop her. She wasn't going to get eaten if she could help it. For Chopin-Joe (that's what Melissa named the father dragon - she named all the dragons because they surely can't do it themselves), for Chopin-Joe, it had been a disappointing morning what with a reluctant lunch and only one baby, and that one so wee you could carry it in your nostril. Mrs. Commo didn't like the girl. She was going to toast her with her fire breath like a toasted cheese sandwich, dunk her in the pool like an Oreo cookie and gulp her down in one swallow. Dragons can do that, you know. They talk fire and have throats like garages. But, when Melissa had been dropped on the ground, she crawled over and scooped up Platypus. That's what she named the baby dragon. What a stupid name, but the father dragon kind of like the sound of it. Mrs. Commo (Melissa named her, too) didn't want to French fry any girls while said girl was examining the new baby and cooing how cute and dear it was. Melissa was going to kiss the infant, but it smelled like turpentine so she just rubbed it's lizardy belly. It dawned on the mother dragon, that girls might know how to bake cookies. Mayby she would be better as a baker than as a meal. still, she wished the human would quit pawing her baby, so she growled her most ferocious growl. It startled Melissa. It even startled the Chopin-Joe, but he joined in and growled at the girl, too. As everyone knows, you should never touch a wild animal and you should certainly never-ever carry one home in your pocket wrapped up in a not-quite-clean handkerchief. Poor Melissa was so confused that she forgot about the wild animals rules. The thing is that, except for three days during the winter, dragons are invisible. Oh, sure, they're visible while they're babies and until they get old enough to turn green, but no sooner are they green than they start to fade into invisibility. That's why Melissa was so confused. She hadn't seen Chopin-Joe when he carried her off into the forest. She hadn't seen Mrs. Commo. She thought it had been a wind, maybe a tornado or some other Weather Channel magic. She certainly heard the roars! They scared her like a Dracula movie. But it wasn't until later that she realized the bellows came from dragons. She though that there were bears in the forest. She wrapped up the wee lizard, stuffed it into her blouse pocket and dashed for the road. The dragon parents didn't like that a bit. They soared after the youpg kidnaper. There were so many cars speeding along the road that they couldn't get close enough to snap up Melissa. They had to watch as she retrieved her bicycle from where Chopin-Joe had made her drop it. They saw which house she peddled to and they circled around overhead trying to decide what to do. After a while the father dragon saw an airplane. He chased it. It was a jet and got away. By then Chopin-Joe was miles away. He couldn't quite figure his way back. Bud, Melissa's older brother was pretty impressed with the lizard she showed him. Her mother wasn't. The lizard had to go outside. It smelled like turpentine. No sooner had they put the tiny creature down on the lawn than Mrs. Commo spotted her baby. Angry as a lion, she dove down like a rocker. With gigantic wings loudly flapping, the mother dragon snatched up her baby in her mouth, knocking over the children and the lawn furniture in the maneuver. The children shrieked and ran. They could feel the hot breath of the invisible creature. They could smell its reek, like an old garbage can. After hours of excited chatter, brother and sister decided to go back into the forest. They would find the tiny lizard and they would try to figure out what the invisible tornado was - but not until tomorrow when they were calmer and there was plenty of daylight. There's a second part of the story, "The House in Gray Otis." It has brownies.
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