The Flower Children Are Born - Part 2

One day; Rose, Violet and Lilly were walking through the forest where they lived when they came upon a gnome who was fighting off a golden and silver coloured dragon that was grabbing at its knapsack with its jaws.

“Oh, that poor old gnome!”, said Rose, “We should do something to help although I don’t know what”.

But then, all of a sudden, magical blue lightning shot from Rose’s fingertips and gave the dragon such a terrible shock that it flew away, leaving the gnome unharmed.

“Why, thank you ladies”, said the gnome, raising his large floppy hat, courteously, to them, “I’m very grateful to you for helping me. Now, if you can just point me in the direction of some lodgings then I will be on my way”.

Rose was quite speechless; still very startled by the magical lightning which had sprung from her fingers but Lilly told the old gnome, “There are no houses near here, not for miles, except for the toadstool house of our mother Clara. You are welcome to spend the night there if you wish”.

“Very kind”, said the gnome, raising his floppy hat again.

Then the gnome went with them to their mushroom house and Clara made some porridge for the gnome to eat and Rose told Clara all about the dragon and about the lightning that had sprung out of her fingers .

“Oh, well that makes sense my dear”, said Clara, “For all three of you are magic children and so you are bound to have some peculiar gifts”.

But then, all of a sudden, outside the mushroom house, they heard a terrible roaring and, looking out of the kitchen window, they all saw the huge, golden and silver dragon again and it looked very angry indeed.

“Why in the world would that dragon have followed you here?”, wondered Clara.

“You know what dragons are like”, said the gnome, quivering with fear, “Vicious, mean, nasty creatures that gobble up poor helpless old gnomes!”.

“No, no, no”, said Clara, who loved and knew all of the creatures in her forest well, “That dragon is a gold and silver dragon and they only eat plants and vegetables and are usually very peaceful and gentle. Someone must have done something to it to make it so angry”.

“Well, I certainly haven’t done anything to it”, said the gnome, defensively.

But then Lilly winced in pain and covered up her ears, “What was that awful sound?”, she said.

“What sound was that?”, asked her sister Violet, “I didn’t hear anything?”.

“I’m not sure but it sounded horrible. Like screeching and squawking and squealing”, answered Lilly.

But then the gnome repeated that he had done nothing to harm the dragon and again Lilly covered her ears, wincing in discomfort.

“Hmm? Perhaps it was the sound of a lying gnome”, thought Clara who was very wise in most things
and she quickly snatched up the gnomes knapsack that was sitting on the kitchen table and, as the gnome grumbled and cursed and yelled in protest, she peeked inside.

“Just as I thought”, she then said, as she reached in and pulled out a large glittering object that looked like a jewel.

“Grrr! Give that back”, shouted the gnome, “It’s my jewel! Mine! I found it and I’ll keep it!”.

“But Mr. Gnome”, said Clara, “This is not a jewel. It’s a dragons egg. You must have stolen it from the dragons nest. That poor dragon out there is just a mother defending one of her children”.

But then, suddenly, there was a burst of dragon flame from the mouth of the gold and silver dragon that set the curtains in the windows of Clara’s kitchen on fire.

“Alright!”, said the gnome, cowering beneath the kitchen table, “Let the stupid dragon have her stupid jewel-egg-whatever but who’ll give it back to her?”.

“Perhaps, I can”, said Violet, taking hold of the egg before stepping bravely from the toadstool house and addressing the angry dragon in fluent dragonese.

“Here is your egg, Mrs Dragon”, she told the gold and silver scaly creature, placing the egg on the ground infront of it, “The foolish Gnome didn’t know it was an egg. He thought it was a stone. Please can you forgive him?”.

The dragon, who was not a vengeful sort of creature, seemed only concerned with getting its egg back and so, satisfied with Violet’s apology, picked up the egg in her claws and flew away back to her cave in the hills.

“Phew! That was certainly close”, said the gnome, picking up his knapsack and hurrying out of the door, “Thank goodness, your daughter was able to speak in the dragons own flaming tongue”.

But, just as the gnome was half way out of the door, Clara seized him firmly by one of his pointy ears, “Just a minute, you!”, she said, “You owe my daughters an apology for lying to them even though they showed you such kindness”.

And so the gnome, fishing about among the many trinkets in his knapsack, took out a pendant which he gave to Lilly as way of an apology, “Take this pendant. It will make you invisible if you wish it to. It was how I managed to steal the gem-egg thing from the nest of that horrible dragon”, he said.

Then the gnome ran off as quickly as his short gnomish legs could carry him and Lilly tried on the pendant which, just as the gnome had said, made her invisible from crown to sole.

Then Clara hugged her three daughters tightly, “What three very talented daughters, I have”, she said, smiling broadly, “My daughter, Rose, who shoots thunderbolts from her fingertips. My daughter, Lilly, who cannot hear a lie without it making a terrible cacophony and my daughter Violet who can speak to nature. Why, I am a very fortunate woman indeed”.