Cara and Her Dragon

Cara and Her Dragon

By S. L. Bend

Written May 14^th 1997

Once in a small village there lived a young girl named Cara. She lived with her mother and father in a tiny and insignificant cottage that was seated in the middle of the cheerful town.

Cara loved nature. She often frolicked in the deep forest that surrounded the village. The animals that lived there got to know Cara and soon trusted her as one of their own. She was the pride of her parents. Everyone in the town was jealous, they wanted Cara for their very own, and who wouldn’t. she was small for her age of eight, but strong. Her hair was as black as ebony and flowed all the way down to her waist curling just a little at the bottom. Emerald was the color of her eyes, and they shined with intelligence that was past her age. Despite her young beauty what stood out most about Cara was her kindness, never was she so hurried to go to play that she couldn’t stop to help a fellow villager carry a load, or an extra pail of water.

Everyone in town adored her, everyone, but her mean uncle Staton. But that was to be expected. Staton hated every child brought into this world. The peaceful village tried their best to stay away from the mean old man, on the few occasions that he left his drafty old mansion and came to town. You could always tell when Staton was near, one could smell him a mile away. It was the smell of cruelty, a foul pulsing odor that was like a hundred deaths as it winded through your senses. His horrible smell coupled with the sound of his cane as it dragged along the earth announced his dreaded arrival. Even though he was not much more then forty-five his crippled gnarled appearance made him look eighty. Everyone wondered how such a wonderful family could be cursed with such a horrible relative.

Then one day Cara’s parents never made it home for lunch, and when supper came she walked through the town asking fellow towns people if they had seen them. “When was the last time you saw them dear?” asked the town hat maker who’s purple hat had a large yellow flower sticking out of it.

“This morning before I went out to play. I came home for lunch and they were gone.”

“Why don’t we talk to the sheriff? He might know where they are.” The woman and the girl made their way to the sheriff’s house. After visiting with him for awhile they found that he knew nothing. Then the sheriff became very concerned.

“It’s strange. Parents shouldn’t leave their small children alone. Let’s go have a look around the house.” But, after a long search around that house they found nothing. It was like they had just vanished.

“I think we need to call a town meeting,” the sheriff said to the hat maker after the long search was over. “I’ll get the people together,” she replied, “Cara, if we don’t find your parents tonight why don’t you stay with me.”

“Yes Ma’am,” Cara said looking down at her feet while tears dropped from her eyes down to the wooden floor.

Months passed, and even though each day people were out looking for them, nothing ever came of it, but Cara never gave up hope. Everyday she set out with the workers to try to find something, but everyday was a failure.

One day they gave up looking for her parents, and began to look for any close relatives that Cara could go live with. The only one that came up was Staton. The villagers tried everything they could to try to prevent her from living with the cruel man, but the law was the law, and sadly one day the villagers watched from afar to see Cara’s dispirited face fade away into the distance behind he uncle.

Time past and people forgot about little Cara. Since that dreadful day no one had seen her and no one had the courage to knock on Staton’s door to demand to see little Cara unharmed. Only rumor were known. Some said she died. Other believed that she ran away, but no one ever knew for sure.

Sadly, they were all mistaken. Her cruel uncle had locked her in a draft room in his mansion and made her into his servant, only to leave her ghastly prison room to do back-breaking chores. She had found out many terrible things about her uncle in the time that she was prisoner there. He was an evil sorcerer and spent almost all of his time in his dungeon thinking of new and terrible things to do to the world. He was very disappointed with his last creation. Staton had thought that this one was the one that would work, but the wrong mixture of ingredients caused a reversed effect. Now the creation was locked in one of the terrible prison rooms to remain for all time.

One night while Staton slept Cara broke off the rusty and decaying lock that had held her captive for ten long years. She scurried down the night infested hallway, carefully trying to avoid the boards that usually creaked in protest under her feet. After ten long minutes of searching that felt like ten centuries she found the rickety old steps that led to her uncle’s dungeon. The staircase twisted into an uneven spiral, at the bottom you could hear the indistinct cries and bellows of captive animals that were used in his experiments. Beads of sweaty fear surged down her face. Since she had never been down to this part of the mansion she was afraid to see what was down there. As she drew closer to the bottom an appalling smell that made her spine curl sliced through her nostrils. It was the smell of helpless animals that had rotted down there and it was the smell of dreadful ingredients for disgusting experiments. It got so strong she had to cover her nose and breathe through her mouth and even that was intolerable.

As she walked through the evil place a sad almost crying sound. As she walked it got louder. Then, Cara came upon a door that was shut and locked but luckily, Staton didn’t take the rusty key out of this key hole confident that no one would ever dare to snoop down here. Cara held her breath, turned the key and swung the door open. There stood the most beautiful dragon that had ever lived. They stared at each other. Cara trembled with fear. The dragon opened its ferocious looking mouth and gently said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not bad like he wanted me to be.”

Cara was too stunned to talk. She could only stare at the magnificent beast that stood before her. Finally she found her tongue and said in a small whisper, “Where did you come from?”

“The Mean man made me, he wanted me to be cruel and ferocious but I guess he used the wrong spell.” The dragon went on and on to Cara about why he had been living down in the terrible dungeon and what Staton had planned for him before he realized that this dragon was useless for destruction. “If I don’t find a way to escape soon Staton will destroy me.”

“I want to escape too,” Cara said to him. “I know, let’s run away from here, tonight.”

That is perfect. You’ll have to unlock me from these chains though, uh, what’s your name?”’

“Cara, and yours?”

“Lagone,” replied the dragon

Cara found the same skeleton key that opened the door unlocked the chain that bound Lagone to the wall. She unlocked the padlock and slipped it off his great long neck. Lagone tossed his head and told Cara to climb on, just as Stanton came hobbling down the winding staircase to see what all the racket was.

“CARA HOW DARE YOU!!” screamed Staton when he saw her trying to climb onto Lagone’s tall back.

Cara shrieked and quickly scrambled onto Lagone. The dragon let out a colossal roar that knocked Staton onto his back. Then they dashed across the dungeon floor and broke through the wall freeing both of them from the evil Staton forever.

They both lived happily ever after, Staton disappeared and was never heard from again.

THE END