JGB Grade 5 Volume 2
The Fifty-First Dragon
By Heywood Broun
Of all the pupils at the Knight School, Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy was among the least promising. He was tall and sturdy, but his instructors soon discovered that he lacked spirit. He would hide in the woods when the jousting class was called, although his companions and members of the faculty sought to appeal to his better nature by shouting to him to come out and break his neck like a man. Even when they told him that the lances were padded, the horses no more than ponies and the field unusually soft for late autumn, Gawaine refused to grow enthusiastic. The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce were discussing the case one spring afternoon and the Assistant Professor could see no remedy but expulsion. 1
“No,” said the Headmaster, as he looked out at the purple hills which ringed the school, “I think I’ll train him to slay dragons.” 2
“He might be killed,” objected the Assistant Professor. 3
“So he might,” replied the Headmaster brightly, but he added, more soberly, “we must consider the greater good. We are responsible for the formation of this lad’s character.” 4
“Are the dragons particularly bad this year?” interrupted the Assistant Professor. This was characteristic. He always seemed restive when the head of the school began to talk ethics and the ideals of the institution. 5
“I’ve never known them worse,” replied the Headmaster. “Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig. And if this dry spell holds there’s no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately.” 6
“Would any refund on the tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Cœur Hardy?” 7
“No,” the principal answered, judicially, “that’s all covered in the contract. But as a matter of fact he won’t be killed. Before I send him up in the hills I’m going to give him a magic word.” 8
“That’s a good idea,” said the Professor. “Sometimes they work wonders.” 9
From that day on Gawaine specialized in dragons. His course included both theory and practice. In the morning there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons. Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies. He had a marvelously versatile gift for forgetting things. In the afternoon he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the South Meadow and practise with a battle-ax. In this exercise he was truly impressive, for he had enormous strength as well as speed and grace. He even developed a deceptive display of ferocity. Old alumni say that it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon which had been set up for his practice. As he ran he would brandish his ax and shout “A murrain on thee!” or some other vivid bit of campus slang. It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon. 10
Gradually his task was made more difficult. Paper gave way to papier-mâché and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine. One sweep of the ax always did the business. There were those who said that when the practice was protracted until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly. It is possible there was malice in this charge. At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test. Only the night before a dragon had come close to the school grounds and had eaten some of the lettuce from the garden. The faculty decided that Gawaine was ready. They gave him a diploma and a new battle-ax and the Headmaster summoned him to a private conference. 11
“Sit down,” said the Headmaster. “Have a cigarette.” 12
Gawaine hesitated. 13
“Oh, I know it’s against the rules,” said the Headmaster. “But after all, you have received your preliminary degree. You are no longer a boy. You are a man. To-morrow you will go out into the world, the great world of achievement.” 14
Gawaine took a cigarette. The Headmaster offered him a match, but he produced one of his own and began to puff away with a dexterity which quite amazed the principal. 15
“Here you have learned the theories of life,” continued the Headmaster, resuming the thread of his discourse, “but after all, life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant. Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons.” 16
“They say that those dragons down in the south wood are five hundred feet long,” ventured Gawaine, timorously. 17
“Stuff and nonsense!” said the Headmaster. “The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur’s Hill. The dragon was sunning himself down in the valley. The curate didn’t have an opportunity to look at him very long because he felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me. He said the monster, or shall I say, the big lizard?—wasn’t an inch over two hundred feet. But the size has nothing at all to do with it. You’ll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They’re far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I’m told. Besides, before you go I’m going to equip you in such fashion that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world.” 18
“I’d like an enchanted cap,” said Gawaine. 19
“What’s that?” answered the Headmaster, testily. 20
“A cap to make me disappear,” explained Gawaine. 21
The Headmaster laughed indulgently. “You mustn’t believe all those old wives’ stories,” he said. “There isn’t any such thing. A cap to make you disappear, indeed! What would you do with it? You haven’t even appeared yet. Why, my boy, you could walk from here to London, and nobody would so much as look at you. You’re nobody. You couldn’t be more invisible than that.” 22
Gawaine seemed dangerously close to a relapse into his old habit of whimpering. The Headmaster reassured him: “Don’t worry; I’ll give you something much better than an enchanted cap. I’m going to give you a magic word. All you have to do is to repeat this magic charm once and no dragon can possibly harm a hair of your head. You can cut off his head at your leisure.” 23
He took a heavy book from the shelf behind his desk and began to run through it. “Sometimes,” he said, “the charm is a whole phrase or even a sentence. I might, for instance, give you ‘To make the’—No, that might not do. I think a single word would be best for dragons.” 24
“A short word,” suggested Gawaine. 25
“It can’t be too short or it wouldn’t be potent. There isn’t so much hurry as all that. Here’s a splendid magic word: ‘Rumplesnitz.’ Do you think you can learn that?” 26
Gawaine tried and in an hour or so he seemed to have the word well in hand. Again and again he interrupted the lesson to inquire, “And if I say ‘Rumplesnitz’ the dragon can’t possibly hurt me?” And always the Headmaster replied, “If you only say ‘Rumplesnitz,’ you are perfectly safe.” 27
Toward morning Gawaine seemed resigned to his career. At daybreak the Headmaster saw him to the edge of the forest and pointed him to the direction in which he should proceed. About a mile away to the southwest a cloud of steam hovered over an open meadow in the woods and the Headmaster assured Gawaine that under the steam he would find a dragon. Gawaine went forward slowly. He wondered whether it would be best to approach the dragon on the run as he did in his practice in the South Meadow or to walk slowly toward him, shouting “Rumplesnitz” all the way. 28
The problem was decided for him. No sooner had he come to the fringe of the meadow than the dragon spied him and began to charge. It was a large dragon and yet it seemed decidedly aggressive in spite of the Headmaster’s statement to the contrary. As the dragon charged it released huge clouds of hissing steam through its nostrils. It was almost as if a gigantic teapot had gone mad. The dragon came forward so fast and Gawaine was so frightened that he had time to say “Rumplesnitz” only once. As he said it, he swung his battle-ax and off popped the head of the dragon. Gawaine had to admit that it was even easier to kill a real dragon than a wooden one if only you said “Rumplesnitz.” 29
Gawaine brought the ears home and a small section of the tail. His school mates and the faculty made much of him, but the Headmaster wisely kept him from being spoiled by insisting that he go on with his work. Every clear day Gawaine rose at dawn and went out to kill dragons. The Headmaster kept him at home when it rained, because he said the woods were damp and unhealthy at such times and that he didn’t want the boy to run needless risks. Few good days passed in which Gawaine failed to get a dragon. On one particularly fortunate day he killed three, a husband and wife and a visiting relative. Gradually he developed a technique. Pupils who sometimes watched him from the hill-tops a long way off said that he often allowed the dragon to come within a few feet before he said “Rumplesnitz.” He came to say it with a mocking sneer. Occasionally he did stunts. Once when an excursion party from London was watching him he went into action with his right hand tied behind his back. The dragon’s head came off just as easily. 30
As Gawaine’s record of killings mounted higher the Headmaster found it impossible to keep him completely in hand. He fell into the habit of stealing out at night and engaging in long drinking bouts at the village tavern. It was after such a debauch that he rose a little before dawn one fine August morning and started out after his fiftieth dragon. His head was heavy and his mind sluggish. He was heavy in other respects as well, for he had adopted the somewhat vulgar practice of wearing his medals, ribbons and all, when he went out dragon hunting. The decorations began on his chest and ran all the way down to his abdomen. They must have weighed at least eight pounds. 31
Gawaine found a dragon in the same meadow where he had killed the first one. It was a fair-sized dragon, but evidently an old one. Its face was wrinkled and Gawaine thought he had never seen so hideous a countenance. Much to the lad’s disgust, the monster refused to charge and Gawaine was obliged to walk toward him. He whistled as he went. The dragon regarded him hopelessly, but craftily. Of course it had heard of Gawaine. Even when the lad raised his battle-ax the dragon made no move. It knew that there was no salvation in the quickest thrust of the head, for it had been informed that this hunter was protected by an enchantment. It merely waited, hoping something would turn up. Gawaine raised the battle-ax and suddenly lowered it again. He had grown very pale and he trembled violently. The dragon suspected a trick. “What’s the matter?” it asked, with false solicitude. 32
“I’ve forgotten the magic word,” stammered Gawaine. 33
“What a pity,” said the dragon. “So that was the secret. It doesn’t seem quite sporting to me, all this magic stuff, you know. Not cricket, as we used to say when I was a little dragon; but after all, that’s a matter of opinion.” 34
Gawaine was so helpless with terror that the dragon’s confidence rose immeasurably and it could not resist the temptation to show off a bit. 35
“Could I possibly be of any assistance?” it asked. “What’s the first letter of the magic word?” 36
“It begins with an ‘r,”’ said Gawaine weakly. 37
“Let’s see,” mused the dragon, “that doesn’t tell us much, does it? What sort of a word is this? Is it an epithet, do you think?” 38
Gawaine could do no more than nod. 39
“Why, of course,” exclaimed the dragon, “reactionary Republican.” 40
Gawaine shook his head. 41
“Well, then,” said the dragon, “we’d better get down to business. Will you surrender?” 42
With the suggestion of a compromise Gawaine mustered up enough courage to speak. 43
“What will you do if I surrender?” he asked. 44
“Why, I’ll eat you,” said the dragon. 45
“And if I don’t surrender?” 46
“I’ll eat you just the same.” 47
“Then it doesn’t mean any difference, does it?” moaned Gawaine. 48
“It does to me,” said the dragon with a smile. “I’d rather you didn’t surrender. You’d taste much better if you didn’t.” 49
The dragon waited for a long time for Gawaine to ask “Why?” but the boy was too frightened to speak. At last the dragon had to give the explanation without his cue line. “You see,” he said, “if you don’t surrender you’ll taste better because you’ll die game.” 50
This was an old and ancient trick of the dragon’s. By means of some such quip he was accustomed to paralyze his victims with laughter and then to destroy them. Gawaine was sufficiently paralyzed as it was, but laughter had no part in his helplessness. With the last word of the joke the dragon drew back his head and struck. In that second there flashed into the mind of Gawaine the magic word “Rumplesnitz,” but there was no time to say it. There was time only to strike and, without a word, Gawaine met the onrush of the dragon with a full swing. He put all his back and shoulders into it. The impact was terrific and the head of the dragon flew away almost a hundred yards and landed in a thicket. 51
Gawaine did not remain frightened very long after the death of the dragon. His mood was one of wonder. He was enormously puzzled. He cut off the ears of the monster almost in a trance. Again and again he thought to himself, “I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’!” He was sure of that and yet there was no question that he had killed the dragon. In fact, he had never killed one so utterly. Never before had he driven a head for anything like the same distance. Twenty-five yards was perhaps his best previous record. All the way back to the knight school he kept rumbling about in his mind seeking an explanation for what had occurred. He went to the Headmaster immediately and after closing the door told him what had happened. “I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz,’” he explained with great earnestness. 52
The Headmaster laughed. “I’m glad you’ve found out,” he said. “It makes you ever so much more of a hero. Don’t you see that? Now you know that it was you who killed all these dragons and not that foolish little word ‘Rumplesnitz.’” 53
Gawaine frowned. “Then it wasn’t a magic word after all?” he asked. 54
“Of course not,” said the Headmaster, “you ought to be too old for such foolishness. There isn’t any such thing as a magic word.” 55
“But you told me it was magic,” protested Gawaine. “You said it was magic and now you say it isn’t.” 56
“It wasn’t magic in a literal sense,” answered the Headmaster, “but it was much more wonderful than that. The word gave you confidence. It took away your fears. If I hadn’t told you that you might have been killed the very first time. It was your battle-ax did the trick.” 57
Gawaine surprised the Headmaster by his attitude, He was obviously distressed by the explanation. He interrupted a long philosophic and ethical discourse by the Headmaster with, “If I hadn’t of hit ’em all mighty hard and fast any one of ’em might have crushed me like a, like a—” He fumbled for a word. 58
“Egg shell,” suggested the Headmaster. 59
“Like a egg shell,” assented Gawaine, and he said it many times. All through the evening meal people who sat near him heard him muttering, “Like a egg shell, like a egg shell.” 60
The next day was clear, but Gawaine did not get up at dawn. Indeed, it was almost noon when the Headmaster found him cowering in bed, with the clothes pulled over his head. The principal called the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce, and together they dragged the boy toward the forest. 61
“He’ll be all right as soon as he gets a couple more dragons under his belt,” explained the Headmaster. 62
“The Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed. “It would be a shame to stop such a fine run,” he said. “Why, counting that one yesterday, he’s killed fifty dragons.” 63
They pushed the boy into a thicket above which hung a meager cloud of steam. It was obviously quite a small dragon. But Gawaine did not come back that night or the next. In fact, he never came back. Some weeks afterward brave spirits from the school explored the thicket, but they could find nothing to remind them of Gawaine except the metal parts of his medals. Even the ribbons had been devoured. 64
The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed that it would be just as well not to tell the school how Gawaine had achieved his record and still less how he came to die. They held that it might have a bad effect on school spirit. Accordingly, Gawaine has lived in the memory of the school as its greatest hero. No visitor succeeds in leaving the building to-day without seeing a great shield which hangs on the wall of the dining hall. Fifty pairs of dragons’ ears are mounted upon the shield and underneath in gilt letters is “Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy,” followed by the simple inscription, “He killed fifty dragons.” The record has never been equaled. 65
All Summer in a Day By: Ray Bradbury
"Ready ?" "Ready." "Now ?" "Soon." "Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will it ?" "Look, look; see for yourself !" The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun. It rained. It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands.
A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives. "It’s stopping, it’s stopping !" "Yes, yes !" Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with.
She knew they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands. But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone. All day yesterday they had read in class about the sun. About how like a lemon it was, and how hot. And they had written small stories or essays or poems about it:I think the sun is a flower,That blooms for just one hour. That was Margot’s poem, read in a quiet voice in the still classroom while the rain was falling outside. "Aw, you didn’t write that!" protested one of the boys. "I did," said Margot. "I did." "William!" said the teacher.
But that was yesterday. Now the rain was slackening, and the children were crushed in the great thick windows. Where’s teacher ?" "She’ll be back." "She’d better hurry, we’ll miss it !" They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass. "What’re you looking at ?" said William. Margot said nothing. "Speak when you’re spoken to." He gave her a shove. But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows. And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.
But Margot remembered. "It’s like a penny," she said once, eyes closed. "No it’s not!" the children cried. "It’s like a fire," she said, "in the stove." "You’re lying, you don’t remember !" cried the children. But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn’t touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away. There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future. "Get away !" The boy gave her another push. "What’re you waiting for?" Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes. "Well, don’t wait around here !" cried the boy savagely. "You won’t see nothing!" Her lips moved. "Nothing !" he cried. "It was all a joke, wasn’t it?" He turned to the other children. "Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?" They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook their heads. "Nothing, nothing !" "Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes helpless. "But this is the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun…" "All a joke !" said the boy, and seized her roughly. "Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a closet before the teacher comes !" "No," said Margot, falling back. They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived. "Ready, children ?" She glanced at her watch. "Yes !" said everyone. "Are we all here ?" "Yes !" The rain slacked still more. They crowded to the huge door.
The rain stopped. It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether. The children put their hands to their ears. They stood apart. The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them. The sun came out. It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling into the springtime.
"Now, don’t go too far," called the teacher after them. "You’ve only two hours, you know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out !" But they were running and turning their faces up to the sky and feeling the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron; they were taking off their jackets and letting the sun burn their arms. "Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it ?" "Much, much better !" They stopped running and stood in the great jungle that covered Venus, that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you watched it. It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon. The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hideand-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running.
And then - In the midst of their running one of the girls wailed. Everyone stopped. The girl, standing in the open, held out her hand. "Oh, look, look," she said, trembling. They came slowly to look at her opened palm. In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a single raindrop. She began to cry, looking at it. They glanced quietly at the sun. "Oh. Oh." A few cold drops fell on their noses and their cheeks and their mouths. The sun faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold around them. They turned and started to walk back toward the underground house, their hands at their sides, their smiles vanishing away. A boom of thunder startled them and like leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled upon each other and ran. Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile. The sky darkened into midnight in a flash. They stood in the doorway of the underground for a moment until it was raining hard. Then they closed the door and heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons and avalanches, everywhere and forever. "Will it be seven more years ?" "Yes. Seven." Then one of them gave a little cry. "Margot !" "What ?" "She’s still in the closet where we locked her." "Margot." They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor. They looked at each other and then looked away. They glanced out at the world that was raining now and raining and raining steadily. They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale.
They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down. "Margot." One of the girls said, "Well… ?" No one moved. "Go on," whispered the girl. They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of cold rain. They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible. They walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it. Behind the closet door was only silence. They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.
SPIT NOLAN
By Heywood Broun
Of all the pupils at the Knight School, Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy was among the least promising. He was tall and sturdy, but his instructors soon discovered that he lacked spirit. He would hide in the woods when the jousting class was called, although his companions and members of the faculty sought to appeal to his better nature by shouting to him to come out and break his neck like a man. Even when they told him that the lances were padded, the horses no more than ponies and the field unusually soft for late autumn, Gawaine refused to grow enthusiastic. The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce were discussing the case one spring afternoon and the Assistant Professor could see no remedy but expulsion. 1
“No,” said the Headmaster, as he looked out at the purple hills which ringed the school, “I think I’ll train him to slay dragons.” 2
“He might be killed,” objected the Assistant Professor. 3
“So he might,” replied the Headmaster brightly, but he added, more soberly, “we must consider the greater good. We are responsible for the formation of this lad’s character.” 4
“Are the dragons particularly bad this year?” interrupted the Assistant Professor. This was characteristic. He always seemed restive when the head of the school began to talk ethics and the ideals of the institution. 5
“I’ve never known them worse,” replied the Headmaster. “Up in the hills to the south last week they killed a number of peasants, two cows and a prize pig. And if this dry spell holds there’s no telling when they may start a forest fire simply by breathing around indiscriminately.” 6
“Would any refund on the tuition fee be necessary in case of an accident to young Cœur Hardy?” 7
“No,” the principal answered, judicially, “that’s all covered in the contract. But as a matter of fact he won’t be killed. Before I send him up in the hills I’m going to give him a magic word.” 8
“That’s a good idea,” said the Professor. “Sometimes they work wonders.” 9
From that day on Gawaine specialized in dragons. His course included both theory and practice. In the morning there were long lectures on the history, anatomy, manners and customs of dragons. Gawaine did not distinguish himself in these studies. He had a marvelously versatile gift for forgetting things. In the afternoon he showed to better advantage, for then he would go down to the South Meadow and practise with a battle-ax. In this exercise he was truly impressive, for he had enormous strength as well as speed and grace. He even developed a deceptive display of ferocity. Old alumni say that it was a thrilling sight to see Gawaine charging across the field toward the dummy paper dragon which had been set up for his practice. As he ran he would brandish his ax and shout “A murrain on thee!” or some other vivid bit of campus slang. It never took him more than one stroke to behead the dummy dragon. 10
Gradually his task was made more difficult. Paper gave way to papier-mâché and finally to wood, but even the toughest of these dummy dragons had no terrors for Gawaine. One sweep of the ax always did the business. There were those who said that when the practice was protracted until dusk and the dragons threw long, fantastic shadows across the meadow Gawaine did not charge so impetuously nor shout so loudly. It is possible there was malice in this charge. At any rate, the Headmaster decided by the end of June that it was time for the test. Only the night before a dragon had come close to the school grounds and had eaten some of the lettuce from the garden. The faculty decided that Gawaine was ready. They gave him a diploma and a new battle-ax and the Headmaster summoned him to a private conference. 11
“Sit down,” said the Headmaster. “Have a cigarette.” 12
Gawaine hesitated. 13
“Oh, I know it’s against the rules,” said the Headmaster. “But after all, you have received your preliminary degree. You are no longer a boy. You are a man. To-morrow you will go out into the world, the great world of achievement.” 14
Gawaine took a cigarette. The Headmaster offered him a match, but he produced one of his own and began to puff away with a dexterity which quite amazed the principal. 15
“Here you have learned the theories of life,” continued the Headmaster, resuming the thread of his discourse, “but after all, life is not a matter of theories. Life is a matter of facts. It calls on the young and the old alike to face these facts, even though they are hard and sometimes unpleasant. Your problem, for example, is to slay dragons.” 16
“They say that those dragons down in the south wood are five hundred feet long,” ventured Gawaine, timorously. 17
“Stuff and nonsense!” said the Headmaster. “The curate saw one last week from the top of Arthur’s Hill. The dragon was sunning himself down in the valley. The curate didn’t have an opportunity to look at him very long because he felt it was his duty to hurry back to make a report to me. He said the monster, or shall I say, the big lizard?—wasn’t an inch over two hundred feet. But the size has nothing at all to do with it. You’ll find the big ones even easier than the little ones. They’re far slower on their feet and less aggressive, I’m told. Besides, before you go I’m going to equip you in such fashion that you need have no fear of all the dragons in the world.” 18
“I’d like an enchanted cap,” said Gawaine. 19
“What’s that?” answered the Headmaster, testily. 20
“A cap to make me disappear,” explained Gawaine. 21
The Headmaster laughed indulgently. “You mustn’t believe all those old wives’ stories,” he said. “There isn’t any such thing. A cap to make you disappear, indeed! What would you do with it? You haven’t even appeared yet. Why, my boy, you could walk from here to London, and nobody would so much as look at you. You’re nobody. You couldn’t be more invisible than that.” 22
Gawaine seemed dangerously close to a relapse into his old habit of whimpering. The Headmaster reassured him: “Don’t worry; I’ll give you something much better than an enchanted cap. I’m going to give you a magic word. All you have to do is to repeat this magic charm once and no dragon can possibly harm a hair of your head. You can cut off his head at your leisure.” 23
He took a heavy book from the shelf behind his desk and began to run through it. “Sometimes,” he said, “the charm is a whole phrase or even a sentence. I might, for instance, give you ‘To make the’—No, that might not do. I think a single word would be best for dragons.” 24
“A short word,” suggested Gawaine. 25
“It can’t be too short or it wouldn’t be potent. There isn’t so much hurry as all that. Here’s a splendid magic word: ‘Rumplesnitz.’ Do you think you can learn that?” 26
Gawaine tried and in an hour or so he seemed to have the word well in hand. Again and again he interrupted the lesson to inquire, “And if I say ‘Rumplesnitz’ the dragon can’t possibly hurt me?” And always the Headmaster replied, “If you only say ‘Rumplesnitz,’ you are perfectly safe.” 27
Toward morning Gawaine seemed resigned to his career. At daybreak the Headmaster saw him to the edge of the forest and pointed him to the direction in which he should proceed. About a mile away to the southwest a cloud of steam hovered over an open meadow in the woods and the Headmaster assured Gawaine that under the steam he would find a dragon. Gawaine went forward slowly. He wondered whether it would be best to approach the dragon on the run as he did in his practice in the South Meadow or to walk slowly toward him, shouting “Rumplesnitz” all the way. 28
The problem was decided for him. No sooner had he come to the fringe of the meadow than the dragon spied him and began to charge. It was a large dragon and yet it seemed decidedly aggressive in spite of the Headmaster’s statement to the contrary. As the dragon charged it released huge clouds of hissing steam through its nostrils. It was almost as if a gigantic teapot had gone mad. The dragon came forward so fast and Gawaine was so frightened that he had time to say “Rumplesnitz” only once. As he said it, he swung his battle-ax and off popped the head of the dragon. Gawaine had to admit that it was even easier to kill a real dragon than a wooden one if only you said “Rumplesnitz.” 29
Gawaine brought the ears home and a small section of the tail. His school mates and the faculty made much of him, but the Headmaster wisely kept him from being spoiled by insisting that he go on with his work. Every clear day Gawaine rose at dawn and went out to kill dragons. The Headmaster kept him at home when it rained, because he said the woods were damp and unhealthy at such times and that he didn’t want the boy to run needless risks. Few good days passed in which Gawaine failed to get a dragon. On one particularly fortunate day he killed three, a husband and wife and a visiting relative. Gradually he developed a technique. Pupils who sometimes watched him from the hill-tops a long way off said that he often allowed the dragon to come within a few feet before he said “Rumplesnitz.” He came to say it with a mocking sneer. Occasionally he did stunts. Once when an excursion party from London was watching him he went into action with his right hand tied behind his back. The dragon’s head came off just as easily. 30
As Gawaine’s record of killings mounted higher the Headmaster found it impossible to keep him completely in hand. He fell into the habit of stealing out at night and engaging in long drinking bouts at the village tavern. It was after such a debauch that he rose a little before dawn one fine August morning and started out after his fiftieth dragon. His head was heavy and his mind sluggish. He was heavy in other respects as well, for he had adopted the somewhat vulgar practice of wearing his medals, ribbons and all, when he went out dragon hunting. The decorations began on his chest and ran all the way down to his abdomen. They must have weighed at least eight pounds. 31
Gawaine found a dragon in the same meadow where he had killed the first one. It was a fair-sized dragon, but evidently an old one. Its face was wrinkled and Gawaine thought he had never seen so hideous a countenance. Much to the lad’s disgust, the monster refused to charge and Gawaine was obliged to walk toward him. He whistled as he went. The dragon regarded him hopelessly, but craftily. Of course it had heard of Gawaine. Even when the lad raised his battle-ax the dragon made no move. It knew that there was no salvation in the quickest thrust of the head, for it had been informed that this hunter was protected by an enchantment. It merely waited, hoping something would turn up. Gawaine raised the battle-ax and suddenly lowered it again. He had grown very pale and he trembled violently. The dragon suspected a trick. “What’s the matter?” it asked, with false solicitude. 32
“I’ve forgotten the magic word,” stammered Gawaine. 33
“What a pity,” said the dragon. “So that was the secret. It doesn’t seem quite sporting to me, all this magic stuff, you know. Not cricket, as we used to say when I was a little dragon; but after all, that’s a matter of opinion.” 34
Gawaine was so helpless with terror that the dragon’s confidence rose immeasurably and it could not resist the temptation to show off a bit. 35
“Could I possibly be of any assistance?” it asked. “What’s the first letter of the magic word?” 36
“It begins with an ‘r,”’ said Gawaine weakly. 37
“Let’s see,” mused the dragon, “that doesn’t tell us much, does it? What sort of a word is this? Is it an epithet, do you think?” 38
Gawaine could do no more than nod. 39
“Why, of course,” exclaimed the dragon, “reactionary Republican.” 40
Gawaine shook his head. 41
“Well, then,” said the dragon, “we’d better get down to business. Will you surrender?” 42
With the suggestion of a compromise Gawaine mustered up enough courage to speak. 43
“What will you do if I surrender?” he asked. 44
“Why, I’ll eat you,” said the dragon. 45
“And if I don’t surrender?” 46
“I’ll eat you just the same.” 47
“Then it doesn’t mean any difference, does it?” moaned Gawaine. 48
“It does to me,” said the dragon with a smile. “I’d rather you didn’t surrender. You’d taste much better if you didn’t.” 49
The dragon waited for a long time for Gawaine to ask “Why?” but the boy was too frightened to speak. At last the dragon had to give the explanation without his cue line. “You see,” he said, “if you don’t surrender you’ll taste better because you’ll die game.” 50
This was an old and ancient trick of the dragon’s. By means of some such quip he was accustomed to paralyze his victims with laughter and then to destroy them. Gawaine was sufficiently paralyzed as it was, but laughter had no part in his helplessness. With the last word of the joke the dragon drew back his head and struck. In that second there flashed into the mind of Gawaine the magic word “Rumplesnitz,” but there was no time to say it. There was time only to strike and, without a word, Gawaine met the onrush of the dragon with a full swing. He put all his back and shoulders into it. The impact was terrific and the head of the dragon flew away almost a hundred yards and landed in a thicket. 51
Gawaine did not remain frightened very long after the death of the dragon. His mood was one of wonder. He was enormously puzzled. He cut off the ears of the monster almost in a trance. Again and again he thought to himself, “I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz’!” He was sure of that and yet there was no question that he had killed the dragon. In fact, he had never killed one so utterly. Never before had he driven a head for anything like the same distance. Twenty-five yards was perhaps his best previous record. All the way back to the knight school he kept rumbling about in his mind seeking an explanation for what had occurred. He went to the Headmaster immediately and after closing the door told him what had happened. “I didn’t say ‘Rumplesnitz,’” he explained with great earnestness. 52
The Headmaster laughed. “I’m glad you’ve found out,” he said. “It makes you ever so much more of a hero. Don’t you see that? Now you know that it was you who killed all these dragons and not that foolish little word ‘Rumplesnitz.’” 53
Gawaine frowned. “Then it wasn’t a magic word after all?” he asked. 54
“Of course not,” said the Headmaster, “you ought to be too old for such foolishness. There isn’t any such thing as a magic word.” 55
“But you told me it was magic,” protested Gawaine. “You said it was magic and now you say it isn’t.” 56
“It wasn’t magic in a literal sense,” answered the Headmaster, “but it was much more wonderful than that. The word gave you confidence. It took away your fears. If I hadn’t told you that you might have been killed the very first time. It was your battle-ax did the trick.” 57
Gawaine surprised the Headmaster by his attitude, He was obviously distressed by the explanation. He interrupted a long philosophic and ethical discourse by the Headmaster with, “If I hadn’t of hit ’em all mighty hard and fast any one of ’em might have crushed me like a, like a—” He fumbled for a word. 58
“Egg shell,” suggested the Headmaster. 59
“Like a egg shell,” assented Gawaine, and he said it many times. All through the evening meal people who sat near him heard him muttering, “Like a egg shell, like a egg shell.” 60
The next day was clear, but Gawaine did not get up at dawn. Indeed, it was almost noon when the Headmaster found him cowering in bed, with the clothes pulled over his head. The principal called the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce, and together they dragged the boy toward the forest. 61
“He’ll be all right as soon as he gets a couple more dragons under his belt,” explained the Headmaster. 62
“The Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed. “It would be a shame to stop such a fine run,” he said. “Why, counting that one yesterday, he’s killed fifty dragons.” 63
They pushed the boy into a thicket above which hung a meager cloud of steam. It was obviously quite a small dragon. But Gawaine did not come back that night or the next. In fact, he never came back. Some weeks afterward brave spirits from the school explored the thicket, but they could find nothing to remind them of Gawaine except the metal parts of his medals. Even the ribbons had been devoured. 64
The Headmaster and the Assistant Professor of Pleasaunce agreed that it would be just as well not to tell the school how Gawaine had achieved his record and still less how he came to die. They held that it might have a bad effect on school spirit. Accordingly, Gawaine has lived in the memory of the school as its greatest hero. No visitor succeeds in leaving the building to-day without seeing a great shield which hangs on the wall of the dining hall. Fifty pairs of dragons’ ears are mounted upon the shield and underneath in gilt letters is “Gawaine le Cœur-Hardy,” followed by the simple inscription, “He killed fifty dragons.” The record has never been equaled. 65
All Summer in a Day By: Ray Bradbury
"Ready ?" "Ready." "Now ?" "Soon." "Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will it ?" "Look, look; see for yourself !" The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun. It rained. It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands.
A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives. "It’s stopping, it’s stopping !" "Yes, yes !" Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with.
She knew they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands. But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone. All day yesterday they had read in class about the sun. About how like a lemon it was, and how hot. And they had written small stories or essays or poems about it:I think the sun is a flower,That blooms for just one hour. That was Margot’s poem, read in a quiet voice in the still classroom while the rain was falling outside. "Aw, you didn’t write that!" protested one of the boys. "I did," said Margot. "I did." "William!" said the teacher.
But that was yesterday. Now the rain was slackening, and the children were crushed in the great thick windows. Where’s teacher ?" "She’ll be back." "She’d better hurry, we’ll miss it !" They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass. "What’re you looking at ?" said William. Margot said nothing. "Speak when you’re spoken to." He gave her a shove. But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They edged away from her, they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows. And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.
But Margot remembered. "It’s like a penny," she said once, eyes closed. "No it’s not!" the children cried. "It’s like a fire," she said, "in the stove." "You’re lying, you don’t remember !" cried the children. But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn’t touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away. There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future. "Get away !" The boy gave her another push. "What’re you waiting for?" Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes. "Well, don’t wait around here !" cried the boy savagely. "You won’t see nothing!" Her lips moved. "Nothing !" he cried. "It was all a joke, wasn’t it?" He turned to the other children. "Nothing’s happening today. Is it ?" They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook their heads. "Nothing, nothing !" "Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes helpless. "But this is the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun…" "All a joke !" said the boy, and seized her roughly. "Hey, everyone, let’s put her in a closet before the teacher comes !" "No," said Margot, falling back. They surged about her, caught her up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and then crying, back into a tunnel, a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door. They stood looking at the door and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself against it. They heard her muffled cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out and back down the tunnel, just as the teacher arrived. "Ready, children ?" She glanced at her watch. "Yes !" said everyone. "Are we all here ?" "Yes !" The rain slacked still more. They crowded to the huge door.
The rain stopped. It was as if, in the midst of a film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a volcanic eruption, something had, first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus muffling and finally cutting off all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second, ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The silence was so immense and unbelievable that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing altogether. The children put their hands to their ears. They stood apart. The door slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them. The sun came out. It was the color of flaming bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling into the springtime.
"Now, don’t go too far," called the teacher after them. "You’ve only two hours, you know. You wouldn’t want to get caught out !" But they were running and turning their faces up to the sky and feeling the sun on their cheeks like a warm iron; they were taking off their jackets and letting the sun burn their arms. "Oh, it’s better than the sun lamps, isn’t it ?" "Much, much better !" They stopped running and stood in the great jungle that covered Venus, that grew and never stopped growing, tumultuously, even as you watched it. It was a nest of octopi, clustering up great arms of fleshlike weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it was the color of the moon. The children lay out, laughing, on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other, they played hideand-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air and listened and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly, like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles. They ran for an hour and did not stop running.
And then - In the midst of their running one of the girls wailed. Everyone stopped. The girl, standing in the open, held out her hand. "Oh, look, look," she said, trembling. They came slowly to look at her opened palm. In the center of it, cupped and huge, was a single raindrop. She began to cry, looking at it. They glanced quietly at the sun. "Oh. Oh." A few cold drops fell on their noses and their cheeks and their mouths. The sun faded behind a stir of mist. A wind blew cold around them. They turned and started to walk back toward the underground house, their hands at their sides, their smiles vanishing away. A boom of thunder startled them and like leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled upon each other and ran. Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile. The sky darkened into midnight in a flash. They stood in the doorway of the underground for a moment until it was raining hard. Then they closed the door and heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons and avalanches, everywhere and forever. "Will it be seven more years ?" "Yes. Seven." Then one of them gave a little cry. "Margot !" "What ?" "She’s still in the closet where we locked her." "Margot." They stood as if someone had driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor. They looked at each other and then looked away. They glanced out at the world that was raining now and raining and raining steadily. They could not meet each other’s glances. Their faces were solemn and pale.
They looked at their hands and feet, their faces down. "Margot." One of the girls said, "Well… ?" No one moved. "Go on," whispered the girl. They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of cold rain. They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible. They walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it. Behind the closet door was only silence. They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.
SPIT NOLAN