I sometimes think about how different Dragon Little’s life is from the lives of all other little girls. She is an ordinary girl, after all, like all others, cursed with being born in the Dream for a reason she does not know. And I think… What do other girls who were not born in the dream do during the day?
I do not know for all I have seen are dreams. Is Dragon Little’s life on a pirate ship battling villains with her father - is that how children spend their time? I think not. The few I have seen in my long life have rarely dreamed about such things.
And how many of them, I think, were in the situation Dragon Little found herself in the day I have begun describing yesterday: Battling a giant Snot Eater with gooey green flesh that had just come out of the sea.
Dragon Father and Dragon Little, who had just been arguing about snot, looked at each other. No words were exchanged, but they acted simultaneously:
Dragon Little took a few steps towards her cabin as she called the monster: “Hey, Snot Eater! You want my snot?! Here it is!” She pointed at her nose.
The monster turned towards her and his arms reached out slowly for her.
“Uh-uh",” she jumped back until her back was against the opposite deck. The Snot Eater was bigger, but much slower than her.
He also failed to notice that Dragon Father had run in the other direction. As Snot Eater took another step in the ocean toward Bonny’s Revenge in order to reach Dragon Little, the cannons at the side of the ship fired cannons into his green chest.
The Snot Eater staggered back. Dragon Father fired the cannons again.
“Aaagh!” The Snot Eater shouted in pain and anger. “You… monster!”
The cannons fired again, but the Snot Eater had moved sideways towards the helm. In anger he swiped his hand on the deck and Dragon Father.
Dragon Father looked at his own body and clothes. He, and half of the ship, had been covered with slime. “Oh, no,” he hollered. “I’ve been slimed!”
He seemed about to throw up, then raised his eyes. He saw waves in the water showing that The Snot Eater had re-entered the ocean and was now again out of side. But as he looked aside, Dragon Little was gone.
“Joy?”
After a fight, she knew she had to answer him. The fact that she did not meant she was not there.
Dragon Father ran to the deck and looked down at the ocean. “Damn it, Joy! He got you!”
I will tell you more of Dragon Little’s adventures with the Snot Monster tomorrow.
—Told by The Red Dragon