The Secret of the Dragon Coin

Once upon a time ................
way back when kings still ruled the land, there lived a small princess named Kasandra. One fine sunny morning, Kasandra’s father the king, (King Westcott), decided the little princess was old enough to join him on a long journey to visit his brother King Louie who lived over 700 miles away.

Now Princess Kasandra was very excited, for she had never been off the castle grounds before. The first few days were totally amazing. The first thing she saw was a beautiful waterfall that spilled over into the clearest lake she had ever seen. There were all kinds of birds, plants, animals, and giant redwood trees that were large enough for their whole carriage to drive through. But the one thing she found most amazing was a curious looking creature that she was only able to kind of catch a glimpse of from time to time.

On the 5th day Kasandra saw it again, now she was certain that it was following them. But what was it? Why wouldn’t it come out in the open? Kasandra just didn’t know.

On the 8th day the sky turned an angry gray, and by mid-afternoon it began to rain. King Westcott told the driver to be very careful on the treacherous mountain roads, especially in this rain. Then all of a sudden something spooked the horses and they started to run! Everything was flying around in the carriage including the little princess, and her father. Suddenly Kasandra was thrown from the carriage, then everything went dark.

When she finally came to, her head hurt a lot, but the most frightening thing of all was she didn’t know where she was, or where her father was. She was all alone. Kasandra began to cry. When she finally calmed down and quit crying she decided to set out to try and find her father. Several days later all dirty, hungry, and tired Kasandra couldn’t fight it any longer and laid down under a tree, and fell asleep. The next day she was awakened by a strange noise off in the distance, so she decided to follow it to its source. She climbed to the top of a small hill and spread the bushes aside, and lo and behold before her was the beautiful little waterfall. She stood there and stared at it for a few moments until her thirst brought her back to reality.

During the steep climb down to the water she saw something shiny on the ground. When she reached down and picked it up she realized it was a coin of some kind, but not like any coin that she had ever seen. This one was rather large, and had a strange creature on it that made her feel uneasy, but she wasn’t sure why. Absent mindedly she put it in her pocket, and forgot about it for the time being because she was more thirsty than she had ever been in her short life.

Kasandra finally reached the lake, and took a long cool drink of water. When she had satisfied her thirst she sat down on the edge of the lake and put her hands in her pocket. Inside she found the coin, and pulled it out to look at it more carefully. It was kind of dirty so she rubbed it on her dress, but it didn’t help so she reached her hand down into the water to wash it off. All of a sudden the water started to swirl, and swirl! It made her so dizzy that she had to close her eyes. When she opened them again they got real big, and she took a big breath as she started to lookaround. She didn’t know how or why, or even where she was, but one thing was certain..... she was no longer sitting beside the waterfall and lake.

Kasandra looked up and noticed the sky was pink, and not blue, and there were two suns instead of one. What surprised her the most was not the color of the sky, or even the fact that there were two suns. It was the strange looking creature that she had seen following her, and her father day’s earlier. It was huge, and green, and it was flying.

After it landed it started to walk towards what looked like a giant pile of rocks. Kasandra being a curious little princess decided to follow it. When she got around to the other side the beast was gone, but off to her right she noticed the opening to a cave, and went inside. After her eye’s got used to the darkness, she realized how big it truly was. Suddenly she noticed a faint cracking sound. She looked around for a long time when she stumbled upon what looked like a giant nest, and in it was the largest egg she had ever seen, and it was hatching!!

Kasandra watched in wide eyed wonder as out popped a little green creature with a yellow tummy, and little purple wings.

“Wow” said the little princess.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t know” said the little creature.

“I’m just bored.”

“Well, what are you then” she asked?

“I’m a little dragonlet” said the little dragonlet.

“what are you “ said the hatchling?

“I’m a human, and my name is Princess Kasandra.”

All of a sudden she was overwhelmed with sadness because she remembered she was lost, and she missed her father the king. Quietly she began to cry. The little dragonlet didn’t know why the princess was crying, but he was determined to find a way to cheer her up. But how? Then he got a great idea!

“Uh, Kasandra would you please give me a name?”, the dragonlet asked.

“Maybe even a human name. Huh, would ya please?”

The little princess stopped crying, and began to think.

“It can’t be just any old name” she said to no one in particular.

“After all, you’re definitely no ordinary animal.”

She sat down on the ground thinking for many hours while the little dragonlet just stared at her with his big red eyes. After a while Kasandra said,

“If I’m going to give you a name I’d better keep my strength up.”

And with that she was off to find some food for them. She started looking around the huge cave when all of a sudden her mouth started watering.

“Mmmmm that smells good!” she exclaimed .

The two friends started running deeper into the cave until they came to a rather large pot filled with something warm and bubbly. When she tasted it she discovered much to her delight that it was banana pudding . The little princess looked around for something to scoop it into. Off to her left she found some giant mushrooms that she picked. That will do I think. Then she turned them over.

“Voila!! Instant bowls” she said, then started back in the direction that she came.

When she returned Kasandra caught the little dragon trying to fly, but he was still too young. She had just gotten done filling up the first mushroom bowl, and had started filling the second one when she heard a strange sound, and when she turned around the little dragon was running straight for her. She managed to jump out of the way just in the nick of time. She turned around, and before she new what was happening he had eaten all of the banana pudding.

“Hey, you didn’t save any for me.” she complained.

But when he plopped down on his bottom, and looked up at her with his big eyes, she started to giggle and giggle because he had pudding from head to toe.

She chuckled, “you little puddin’ head. HEY, that’s it, that’s your new name.... Puddin’ Head. After all I’ve never seen anyone eat that much pudding in all my life.”

When it started getting dark the two of them (the little princess, and the little dragon) curled up together in the over sized nest, and were soon sound asleep.

In the morning after they woke up they set out to try and find the waterfall, and lake. Along the way they came across an old toad in the middle of the path. As they got closer they were surprised to find that it was wearing a pair of glasses, and had a little white beard.

Kasandra said to the little dragon “Oh isn’t he cute?”

“Pardon me missy, but I am hardly cute”, said the frog.

Kasandra stammered, “I’m very sorry Uh, uh.........”.

“My name is Judd”, the toad replied.

“And who might you be?”

“My name is Princess Kasandra, and this is my friend Puddin Head. You see I’m lost, and my friend here is helping me to try and find my way home. You’re welcome to come with us if you’d like.”

The toad thought about it for a minute, and decided that he indeed want to go with them. He wanted an adventure. So, the three of them set out together to find that waterfall. Now Judd just loved to talk. He talked about how he was once a great, and powerful wizard, and how important he was, and how all the creatures in Drizzledom feared him and his great magic.

“Well, if you were so great, and your magic so powerful then how come you’re a toad now?”, Puddin’ Head asked.

“An evil, terrible, horrible, no good dragon named Hairball decided he wanted my land as his own. There was a great battle that lasted for many years, but in the end his evil magic was too much for me. Then just to humiliate me even more he took me to the town square before all the people, and cursed me to be a toad.” Judd explained, then sat down with a heavy sigh, too embarrassed to even look at us, and didn’t say anything else for the rest of the afternoon.

The three companions traveled in silence for awhile until Puddin Head suddenly stopped. You see they had all been lost in thought, and hadn’t been paying attention to where they were going. They all looked up at the scariest, craggiest looking mountain either of them had ever seen. It was so big that you couldn’t even see the top of it because it disappeared into the spooky gray clouds, and all around it there was lightening! They all shivered, and stared at each other.

“Are we (gulp) going up there?”, asked Kasandra.

“We have to“, answered Judd.

“There’s nowhere else to look for your waterfall, but (gulp) up there.”

As they entered the scary forest that led up to that awful mountain, the little princess realized there weren’t any birds singing, or crickets playing their night songs. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any sound at all.

“I-I-I-I’m scared” said Puddin Head“

“So am I”, each of he others said in turn.

The trio traveled for many, many days, and then many, many weeks, (or so it seemed) in the spooky forest. You see the forest was always dark, so their sense of time got all messed up. They really had no ideal how long it had been. One day as they were walking along, Kasandra noticed that Puddin Head was no longer a little dragonlet, but almost a full grown dragon. She didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed before that he was growing. It just seemed like one day he was a little dragon, and the next day he wasn’t so little anymore. It made her kind of sad, and when Puddin Head, and Judd noticed they asked her what was wrong.

The little princess said, “I’ve been gone so long that my father must have forgotten about me by now”.

“What makes you say that?” Judd asked.

“Well just look at Puddin.....he’s almost a grown up dragon now, and he was only an egg when I found him.”

Then all of a sudden they heard a loud screeching sound that hurt their ears!

“Wha-wha-what was that?!?!”, they all cried out at the same time!!

Then the next thing they knew, the trees were burning, and the scary forest was filling up with thick, choking smoke! The three of them started running as fast as they could. Then a huge winged beast with great big teeth, and long scary claws landed before them!!

WHO ARE YOU, AND WHY DO YOU TRESPASS ON MY LAND??”,the creature bellowed.

Judd whispered, “I-I-I-I-It’s h-h-him. It’s the evil, terrible, horrible, no-good dragon, Hairball!”

Kasandra who was terrified puffed up her chest trying to look braver then she was, and said,

“We are very sorry, oh, great, and powerful Hairball, but we didn’t know that we were”.

“Well you are!!!”, Hairball snarled, and Kasandra jumped back.

“The penalty for this is great. I will have to think of something most wicked to do to you”, Hairball said, and with that he snatched up all three of them in his talons, and took them back to his cave at the top of that scary looking mountain!!!

It wasn’t until later, deep inside the cave that the three friends dared to even speak.

“What are we going to do? How will we ever get out of here?”, Kasandra was crying.

“I’ll never get home (boo-hoo-hoo).”

Puddin Head stood up and said,

“yes you will Kasandra. I promise you, I’ll not give up until you are home!!!.”

“But how?, Kasandra asked. Old Hairball is going to do something bad to us all. I’m afraid we’re trapped here forever. (boo-hoo-hoo).”

“I’ll think of something”, Puddin head said reassuringly."

Just then Puddin sneezed, and fire came out of his nose.

“Hey we didn’t know you could do that!!!”, exclaimed Judd.

“Neither did I” replied a startled Puddin’ Head.

Over the next few days Puddin Head, Judd, and Kasandra discovered that Puddin could do all kinds of things. Like make rocks float in mid-air, shoot fire from his mouth for at least 100 feet, and if he concentrated real hard he could create a ball of light, and send it anywhere he chose.

After many days, and nights Hairball finally returned to do some awful unknown thing to them, and they were all shaking with fear. Then all of a sudden Puddin Head stepped forward and challenged Hairball!

“No Puddin!!! You can’t!!! He’s too big, and too powerful!!!”, said Judd!

“I don’t care!! I promised the princess I was going to get her back home, and I intend to do it even if I die trying.” Puddin’ said bravely.

“You don’t have to Puddin,” said the little princess, crying.“ I love you, and I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’ll stay here.......besides I think I’ve always known that I would never get back home again.”

Hairball started laughing,

“HA!HA!HA! You’re just a puny little dragonlet. What could you possibly do to me HA!HA!HA!”

That was it!! That was all Puddin Head could take. He was very, very angry and Kasandra, and Judd noticed that he started glowing a light-blue which kept growing brighter, and brighter, and brighter. Hairball stopped laughing, and stared in horror as a giant ball of light struck him in the chest. Then all of a sudden Hairball was gone, and everything around them started changing. At first they didn’t know what was happening. The deep dark cave was no longer a cave, and the big, craggy, scary mountain was no longer scary, and the gray clouds and lightening were gone too. Instead of all the gloom, there was bright sunshine. Kasandra was the first one to notice the sounds of life.

”Listen........Do you hear that?......the birds are singing.”

Then they all started laughing, and singing

“Hairball is gone!! Hairball is gone forever!!”, until they fell to the ground too exhausted to even speak. They laid back in the soft green grass not saying much just thinking about everything that had happened, when Puddin Head said, “Hey, what’s that over there?”

They all sat up and looked in the direction that he was pointing, and before them was the beautiful little waterfall and the crystal clear lake.

“That’s it!!!”, cried Kasandra.

“Oh Puddin you did it!!! You said you’d get me home, and you did it!!!Thank you so much!!!”

The trio walked down to the edge of the lake not saying a word, for they knew they had come to the end of their journey.

Kasandra cried, “I’m going to miss you Judd. I hope you turn back into the powerful wizard that you said you are some day.”

Then she bent down and kissed him on the cheek. Then PUFF!! all of a sudden he was. “I guess it was your kiss that finally broke the spell. Then turning to Puddin Head she said through her sobs “I’m going to miss you most of all Puddin. I’ll never ever forget the day we met, remember? You hatched out, and you were so small, and cute......now look your all grown up. Now you are the bravest, strongest, most magnificent, and handsome dragon in all the world." Then she ran over to him, and wrapped her arms around him, and cried. Puddin Head put his paws around her too, and said “I love you, too, Kasandra”. Kasandra reached into her pocket, and found the familiar coin then put her hand in the water to wash it as she had done before. Almost instantly the water began to swirl, and with one last look over her shoulder she said “good-bye” then closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes again she heard many people yelling "Kasandra, Kasandra, where are you." "Over here, I’m over here." Just then her father, king Westcott came through the bushes, and ran over, and picked her up in his arms. "Oh my little princess I never thought I would find you!" As they both cried Kasandra started telling her father all about the things that had happened to her. King Westcott didn’t know if he believed the things she told him, he was just happy to have his little princess back again. Kasandra never forgot her friends, Puddin Head and Judd, because she knew that as long as she had the dragon coin she could go see them as often as she wanted.........and she did.

THE END