The Dragon Who Hated Fire

Bertram was a dragon who loved quiet things.

He loved the sound of pages turning. He loved the smell of old books — that warm, dusty, papery smell that made him feel like everything in the world was exactly where it should be. He loved organizing things into neat little rows. He loved alphabetical order more than most dragons loved gold.

What Bertram did not love was fire.

This was a problem, because Bertram was a dragon, and dragons are absolutely full of fire.

Every morning, Bertram would wake up in his cave, stretch his long green neck, yawn a perfectly normal yawn, and — FWOOOSH — a big orange flame would shoot out of his mouth and scorch the ceiling.

"Oh, not again," he'd grumble, fanning away the smoke with his wing.

When he laughed, little sparks would fly out between his teeth like glowing orange popcorn. When he hiccupped, puffs of smoke curled from his nostrils. And when he sneezed?

Well.

Let's just say Bertram had already replaced his curtains eleven times.

What Bertram wanted — more than anything in the whole wide world — was to be a librarian.

He had visited the Willowbrook Village Library once, when he was very small. He had pressed his snout against the window and seen rows and rows and rows of beautiful books, all lined up like colorful little soldiers. A kind old badger named Mrs. Pennyworth was stamping books and helping a rabbit find a story about the sea.

"That," little Bertram had whispered. "That is what I want to do."

So one Tuesday morning, Bertram put on his best bow tie — green, with little yellow stars — tucked a pencil behind his ear, and walked down the hill to the Willowbrook Village Library.

The door was propped open with a brick. A cheerful bell jingled as Bertram squeezed through the doorway, which took some wiggling, because dragons are not small.

Mrs. Pennyworth looked up from her desk. Her spectacles slid to the tip of her nose.

"Good morning," said Bertram, very politely. "I would like to apply for the position of assistant librarian."

Mrs. Pennyworth stared at him.

A small mouse who had been reading a book about cheese fainted right off her chair.

"You're a... dragon," said Mrs. Pennyworth.

"Yes," said Bertram. "I am also very good at alphabetical order."

Mrs. Pennyworth looked at the bookshelves. She looked at Bertram. She looked at his bow tie.

"Well," she said slowly, "I have been needing help with the shelving..."

And just like that, Bertram became the assistant librarian of the Willowbrook Village Library.

For exactly four and a half hours.

Because at 2:17 in the afternoon, a little hedgehog named Olive came in and returned a book that was so overdue it had been checked out since last winter. Bertram was so surprised that he gasped, and when he gasped, a tiny flame popped out of his mouth and landed right on the corner of Gregory Goose's Big Adventure.

"FIRE!" screamed the mouse, who had only just recovered from fainting.

Bertram stomped it out immediately. The book was barely singed — just a tiny brown mark on one corner. But the damage was done.

Everyone stared at him.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Pennyworth gently, "this isn't the safest arrangement."

Bertram's wings drooped. His tail curled around his feet. He placed the pencil back on the desk, very carefully, and walked toward the door.

"I understand," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about Gregory Goose."

He walked home up the hill with his bow tie feeling too tight around his neck. He sat in his cave and looked at his own small collection of books — the ones with the scorched edges and the smoky smell — and felt the saddest he had ever felt.

"Stupid fire," he muttered.

And then he sneezed, and his favorite bookmark caught flame, and he felt even worse.

Three days went by.

Bertram did not go back to the village. He stayed in his cave and read his singed books and practiced holding his breath for very long periods of time, which only gave him the hiccups, which only made more smoke.

Then, on Friday evening, there was a knock at his cave.

It was Olive the hedgehog. She was standing on his doorstep, looking very small and very determined, holding a piece of paper.

"Mr. Bertram," she said, "the library has a problem, and Mrs. Pennyworth says she doesn't know what to do. I told her I would come get you because you are the only one who can help."

Bertram blinked. "Me?"

"The furnace broke," said Olive. "Two days ago. The library is freezing. The pipes might burst. And if the pipes burst, the water will wreck all the books. Every single one."

Bertram felt something shift in his chest — something warm, but not the fire kind of warm. The caring kind of warm.

"Show me," he said.

When Bertram squeezed back through the library door, he could see his own breath hanging in the air like little clouds. The bookshelves were covered in a thin layer of frost. Mrs. Pennyworth was wearing three scarves and two pairs of mittens, and she was shivering so hard her spectacles were rattling.

The pipes along the ceiling were groaning in a very worrying way.

"Bertram," said Mrs. Pennyworth. "I know I asked you to leave, and I'm sorry for that. But if those pipes freeze and burst —"

"Say no more," said Bertram.

He walked to the center of the reading room. He took a deep breath. He thought about overdue library books. He thought about dog-eared pages and people who use ketchup-stained fingers to turn chapters and folks who never return their bookmarks.

And he sneezed.

Not a little sneeze. A magnificent sneeze.

A great golden flame billowed from his jaws, warm and bright and glowing. It rolled across the ceiling like a sunset, and everywhere it touched, the frost melted and the air turned soft and cozy. The pipes stopped groaning. The icicles on the windowsill dripped away. The whole library filled with a beautiful, gentle warmth, like being wrapped in the world's biggest blanket.

"Oh my," whispered Mrs. Pennyworth.

Bertram sneezed again — a smaller one this time — and aimed it right at the old stone fireplace in the corner. A perfect, crackling fire sprang to life, dancing and popping cheerfully.

The mouse, who had been shivering under a tiny quilt, poked her head out and smiled.

Olive clapped her little paws together.

"Mr. Bertram," said Mrs. Pennyworth, taking off one pair of mittens, "I believe I owe you an apology. And I believe this library owes you a job."

"But," said Bertram, "the fire —"

"We'll get you a stone desk," said Mrs. Pennyworth. "Away from the paper. And on cold days, you'll be in charge of the fireplace." She smiled up at him. "Every library needs a little warmth."

And so Bertram became the permanent assistant librarian of the Willowbrook Village Library.

He wore his green bow tie with the yellow stars every single day. He shelved books in perfect alphabetical order. He read stories to the children every Wednesday afternoon, and when he got to the scary parts, little sparks would fly from his teeth, and the children would shriek with delight.

He kept his stone desk in the corner, far from the shelves. He had a special fireproof bookmark that Olive made him out of tin. And every evening, before the library closed, he would breathe one long, slow, gentle flame into the fireplace, and the whole building would glow with warmth.

Sometimes, just sometimes, he would still singe a page or two.

But Mrs. Pennyworth would just smile and say, "That's alright, Bertram. That one needed a new cover anyway."

And Bertram would smile back — a big, toothy, dragon smile — with just the tiniest curl of smoke rising from his nose.