"You can't come with us," Jason told Jeremy. "We're going to play lost in space and our space ship landed in the woods."

Regard said, "Dad told us we'd get in trouble for taking you in the woods."

Jason looked at Jeremy. "The woods are awful scary. There's lots of paths that go around in circles and you could get lost. You'd never come out and nobody would ever find you," he said.

"I want to see the wild animals," Jeremy said. He was disappointed. Just because they were older, they didn't want to play with him. They always said he was too little.

Jason shook his head. "There aren't any wild animals. The dragons ate them."

"Dragons?" Jeremy's mouth fell open.

Regard covered a big smile with his hands. "The dragons live in the woods. We saw them once," he told Jeremy.

"Are they big? Who owns them? What do they look like?" Jeremy asked.

Regard gave him a scornful look. "The wizard owns them. He lives in a castle way back in the woods. They guard it for him."

"Yes, and they're big. Almost as big as our house," Jason added.

Jeremy's eyes got round.

"There's two of them. A red one and a green one. The red one is bigger than the green one. And he has a horn on his nose," said Regard.

"A horn?" asked Jeremy.

Regard nodded. "Yes. That's how you tell a boy dragon from a girl dragon. Boy dragons have horns on their noses," he said. "Didn't you know that?"

Jeremy pretended he did. "Yes."

"If the dragons see you in the woods, they'll chase you," Jason said. "And if they catch you, they might eat you."

Jeremy was very impressed. His brothers had seen dragons. Dragons! He wished he were big enough to see the dragons.

"We have to go," Jason said. "We have to find our space ship."

Jeremy watched as they ran shouting into the trees, waving their laser guns. They better be careful the dragons didn't hear them.

Jeremy went to sit in his swing that hung from the lowest limb of the old maple tree in his back yard. It was his thinking spot. And now he wanted to think about dragons.

Dragons!

Just once he'd like to explore the Dark Forest. He called the woods behind his house the Dark Forest because when you looked under the trees, you couldn't see anything.

And it was where dragons lived. He got all shivery to think of them.

Dragons! He looked at the trees. The leaves on the tallest ones fluttered like a wind was blowing through them.

Could that crackling noise be a dragon? The bushes were moving, too.

He knew what he'd do if a dragon came in his yard. He'd hit it on the nose with a stick. That'd make it go back into the woods.

Jeremy looked around for a stick. Just in case. There weren't any.

Well, maybe he wouldn't need a stick. Maybe, if he ran real fast the dragons couldn't catch him.

But if dragons couldn't run fast, then how did they catch all the wild animals?

Maybe they would blow fire and cook them.

Had they cooked the Tuttleman's cat? He hadn't seen it in their yard lately and it liked to go into the woods to hunt.

Jeremy got all shivery again. If the dragons ate the cat from next door, then they must come out of the woods.

A cat wouldn't be much for a hungry dragon to eat. What else did they eat? Grass like cows he saw from the school bus window? His dad said grass liked the sun. There wouldn't be much grass in the Dark Forest.

Jeremy thought some more. Maybe dragons ate trees. There were lots of trees with limbs missing in the woods. A whole tree was gone from the yard next door.

He drifted in the swing, thinking about dragons until he was almost thought out. At last, he got off the swing and sat on his dad's green and white lawn chair with the big flowered pillows. He leaned back and looked up at the clouds through the leaves of the maple tree.

He saw a boat. It changed into a car before it floated away. There was almost a cow and a cloud that looked like a white rabbit with no ears. One looked like an elephant, but its nose was too short. It changed into a big ball.

Jeremy was disappointed. No dragons.

He turned his head to look at the Dark Forest. Suddenly, he heard rustling. It grew louder and louder. A bird flew out of the woods, calling.

There was something in the trees!

He got up slowly and tiptoed to the maple tree where his swing was. He hid behind the trunk and peeked around.

Something was standing among the bushes with its big head high in the treetops. It was chewing on a tree branch.

It was a dragon! A big, green one!