“It was awfully brave of you,” Rita agreed.
Rolf fluttered his hands in embarrassment.
“And such a leap!” Baneen went on. “Like an Olympian the boy jumped. And here I thought you had a bad leg, me bucko. Could it be all healed now?”
Rolf had forgotten about his bad leg. “Yeah…” he said, feeling a strange glow inside. “I guess it is all healed.”
“Ah, you see?” Baneen said, turning to Mr. Sheperton. “The lad’s dealings with gremlins hasn’t been all that bad for him, now has it? We cured his leg without half trying.”
Mr. Sheperton huffed, “Typical gremlin chicanery. Don’t take credit, Baneen, for Rolf’s good health. His leg mended on its own. He just hadn’t tested it until today. You had nothing to do with the healing of it.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. But the lad still thought his leg was weak, until I arranged to show him otherwise.”
“You arranged?” Rolf said, thunderstruck.
“Ah, well, it was really nothing… nothing at all,” said the little gremlin, carelessly. “And it did my heart good to see those scalawags running about in the sinking boat. Let’s talk of more interesting things—”
“No, you don’t!” barked Mr. Sheperton. “We’ve had enough of your sneaky gremlin hint-and-slip-away. Let’s have the matter straight, for once. Rolf, Baneen was only having fun at the expense of the people in the boat. There was never a thought in that tiny brain of his about your leg until after it was all over. Don’t let him try to pretend otherwise.”
“Oh, to be sure, and it’s the grand, wise dog you are, to be saying what was in my mind and what was not!” cried Baneen. “Had enough of our gremlin ways, you say—and did it ever cross your mind we’d have become a bit tired of your grump, grump, grumping doggish ways, all the time? Sure it’s more than green flesh and blood can take, your everlasting criticism and belittling of our gremlin doings and all things gremlinish!”
“Wait a minute,” said Rolf hastily. Neither Baneen nor the dog, however, were listening.
“Want to have it out, do you?” Mr. Sheperton snarled. “Come on, then! Called a spade a spade ever since I was a pup—I’ll call a gremlin a gremlin to my dying day. If you don’t like it—” He bared his teeth.
Baneen shot up in the air out of the dog’s reach and hung there, vibrating with indignation.
“You and your great fangs!” he cried. “Thinking you can get away with anything. But beware, dog—we gremlins are not unprotected. Push me but one small push more, and I’ll call forth a dragon to crunch and munch and slay you!”
“Hah!” snorted Mr. Sheperton. “Call forth a dragon, indeed! Enough of your rascally tall tales!”
“’Tis no tall tale!” shouted Baneen, almost dancing in the air with rage. “As you may find out to your cost, unless you mend your ways!”
“Come, come! A dragon? What sort of fool do you take me for? If you’ve got a dragon, let’s see it!”
“Woe to you, if I call him forth!”
“Woe me not, gremlin! I said, produce this dragon or admit you’ve not got him.”
“You’ll rue that word, Mr. Sheperton—”
“Just as I thought!” snorted the dog disgustedly. “There’s no such thing as a dragon around you gremlins.”
“No such—!” screeched Baneen.
“That’s what I said.”
“No DRAGON?”
“None!”
“Dog, it’s too far you’ve gone this day—”
“Wait. Wait—” said Rolf, hastily. “Look, there’s no need for the two of you to get all geared up about this. Baneen, why don’t you just give Mr. Sheperton your gremlinish word the dragon exists. Then—”
“Gremlinish word?” Baneen swallowed suddenly and looked unhappy. “Guk—”
“AND WHAT’S ALL THIS ABOUT GREMLINISH WORDS?” thundered a familiar voice. Lugh stalked into the midst of them.
“Ah… Lugh, darling, are you sure you heard the lad just right, now?” stammered Baneen. “Was it really the word grem—”
“I heard what I heard, and well you know I heard it,” scowled Lugh. “What’s all this talk about the Unbreakable Promise—and by humans and dogs, at that?”
“Not about to have my intelligence insulted!” huffed Mr. Sheperton. “Your green friend here was just threatening me with a dragon.”
“And I,” said Rolf, still trying to pour oil on the troubled waters, “just suggested that Baneen give Mr. Sheperton his… er… gremlinish word that the dragon existed, and let that settle the matter.”
Lugh’s scowl grew even blacker.
“Where did you hear about the gremlinish word, boy?” he demanded.
“Why, just the other time I was here,” said Rolf, “Baneen and O’Rigami were having a little argument about the shape of the universe—”
“So!” Lugh swung on Baneen, fixing him with a fiery eye. The smaller gremlin slid apologetically down out of the air to the ground. “You let slip that there’s a promise no gremlin can ever break, did you, me noisy chatterer? And now you’ve let your tongue run away with you about our gremlin dragon? Very well, we’ll let this be a lesson to you. You’ve threatened the dog with the dragon. Now, produce it!”
“Ah, sure, and so much isn’t needful, surely—” began Baneen.
“PRODUCE IT!”
“Wait!” Rolf swallowed hard. “You mean there really is—” He put his arms protectively around Mr. Sheperton’s neck. “You’re not going to sic any dragon on my dog—”
“Let it come,” snarled Mr. Sheperton, raking the ground with his forepaws. “By St. George, I’ll meet the creature tooth to tooth and nail to nail!”
“Shep, be quiet, won’t you?” said Rolf desperately. “Lugh—” Lugh was standing with his arms folded, staring at Baneen, who was unhappily making passes in the air with his hands. Around the Hollow, all the other gremlins had fallen silent and were standing, watching. A puff of red smoke billowed up between Baneen’s hands, and the little gremlin jumped back.
Rolf shoved himself hastily in front of Mr. Sheperton, facing the smoke.
“Wait!” he cried. “If anything happens to Shep I won’t lift a hand to help you get your kite—”
“Too late,” said Lugh, grimly.
The red smoke thinned—revealing not a large and fearsome creature with scales and fiery breath, but a small round table with a green tablecloth and a small white structure, something like a bird house, sitting in the middle of it.
“What?” said Rolf, staring at it.
“Baneen!” snapped Lugh commandingly. Baneen gulped and turned toward the little house.
“Mighty dragon of mighty Gremla!” he piped. “Come forth! Come forth and slay!”
From the dark doorway of the birdhouse came a small puff of smoke, then nothing for a few seconds, then another puff of smoke. Finally a third puff of smoke appeared with a tiny flicker of yellow flame in the midst of it.
“Come forth, dragon!” cried Baneen, in a high, desperate voice. “We command you!”
A tiny green dragon-head poked itself out of the opening, looked around, sighed heavily and withdrew. There was a metallic rattling sound inside the bird house, another sigh, and a small voice squeaked thinly. “Slay! Slay!”
The dragon came dancing out of the bird house on to the table, a minuscule sword in each of its front paws.
“Slay! Slay!” it cried, making threatening gestures all around with the swords and puffing out small round puffs of smoke with an occasional flicker of flame in them. “Slay! Slay… slay… sl…”
The dragon began to pant. The flame disappeared entirely and the puffs of smoke themselves grew thin. The swords it held began to droop.
“…Slay…” the dragon wheezed. It looked appealingly at Baneen. “Slay… how much… longer? I’m… slay… not as young as I… slay… used to be, you know…”