The King of the Hummingbirds (5 page)

This time the dragons were waiting for him, and before he was halfway up the mountain, they rained down fire on him, and in a minute his clothes were black as soot and the hair of his beard was singed. He screamed with rage and pounded his fists and cried,
“So!”

When he got home the billy goat was sitting by the fire looking calm and collected, though his beard was singed and he too was as black as soot.

“Billy goat,” the gnome began.

But the billy goat said, “Well! So you've been wallawalled again!”

“Wallawalled?” said the gnome.

“Don't you know what âwallawalled' means?” the billy goat asked innocently.

“Of course I do. Certainly!” said the gnome. Then, hastily, he went to bed.

Gnomes are no better than they might be, and neither are billy goats. Nevertheless, the gnome was not so stupid that he fell for the billy goat's trick on the third night.

The billy goat said, touching his beard with his right front hoof, “Well, well! So tonight's the night of the princess's pig roast!”

If there's one thing a gnome is totally indifferent to, it's a pig roast; and if there's another thing he's indifferent to, it's a princess. He felt, naturally, a strong temptation not to go to the princess's pig roast. But knowing that the billy goat was perhaps out to trick himâeither into going or else into
not
going (he couldn't make out which)âhe knew he must somehow do neither. He thought and thought.

“Where is it?” he said.

Indifferently, the billy goat gave him the same directions he'd given him last night and the night beforeâto Dragons' Mountain.

“So!” thought the gnome.

Then the gnome said, “How I wish I could go!” And then he said, “I know! I'll change you into me and me into you and then
you
can go.”

“But I don't want to,” the billy goat said.

“But you don't have to,” said the gnome. “You'll be home all the time, because you'll be
me
, if you see what I mean.”

The billy goat was no great logician, and it seemed to him he was trapped. At last, shaking like a leaf, the billy goat set outâchanged into the outward appearance of the gnomeâfor Dragons' Mountain. “Old friend gnome,” he said as he set out, “I expected more of you.” Still, having no choice in the matter so far as he could see, he stepped gingerly on, and each rock he passed was darker and more ominous than the last. “Soon,” he thought, “I will be at Dragons' Mountain. How ridiculous and sad!”

Meanwhile, back in the cave, the gnome chuckled at the trick he'd played on his old friend the billy goat. But little by little his chuckling stopped. The billy goat was, for better or worse, the only friend he had; and the gnome was not quite sure a billy goat superficially disguised as a gnome would have the tolerance for fire that a gnome had. “Suppose something should happen to my old friend!” he thought. Finally, leaping to his feet, he threw on his scarf and hurried toward the mountain.

Sure enough, when the gnome disguised as a billy goat got to Dragons' Mountain, there was his old friend the billy goat, disguised as a gnome, plodding sadly up the path toward the dragons' lair; and behind every tree, waiting until the billy goat disguised as a gnome should be surrounded, lurked a leering dragon.

The gnome disguised as a billy goat had no idea what to do, but he knew that in a moment those fires would start shooting and it would be goat roast. Before he stopped to think of a plan, the gnome disguised as a billy goat found himself rushing with his goat horns lowered straight at the nearest of the dragons who, that moment, had turned his great spiny red and gold back. His goat horns threw the dragon high in the air, and the other dragons were so startled that they ran like sheep into a huddle. There they stood looking stupidly around to see what had caused all that terrible commotion. All at once they sawâreally
saw
âthe incredible ugly little gnome (really the billy goat), and it came to all of them at once that they'd never seen anything so ugly in their lives. They all began running in frantic circles, sometimes running into trees, sometimes running into boulders, sometimes running into each other. With each collision another dragon or two exploded, and the people watching from down in the valley thought for sure it was the end of the world. Soon all the dragons lay feet up, dead. With the last explosion, the mountain gave a shudder and collapsed on them and covered them completely.

The gnome turned himself back into himself and turned the billy goat back into the billy goat.

The gnome said, “Let this be a lesson to you, goat.”

The billy goat apologized, but all the way home he smiled blissfully, thinking of the princess.

The next day, the billy goat went to see the king.

“Well,” said the billy goat, “I got rid of those dragons for you. I'd like my reward.”

“There's no such things as dragons,” the king said, and tapped his large black pipe.

“What?” cried the billy goat, incredulous.

But no matter what the billy goat said, the king went on stubbornly acting as if he'd never heard of any dragonsâchanging all the rules with reckless abandon and insisting he'd never promised anyone half the kingdom or his daughter's hand in marriage. “That would be insane,” he said.

The billy goat was furious and stomped until the palaceâif it was a palaceâshook. But the king merely smiled. “Let this be a lesson to you,” he said, and the voice seemed familiar.

Now the billy goat was angrier than ever, realizing all at once that the king was really none other than the gnome, that the whole thing was fantasy and illusion! Then, abruptly, the billy goat stopped his stamping and dropped his mouth open, for he'd remembered that he himself was also the gnome. But if gnomes feel indifferent toward beautiful princesses, how could it be thatâand now, horribly, it all came clear to him, and he burst out crying. He was also, obviously, the beautiful princess. “No question about it,” said the gnome tragically, and struck his forehead with his hoof, “we've got to stop this fooling around and get back in touch.”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN: 978-1-4532-0334-7

This edition published in 2010 by Open Road Integrated Media
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