“Why are we looking for the dragon and not the tamer?” asked Kay, apparently not as excited as Sarah was.

Dax squinted toward the lights of the stage, taking an extra moment before answering her. “What would a dragon tamer know about finding fairy creatures? Foolish people like that usually don’t know anything at all, except how to get gobbled up by a dragon who doesn’t want to follow your commands. No, we need to talk to the dragon herself.”

“Talk to a dragon?” Sarah shifted eagerly in her seat. She didn’t even know dragons could speak. In the stories she had read, they were usually too busy breathing fire and gobbling up damsels in distress to concern themselves with talking.

“Unfortunately yes,” said Dax, either not noticing or flat out ignoring the anticipation in Sarah’s voice. “I’d prefer to do something else, too. But there are only so many people who know about the fey. I do wonder if I have the right place, though. This one’s usually a side attraction, not the main event.”

Sarah simply shook her head. Why wouldn’t a dragon be a main event? What could possibly be more thrilling or dangerous than dealing with one of those legendary creatures?

While Sarah looked on breathlessly, a huge black iron cage on wheel was being carted onto the stage by four stout-looking assistants. A canvas tarp covered the cage, casting it in shadow so nobody could see what was inside. By the sounds of growling and the rattle of the thick metal bars, though, everyone knew it had to be a dragon. The crowd redoubled its cheers as the cage came to a halt at center stage.

The crowd hushed as a single man stepped into the ring in front of the cage. He was a slender man, dressed all in black. The whiskers on his face were singed, and his hair was mussed. He looked nervous and sweaty. As he gazed out at the crowd, he shifted anxiously from foot to foot.

“That’s not the dragon trainer, is it?” whispered Sarah.

“I think it is,” responded Kay.

Sarah frowned. She had expected a dragon tamer to be larger and more magnificent-looking. Her mind had given her the picture of someone who could be a knight or a king, who walked into view with a sword in one hand and a whip in the other, and who was tall and almost as dangerous-looking as the dragon itself. The beast tamer she saw now looked more like a man who had eaten too much seafood.

Taking a deep breath, the dragon tamer began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. His voice came out as a squeak, so he cleared his throat and started over again. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he repeated, louder this time, “I am sorry to say that we have a slight problem with today’s performance. As it happens, Dramadia the black-scaled dragon has…well, she’s escaped into the mountains.”

An angry murmur ran through the crowd. Sarah’s own face fell in dismay. Dax, however, didn’t look surprised at all. If anything, his nod of understanding meant that things now made a little more sense to him.

“Please, please, please,” said Noron the beast tamer, patting the air in front of him in a desperate attempt to calm everybody down. “We know the show must go on, so we have found a suitable replacement. She isn’t quite the same as the black-scaled dragon, but she is a dragon nonetheless. And it’s without any further ado that I present to you all, Keeley, the dragon of the Northwood Caves!”

The crowd quieted a bit with the promise of at least some dragon. Still, it seemed to do nothing to calm Noron. He fidgeted, took a deep breath, and smiled nervously. Finally, he walked to the cage and opened it. From inside, the snarl of the dragon could be heard.

The crowd gave an eager cheer. Sarah joined them. Then the dragon emerged from the shadows of the cave, and the cheers died down immediately.

To put it mildly, the dragon wasn’t what anyone in the crowd – except for Dax, of course – had been expecting. It was white and lizardlike, yes, and it had wings and a tail. But it was no more than six inches long from the tip of its snout to the end of its spiked tail. Its emerald-colored eyes seemed to be the largest part of its body. With a sound like a wounded hummingbird, the tiny dragon flitted out of the cage and came to perch on a nearby stool. It let out what Sarah thought was supposed to be a roar, but the noise really sounded more like the mewling of a kitten.

Sarah frowned in disappointment. The crowd shared her sentiments, but the other people in the audience didn’t keep their feelings to themselves like she did. While Noron tried to speak, the tent filled with boos and jeers.

“That’s no dragon, that’s a newt!”

“Some best tamer! Do you train bumblebees, too?”

“I could find something more frightening back on my chicken farm!”

“Please, please don’t yell,” cried Noron, waving his hands in the air. “You’ll anger the dragon!”

“Oh, and what will it do then?” shouted someone behind Sarah. “Will it nibble our fingertips? Or maybe blow a smoke ring?”

As the laughter continued, Sarah began to feel genuinely sorry for the beast tamer and the tiny creature. She had hoped to see a real dragon, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to make fun of the small winged lizard just because it wasn’t big, dangerous, and breathing fire.

The tiny creature did seem to be spooked by all the noises. It flapped its wings nervously, and turned its head away from the jeering audience. Finally, its snout began to twitch, as though it were stifling a sneeze.

“Oh no,” said Dax. Grabbing Kay and Sarah by the arms, he pulled them out of their seats and pushed them to the ground. “Get down.”

No sooner had Dax spoken than a burst of flame erupted from the tiny creature’s mouth. It wasn’t the small smoke ring one of the hecklers had expected; it was a fireball almost as wide as a fully grown man. The burst of dragon’s fire shot over the crowd and hit the far end of the tent, where it immediately caught fire on the canvas. The crowd fell silent. The tiny white dragon looked as shocked as everyone else did.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then panic erupted in the arena. Everyone in the audience jumped up from their seats and ran for an exit. The stagehands dashed for buckets of water, and began dousing the spreading flames. All the while, Dax kept Sarah and Kay down. He didn’t let them up until the arena was almost entirely emptied out.

“We’re ruined!” cried out the ringmaster.

“I told you Keeley wasn’t ready,” said Noron, patting the small dragon on the head. The creature responded with a purring noise, and then flew on its short wings back to the iron cage, where it perched at the opening.

The ringmaster said nothing. He just put his head in his hands, and occasionally peered between his fingers at the damage that the now-extinguished fire had wrought upon the tent. Finally, he spoke again.

“We need to gather together an expedition. We’ll have to find some new beasts for the act.”

“More dragons?” asked Noron.

“No, not more dragons!” The ringmaster grew red in the face with his shouting. “I don’t ever want to see another dragon as long as I live! As far as I’m concerned, those creatures are nothing but nuisances!”

“Well…what do we do with Keeley, then?”

The ringmaster’s face grew dark. “Just…just get her out of my sight. I don’t care what you do with her, but I don’t want to see her again. If I had my druthers, I’d feed her to my cat!”

The tiny dragon gave a frightened squeal and retreated further into the cage.

At about this time, Dax stood up and walked out of the stands toward the arena. Not knowing what else to do, Sarah and Kay followed him.

“Excuse me,” said Dax, trying to force himself between the arguing pair. “I don’t mean to be a bother, even though I almost certainly am one. And I don’t mean to intrude upon your argument, but my companions and I need to speak with the dragon, if at all possible.”

Both the ringmaster and the beast tamer stopped and looked incredulously at Dax.

“Speak? With the dragon? Are you mad? When she’s in this type of mood, she’ll hiccough up fireballs until you and your friends are all fricasseed!” cried Noron.

“Oh, come on now,” said Sarah. All this while, her eyes had been on the tiny white dragon. Now Keeley looked back at her curiously, like a bird that was about to fly away. “She can’t be all that dangerous. She’s more frightened than anything else, aren’t you, little one?” Sarah made some cooing sounds and walked slowly toward the cage. The dragon reared back, spread its wings, and gave a hiss that was supposed to be menacing. But since the dragon’s wingspan was no longer than that of a canary’s, Sarah found it too cute to be frightening.

“Watch yourself, Sarah,” said Kay. “We don’t know where she’s been.”

Ignoring her companion’s warning, Sarah reached out a finger toward Keeley. The dragon lowered her head and sniffed Sarah’s outstretched fingers. Then she bit down on the ring finger, which caused Sarah to give a small squeal of surprise and jerk her hand away.

“See?” said the ringmaster, waving his hands in the air. “That thing’s a menace. I won’t have it in my circus. We’ve already got enough fire damage to deal with from the salamanders, and they draw a bigger crowd!”

“Oh come on,” said Sarah, feeling very frustrated with the way the ringmaster was treating the tiny creature. “That barely hurt. It more surprised me than anything.” She held out her finger, where the tiny teeth hadn’t even broken skin. “See? She was just frightened.”

Sarah moved back toward the dragon, which was breathing more slowly now. “I know you’re just frightened, little one. My name’s Sarah.” She held out her hand again. This time, Keeley didn’t lunge at it. She sniffed it, and then butted her forehead against it, getting Sarah to pet the little creature. Much to her surprise, the dragon’s skin didn’t feel scaly at all. It felt smooth and cold, like a well-polished gemstone.

“Yes, well, please forgive my companion,” said Dax. “She’s still young of spirit and all. She doesn’t know what a terrible burden we as adults must bear. Why, I imagine just keeping this circus running keeps you from sleeping at night.”

“It absolutely does,” said the ringmaster feelingly. “I don’t think I’ve had a full night’s sleep since we closed down for repairs last winter.”

“Believe me,” said Dax, putting on his most woeful tone, “I know how you feel. And you,” he pointed to Noron the animal tamer, “you’ve got to deal with such dreadful beasts all the time. How do you manage to keep your nerves, knowing that any one of them might gobble you up at a moment’s notice?”

The beast tamer looked nervously at the ground. “Well…um…yes, I suppose that’s true.”

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me about it,” continued Dax, putting a hand to his forehead. “I don’t know why anyone our age even bothers to get out of bed in the morning. It seems like life gets harder and harder every day. No wonder old men end up all hunched and hobbling. The weight of the world just pushes them down, down, down.”

The other men just nodded wearily.

“Fortunately for you two, there are people like me in the world. I’m a magnet for misery; it just follows me around everywhere. That means that everywhere I go, I make other people’s lives happy by comparison. You’d think that would be something to make me a little happy, but it only adds to my many burdens.

“Anyway,” continued the old man, looking less and less cheerful with every word, “right now my companions and I are here to help you. We’re willing to take the dragon off your hands, since we need her annoyingly cute presence for something else. Just the added benefit of not having to take care of a dragon should make you feel a little better, right?”

Both of the other men seemed to perk up at the suggestion. Finally, the ringmaster nodded.

“The damage she does on a weekly basis, combined with the amount of food she eats is enough to drive us to ruin,” said the ringmaster. “If you want to take her off our hands, she’s yours.”

“Excellent,” said Dax, although the look on his face suggested that he was anything but happy to be traveling with a dragon. “We’ll be on our way promptly, then.”

Dax led the way out. Sarah scooped the now-friendly dragon into her hand and followed.

“Dax is quite a bargainer, he is,” said Kay, bringing up the rear. “Just the prospect of not having him talk to you anymore is enough to make you agree to whatever he wants.”

Indeed, everyone seemed happy – except for Dax himself, of course. The ringmaster and beast tamer were pleasantly chatting to each other about new, safer creatures they could make part of the act. And Sarah herself was happiest of all. The dragon might not have been what she expected, but she was an easy creature to like. Keeley scurried up Sarah’s arm and perched on her shoulder, wrapping her relatively long tail around the back of Sarah’s neck comfortably.

“How do you do Sarah?” whispered the dragon in a high-pitched voice. “Keeley is happy to meet you.”