Phoebe the Moonlight Dragon Page 3

  Even better, it had begun to glow like pure silver.

  “It’s found a pathway to the moonlight!” DasherGirl said, waving her tail.

  Phoebe thought she could probably squeeze though the gap in the rocks now, but it wasn’t wide enough for flying.

  DasherGirl seemed to know what she was thinking. “You will have to climb up,” she explained. “As the Moonlight Dragon, you’ll be fine.”

  “And Rosie and Stella will be, too, right?” Phoebe said.

  DasherGirl shook her head. “Moonbeam ropes are difficult to climb. You are the only Night Dragon with moonlight flowing through your veins.”

  Phoebe hated the idea of leaving her friends down here. Plus, she didn’t want to take the Dreamlets up a rope all by herself.

  “Why don’t you try at least?” she urged Stella and Rosie.

  First Rosie and then Stella took turns tugging on the moonbeam rope. But both were able to climb only a short way before they slipped back down to the ground.

  “It’s impossible to hold on to!” Stella groaned.

  Rosie agreed. “It’s so slippery! And I’m still pooped from that swim.” This was not what Phoebe wanted to hear.

  A few Fire Sparks appeared and buzzed around Phoebe. They seemed to know when she was getting frustrated almost before she did. Phoebe took a deep, calming breath. Then she nodded and smiled. She felt her angry feelings flitter away until she felt like her normal, calm self again.

  “Okay, you rest here. I’ll take the Dreamlets up. Then we’ll figure out a way to get you out.” She turned to the Dreamlets. “You guys, climb onto my back,” she instructed them. “And don’t let go.”

  In a flash, the Dreamlets wriggled up onto Phoebe’s back, tail, and head. They were very warm and a little ticklish.

  “You kind of look like cotton candy,” chuckled Stella. “Cotton candy with a dragon tail.”

  “Nah,” Rosie said, tilting her head to get a better look. “You look more like a fancy feather duster.”

  Despite the situation, Phoebe couldn’t help laughing. Her friends knew how to make her feel good, no matter how serious things were.

  Laughing also cleared away the remains of her negative feelings, and Phoebe grabbed hold of the magic rope, ready to climb.

  As soon as she touched the moonbeam rope, it was clear DasherGirl had been right. Phoebe could feel the power of the moon surging through her.

  “You’re glowing like a full moon!” Rosie marveled.

  Phoebe expected the climbing to be difficult, especially after seeing her friends struggle. But for Phoebe, the climb was easy. In fact, it almost felt like the moon-charged rope was pulling her up.

  Phoebe climbed quickly and smoothly. Up and up she went. Soon she reached the gap in the rocks. As she climbed through, her way was lit up by the glow of the rope and her own scales.

  At this point, the Dreamlets began to hum a happy little tune.

  Nearly there! thought Phoebe.

  Right near the top, the gap in the rocks narrowed. Phoebe wasn’t sure if she was going to fit through.

  “Hold tight!” she warned the Dreamlets. “This is going to be squishy.”

  Clutching on to the moonbeam rope, Phoebe reached one strong claw up after the other. She could finally see the moon above her, beaming down. It was looking redder than ever, which was a worry. Still, she’d nearly made it back to the surface.

  But as she edged through the narrow gap with the Dreamlets clinging to her back, Phoebe felt a sharp pain in her leg. Ouch! She looked down and saw a pointy rock jutting out. There was a deep cut in her scales, and it oozed blood. But this was not ordinary red blood. This was a pale silvery color. It was like pure moonlight. DasherGirl was right. She really did have moonlight running through her veins!

  Phoebe gritted her teeth as the wound began to throb. She couldn’t let this accident stop her. Gripping hard on the rope, she tried to keep climbing. Pain tore up her leg. It was no good. The cut was too deep.

  This can’t be happening! Phoebe groaned to herself. It was so annoying to be so close that she could feel the moonlight on her face but not be able to make it out. How was she going to climb when she couldn’t move her leg?

  There was a crackling sound, and a cluster of blazing Fire Sparks appeared. It was bad enough dealing with the Fire Sparks when she could swish them away with her wings and powerful tail. It was much worse when she was climbing a rope with a badly injured leg!

  The Dreamlets on Phoebe’s back had stopped their happy singing and were making little worried sounds. The more frustrated Phoebe became, the more Fire Sparks appeared. Soon they were buzzing all around her face, like flies in a scorching desert. Worse, they were frightening the Dreamlets.

  This was not how she wanted this quest to go.

  The ground began to shudder. Phoebe looked around. Was that an earthquake? But then she noticed a glowing blue-and-purple mist. She watched as the mist gathered around her bleeding leg. Strangely, the throbbing seemed to fade a bit. As the mist settled, it also looked like the bleeding was slowing down.

  A huge grin stretched across Phoebe’s dragon face. This was no earthquake. This was the roar of her friends!

  “That’s so smart!” DasherGirl said, shaking her antlers in delight. “They’re roaring, and because they’re such good friends, their roar is healing you!”

  The Dreamlets let out a happy cheer. If they’d had hands, Phoebe was pretty sure they’d be clapping them.

  Phoebe tried to wriggle her foot. Her leg still hurt, but it was better than it had been a few moments ago.

  Maybe it will help if I roar, too? she wondered.

  It was worth a try. She filled her lungs and roared. It billowed up, illuminating everything in a moonlight-colored fog. A moment later, she heard her friends joining in.

  The Dreamlets tried to roar as well. It was more like squealing than roaring, but Phoebe appreciated the effort.

  Phoebe watched in delight as the roar gathered like a healing bandage around her wound. The throbbing stopped, and when the mist cleared, Phoebe gasped. Not only had the bleeding stopped, but the gash had disappeared entirely!

  Even better, the power of their roar caused the rocks all around her to crumble. Dust swirled, joining the glow of the Night Dragons’ roars. With a loud groan, the earth seemed to split open.

  The Dreamlets squealed in delight. There was now enough space for Phoebe to stretch out her wings.

  “Hold on, Dreamlets,” she called. “It’s time to fly!”

  Phoebe flapped her wings and flew up the last little way to the surface. It was wonderful to land on the soft grass and feel the night air against her scales.

  The Dreamlets jumped off her back and quickly wriggled over to a patch of moonlight.

  Phoebe watched as the magical rope shrank to its normal size and floated back to join the ball of thread suspended from her necklace. Up in the sky, the Fire Moon was living up to its name. It looked like it could catch the sky on fire.

  She hoped the moonlight would be cool enough to recharge the Dreamlets, even if it was fiery moonlight. There was something else on her mind, too. Her friends! How was she going to get them out of the underground cave? They had helped her get out of a tight spot. Now it was her turn to help them.

  But happily, this was one thing Phoebe did not have to worry about. Stella and Rosie burst out of the hole and flopped onto the grass beside her, breathless but laughing.

  “So it turns out that I am not very good at flying straight up!” Stella said, rubbing her head with her wing.

  “Yeah, I figured that by the way you kept headbutting my tail!” Rosie chuckled.

  Phoebe was SO happy to see them! All the tension she had felt down in the cave had disappeared, and the three friends hugged.

  “That was amazing,” Phoebe said, shaking her head in disbelief. “How did you know that your roar would heal my leg?”

  “We didn’t! We just wanted to roar our support,” Rosie said.

  “There’s not much our roars can’t do,” Stella said proudly. “Hey, look who’s here!” She pulled out of the hug.

  Behind them, the Newt Nurses had appeared and were busy fussing over the Dreamlets.

  “Are they okay?” Phoebe called.

  “They’re not hurt,” reported one of the nearby newts, “but they are weak. The Fire Moon is not giving them the nourishment they need. They need to get closer to the moon. Can you take them to the Dream Clouds?”

  Phoebe and her friends looked at one another. On their last quest they had gone to the Hope Clouds. Were the Dream Clouds similar?

  As usual, DasherGirl seemed to know what the Night Dragons were thinking. “The Dream Clouds are a layer higher than the Hope Clouds,” she explained.

  “Do we go back to the sunset ray station?” Rosie asked. “Or can we fly?”

  DasherGirl shook her little head. “You can’t fly that high. And the moon is up, so the sunset rays have set. You will have to use a moonbeam spring to get up there.”

  Phoebe wasn’t sure she liked the sound of a moonbeam spring. In the real world she was NOT into wild activities like bungee jumping. It was the sort of thing she watched online and thought, I’ll never, ever do that!

  But Phoebe was learning that she was capable of far more than she’d realized in the Magic Forest. If DasherGirl thought it was possible to spring through the air on a moonbeam, then maybe it was! There did seem to be an obvious problem, though.

  “Where do we get a moonbeam?” she asked. “It’s not like they’re just lying around.”

  The Newt Nurses all looked at her in surprise. “There’s one right there!” The nearest newt pointed.

  Sure enough, a beam of moonlight was shining through the clouds and hitting the edge of the Moon Lake. It glowed with silvery magic. Phoebe reached out her paw, expecting it to pass through the milky blue light.

  Instead, her paw felt the moonbeam as a solid, tingling rope.

  “That’s it!” said DasherGirl. “Moonbeams are stronger and bouncier than anything else in the Magic Forest.”

  Phoebe gave her moonbeam a little pull and felt it bounce back up with a force that flung her into the air. She shouted with joy as she landed back on the ground.

  “Guys,” she called. “This is SO fun. You pull the moonbeam down and it catapults you into the sky!”

  Rosie and Stella quickly found glowing moonbeams of their own to test.

  Once they were all set, the Newt Nurses bustled around getting the Dreamlets arranged on the backs of the dragons.

  “Behave yourselves, little ones,” the Newt Nurses told their small charges. “And make sure you soak up as much moonlight as you can on the Dream Clouds. It will make you big and strong.”

  The Dreamlets made soft, sleepy sounds by way of reply.

  Phoebe smiled at her friends.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ready,” called Stella and Rosie.

  Gripping tightly onto her moonbeam, Phoebe took a breath, tucked in her wings, and pulled with all her might. The powerful moonbeam sprang back with incredible force.

  Phoebe was zooming toward the clouds!

  The air rushed past Phoebe’s scales as she and the others whooshed up through the night sky. Higher and higher they soared. Soon the clouds loomed large up ahead.

  “This is amazing!” Stella whooped. She was soaring along, holding tight to her moonbeam and smiling from one dragon ear to the other. Not far behind was Rosie, who had wrapped the moonbeam around her middle and was doing twirls like a circus performer.

  DasherGirl fluttered beside Phoebe. “The Dream Clouds are just ahead,” she reported.

  Phoebe could see a thick layer of silvery cloud. It looked like it had been sprinkled with glitter.

  “Once we pass into the clouds, let go of your moonbeam,” DasherGirl said. “I’ll tell you when.”

  Phoebe closed her eyes as they entered the silvery clouds. She got a whiff of lavender. When she opened her eyes again, Phoebe and her friends were on the other side of the clouds.

  “Okay, Night Dragons. Let go of your moonbeams now!” instructed DasherGirl.

  Phoebe took a deep breath and let go. She and the others stopped zooming up, and for a moment were suspended in midair. Then they floated down toward the layer of clouds just below. The clouds were puffy and beautiful except for the reddish glow cast on them by the Fire Moon.

  “We can’t fly up here, right?” asked Stella as they drifted lower.

  “No, but look! We can use our wings to glide.” Rosie stretched out her elegant twilight-colored wings.

  Phoebe and Stella did the same, and together, the three friends landed on the huge Dream Cloud.

  They were suddenly surrounded by little cloudlike creatures.

  “Are they Sky Skimmers?” Stella whispered. “They look a bit like the ones we met on our last quest.”

  “Hmm, these are different. They’re more wispy and see-through,” Rosie said.

  “We are cousins,” one of the little cloud creatures explained. “But there’s no time to chat about family resemblances. What has happened to these Dreamlets?”

  “They are so thin and weak,” cried another Sky Skimmer, sounding outraged. “Who has been looking after them?”

  Phoebe knew that the Sky Skimmers did not mean to be rude. But the Dragon Girls had been through so much to get the Dreamlets here. A thank-you would be nice!

  Suddenly, a gasp went up among the Sky Skimmers. “NOOOO! How did THEY get here?”

  Phoebe’s insides lurched. Fire Sparks! The Sky Skimmers whooshed back and forth in a panic.

  “Fire Sparks have NEVER been this high before!” DasherGirl said. “The Dream Clouds have always been a safe space for the dreams of the forest. This is very serious!”

  As DasherGirl was speaking, Phoebe smelled something. Something awful. Whirling around, she saw that wherever the Fire Sparks were buzzing, the clouds were smoking! Would they catch fire? The angry feelings in Phoebe’s chest grew.

  How dare those sparks do this? Looking across at her friends, Phoebe could see they were angry with the Fire Sparks, too. But the angrier they got, the more Fire Sparks appeared. And the brighter and hotter they became!

  “We must stay calm,” Phoebe called, as much to herself as to the others.

  The Fire Sparks rose up in one big, buzzing cloud. They hovered above the Night Dragons.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” muttered Rosie as the Fire Sparks began to dive-bomb them.

  The Night Dragons hurried to shield all the Dreamlets from the Fire Sparks with their wings. Luckily their thick scales meant the Dragon Girls did not get hurt, but the attacks weren’t fun. More and more Fire Sparks appeared.

  “I am really trying not to get mad,” Stella said through gritted teeth, “but it’s tough. I feel like someone terrible is throwing sparklers at me.”

  “I know what you mean!” Rosie groaned. “And the Dreamlets look weaker than ever, poor things.”

  By now, Phoebe was feeling so worked up that it was hard to think straight. Come on, she urged herself. There HAS to be a way to beat the Fire Sparks. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, blocking out all the blazing lights. It was odd how, even though she hated the dark, she often did her best thinking with her eyes closed. It was the opposite of what you’d expect. The opposite? Phoebe’s mind whirred on that one word, opposite.

  Opening her eyes, she looked over at her friends. “Instead of trying to squash our anger, let’s let it out. In a roar!” she whispered. “We need a roar that’s big enough to drown out all these sparks AND cool down the Fire Moon.”

  Getting really mad was going to be MUCH easier than trying to squish the feelings down! Plus, her mom always told her that was no good anyway.

  Stella and Rosie grinned and nodded.

  The Fire Sparks seemed to sense that something was up. They were buzzing and attacking the Dragon Girls even more furiously. But that was fine. The madder she and her friends got, the better!

  The three Night Dragons breathed in deeply and then roared as one. It felt so good! Phoebe took all her frustration and channeled it into her roar.

  Take that, Fire Sparks! she thought triumphantly. The Night Dragons aren’t going to let the bullies win.

  Their mixed roar was incredible. Dazzling moonlight colors billowed up around Phoebe. Her moonlight roar mixed in with the twilight colors of Rosie’s roar and the bright starlight of Stella’s. There were so many blues and pinks and purples!

  Their roar made the clouds tremble. The power of it was too much for the Fire Sparks. The combined roar of the Night Dragons surrounded the sparks, whipping around them like a brightly colored tornado.

  When the roar’s mist had settled, there wasn’t a single Fire Spark to be seen.

  The Night Dragons tucked their wings back in and looked down at the little Dreamlets. They were safe!

  Weirdly, rather than tiring out Phoebe, roaring had made her feel stronger. She looked over at her friends. Stella and Rosie had stopped roaring and started to laugh and cheer. They looked so happy and relieved, it was impossible for Phoebe not to join in.

  The Night Dragons collapsed on the wispy soft clouds. It felt so good to relax. It was like they were at one of their sleepovers, making one another laugh uncontrollably during a pillow fight.

  Phoebe sat up and looked around. Something was different. What was it? Then it dawned on her what had changed.

  There was no longer an ominous red glow to the moonlight.

  “Look!” Rosie cried, also sitting up. “The Fire Moon is gone!”

  Phoebe gazed up at the moon. It was once again calm, silver, and beautiful. Exactly how it should be.

  The Sky Skimmers had returned and were floating around, beaming. “You did it!” they cried joyfully. “And look how healthy the Dreamlets are now.”

  It was true. The Dreamlets looked strong and cheery again. With just a few moments in the cool moonlight, they’d become extra fluffy. They leapt through the air in joyful, dreamy arcs.