Chapter 4

Chapter 4 "Boy am I thirsty!" Dribble said after the customers had left. "Breathing fire all day is exhausting." "So is serving food all day," Lucas said. "I can't wait to crawl into a bed of nice soft pine needles." Princess Pulverizer was also tired and thirsty. But she wasn't really thinking about it at the moment. She was too busy watching Dribble for any signs that he was becoming the kind of evil dragon who burned down buildings.

But he still seemed like good old Dribble. In fact, at the moment, he was letting Lucas ride on his tail as they went down to the river for a cold drink. There was no way Dribble could be guilty of burning down any barn. The mirror had to be wrong. "This isn't exactly the cleanest river I've ever seen," Lucas said as he climbed down from his perch on Dribble's tail. A big chicken bone and some moldy pieces of bread floated by. "I don't care," Dribble said. "I'm thirsty. And this is water." He bent his neck low,

reached his snout into the river, and started slurping. "Very, very cold water." Slurp. Slurp. Slurp. "You're going to be spending a lot of time going to the bathroom tonight," Princess Pulverizer warned Dribble. "I guess it couldn't hurt to take a sip," Lucas said. "I'll just try to drink around that trash." He walked over and bent down to take a sip. "The water tastes pretty good," he called. "And it's really cold. I—" BONK. "Whoa!" Lucas shouted. "I just got hit with an old shoe. What's that doing floating in a river?" Princess Pulverizer had no idea. But no way was she going to take a drink from any river that had shoes swimming in it along with the fish. "I think I'll just have fruit juice in the morning," Princess Pulverizer said. "Let's go. I

need sleep. And we still have to gather enough pine needles to build beds." "One minute," Dribble called back to her between slurps. "Just a few more sips." Slurp. Slurp. Sl— "AAAHHH! There's a dragon drinking from our river!" a woman shouted as she neared the water's edge. "Get out," her friend added. "We don't let dragons drink here." Dribble stared at the two women. Big purple tears formed in his eyes.

"Don't let them bother you," Lucas said, patting his pal on the back. "We were getting ready to leave anyway." "Sometimes humans can be very, very mean," Dribble grumbled. "I had no idea feet could hurt this badly," Princess Pulverizer complained as she finally lay down on a bed of pine needles a while

later. She shut her eyes and tried not to think about the ginormous blister forming on her little toe. "Maybe we need to hire a few extra waiters to help serve our customers from now on," Dribble suggested. Princess Pulverizer's eyes popped open wide. From now on? Did Dribble think his restaurant was going to be a permanent thing in Beeten Wheeten?