Aliens, Critters, and Dinosaurs

Dog Biscuits, Dragons, and Toothaches

This is the story of a dragon with a toothache.

Dog Biscuits, Dragons, and Toothaches

Long ago when the world was new, a dragon named Beastly ruled the mountain. All the people hated Beastly because of his horrible, horrible breath. (If you’d ever smelled the breath of a person eating garlic, onions, and radishes all at the same time, you’d know just what I mean, because that’s exactly what Beastly’s breath was like.)

Mostly, people left the dragon alone, but he became beastlier and beastlier, until the nearest town to his cold, dark cave had to hire a dragon-killer. The town was very poor because all the rich people had run away from the dragon’s bad breath, so the town couldn’t hire a good dragon-killer. They had to hire a part-time knight.

That knight, whose name was Cryh, had once been very famous, but times had been hard. One late afternoon, when he couldn’t afford to pay for a place to bed down, he’d been forced to sleep out in the rain. You can imagine what that did to the knight’s armor. (Metal rusts, which is why you could hear him grinding and groaning from miles away.)

Now Cryh wasn’t very enthusiastic about killing a dragon. He kind of liked them, but he hadn’t eaten in two years. So, scuffing his rusted shoes, he slowly trudged up the hill. (Okay, his shoes weren’t really rusted, but the rust juice from his armor dripped down on and into his shoes, and it pooled where his shoestring holes were, so his shoes were practically rusted, and they squeaked.)

The townspeople gave Cryh a dog biscuit as payment (I told you they were poor, remember?), and Cryh nibbled on that dog biscuit as he made his way up the hill toward the dragon’s cave. Of course, Cryh didn’t walk very quietly, and he didn’t go very fast. Can you picture it? (Creak, crick, squeak, creak, crick, squeak. . .)

Well, Beastly, the dragon, heard that terrible noise, and he stuck his big, ugly head out the door of his cave, and he said, “Hey! I’m trying to sleep here. What ya’ doing?”

Cryh would have answered, but his mouthpiece had rusted shut when he’d drooled while eating the dog biscuit. So, Cryh said, “Uhguhguhg.”

Beastly started wondering what “uhguhguhg” meant. He didn’t want to send a bowling ball down the mountain, which is how he usually got rid of the young, dashingly handsome princes who came to save the princess he kept tied in the cave. He knew that, if he bowled the knight down the mountain, he’d never find out what “uhguhguhg” meant, and he was a very curious dragon.

So he did what any normal dragon would do. He flew down the mountain, ignoring the nasty remarks of the extremely lovely (and stuck-up) princess who sat next to his treasure chest of jewels.

Down at the bottom of the mountain where the knight stood, all rusted up and stiff, the dragon said, “What does ‘uhguhguhg’ mean?”

The knight very politely answered with another, “uhguhguhg,” which, as you can imagine, didn’t help at all.

In a temper tantrum, the dragon puffed and then puffed some more. The poor knight responded, “uhguhguhg,” again, which in this case meant, “Boy, does that dragon have bad breath!”

Since the dragon didn’t understand the knight’s answer, Beastly had another tantrum, and he puffed and puffed some more, but that didn’t change anything. That's when Beastly picked up the knight and took him up into his cave.

“Why did you bring that icky, old knight in here?” screamed the beautiful princess.

The dragon sighed, shook his head, and said, “Go try on some jewelry.”

Princess Gorgeous rolled her eyes at the dragon and stuck out her tongue. Beastly, of course, ignored her and demanded, “What does “uhguhguhg” mean? Once again the knight could only respond, "uhguhguhg".

“Duh!” said the princess. “His mouth is stuck. Oil him, and you’ll know.”

The dragon let out a wisp of bad breath, which silenced the princess temporarily, and then he found an old can of lubricating oil and sprayed that all over the knight’s armor.

“Uhguhguhg,” said the knight, and then as he worked his jaw, “Why, thank you. That feels so much better. Unfortunately, I’m supposed to kill you now. Do you think you could spray some of that stuff on my elbows, too?”

The princess rolled her eyes. The dragon roared, and the poor knight, unused to onion, garlic, and radish breath, passed out.

Cryh woke to find himself in the arms of the beautiful princess. “Uhguhguhg,” he said, which also means, “I think I’m in love, but I can’t get the words out.”

The princess rolled her eyes and fumbled with the knight’s head covering. She broke one of her polished nails, but she finally got the rusted, dirty helmet off.

“Oh,” she said, “you’re not so old!”

“Enough of that!” roared the dragon. “Tell me about “uhguhguhg.”

The knight looked at the princess. “What?” he said. “What’s the dragon talking about?”

“Oh, ignore him. He’s an old grouch because his tooth is rotting and so he's always complaining about a toothache,” she said.

“Really?” cried out the knight. “That’s wonderful. I’m a dentist. I can help him.”

I won’t bore you with the argument that came next. The dragon was a big baby about it all, and he cried with fear. The princess rolled her eyes, and the knight sagged because the dragon’s breath was so terrible, but in the end it was all solved. The knight sprayed the dragon’s tooth with the lubricating oil and then pulled. That old, rotten dragon’s tooth came out with a giant “Woop.” Then the knight rinsed the dragon’s mouth with mouthwash, and all was well -- until Beastly started changing colors.

“What’s happening to me?” the dragon cried out, not knowing that mouthwash turns a dragon rainbow-colored every time.

The princess and the knight didn't know that either, so their mouths gaped as the dragon changed from ugly brownish-green to a beautiful violet, indigo, blue, green, orange, yellow and red.

Thus, the dentist, the princess, and the dragon lived happily ever after, and since the dragon's bad breath was gone, the townspeople were very content. (And, in case you're wondering, the knight, who was also a dentist never did marry the princess. Instead he taught her how to clean people's teeth. That made the townspeople even happier, and everyone smiled a great deal, including the princess, who stopped being so stuck-up and no longer, I'm told, rolls her eyes or says sarcastic, mean things.)

xxx