Shhh. If you're very, very quiet, maybe you'll hear it, far away: the sound of soft wings, whoosh, whoosh. That's Dracao, the shyest green dragon on Dogavios, practicing where nobody can see.
Dracao was enormous, with shiny green scales, and he lived in a cave full of crystals. He flew beautifully when he was alone. But if anyone was watching, his wings went as floppy as noodles.
That day was the Cloud Festival. The puppies were hopping from cloud to cloud, flying through colorful hoops, and sliding down the stripes of the rainbow. Pigúiça and Fofuxo were up there too, cheering for everyone.
Dracao arrived slowly, half hidden behind a cloud much smaller than he was. His tail stuck out one side and his nose stuck out the other. “I want to fly through the big hoop,” he whispered to Pigúiça. “But everybody will be watching.”
“Go for it!” said Pigúiça. Dracao took a deep breath, spread his wings, and rose into the air. All the puppies stopped to watch. And then his wings went floppy, he did a wobbly somersault, and he tumbled, plop, onto a fluffy cloud.
Nobody laughed to be mean. There was just a surprised “ooooh.” But Dracao felt so embarrassed that he curled up into a ball and hid his head under his wing. “I'm just no good at flying in front of others,” he said.
Fofuxo sat down beside him, and his eyes, which had been golden, turned amber. “Guess who fell the first time they tried to fly through the hoop?” he asked.
“Me!” shouted Tico the dachshund from the next cloud over. “I got stuck right in the middle, half on one side and half on the other!” And Nina the poodle told how she had slid down the rainbow backward. Everyone had a story about taking a tumble.
Dracao peeked out from under his wing. “Everybody fell?” “Everybody,” said Pigúiça. “And everybody tried again. Just look at me, not at them. Pretend I'm the only one watching.”
Dracao looked only at Pigúiça, at her steady blue eyes. He spread his wings once more, whoosh, whoosh, rose up slowly, with no rush at all, and flew right through the middle of the big hoop without touching a thing.
The puppies bounced for joy on the clouds. And Dracao lit up, all glowing and bright green, which is exactly what happens to him when he's happy.
When night came, nobody wanted to go home. The puppies snuggled down on the fluffy clouds, and Dracao curled up in the middle of them all, glowing softly, like a night-light.
Pigúiça nestled against his warm tummy. “Will you fly again tomorrow?” she asked. “I will,” said Dracao, yawning out a little puff of cloud.
And there, high up in the sky over Dogavios, everyone drifted off to sleep, one by one, rocked by the soft green glow of a dragon who had just become a tiny bit braver.
