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Updated: May 27, 2025
It was not nearly so big as its mother; only about the size of a Baptist chapel. "Hurry up," said Edmund, as it fumbled clumsily with the seventeenth shoe. "Mother said I was never to go out without my shoes," said the drakling; so Edmund had to help it to put them on. It took some time, and was not a comfortable occupation.
At last the drakling said it was ready, and Edmund, who had forgotten to be frightened, said, "Come on then," and they went back to the cockatrice. The cave was rather narrow for the drakling, but it made itself thin, as you may see a fat worm do when it wants to get through a narrow crack in a piece of hard earth.
And Edmund, doing exactly as he had been told, for a wonder, caught the end of the drakling's tail and ran the iron hook through it so that the drakling was held fast. And it could not turn around and wriggle up again to look after its poor tail, because, as everyone knows, the way to the fires below is very easy to go down, but quite impossible to come back on.
"I beg your pardon," said the drakling humbly, "but I am really very hungry." The cockatrice beckoned Edmund to the side of the basin and whispered in his ear so long and so earnestly that one side of the dear boy's hair was quite burnt off. And he never once interrupted the cockatrice to ask why.
But when the whispering was over, Edmund whose heart, as I may have mentioned, was very tender said to the drakling: "If you are really hungry, poor thing, I can show you where there is plenty of fire." And off he went through the caves, and the drakling followed. When Edmund came to the proper place he stopped.
Edmund was a good deal frightened, but he remembered the grim expression of the cockatrice's eye, and the fixed determination of his snore still rang in his ears, in spite of the snoring of the drakling, which was, in itself, considerable. He screwed up his courage, flung the door open, and called out: "Hello, you drakling. Get out of bed this minute."
For instance, he knew that a drakling is a dragon's baby, and he felt sure that what he had to do was to find the third of the three noises that people used to hear coming from the mountains. Of course, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise like a large gentleman asleep after dinner had been the big dragon. So the smaller rumbling must have been the drakling.
"Oh, don't talk to me!" he said, splashing angrily in the flames. "I give you advice; take it or leave it I shan't bother about you anymore. If you bring the drakling here to me, I'll tell you what to do next. If not, not." And the cockatrice drew the fire up close around his shoulders, tucked himself up in it, and went to sleep.
And the dragon heard the voice and said: "Why, whatever's the matter with Baby? He's not here!" and made herself thin, and crept into the mountain to find her drakling. The cockatrice kept on laughing as loud as it could, and Edmund kept on pinching, and presently the great dragon very long and narrow she had made herself found her head where the round hole was with the iron lid.
You've eaten your own drakling swallowed it with the town. Your own little drakling! He, he, he! Ha, ha, ha!" And Edmund found the courage to cry "Ha, ha!" which sounded like tremendous laughter in the echo of the cave. "Dear me," said the dragon. "I thought the town stuck in my throat rather. I must take it out, and look through it more carefully."
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