by Matthew Gallagher

Part 5

    Wishes come true only if you believe in them.  Sometimes good things happen to people right out of the blue, just the way bad things do.  But, for a wish to be fulfilled, you have to ask for it, and hold it in your heart, and keep it there until it happens.  A lot of people do not believe in wishes anymore.  These are the people who have tried to wish, and got frustrated when something didn't happen right away.  Wishes do not come to fruition on your time table, but on their own.  That means, a wish can come true when the time is right, not when a person demands it.  People who do not believe in wishing do not know how to hold a wish in their heart.  If you ever let a wish leave your heart you will become frustrated, too, and you will have lost valuable time and effort trying to make a wish come true.  Thus, once you wish something, you must hold on to that wish and treasure it.

    Like dragons, wishes come in all shapes and sizes. Now our Dragon, Don, was a great big Dragon with a capital D.  Aren't we lucky?  His head was the size of the canopy of a great oak, and his body would easily take up a good part of the street on which you live, right down to the tail with the three spikes on it that swayed back and forth all the time.  And if you remember, Don was a great winged dragon, able to fly around the world and search for rare birds.

    Back to wishes, there are many different kinds.  There is the Selfless Wish, the Selfish Wish, the Nonsense Wish, the Wish I Had It Right Now Wish, the Wish I Hadn't Done That Wish...  One might wish for a certain kind of ice cream to be served after dinner as dessert.  One might wish for a new bicycle for Christmas. One might wish one's brother to get into trouble the next time he sneaks into one's room and reads one's diary.  One might wish to grow up to be a famous banjo player.  Or one might wish for a special loved one to travel safely when he is going on a trip.  The best kinds of wishes, of course, are the wishes one makes on behalf of someone else.  What would you wish for if you had a Wish-Bird who would lay for you a wish egg?  What kind of wish do you think Don the Dragon wished for?  I want you to think about it now, and if your guess is correct, the reader will give you a prize at the end of the story.

    A longtime scholar of avian science, Don was an expert of bird locomotion.  He was fascinated by the different kinds of wing structure, and how birds' wings were different than his own. Oh, and he did love his birds, and he thrilled to watch birds interact with one another.  Their antics quite funny!  He sometimes would lie very still in the middle of the forest on the island, letting feeders of sugar water dangle from his horns, and revel as the hummingbirds buzzed around his big red body.  His keen eyes caught every movement of their supersonic wings.  Most of the time, Don let the birds on the island go about their business, for their pleasures became his pleasures.  There were times, however, when something would make him cross, and as you may have gathered, it's not smart to make a big, red, lava-eating, fire-breathing Dragon with a capital D angry.  The Cassowaries found that out when they were trying to strong-leg the Ostriches into letting them run in the races.  Don thought himself a fair ruler of the island, though, and informed the Ostriches that the Cassowaries would be allowed to participate in the Relay Event at the Races.  Thus, for the most part, the birds on the island were content to live under the rule of the Dragon.

    Except, of course, the Wish-Bird.

    All the island was abuzz with gossip about the Wish-Bird.  What had it done to deserve imprisonment?  What did it look like?  Where had it come from?  The Prairie Hens, hiding behind blades of high grasses, said that it must have done something and that it probably deserved to be locked up.  The Quetzals and the Peacocks, who always argued over which the Dragon liked best, thought that the Wish-Bird had been brought to take their places, for its tail was supposedly much more colourful than theirs.  The Roadrunner ran hither and thither crying out that all the birds on the island would be put into cages.  The Dodo wandered around the island one morning listening to all the gossip.  Then, something out to sea caught its eye.  Something colourful. Something that caught the wind.  A wing?  No, a flag.  On a ship... Sailorhunters!!!

    "Doh!  Doh! Doh! Doh! Doh!"  The Dodo hopped up and down, up and down, and beat its wings frantically.  Oh, how this would be a good time to be able to fly!  Sailorhunters!  Just like the ones that had killed all the rest of the Dodos.  The Dodo ran as fast as its legs would carry its stout little body, tripping over rocks and kicking up sand everywhere it went.  It ran through the forest, and over the savannah getting in the way of the Emus which were practicing their sprints for the race.  The Dodo ran around and around, asking every bird it saw if it had seen the Dragon.  Finally a Bee Hummingbird buzzed up and told the Dodo in the ear that the Dragon was taking its nap.  Of course!  The Daily Nap!

    The Dodo darted away, caroming into several trees with a loud "Doh! Doh doh!"

    The wind had kicked up to a brutal fifty knots.  The mainsail was so full that it pulled at its seams and the jib swung to and fro.  The Triumph rose high atop a wave, trying to catch flight.

    Sister Solita leapt forward as the yardarm arced toward one of the crew, grabbed the rope and secured with a clove hitch within seconds.

    "Aye, lass, I thankee!" the sailor said, wiping his brow.  "Another foot an' I'd be little more than shark bait."

    Later, after the squall had died down and the sun beat down on the deck of the ship once more, Sister Solita found herself sitting uncomfortably across from Cap'n. Curly in his cabin.

    "You're strong for a woman," he drawled.

    "Well, the sisters of our order were not slack when it came to hard work, Captain," she replied, her eyes looking at the ornaments decorating the wall of the cabin.

    "And ye've got a fair hand at tying a hitch, too."

    "It's a useful bit of knowledge I must have picked up from somewhere."

    "Ya ain't no nun, Sister.  And no land lubber neither, I'd wager fair to that."

    "Well, perhaps we are a sea-faring order.  It's still hard to recall."

    Curly scowled at her.  He didn't like being deceived, though he quite enjoyed lying for sport himself.  He could smell mendacity as if it were an over-ripe fruit.

    "Land, ho!!!" boomed from outside.

    Curly jumped up.  "The island!" he cried.  Forgetting the nun-in-sailor's clothes in front of him, he bolted out of the cabin to view the land they approached.

    There it was, several miles to the port side, the twin volcanoes looming atop a small isle.  Curly looked at the bottom of the stein to inspect the map it held.  The same shape, too pylons rising from the sea.  Encircling the rim of the map was a serpent breathing fire on its own tail.  A warning to all who would seek out the greatest treasure ever known:  a creature that could make all of one's dreams come true.

    "Is that where we are headed, Captain?"  Sister Solita's voice dug into Curly's shoulder blades like a dirk.

    "Ye'll keep yer mind to yerself, an' keep me orders to the letter, is that understood, 'Sister'?"

    "Aye, Captain," she replied.  "And will Sister Lunita and I benefit from aiding you in this... salvage operation?"

    "Should you perform like a member of my crew, 'twouldn't be fair to leave you out of the booty.  But ye'll get what ye get, an' no more... If, however, you suddenly take to mind to pull something 'gainst the Triumph of its crew, ye'll be turned into food for the starfish.  Clear?"

    "As a cloudless day on the lee, Captain."