Whit’s End

Whit was sanding a piece of wood at his workbench. He turned around as the cousins stepped out of the machine.

Their clothes had returned to normal. Both wore jeans and cotton T-shirts.

“Welcome back!” Whit said. “How was your adventure?”

The cousins took turns telling him everything that had happened.

He listened with his hands shoved into his pockets. When they finished, he drew out his hands and opened them to Patrick and Beth. A shiny scale sat in each palm.

Patrick looked closely. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked. “We saw some of those in Silene . . .”

Whit nodded and handed the scales to Patrick and Beth.

They thanked him.

“So you got close enough to see a dragon’s scales?” Whit asked.

“We got close, all right,” Patrick said. “A little too close.”

“But you stood up to it,” Whit said.

Beth knew Whit was thinking of Rachel. And what had happened earlier with Leslie Wazzek.

“Yes,” she said. “And I learned that dragons don’t always have scales. Sometimes they’re Roman prefects. And sometimes they’re village bullies. And sometimes they have fur and really long fangs.”

Whit chuckled. “That’s true,” he said. “The point is to stand up for what’s right, no matter what.”

“But we don’t have to stand alone,” Beth said. “Georgius helped me remember that God is my help when I face trouble.”

“Then the adventure was worth taking?” Whit asked.

Patrick nodded.

“It sure was,” Beth said.

Patrick held up his dragon scale. “Maybe I’ll put this on a chain,” he said. “It’ll remind me to be brave.”

Beth looked down at the dragon scale in her hand. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “I’ll do that too.”

“I’ve got one more thing,” Whit said. He went to a shelf and pulled off a book. “I think you’ll find this story familiar.” He handed the book to Beth.

Beth took the thick blue book. She showed it to Patrick. The title was The Many Legends of Sir George and the Dragon.

Patrick blurted, “Was Georgius really Sir George?”

Whit tapped the cover. “The legend has many forms. In some of them, George is a knight. In others, he’s a Roman soldier.”

“Does the dragon die in any of the stories?” Beth asked.

“Some of the time,” Whit said. “But often Sir George tames the dragon and brings it to the village.”

“I like our version,” Beth said. “I don’t think a real dragon could be tamed.”

Whit raised his white eyebrows. “What about humans who act like dragons?” he asked.

Patrick answered, “I think Lucius finally learned to listen to Georgius.”

Beth looked at the floor and shuffled her feet. It was hard to admit that she should try to be friends with Leslie Wazzek.

“Beth?” Whit asked.

She said slowly, “I think I’ll give my dragon scale to Leslie as a gift. Maybe it’s time I told her about Christos.”

Whit smiled at her.

Patrick said, “About these new dragon scales . . . The ones we got on our adventure disappeared in the Imagination Station. Where did you get these two?”

“From a dragon,” Whit said. “Where else?”

Beth asked, “But how . . . ?”

Whit had a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Let’s go upstairs for some ice cream, shall we?”