By 3rd Grade Students at Huff Elementary
May 2020
The dragon guarded his cave.
A cloud watched. His name was Mr. Cloud. He knew this dragon. It was the dragon who was named…. DRAGON!
Mr. Cloud knew what Dragon guarded. It was his very special treasure–a pink jelly bean!!!! Mr. Cloud desperately wanted the jelly bean because it had lots of powers, especially, the possibility of being able to walk on land. If he ate it, he could become a member of Earth.
The dragon was three hundred feet tall. Normal for a dragon. Not so big, not so small. But Mr. Cloud was high up in the air. From this distance, the dragon didn’t look like much. Dragon was maroon, and his dragon wings were itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny. So funny! On the end of his tail, Dragon had fire. That scared Mr. Cloud just a little bit, because fire was dangerous to a substance made of water vapor.
The cloud could tell that the dragon was very smooth, but a cloud cannot feel anything. So Mr. Cloud knew that no matter how much he touched the dragon, he would never know what smoothness felt like.
However, Mr. Cloud had a heightened sense of smell. And Dragon smelled like dirty socks—gross! It was as if he was trying to pollute the air.
The dragon roared and roared. Even from Mr. Cloud’s height in the sky, he could hear the dragon. The roar was very loud. Mr. Cloud didn’t think Dragon knew he was there. He thought Dragon was roaring at something else. Suddenly, Dragon looked straight at Mr. Cloud. Only then did he realize that the dragon was roaring directly at him! He must know that Mr. Cloud wanted his treasure.
Just then, the pink jelly bean strolled out of the cave. The jelly bean was about six inches in height. It was one of the only jelly beans that Mr. Cloud had ever seen who had legs. It was eating a bread crumb. Yuck! A bread crumb had to be the blandest thing in the world. But a jelly bean, now that was delicious and sweet, especially a pink one with legs. He was quite sure that the pink jelly bean would taste like cotton candy!
Mr. Cloud came up with a plan. He would wait until nighttime when the dragon and the pink jelly bean were asleep. He would float into the cave and he would eat the pink jelly bean. After that, he would be able to walk on Earth like all the other creatures.
He patiently waited until it was dark and until he could hear the dragon snoring. Then he put his plan into motion.
He floated down to the cave and straight inside. Uh-oh! There were many, many booby-traps. One was a wall of fire. There were also many arrows and strange and difficult puzzles.
First, Mr. Cloud had to get past the dragon’s fiery tail. The tail swung back and forth, back and forth in the same rhythm. He tried to sneak past while it was back, but he didn’t make it and when the tail was forth, it knocked him across the room.
Whew! Mr. Cloud felt tons of relief. If the fire had turned him to water, he would have transformed into a plant. But he was still a cloud. Woohoo! His plan could proceed!
He tried again, and this time—Success!
But now, the arrows flew at him in droves. So many arrows! Too many arrows! They all hit him at once. Oh no!! He was going to die! It was terrible. But then… all of his fluff fluffed and the arrows went through him and he wasn’t dead at all. He was alive! Woohoo! He had made it through the arrow booby trap!
The next booby trap was just a little too easy for Mr. Cloud. He floated along and whoosh! A trap door tried to trap him! But no trap door could stop a cloud! He was wayyyy too good at floating.
He kept moving along. Woohoo!!!
This was too easy! Now he just whipped through all the other booby-traps… he floated, he glided, he swooped. So fun. He could do this all night, but fortunately, since there was a jelly bean he needed to eat, he quickly arrived where the jelly bean was fast asleep. He dipped down to swallow it whole.
Suddenly, the dragon awoke!
Oops! Mr. Cloud turned himself clear, one of his newest abilities. He got that from eating a blue jelly bean… heh heh heh! Jelly beans were quite magical creatures!
The dragon roared, even though he couldn’t actually see the cloud. He obviously sensed that there was danger. He charged right through the booby-traps. They clearly weren’t set for him. He got through them all without any difficulty. He grabbed his pink jelly bean and brought her back to his nest. He curled up with her cradled in his arms.
Oh-no! thought Mr. Cloud. Now it would be so much harder to steal her.
But Mr. Cloud was up to the challenge. He decided to carefully tickle the dragon. He put his plan into action. And oh, how it worked. He tickled Dragon and Dragon flinched and giggled in his sleep. He threw his arms out and the jelly bean flew through the air.
Ho-ho! thought Mr. Cloud as he caught her in his fluff.
He swallowed her whole.
But… the moment he swallowed her, she fell straight threw him. Oh no. Somehow, even though he had managed to swallow the blue jelly bean, this one would let him swallow her. Hmmm. She clearly was even more magical.
He chased after her, floating as fast as he could. He grabbed her a second time and zoomed out of the cave. He raced high into the sky. Once more, he tried to swallow her whole, but again, she fell right through him and this time she kept falling and falling.
She was falling straight for a volcano that was spewing huge quantities of lava!
Dragon flew out of the cave. He saw his pink jelly bean falling toward the terrible lava.
Mr. Cloud saw her too.
He knew the dragon wanted to save her. But he still wanted to eat her, because then he could walk on land with all the other creatures.
They both raced to catch her.
The “Cliffhanger” End.
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