Molly and the Dragon

Molly's father was a Wizard.

She knew it was true, because her big brothers said so. They said: Look at him! He has a thick white beard, like a wizard! His study is full of books! He spends all his time mumbling and writing! And isn't he scary? Molly considered all of these things and concluded her brothers were right. And so, Molly went into her father's study and said:

"Teach Me Magic!"

Her father peered up from over all the papers at his desk, wondering at the noise he heard in the room. It sounded like a bird chirping. He looked around, not noticing a Molly who was obscured by his desk. He grumbled something, and went back to work.

"Teach Me Magic!"

Again with that silly little bird. He looked around, this time peered over his desk to spot a little girl in a polka dot dress, looking a little like a bird, but much more like a daughter. He nodded to himself, satisfied with discovering the real source of the noise, and went back to work.

"Teach Me Magic!"

Her father sighed, his face scrunching slightly, leaving only his eyes and his beard, as he tried to get back to work. "Magic doesn't exist. It is a tool used for bad fiction, and worse stage shows. Now go away. I'm terribly busy." Her father nodded, believing that settled the matter, and went back to work.

"Teach Me Magic!"

When her father looked up again, he was very surprised to discover that there was a Molly standing on top of his desk, glaring down at him. He took off his glasses and pinched his nose. It would be very difficult to get back to work with a Molly on the desk. "Who told you I knew magic?" Molly smiled proudly. "Peter and Steven and Ned all said you were a wizard, and you have a big grey beard and lots of books. That means you're a wizard, and you have to teach me magic!" Molly folded her arms, proud of her deductive skills.

"I expected more out of Ned..." said her father, looking out the door of the study, where Molly's brothers mysteriously weren't. He grumbled, and tried to pretend that there wasn't a very frustrated Molly on top of his desk as he got back to work. Now, ignoring a problem rarely makes it go away, and that's doubly true in the case of Molly shaped problems. Molly narrowed her eyes, and said one final time as she touched the papers on her father's desk.

"Teach. Me. Magic!!!"

And with that, Molly took the papers on one side of the desk and threw them to the other side, and all the papers exploded in the air, falling like invoice-colored snowflakes. The room grew very silent. And very cold. Molly considered she might have gone too far as her father stood up and looked straight into her eyes for the very first time. And Molly realized that wizards could be quite scary when they really wanted to be.

"Little girl. You and your brothers have caused me a bit of trouble today. You want to learn magic? Fine. You have one chance, and only one. Find me a dragon. Bring proof to my study before dinnertime, and I will teach you all the magic in the world. Fail, and you will never come into my study again. And I wouldn't expect dessert tonight, either. Now Get...OUT!" Her father's shout was so great that she fell backwards off the desk, and scrambled out the door as fast as she could.

When Molly could breathe again. She considered her problem. Where would she find a dragon before dinner? She considered asking her brothers, but they were nowhere to be found. Apparently brothers were experts at getting little girls into trouble, but not very good at dragon hunting. So she put on her coat, made herself a lunch to take with, and found Steven's train card.

On the way to the trains, she considered her problem. She knew dragons were real. She had read about them in books. But they tended to live in castles, or caverns, or on the tops of mountains, and there weren't a lot of these things in Chicago. But her mother had long ago taught her where the answers to all her questions were, and she took the train downtown.

The library was bigger than she thought it would be. It was a fortress made of red brick, with great glass windows. On top of the roof, were enormous owls made of metal, staring off into the distance.. This was where she would find her answers.

"Hello!" shouted Molly at the top of her lungs, waving at the owls. One of the owls looked down at her, not used to being shouted at, much less by a Molly. "Yes, little girl?" The owl asked, his low voice creaking through his aluminum throat. "May I help you?"

"I'm looking for a dragon," shouted Molly. "Have you seen any?"

The owl considered this, and looked to his brothers on the corners of the building, and they rumbled and hooted between each other for some time. He looked down at Molly.

"We are the Owls of Wisdom. Our eyes see everything, and we can look in all directions. We have seen the Seven Wonders of the World, the Twenty Inexplicable Truths, and Everything mankind has ever done. We have seen fish that walk on land, and birds that hunt in the depths of the sea. We know the secret nesting grounds of the Loch Ness Monster...But in all the world, we have never seen a Dragon."

"Well, you're no help at all!" Said Molly, stomping her foot.

"Try inside," Said the Owl. "All the knowledge of the world is within, even thing invisible to us. If you do find a dragon, little girl, let us know. We would like to see it as well." Molly agreed, and went inside the library.

Molly found book after book on Dragons, as she had her lunch. She read about Dragons that hoarded treasure in caves. Dragons that asked riddles, and Great Eastern dragons that sailed the clouds. She read about the white and red Dragons that fought to make England, and the Dragon men chase in their hearts. But all the Dragons in all the books had words like Historical, Mythical, Allegorical...None of them could tell her where they were. On any other day, lunch at the library would be a very nice time, but Molly had things to do, and a Dragon to find.

Owls thought they knew everything, but Molly knew there were other animals in the city, even if they were a little scary. The Lions that guarded the Art Institute chuckled at the little girl's request. "Of course we have seen Dragons, little girl. We've seen them sail the skies, we've seen them do battle with knights. They don the tapestries, and the manuscripts, and the great paintings within. But more important than the dragons, is what the Dragons mean. what do they represent each time they fly from the artist's hand. What do Dragons mean to you, little girl?"

"They mean I get to learn magic!" Molly was a very practical girl, and didn't have time for semiotic arguments, especially with lazy lions. She considered going inside and just taking one of the pictures, but she didn't think that's quite what her father meant. She waved goodbye to the lions, which was polite as they had considered eating her, but couldn't decide on what the consumption would have meant in terms of the story.

And on Molly wandered through the city. The Faceless Goddess said she didn't care much for dragons, but the price of wheat was up that week. In Millenium Park, the Face in the Fountain just smiled and spit water at her, while she couldn't find a trace of Dragons in the Magic Bean's reflection. But it was fun to make faces at it anyways. There was a statue of a woman...or a dog...or a sphinx...By LaSalle street, but all it wanted to talk about was how it missed Pablo.

The sun began to fall, and with it, Molly's spirits did too. She had looked all over, and there wasn't a Dragon to be found. She didn't want to go home. She was probably in trouble with her father, and her brothers were going to laugh at her. Mom would just tell her to stop being silly. She walked by the lake to a very old home, and rang the bell. The doors opened, and she was immediately trapped in a hug.

Aunt Nan was a friend of the family's. Everyone called her Aunt Nan, even her father. Her place was full of old treasures and old smells, and she always made hot chocolate when you came by. And Molly thought hot chocolate might be almost as good as magic...Almost. Nan brought out cookies and hot chocolate, her smile as bright and warm as all the jewels she would wear. Everything in Nan's house seemed to sparkle in the dim light, like a house of treasures.

"What's wrong, Molly?"

Molly shook her head. "Nothing." Right then, she felt like a very silly little girl. Wandering the city alone, looking for dragons, she bet her brothers were laughing their socks off. And she wiped her eyes, working especially hard not to cry.

"It's not nothing, Molly," said Aunt Nan, "Whatever is the matter?"

And with that, the worlds fell as quickly as her tears. "My brothers said father was a wizard, and I wanted to learn magic, and he said I had to find a Dragon by sunset, and I looked and looked, and the owls didn't know and the lions were mean and I couldn't find a Dragon anywhere, and I'll never learn magic. And maybe there aren't any Dragons..."

Nan hugged Molly tight, as warm and comforting as the hot chocolate. "You poor thing," Said Nan. "It's so hard to find Dragons these days. There aren't many left." Molly's eyes went wide. "There are Dragons?" asked Molly. Nan smiled. "Of course there are. Since man was a tiny creature hiding in the trees, it saw Dragons in every cave, beyond every hill, in the depths of the sea, and the height of the skies. Dragons were vast, terrible, and oh, so fearsome. They were the fears and mysteries of the world, and they loved it. They sailed in the air, and lived in the spirits of everyone who knew in their hearts they were real. They were as beautiful as you wished, and as terrible as you feared. And  the best and bravest people, wouldn't hide from Dragons, they would seek them out. Some would fight them, others would steal from them, and the best would learn the dragons secrets, the scerets of belief, and become magicians and wizards."

Nan looked away, and the room seemed to sparkle a little less. "And with each brave person, and each wise person, more people went over the hills, and into the caverns, and in their hearts the Dragons became smaller and smaller, and a little less magical. They discovered the Dragons secrets on their own, and thought to themselves. 'Maybe there aren't any Dragons at all!' And with that...The Dragons began to die away, and the remaining Dragons became afraid. But one Dragon said. 'Humans are fickle! They'll believe anything! We'll use our magic, and disguise ourselves as people! This time will pass, and when they believe in Dragons again...We'll spread our wings and come back!"

The shadows in the room grew darker, and Molly could barely see Aunt Nan. She sounded so sad. Sadder than even Molly. "But it's been so long," Said Nan, "That many of us...Many of the Dragons began to believe they were people, and forgot they were Dragons. And now, I think there's only one left. And she must be so very lonely. The belief would have to be so very big for a dragon to take wing again..." And Nan cried, and the tears fell down to the ground, clattering on the floor, in the shape and size of jewels. Molly picked one up, it was a crystal the shape of a tear in bright emerald green. And she looked up at Nan...

And up...

And up...

And Up!

The Dragon was beautiful. Each scale as bright as lovely as the tear Molly held in her hand. It was vast, and its gossamer wings spread out twice as long as the Dragon's long neck. The room was a vast cavern covered in jewels and gold and little cups of hot chocolate. The dragon continued weeping, her eyes the same color and warmth as Nan's. "The people who can believe in Dragons," said The Dragon Nan, "Can use their belief to make anything, to be anything, for anything is possible when you believe. Do you believe in Dragons, Molly?"

"Oh yeah!" Squealed Molly, eyes wide and bright.

"You're just like your father," said Nan, "He's quite the wizard, you know." And with that, the Dragon Nan, folded her wings against herself, and they became a shawl, and the shawl, became a sweet lady again. "He visited me when he was your age. Take my tear, bring it to him, and let him remember what it means to believe." Molly nodded eagerly, took the tear, gave Nan the biggest hug her size could manage, and ran out the door, racing to the trains as the sun fell.

Molly's father had finished putting his papers back together, and was settling to finish his work, just as the sun was setting when the door burst open, and a very young girl scrambled on top of his desk, and took all the papers from one side of the desk and -threw- them to the other side, letting them fall like a thesis-patterned blizzard. She put her hands on her hips, standing like a polka-dotted conquearor and shouted at the top of her lungs:

"Teach me Magic!!!!"

Her father scowled, and looked her straight in the eyes, and Molly didn't blink once. "Where's the Dragon?" Her father asked in a low voice. "Did you bring it here?" Molly shook her head. "Don't be silly. Dragons can't fit on trains. Everybody knows that." And she opened her hand, and showed her father the Dragon's tear, glittering like an emerald. "But I believe in Dragons, and I can see Dragons, and Nan says that's all I need."

Her father stared at the jewel, and took off his glasses, and wiped his eyes. He pulled from his own pocket a jewel that was as blue as the deepest part of the ocean. "None of your brothers believed me when I told them about Dragons. You're the first. Nan is right. Belief is the first step in becoming a wizard. There are two other steps. One I will teach you, and one you will teach yourself. And you will be a wonderful wizard." He kissed Molly on the forehead, his tears falling just like any person's.

"But before I teach you anything, Miss Molly...You will clean up this mess."

Molly nodded eagerly.

"NOW!"

And with a squeak and a bounce, that's what Molly did. It's what any Wizard's Apprentice would do, after all.