The Baby Who Made a Dragon Smile

John the blacksmith lived in an old castle ruin on the edge of town, where the rent was cheap and the walls were very thick. He had a forge in the ground floor, a kitchen upstairs, and — as he discovered one Tuesday — a dragon in the cellar.

The dragon had been there a very long time. He was large and rusty, with one wing that hung at a wrong angle and a general air of having been badly treated by the years.

"I won't eat you," the dragon said, when John came down with a lamp and found him, "if you fix my wing."

John was a sensible man. He got his tools and fixed the wing. It took all afternoon and made a great deal of noise.

His wife didn't come to see what the noise was. His neighbours didn't come. The mayor, when John sent a message, said he had a prior engagement.

But Rosie came.

Rosie was eight months old and had recently discovered stairs. She crawled to the top of the cellar steps, peered down into the lamplight, and found a very large creature with scales.

"DA!" said Rosie, pointing.

The dragon blinked.

Rosie laughed — the enormous, all-of-her laugh that shook her from her round head to her fat toes.

The dragon had never been laughed at in quite that way before. He had been growled at, run from, and occasionally poked with spears. But he had never been laughed at by someone who was simply very pleased to see him.

He felt something move in the neighbourhood of where his heart was. Something warm.

He tried a smile. It came out a little toothy, but genuine.

"DA!" said Rosie, very satisfied.

After that, Rosie visited the dragon every morning. She brought him things: a rusk, a wooden spoon, a sock that had gone missing. The dragon kept them all carefully between his front paws.

He was not, people slowly noticed, grumpy any more.

"What's got into that old dragon?" said the mayor, who had worked up the courage to peek through the grating.

"My daughter," said John, without looking up from his work.