by Jacqueline West •Art by Sara Palacios

Mae and the Dragon

Fun stories from

AE DIDN’T LIKE piano lessons. She didn’t like the piano itself.

She liked how it sounded when other people played it, their fingers rippling over the keys, drawing out sweeps and tumbles and tangles of notes. But Mae’s fingers refused to work that way. The beautiful music she heard in her head turned into horrible noise when it came out through her hands, which slipped and plonked and dribbled across the keyboard.

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But Mae did like going to her piano teacher’s house.Mrs. Young’s house was terrifyingly clean, full of vases

and statues and a baby grand piano with a keyboard so white that it looked like it had been bleached by a dentist. The good thing about Mrs. Young’s house wasn’t in the house at all. It was in the backyard. In the center of a fancy, flowery garden was a gigantic trampoline.

Mae made sure that she was early for her piano lesson every single week. She would dash into the backyard while other students tinkled away at the piano inside, and jump on the trampoline until her legs turned rubbery and her head felt as airy as a beach ball.

One fall afternoon, Mae jumped on the trampoline until she could almost see over the tiled roof of Mrs. Young’s house. She watched the edge of the roof tilt to meet her, and then, as she plunged back down, something just below the roof’s edge caught her eye.

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Mae squinted at the thing, jumping more slowly. Between the withered wisteria vines was one large, glittering black eye.

Mae stumbled off the trampoline. The thing on the wall didn’t move as Mae tottered

closer. She skirted a hibiscus bush and ducked beneath the vines.

Clinging to the stucco wall just beside an open window was a dragon. A very small dragon, but still most definitely a dragon—Mae had seen enough dragons in picture books to be sure. He was a little larger than a housecat, with glimmering blue skin and tiny diamond-shaped scales, and curling red whiskers that dwindled to gold tips. His black eye widened as Mae inched nearer.

Through the window, Mae could hear the plinking, twiddling sounds of another student playing “Für Elise.” She made her voice softer than the music.

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“Hello,” she whispered.“Hello,” the dragon whispered back. He had a deep voice,

almost like a cat’s purr. His whiskers curled nervously inward.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mae promised.“Thank you,” whispered the dragon. “I am not going to

hurt you, either.”“Good,” said Mae.The dragon sighed happily as the music changed to a

faster, rolling tune. “I like this one,” he said. His pale blue body began to change color, darkening to a shimmery aquamarine, and his whiskers flushed green and yellow.

“What are you doing on my piano teacher’s wall?” Mae whispered.

“Eating,” said the dragon.“Eating?”“I don’t like ‘Für Elise’ much,” said the dragon. “But

maybe that’s because I have it so often. I know it’s good for me, but I would rather eat almost anything else.”

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“That’s how I feel about broccoli,” said Mae. She watched the dragon’s long, anemone-like whiskers twitch as an arpeggio rippled out through the window. “You eat music?” she asked. “Is that why you’re sticking to Mrs. Young’s house?”

“I used to live beneath the stage in a big hall where an orchestra played. Every night, there was music of all different flavors.” The dragon shut his eyes dreamily. “Delicious.”

“Like a buffet,” said Mae, who had once been to a buffet with so many choices that she couldn’t finish two of her five desserts.

The student inside hit a wrong note, and then another, and then a blob of wrong notes that all came out together. “Oooh,” said the dragon. His scales turned a sickly shade of mustard yellow. “That bit went sour.”

“Like rotten broccoli,” said Mae. “But then the orchestra hall was torn down,” the

dragon went on. “I didn’t know where to go. I got very hungry. I’m not meant for the quiet or the cold.” The dragon gave a little shiver, remembering. “I wandered through the city for a while, feeding on scraps. Then, one night, at the end of a quiet street, I heard someone playing Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Major . . .” His voice grew misty again. “And that’s how I found my way here.”

The dragon’s shiny eyes met Mae’s. “Nobody has ever seen me before,” he said. “You must be part dragon.”

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“I don’t think so,” said Mae.“Well, do you like music as much as I do?”“I like it when it sounds good,” said Mae. “When I play,

it sounds like rotten broccoli.” She reached out with one finger. “Can I pet you?”

“That would be nice,” said the dragon. He held perfectly still as Mae stroked his scales. A little trail of pink followed her fingertip through the shimmery aquamarine.

Inside the house, the music stopped. “Mae!” called Mrs. Young. “Come in, please!”“I have to go,” Mae whispered to the dragon. “But I’ll

see you soon!”This time, as she played her scales for Mrs. Young, Mae

set down each finger slowly and carefully. She imagined the notes floating away from the piano and through the window, like wafting scents of roasted chicken and fresh chocolate cake.

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One week later, Mae raced across Mrs. Young’s backyard without stopping to bounce on the trampoline. The dragon was still clinging to the wall above the window. His whiskers still twitched with streams of color, but the hues were fainter and slower now, like the water flowing from a paintbrush that is nearly rinsed clean.

Another student was playing a Bach motet. The dragon’s belly flushed with sweet, soft pink, but the rest of his body was gray.

“Hi,” Mae whispered, crouching behind the wisteria vines. “You look different. Are you all right?”

“It’s getting cold out here,” the dragon whispered back. “Especially at night.”

Mae glanced around Mrs. Young’s backyard. The leaves on the trees were turning yellow, and the flowers were gone, their stems floppy and brown.

“The piano lady keeps the window closed more and more,” the dragon added. “Then I only get crumbs.”

“We have to find someplace indoors where you can stay,” said Mae.

“Someplace with music?” The dragon’s whiskers twitched hopefully.

“Maybe the music room at my school!” Mae suggested. “But there would be no music on the weekends, and months of no music in the summertime.” She frowned, thinking.

“Mae!” shouted Mrs. Young, making both of them jump. “It’s time for your lesson!”

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Waving goodbye to the dragon, Mae hurried inside. She tried to play well, but now she was too worried to get all the notes right.

That week, the weather turned cold. Frost crystallized on the lawns. Leaves began to fall from the trees.

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All week long, Mae tried to think of a home for the dragon. She didn’t know any real musicians except for Mrs. Young, and she felt certain that the piano teacher wouldn’t want to share her spotless house with a dragon, even if he was invisible to her. And what if Mrs. Young went away for a trip, and unknowingly locked the dragon inside for days with no music to eat? That would be terrible. Mae thought and thought about the dragon, and woke up every morning to think about him some more.

By her next lesson, she had a plan.

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Mae ran through Mrs. Young’s backyard, right past the trampoline. She ducked behind the rattling wisteria vines and stared up at the stucco wall. At first, she was sure the dragon had disappeared. But then one of his black eyes blinked.

Mae stared up at the dragon. His scales were a faint, chalky gray, almost the color of cement. His whiskers were like dead grass. The piano student inside the house played a scale, and Mae watched a vein of faint blue slide slowly through the dragon’s skin, like water poured into a dusty glass.

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“You can’t stay here anymore,” Mae whispered. The dragon didn’t move.“You should come home with me. I’ll take care of you.

I’ll do my best.” Mae reached up and ran one finger over the dragon’s chilly skin. “I promise.”

Carefully, as though he might crumble if he moved too fast, the dragon inched down the wall toward Mae’s arms. His body was heavy, and surprisingly warm in the middle, but his tail and toes were freezing cold.

Mae unzipped her backpack, where she had put her fuzziest, warmest blanket, and settled the dragon inside. Then she tiptoed into Mrs. Young’s spotless living room and waited for her lesson to begin.

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Afterward, back at her own house, Mae hurried to her bedroom and closed the door. She lifted the dragon gently out of her backpack. His skin was still pale gray, but his toes weren’t quite so icy.

“Are you hungry?” Mae whispered.The dragon’s voice was hoarse and small. “A snack

would be nice.”“I have an idea.” Mae took her iPod and headphones

down from her bookshelf. “With recordings, the notes are never wrong, and you can eat anytime you want!”

The dragon blinked at the iPod. “That’s music?”“I’ll show you.” Mae placed the headphones over the

dragon’s ears—or over the spot where his ears seemed to be. “Ready?” She turned on the 1812 Overture.

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The dragon’s eyes widened. His nose snuffled softly. “I can smell it,” he said, “but I can’t taste it.”“Hmm.” Mae tugged the headphones away. “So the

music needs to be fresh. I guess we’ll move on to plan B.”With the dragon tucked under one arm, Mae tiptoed

back down the hall to the living room. She raised the lid of the old upright piano. Inside, rows and rows of wires twined down into the dimness, where fuzzy hammers waited to tap them.

“Can you climb inside?” Mae asked.The dragon slipped over the top of the piano. He

padded down into the big wooden box like a person climbing into a warm bath. Mae waited until he had settled inside.

“How about some Haydn?” Mae whispered into the piano.

“Please,” the dragon whispered back.Mae opened her piano book and began to play a

minuet. It was in the easy, cheerful key of C, but with tricky sets of triplets scattered through the melody. Mae kept her eyes on the music, making her fingers move slowly, thoughtfully, imagining each note feeding the little dragon.

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Her mother’s head popped through the kitchen door. “Mae,” she said, surprised. “You’re practicing? Right after your lesson?”

Mae nodded, not stopping. She made it to the last chord without too many

wrong notes. Then, making sure her mother wasn’t watching, she peeped under the piano lid.

The dragon had turned a soft pink color.“Thank you,” he whispered. “That was very tasty.”

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Mae remembered to feed the dragon every single day. At first, she played the easy classical pieces in her piano books, and the dragon blushed with pale pastels. Then she moved on to her favorite songs from the movies, and then to jazz and ragtime and Broadway. The dragon turned astonishingly bright colors—red and gold for Scott Joplin, sparkly blue and emerald and violet for Stephen Sondheim. She learned to play her first Chopin nocturne, and the dragon’s scales turned shimmery black with silver flickers, like stars in a night sky.

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On lesson days, Mae carried the dragon inside her backpack to Mrs. Young’s house, so he could listen to the other students. When the weather grew warmer, she took him to the park, where guitarists and drummers and string ensembles performed in the big stone band shell while Mae and the dragon sprawled on the grass, soaking in the music and the sun.

Eventually, Mrs. Young gave Mae a book of Beethoven sonatas. Mae practiced and practiced, removing the sour notes, making the music ripple and soar, until one day she played an entire piece without a mistake. And, for the very first time, the music that she heard in her head was the same music that poured out through her fingertips. She took her hands off the keys, listening to the note still ringing softly through the piano strings.

Inside the piano, the dragon gave a sigh. “Delicious,” he murmured. Then, from the depths of the piano, Mae heard a low, satisfied burp.

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