Tree house Dragons

This story is by Ginger A.Summers and was part of our 2020 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Tree house Dragons

 

Once there was a family of dragons. Mama Dragon, Olivia, loved to cook and create delightful meals. She also loved to make scrapbooks of her family. She was a beautiful pink dragon. Papa Dragon had glowing blue scales, the color of the sky. He loved to build. Samson had created their house in the tree. Also, in the family, Big Brother loved to hunt and scare people.  He also wrote magnificent stories. He was a fiery red dragon named Benedict. Since the family was the only one in the forest, his current nemesis was his little brother. The youngest in the family was Little Brother Dragon. He loved to draw and add inexhaustible magic to his drawings so that if someone were to touch them, they would get sucked in for an exciting adventure. He also liked to develop master sculptures out of Legos. His name was Sulley. He was a rainbow dragon.

One bright morning, Papa dragon said,” Let’s fly over the ocean.”

“What a great idea. I hope I can find some humans to scare,” said Benedict.

“Why do you always want to scare people? Don’t you think it would be fun to have a human friend?” said Sully.

“No, it’s more fun to hear them scream and watch them dart away,” said his big brother, darting toward Sully.

  “It is not. I think girls are cute and would be fun to play with,” squealed Sulley.

“Don’t be ridiculous, brother. It’s more fun to hear them scream,” laughed Benedict.

“Enough, boys! Stop arguing. Humans can be nice, but some are also mean. We are just going to fly and swim today. No scarring or finding people to play with,” said Mama Dragon.

Down in the woods beneath the dragons’ home was a small girl with deep blue eyes turned upward, looking at the trees. Her chestnut hair was an unruly mess and complimented her face’s olive skin which hadn’t been washed this morning. Exploring the woods was her favorite thing, and identifying trees was what she liked best of all. She walked further and further away from home, talking to herself as she pointed out different trees. She was looking for a friend who loved to climb trees and color and draw. Suddenly, she spied in the distance a grand tree house hidden at the top of a humongous tree in the forest. 

“I wonder who lives way up in the trees,” Mary said to herself. 

She knew she was the best climber of trees, so she shimmied her way up to the porch with a cedar door. She pushed the door open, greeted by the smell of cinnamon and apple pudding wafting through the air. 

“Anyone home? I’d like to play,” she said.

She called again, and still, no one answered. 

“I climbed up this far. I may as well explore,” said the young girl.

 Coming across four chairs, she bounced across each one with a shout of glee. She landed hard on a throne-like chair. She jumped back to the chair with pink pillows and brought one to the throne, pretending to be Queen ruling a mighty nation. She quickly grew tired of that game and found a chair that was carved into a pirate ship setting sail across the ocean on a grand adventure to find hidden treasure deep in the sea-cave. As she imagined setting sail, she spied an array of painted pictures. 

She dashed across the wooden floor like a lightning bolt to climb to the tabletop to explore the pictures. Looking at the first one, she felt the frosty air bite at her face as she grew nearer to the image. A swirling blizzard wind sucked her into the picture. As she became part of the drawing, her clothes changed to keep her warm. She became a scientist studying the rookery of penguins in Antarctica as she traveled across the page. She watched the penguins as they dove from a high cliff to the water far below. When she got too close to the edge, she tumbled over the cliff and out of that picture and into the next. 

She was in a picture of the rain forest full of dangerous animals she had read about in school. It was night, and she could hear the animals stalking her. Turning to face the coal-black panthers, a mighty blast from the sky scattered the panthers as Mary jumped to grasp vines as she swung on the vines across the page. 

She dropped into a painted sky above a dusky forest and flew across the sky. She had become a flower-covered dragon soaring across the sky and defeating the evil kings of the world. At the end of the page, she fell off the table, becoming a girl again.

She ventured to the bedrooms, ready to take a long nap. She peeked into the first room and then passed because she could tell it was an adults’ room. The second room she passed had dark walls, and the carpet consisted of blue, white, and blue-grey camouflage of the air force military uniforms. Entering the room, she was trapped by a net with sirens blaring. Strobe lights flashed a mighty dragon’s 3D image that threw a bucket of slimy worms that covered her body. Screaming, she struggled to untangle herself from the net’s worms and sprinted from the room. She saw a calming light coming from across the hall.

Drawn to the soothing colors of yellow and blue across the hall, her eyes relaxed. With posters of cute imaginary creatures plastered on the wall, she drifted toward a bed covered with silky-soft stuffed animals; she dug herself a little nook amidst the animals. She curled up like a pup in the middle of the hollow and sank into a deep slumber, like a bear hibernating in his den.

Returning from their outing, Papa dragon sniffed the air, “I smell a sweet flowery scent of lavender and buttercup drifting through the air.”

Sulley ran over to his paintings. “Someone has been playing in my painting. I can tell because of the indents across each picture.”

Olivia, Samson, and Benedict went to their chairs. 

Samson said, “Why are your pink pillows on my chair, Olivia?”

“I don’t know they weren’t there before we left.”

  Sulley quickly moved into his room, following the scent of lavender and buttercups. He quietly shut the door. Gingerly he climbed onto his bed, observing as the girl slept, admiring her beauty, he breathed in her sweet smells. He ran back to where the others were standing by the chairs.

He said,” I have a pet girl. She is curled up in my bed. Should I wake her and ask her to play?”

“No way, little brother. A human couldn’t climb this high,” said Benedict.

“She is there, too! Come and see. Quietly though, I don’t want you to scare her,” said Sulley.

Olivia followed quickly behind the boys as they headed to Sulley”s room.

“I want to keep her for my pet. Can I please, Mama?” Sulley pleaded.

“I don’t think you can keep her, but you can invite her to play,” said Olivia. She grabbed Benedict’s wing as she noticed his scales were becoming a deeper red and pulled him away.  “Oh no, you won’t scare the girl!”

After Olivia and Benedict left the room, Sully gently nudged Mary. “Hello. Will you play with me? I won’t hurt you.”

Startled awake and seeing two gentle eyes, scales, and horns, Mary squealed, “Yikes, don’t eat me!”

  Backing away, Sulley said,” I won’t hurt you. I want to be your friend.”

“I didn’t know dragons existed or could be friends,” she said.

“Sure enough, we do. We have been around for centuries. We just try to stay hidden,” Sulley said.

“How can we be friends?  I need to get back home soon?” said Mary.  

“How did you come to be in our home?”

“I walked a long way into the forest and saw it peeking at the top of one of the trees.”

“Remember how you got sucked into my pictures?  I can draw a picture of our tree house, and any time you want to play, jump into the drawing, and you will be here,” Sulley said.

“Thank you so much,” Mary said as Sulley handed her the quickly drawn picture that looked exactly like the tree house.  “I need to get home.” 

“Why don’t you climb out my window so you won’t have to run into my brother?”

Mary quickly shimmied down the tree and took off running toward her home.

When she got home, her mother asked, “Where have you been all day?”

“I went on an adventure through the woods and met a new friend,” Mary said.

What is your friend’s name?” Mother asked.

“His name is Sulley. We had a lot of fun using our boundless imaginations to create adventures.” 

She hung the picture above her bed and thought of her adventures as she drifted off to sleep.