Once upon a time, there was a dragon. This is not in
itself as unusual as one might expect, because dragons were
quite common back then, as common as pigeons are today. In
fact, they were exactly as common as pigeons, which was a
problem because statuary that can support whole colonies of
pigeons tends to crumble under the weight of dragons. An
interesting sidenote to the mythology of dragons in general is
the fact that while dragons _did_ flatten cities on occasion, it
was completely accidental and they were always very sorry
for it afterwards. They were merely looking for a place to
perch. However, all this is unrelated to _our_ dragon, who
had a problem of his own.
	He was white. This would probably have been an
asset in July, if it had been our dragon’s only dilemma. This is
when dragons, being the hot, scaly, dark and dreadful beasts
that they are, tend to suffer in the heat and become quite
short-tempered. Unfortunately, our dragon also had slender,
graceful limbs where he should have had stumpy, muscular
legs and leathery, fearsome wings; a whippy little tufted
number where he really should have expected to find a thick,
flexible, saurian tail, capable of flattening trees and buildings
in a single sweep; cloven hoofs where he should have had a
Ginsu-knife set of wicked talons; limpid dark eyes where he
would have much preferred a pair of fierce orbs that inspired
coal-related metaphors; a velvety soft nose where he always
secretly hoped to find a pair of nostrils producing two plumes
of smoke and a maw bristling with sharp teeth; and instead of
the rough, curving antlers that most dragons possessed, he
had but a single, dismayingly straight spiral horn that
sprouted right from the center of his forehead. This last in
particular irritated the dragon no end, as the horn had a
tendency to make his eyes cross and he spent a great deal of
time looking, he felt, as though he had recently suffered a
severe head injury. He had no wings at all, and thus was
forced to walk everywhere, in a most non-dragonish fashion.
His name was Sqrgul, but practically everyone he met
eventually began calling him Snowy. 
	The dragon Sqrgul stumped, or rather did his best to
stump but actually more sort of pranced, through his forest,
which, despite his efforts to make it dark, gloomy,
threatening or malevolent, persisted in being the sort of place
where damsels and princes went on picnics and danced with
the invariably friendly and gregarious wildlife. This added to
the dragon’s bad mood.
	As he stumped (pranced) through his territory, the
dragon encountered a small girl. This, thought the dragon, is
distinctly unusual. The girl wasn’t wearing any sort of riding
hood or other distinctive piece of clothing. She did have a
small bag of potato chips, but that dragon was forced to
acknowledge that these were unlikely to be a present for any
of her female relatives, as the girl was stuffing fistfuls of the
chips into her mouth and chewing happily. 
	Curiosity is a trait of dragons as well as cats, though
dragons are better-equipped to handle the consequences. The
dragon stepped onto the path.
	“Ooh!” cried the girl, spraying crumbs. “A unicorn!”
	“I,” said the dragon, with infinite patience and dignity,
“am a dragon. There’s no such thing as unicorns. What are
you doing in my woods?”
	“Well, Mr. Unicorn” - the dragon gritted his teeth - “I
was with my kindergarten class onna field trip an’ I got lost
‘cause I wanted to look at the enchanted trees some more an’
they didn’t wait for me an’ I was hungry so I started eating
my lunch an’ I came to a fork in the path an’ I didn’t know
which way they all went so I think I guessed wrong. You’re
pretty, Mr. Unicorn. What’s your name? I’m Emma. That’s
_Princess_ Emma, you know.”
	“I am Sqrgul son of Aqtval son of Qwgwat!” roared
(whinnied) the dragon.
	“I think I’ll call you Snowy,” said Emma.
	“Figures,” muttered the dragon.
	“So, Mr. Snowy, are you gonna help me find my class
now?” asked the girl, still diligently munching.
	“ABSOLUTELY NO . . .” the dragon paused in
mid-roar (mid-neigh) as he saw the girl’s lower lip begin to
quiver and her eyes to fill with tears. He scuffled his hooves
in the dirt, feeling a bit of a monster and, much to his
astonishment, not liking the feeling at all. “Er, well, I, you
know, what I meant to say is, um, just hop on already!”
	Emma brightened immediately. “Wheee!” she said as
she scrambled up onto the dragon’s back. “Giddy-ap!” She
yanked on his mane, smearing him liberally with grease and
crumbs. 
	“Stop that,” he said, crossly. She didn’t. He turned
and began slithering (prancing) back down the path, toward
the fork.
	“Are all unicorns as nice as you, Mr. Snowy?” asked
the child, pausing between mouthfuls.
	“I told you,” said the dragon, “I’m not a unicorn. I’m
a dragon.” 
	Emma swallowed and responded, “No, you’re not.
You look like a unicorn, you sound like a unicorn, you walk
like a unicorn, so you’re a unicorn, and you can stop being
silly.” 
	“I’m telling you, I’m a dragon!” snapped the dragon,
as he reached the fork and started on the new path.
	“How do you know?” asked Emma.
	The dragon pondered. “Well, my mother was a
dragon, my father was a dragon, my brothers and sisters are
all dragons . . .”
	The girl interrupted. “Princess Charlene’s brothers
were all swans for a while. One of them still has a swan’s
wing but I’m not s’posed to talk about it because it’s not
polite. And Prince Geoff’s brother was a frog for a long time.
And Princess Heddy’s father turns into a wolf sometimes, but
I’m not s’posed to know about that.”
	The dragon was baffled. “So what?”
	“Well,” said the little girl, “I guess that shows that
you don’t have to be what your relatives are.” She
philosophically upturned her chip bag and let the last of the
crumbs slide into her mouth. She wiped her hands on the
dragon, but he didn’t notice. He was thinking.
	He was still thinking when Emma squealed. The
dragon looked up. Ahead of them, on the path, was Emma’s
kindergarten class, as well as a rather lean-looking pair of
lions, circling the kids in a manner the dragon decided he did
not like. He pawed the ground and charged.
	The dragon ran right over the first lion as he targeted
the second with his long horn. The lion saw the three-foot
horn coming at its face, made a few swift calculations, and
took off running. The dragon whirled. The other lion quickly
reached the same conclusion as the horn swung round, picked
itself out of the dirt, and managed an amazingly fast hobble
after its fleeing companion. The dragon chased them some
distance, for the sheer hell of it, and trotted back to the
kindergartners. The teacher, of course, had managed to turn
the incident into a lesson about bullies and was explaining the
nuances to her charges. The dragon waited politely.
	That had been _fun_. Even if the dragon couldn’t fly
or belch fire, he could still look appropriately threatening.
And then there were the fringe benefits. People _liked_
unicorns. Unicorns didn’t flatten their monuments. People
didn’t take potshots at unicorns flying overhead, no, sir. The
dragon smiled as the teacher finished her lecture and turned
her attention to him. “Thank you very much, Mr. . . .?” 
	“Oh,” said the dragon, still grinning, “go ahead and
call me Snowy.” 
                       THE END

[© 1997, Erin M. Schmidt]