Seven-Day Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

direction of the dragon.
    The dragon sneezed and sputtered and coughed. Otherwise, it was not physically hurt. Its hurt went deeper. To be salted and ammoniaed by a domestic housewife is humiliating to a dragon and makes it feel small.
    And when a dragon feels small, it
is.
    Small, however, is a relative term, which means that it can mean many things. A small lion is bigger than a large flea.
    As for a small dragon, it is about the size of a large dog. And such now proved to be the case.
    The crowd cheered again.
    "This is monstrous," said the dragon, looking over its shoulder to see what size it was
this
time. "You are breaking
all
the rules. St. George would have shown more consideration!"
    "My turn now!" cried the round gentleman, dancing up and down with impatience and trying to catch a look at the book. "'To Shrink a Dragon'—I know I saw it somewhere..."
    But the next turn proved to be the cats'.

 
    When the dragon had first come out of its lair, all the cats and kittens had hidden behind Mrs. Funkhouser's skirts. Now, as the fumes from the ammonia reached their sensitive nostrils, they said "Pig-whiff!", put back their ears, and peered out.
    What they saw seemed to be a large (and unusually ugly) dog at bay. As such, it was fair game for taunting. The cats had already had an extremely nerve-wracking morning, and they were in no gentle mood.
    They stalked forth, lashing their tails.
    You may have heard that an elephant is afraid of a mouse. With dragons and cats it is very much the same. I think it has to do with claws and scales. The one might so easily scratch off the other. You may have noticed your own cat with your mother's nylon stockings. It is the same principle.
    The dragon saw the cats coming and shrank in fear. And once it started shrinking, it couldn't seem to stop.
    It shrank from the size of a large collie to the size of a medium-sized poodle. The cats stood around it in a circle, glaring and spitting. The dragon took one look at them and shrank in fear again.
    It shrank to the size of a small Pekingese, and the cats and kittens approached it and rattled their claws against its sides.
    "This is unendurable," said the dragon. "You tickle."
    It shrank until it was the size of a mouse, and the cats played with it, batting it to and fro.
    It shrank until it was the size of a small lizard or salamander (or newt or eft). And its protesting voice died away in a faint squeak like the huffle of a snail in danger.
    Fredericka stood up and stretched herself and looked down at the shrunken dragon. It was laughable to think of its eating her now. She might more easily have eaten
it.
But she would have disdained to.
    It was someone else who did.
    As the five children watched in horrified fascination, the smallest kitten pounced on the dragon and gobbled it down as easily as it might have swallowed a fly. Then it looked around with a surprised expression. Then it purred.
    "Is that real purr, do you suppose?" said Abbie. "Or is it the dragon growling down there?"
    The kitten did not enlighten her. It went hurrying off to join its relations, who were trying to make friends with the field mice in a nearby cornfield (only the mice wouldn't).
    And now the crowd, which had been waiting at a safe distance, came up and surrounded the round gentleman and Mrs. Funkhouser, and more people appeared from the neighboring village, and they all cheered and some let off fireworks.
    "Three cheers for the wonderful wizard Oswaldo! And may he reign over us and rule the land forever! Three cheers for the respectable witch, too!" cried all the people.
    The round gentleman smiled and bowed and waved his hat. As for Mrs. Funkhouser, she pretended to be fussed and embarrassed, but you could tell she was enjoying the applause just as much as he was.
    "That wizard didn't do a thing, really," muttered Abbie to the others, under cover of the noise the people were making. "Mrs. Funkhouser and the cats did it all!"
    "I guess that's the way with