Hidden by Donna Jo Napoli Read Free Book Online

lot to build ships and arm the brave men who sail them.”
    As Beorn describes each weapon and every step of building a ship, his audience nods in agreement, nudging one another knowingly. I wonder if any of them has ever been on a real ship. This farm seems to be their world.
    â€œOne day King Frotho overheard a farmer singing about an island where no one lived but dragons. And one of those dragons kept a magnificent treasure in his lair, deep in a mountainside.”
    Beorn describes that treasure, and all of us are oohing and aahing, even me. Thora fingers her brooches as though imagining them much more elaborate. Gunhild clinks her bracelets together. Even Åse touches her arm ring.
    â€œKing Frotho immediately decided to go to the island and claim that treasure. The farmer tried to dissuade Frotho from going to the Island of the Dragons.” Beorn points at us. “Wouldn’t you?”
    And we all agree, the farmer is sensible, yes yes, King Frotho should listen to him.
    â€œIndeed. And I bet you’re envisioning an ordinary dragon. But the dragon that guarded that treasure was no ordinary dragon. His flickering tongue ended in three points, his teeth were sharper than razors, his tail could coil around you, around and around and around, and squeeze out your last breath.” Beorn pauses. “And if all that failed . . .” His voice is quiet now, and we strain to hear. “. . . he could spew poison from his mouth. That poison blinded you . . . then drove you insane . . . then killed you . . . all so slowly that you screamed for someone to stab you in the heart.”
    I hear the swallows of the people around me as my own ears pop.
    â€œBut Frotho was determined, and he sailed to the island. Ah, you’re groaning.” Beorn points at each of us.“But you knew he would do that, you knew he had to take the challenge. He sailed all alone, of course . . .” Of course? It’s not “of course” at all. It’s crazy to go alone into that den of dragons. “. . . for he wouldn’t endanger his men.” And we all gasp at Frotho’s honor. “Frotho entered the dragon’s cave quiet as your most secret thought. He drew his sword and brought it down hard on the dragon’s back. But no sword could pierce that thick hide.” We wait, openmouthed, aghast as the possibilities. “The dragon’s wrath was now awakened, and he stretched to his full height and glowered down at Frotho.” Beorn looks around at us. “And that’s when Frotho spied the creamy spot on his underbelly, the weak point of any dragon, and he plunged in the sword.” Everyone leans back in relief as Beorn tells about Frotho hauling away the dragon’s treasure and going home wealthier than ever.
    They’re drinking beer now, the very beer I helped Thora make from the early barley harvest, before we planted the rye. Everyone’s swilling it down except Øg and Åse and little Gudrun and me. The four of us curl up on our berth built into the wall, wrapped in one another’s arms and covered with hides. The steady, hot breath of my companions warms my neck and back. But I can’t sleep.
    The treasure belonged to the dragon. Didn’t it? So Frotho was just a wicked Viking, not a hero at all. Unlessthe dragon had stolen the treasure from someone else. In the story of Sigurd, the man who killed the dragon Fafnir and bathed in his blood and drank it, Sigurd also was after the dragon’s treasure—which Fafnir has stolen in the first place, so that wasn’t so bad. But no one tonight asked about how the dragon got his treasure. That wasn’t part of the story. It was as though just being a dragon was enough to justify robbing and killing it.
    I shiver. Could they find a way to justify doing something awful to me and Øg? No one has threatened us. But no one really likes us