“I see,” said the prince, but he looked confused. “How can you use the food for a party when you’re in such dire straits? I understand that you have a large dragon population in Greater Greensward. Don’t they carry off your sheep and cattle and burn your crops to the ground with their foul breath?”
Millie giggled, although she didn’t think he was the least bit amusing. “Why no,” she said. “Not at—”
“When I heard about your dragon problem, I knew that Greater Greensward was the place for me. I’m quite an accomplished dragon slayer. I have nearly fifty trophies mounted on the walls of the Great Hall at home. I see that you don’t have any,” the prince said, looking around.
“We don’t—,” Millie began.
“You must have different dragons in your kingdom than we do back home. I saw a green one on my way here today. I was thinking how well its head would look on my wall, but since your birthday is coming up, I can kill it tomorrow so I can give you the head as a birthday gift.”
Millie knew she should be angry at the awful butcher who had unknowingly offered to present her with her own head for her birthday, but all she could do was giggle. The more she thought about it, the more she giggled. When she tried to stop, her face turned red from the effort.
King Limelyn gave his granddaughter a sharp glance and said to the prince, “Did I hear you say that you kill dragons?”
“Yes,” said the prince. “It’s a real shame that no one in your kingdom is brave enough to slay them. The beasts must have been breeding here for some time for the dragon population to grow as large as it has. I’ve heard from travelers that there are dragon sightings in Greater Greensward every day. You may breathe easy now that I’ve come to help you with your infestation. I’m sure we’ll be able to work out some sort of arrangement for my services. Say, half the kingdom and Princess Millie’s hand in marriage? I’ll rid you of all the dragons and, of course, I get to keep the heads, except for the one I’d give to you for your birthday, my dear,” he said, turning to Millie. “You are quite lovely, you know, and not too overburdened with brains. I think we’ll get on very well.”
Millie tried to stifle a giggle and ended up gasping. “I really … don’t think—”
“It would help if you could tell me where the dragons’ lairs are located. I could find them myself, but the whole thing would go much faster if I knew where to look.”
This time the urge to giggle was more than Millie could stand. She giggled so hard that she was afraid she might faint for lack of air. “I have … to go,” she wheezed. Although she welcomed Zoë’s offer to help her from the room, Millie was unable to make it farther than the corridor outside the Great Hall, where she let go of Zoë’s arm and sank to the floor. “How long … until nightfall?” she asked.
Zoë shrugged. “Eight hours or so. It’s summer, Millie, so the days are longer. If you’re wondering about the spell, there’s no saying when it might end. Your mother was right when she said that the spells she casts on you never work the way she intends.”
“I wish I … could get angry,” Millie said, fighting for control. “I’d like to … turn into a dragon … and fry him to a crisp!”
“And he’d like to chop your head off,” Zoë reminded her. “I hope neither of you gets your wish.”
Millie giggled and clapped her hand over her mouth. When the urge had passed, she said in a strangled voice, “I swear, I’ll never ask my mother to put another spell on me, no matter what. I was foolish to ask her to do it this time.”
“You weren’t foolish,” said Zoë. “Just desperate. But I think we know one thing for sure now. Prince Atworth is not the right one for you.”
“You can say that again,” said Millie.
When Millie was finally calm enough to return to the Great Hall, the mood in the room was very different than it had been at the start of the meal. Her mother’s mouth was set in a grim line and she was looking at the prince as if she wanted to take off his head. Her grandmother was biting her lip and watching King Limelyn. Both Millie’s father and grandfather were glaring at Atworth.
“Ah, there you are, Millie,” said the prince. “Your grandfather and I were just about to seal our deal.”
“I beg to differ, young man,” said the king. “I was just about to tell you to leave my kingdom and never come back. We don’t need you to kill any dragons, and even if we did, my granddaughter would not be part of any deal. I suggest you go back to whatever minor kingdom it is that you came from and stay there.”
Prince Atworth blinked. For once, he didn’t seem to know what to say.
Eadric stood and strode the length of the table. “Let me help you out,” he said, taking the prince by the arm.
He had dragged the boy from his seat when Atworth planted his feet and said, “You don’t have to give me Millie’s hand, or even half the kingdom, but would you mind if I stayed to slay a few dragons? You wouldn’t have to pay me at all.”
Millie was proud of her father when he said, “You don’t have our permission to hunt so much as a butterfly in Greater Greensward. If you even look as if you are trying to slay a dragon, I will come after you myself!”
“As will I!” shouted King Limelyn.
Both Chartreuse and Emma clapped as Eadric hustled the prince to the door. He was scarcely out of sight when Emma pushed back her chair. “I’m going to the top of the tower to keep an eye on Atworth. When he’s out of sight I’ll watch him with my farseeing ball. If he doesn’t move quickly enough to suit me, I’ll cast a spell to rid us of him for good. You need not worry about him, Millie,” she said, stopping by her daughter’s seat. “Are you all right? You look awfully pale.”
“I’m fine,” Millie said, and giggled. “But I’ll feel even better when this spell wears off.”
“I’m glad I put a limit on it,” said Emma. “Let’s just hope it ends when it’s supposed to.”
Three
The spell hadn’t ended when Millie went to bed that night, so she was too worried to fall asleep for the longest time. When she finally did, it seemed as if it was only minutes later that daylight was streaming through her window and her parents were standing beside her bed.
She was still groggy when her mother said, “A messenger arrived from Queen Frazzela this morning, and, well … I know you had other plans, but we need to go to Upper Montevista today.”
“What day is it?” Millie asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Isn’t my birthday party tomorrow?”
Her parents exchanged a wary look she’d seen all too often. “You’ll still have your party,” her mother told her.
Millie sat up, suddenly wide awake. “Not if we go to Upper Montevista. It will take days since we always have to travel by carriage when we go there. How can we celebrate my birthday while we’re traveling? You promised we could have my party here.”
“We promised we would be with you for your birthday,” said her mother. “We never said we had to have the party in Greater Greensward. Your grandmother has written asking us to celebrate your birthday in Upper Monte-vista. Frazzela said that she hasn’t seen enough of you lately and has a very special present for you. I’m working on a spell that will get us there today.”
“But I don’t want to go now. My friends can’t come to my party if we have it there!”
Her father put his arm around her mother’s waist, as if to give Emma support. “We’ve already sent our reply, Millie,” he said. “We’re going to Upper Montevista. As your grandmother reminded us, she and your grandfather are getting old. Who knows how long they’ll be with us? People on my side of the family don’t stick around as ghosts like your mother’s family do.”
“Why can’t your parents come here if they want to see me?” Millie asked her father. “They’ve never come to visit us.”
“My parents don’t like to travel,” said Eadric. “Besides, your mother and I would have gone there right after your party, anyway. They’re having a problem with sea monsters in Chancewold an
d—”
“I knew it was something like that. I’ve been looking forward to my birthday party for months and now you have to spoil it just so you can take care of somebody else’s problem!”
“The sea monsters aren’t someone else’s problem, they’re ours,” said Emma. “If there’s an emergency in Upper Montevista or Greater Greensward, it’s up to us to take care of it, but we won’t attend to the sea monsters until after your party.”
“Why can’t you ever think about what I want?” said Millie, her face turning red. “Why do your two stupid kingdoms always have to come first?”
“Here we go again,” her father said under his breath.
“It’s always Greater Greensward this or Upper Montevista that!” Millie knew she was being selfish and unreasonable, but she was so upset that she didn’t care. She was angry, too, and getting angrier the more she thought about how unfair they were being. They were her parents. Shouldn’t she come first? Suddenly the air seemed thick, the walls too close. She was glad when she felt the change begin. At least now she could get away. Millie paused to take a breath, and in that instant the bone at the base of her spine lengthened into a long tail, her eyes moved farther apart as her skull changed shape, and her skin prickled as scales emerged. A heaviness between her shoulder blades told her that her wings had come out.
“You’re never here when I need you and now you’re dragging me off with you so you can take care of another crisis!” When she finished changing, Millie was about seven feet long, with scales ranging from pale green to deep emerald. She wasn’t a very big dragon, but then, nearly fifteen-year-old dragons never were. “I don’t think you care about me at all!” she said, her eyes flashing. Throwing back her head, she spread her wings and flew out of her bedchamber, drawing her wings to her sides only long enough to fit through the window.
As she beat her wings, flying high above her family’s castle, Millie was so angry that smoke leaked from her nostrils. She didn’t notice the flock of starlings that veered away when they saw her, nor the cows that bellowed and ran as her shadow passed overhead. She was thinking about how much she wished her parents would stay home just this once when she noticed a cottage surrounded by a lush garden nestled on the bank of a river.
Even though it was still early in the morning, a knight in armor stood in a clearing just beyond the garden, swinging his sword and lunging at a dummy made of wood and leather. Millie flew lower, and the knight looked up at the sound of her beating wings. She was in the mood to fight, so, instead of flying away, she landed on the ground not ten feet from the knight and puffed a ball of fire in his direction. The knight stepped to the side, trampling a patch of daisies.
“Good,” declared the knight, as he waved his sword at Millie. “A worthy opponent! It’s been many days since I slew my last dragon.”
“You shan’t slay me, fair knight,” growled Millie, “for I am no ordinary dragon.”
“And I am no ordinary knight!” he shouted just before he lunged.
Millie danced away and the knight’s sword whistled past her shoulder. “You’ll have to do better than that!” she cried. Whirling around, she lashed her tail at the knight, who leaped nimbly over the tip despite his armor.
The knight grabbed a shield that had been leaning against a fence post and raised his sword again. “Then how is this?” he shouted, as he ran straight at the dragon with his sword aimed at her heart.
Taking a deep breath, Millie exhaled a ten-foot-long flame that hit the shield and flared out to the sides. The knight slowed, but didn’t stop advancing, so she kept her flame going until she was gasping for air. She was trying to get another flame started when he swung his sword and hit her hard enough to chip one of her scales.
Startled, Millie gasped and narrowed her eyes, but instead of striking her again, the knight began to dance around the clearing, waving his sword in the air and yelling, “I hit her! I finally hit her!”
“We’re not finished yet!” shouted Millie, flaming at the knight just as he raised his shield. Once again, the knight came after her with his sword raised, but this time Millie backed away until her tail was in the river and she had to dig her claws into the bank to keep from slipping in.
“I’ve got you now!” the knight cried. Just as he lunged at her with his sword, Millie stepped to the side and spun around, hitting him with her tail so that he fell, flailing, into the water.
Knowing that the river was shallow there, she waited at the edge, expecting the knight to pop up at any second. As time passed, however, and he didn’t emerge, she stepped closer and dipped her head into the murky water to see what had happened to him. She had just started to look around when the knight jumped up with a whoosh, wrapped his arms around her neck, and pulled her in after him. Millie gasped, and her mouth filled with water, half of which trickled down her throat. She could feel the fire in her belly go out as the water reached it. A moment later, she and the knight were sitting side by side in the waist-deep water, each laughing at how ridiculous the other looked as steam seeped from her mouth and water dribbled down his face inside his helmet.
“You almost had me,” she said when she finally stopped laughing. “You should have pressed your advantage when you chipped my scale. By the way, you owe me for that,” she said, glancing down at the marred surface of her dripping shoulder.
“What about me? My armor could rust after getting wet like this,” said the knight, reaching up to pull off his helmet. Millie leaned away from him as the young man with straw-colored hair and laughing green eyes shook his head so that water splattered everywhere.
“Not if I know you, Francis,” she said, getting to her feet. “The spell you put on your armor to make it light probably made it rustproof, too. I bet you never even have to polish it.”
“Hey,” said the young man as he tried to stand on the slippery river bottom. “I use my magic only to help me be a better knight. I can’t help it if …” With a startled cry, Francis’s feet went out from under him and he landed in the water with a splash.
Millie sighed and reached into the water. Clamping her jaws gently around his arm, she pulled her cousin from the river and helped him climb up the slick mud to drier ground. Nudging him up the last few feet with her nose, she said, “If you give me a few minutes till I get a flame going again, I’ll dry you off.”
“And risk getting cooked like a sausage in a skillet? I don’t think so!” Francis said, scrambling to his feet.
“May I suggest you put a spell on your shoes to make them grip slippery surfaces better? What if you really were fighting an unfriendly dragon?”
“Good idea,” said Francis. “I’ll see what I can do. So, tell me, what made you mad enough to want to bite somebody’s head off this time?”
Millie didn’t bother asking him how he knew that she’d been angry. Everyone close to her knew that she turned into a dragon when she got really mad. Francis was the only one who had taken advantage of this and had talked her into fighting with him when she was a dragon, just so he could have the practice. Ever since he was a little boy, Francis had wanted to be a knight more than anything. He had practiced day and night for years, much to his parents’ dismay; although he had inherited their talent for magic, he hadn’t inherited their interest in it. He was already adept with the sword and the lance, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he’d never been even close to beating Millie before.
Millie sighed and settled on the ground beside the bench where Francis always sat. He was taking off his armor when she replied, “My parents have to go to Upper Montevista to take care of another crisis. They say we’re going today.”
“What about your party?” asked her cousin.
“That’s what I asked them. Apparently, my grandparents want me to have my party there. They got me a special present and everything.”
“I wonder what it is,” said Francis. “Maybe it’s another gown like last year, although I don’t know why anyone would call that special.”
&nb
sp; Millie shrugged. “Who knows? Anyway, I got mad because it’s so unfair that my parents have to drag me to Upper Montevista when everybody was already coming to my party here, but they don’t care what I want.”
“Parents are like that,” said Francis. “Mine want me to practice my magic when they know how much I want to be a knight. I don’t have time for silly things like turning coachmen into rabbits.”
“Do they actually do that?” asked Millie.
Francis snorted. “Them? I’ve never seen them turn a person into anything. I think it’s because my father spent all that time as an otter.”
“I bet you’re right,” said Millie.
“So, what are you going to do about your party?”
“I’ll have to go, of course, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to like it.”
Four
By the time she had finished talking to Francis, Millie was calm enough to become a human again, but she waited to do it until she had returned home. She was going to fly through her chamber window and change there, but when she saw that a maid was in the room packing gowns into a small trunk, Millie swerved away and went looking for somewhere private. No one was in the sheltered niche behind the stables, so she changed back into her human form in the dust under old cobwebs and was on her way into the castle when she heard the clatter of wheels crossing the drawbridge. Curious, Millie turned back to the courtyard and was surprised to see the elegant carriage belonging to Zoë’s family slow to a stop. A moment later, Zoë stepped out of the carriage holding the hands of her two younger brothers.
“Millie, isn’t it exciting?” Zoë said as she hurried over to join her friend. The two little boys with pale blond hair ran to keep up. “We’re going to Upper Montevista with you. Papa needs to start his annual visit to all the relatives, so when your mother’s invitation came, he decided that we should all go. I can’t wait to see your grandparents’ castle.”