Chapter Twenty-Six

THE RETURN OF NAILS

   When Nails failed to come back, none of the other inhabitants of Kite Town risked going to Greenville. Rumour had it that soon the hundred-headed dragon would have eaten up all the girls and would come to Kite Town to eat the boys. Time went on and the dragon did not appear, but one fine morning a stranger did. This stranger said he had gone up in a balloon with some friends and had jumped with a parachute when the balloon had begun to fall. He had landed in a dense forest and been roaming about in search of his friends ever since.
   It is not hard to guess who the stranger was. Doono, of course. Instead of calmly going home when he landed with his parachute, he had set out in search of his friends.
   The inhabitants of Kite Town told him that a few days before some boy-Mites whose balloon had crashed had appeared in Greenville. Two of them had come to Kite Town for a soldering-iron and had been taken back to Greenville by a driver named Pretzel. Doono asked some questions about these two Mites, and when he was told what they looked like and that they both had on leather jackets, he knew at once that they were Bendum and Twistum. The writer Slick, who was present at the interview and had his chatterbox with him, said they were indeed named Bendum and Twistum. Doono was delighted. He wanted to go to Greenville at once, and asked the Mites to show him the way.
   They grew very sad at this and said it was impossible to go to Greenville because there was a hundred-headed dragon in Greenville that ate up girl-Mites, to say nothing of boy-Mites.
   "Pooh, pooh!" scoffed Doono. "As if there was such a thing as a hundred-headed dragon!"
   "Oh, you just don't know!" said one of the Mites, shaking his head. "Who else could have eaten up Pretzel? It's been days and days since he took Bendum and Twistum to Greenville, and he hasn't come back yet."
   "Who else could have gobbled up Taps?" asked another. "He went to Greenville in search of Pretzel and hasn't come back either. And what a fine plumber he was! There was nothing he couldn't do!"
   "Who else could have swallowed up Nails?" asked a third. "True, it's not such a pity about him because he was such a little scamp, but even so it's rather hard to be eaten up."
   Doono considered a moment.
   "Science knows nothing about the existence of hundred-headed dragons," he said at last, "and therefore we may consider that they don't exist."
   "But science knows nothing about their non-existence, either," put in Slick, "and therefore we may consider that they do exist. There must be hundred-headed dragons, once Mites talk about them."
   "But Mites talk about Baba-Yaga, too," said Doono.
   "And don't you believe in Baba-Yaga?"
   "Of course I don't."
   "Come now, none of your fairy-tales."
   "It's Baba-Yaga who is the fairy-tale."
   Doono firmly resolved to go to Greenville, and, try as they might, the inhabitants of Kite Town could not make him change his mind. And so, after giving him a good meal, they took him to the edge of the town and pointed out the road to Greenville. They were sure he was going to his death, and so it was with tears in their eyes that they parted with him.
   Just then a cloud of dust appeared on the road. The nearer it came the bigger it got. The Mites ran away as fast as their legs would carry them. Once safe inside their houses, they peered out of the windows. They were sure it was the hundred-headed dragon coming to eat them up. But Doono was not frightened in the least, he just stood there waiting in the middle of the road.
   Soon everyone saw that the dust was being raised by three motor cars that came one after the other. The first car was hauling a big red apple, the second a ripe pear, the third half a dozen plums. When the first car reached Doono it came to a halt and out climbed Pretzel, Taps, and Nails. Immediately the Mites rushed out of their houses and threw their arms about all three of them, including Nails. They asked about the dragon, and when they heard that there was no dragon and never had been one, they were greatly astonished.
   "Then what kept you away so long?" they asked.
   "We were helping the girls gather in their fruit harvest," said Nails.
   This made everybody laugh.
   "You helped?" they scoffed. "The others may have, but surely you did nothing but climb fences and break windows!"
   "I did not," said Nails, deeply hurt. "I worked too. I'm ... what do you call it?... reformed."
   Taps and Pretzel said he really was reformed, and that the girls were very much pleased with his work — so pleased, in fact, that they decided to make the inhabitants of Kite Town a present of apples, pears, and plums. Nothing could have pleased the boys more, for they were very fond of fruit.
   When Pretzel heard that Doono was on his way to Greenville, he offered to take him there in his car, and very soon they set out.
   The boys in Kite Town went about with smiles on their faces. They were very glad that there was no dragon, and that Pretzel and Taps had come back, but the thing that pleased them most was Nails' reform. Some, it was true, doubted that he was really reformed, and they kept a close eye on him, expecting to see him break a window any moment. But in a little while they found him down by the river washing his clothes.
   "Why should you wash your clothes all of a sudden like this?" they asked him.
   "Because I'm going to a ball tomorrow," he said. "You've got to put on clean clothes and brush your hair when you go to a ball."
   "Why, are the girls giving a ball?"
   "They are. Pretzel and Taps are going, too. They've been invited."
   "Do you mean to say that you've been invited?" they asked him
   "Tck, tck, tschk," said the Mites, shaking their heads. "You must be reformed indeed if the girls have invited you to their ball. Who could have imagined such a thing!"