The Dragon and the Daring Game

Starring Justin, Sofia

Justin and Sofia invent a pretend game called Dragon School where Sofia practices what to say and do when a bully tries to spoil her day. When Sofia fails her first attempt and tears up her practice note, she discovers that her own stubbornness — and Justin's dragon creativity — are exactly the tools she needs. The story ends not with a speech, but with Sofia tucking a small folded note into her pocket, ready.

Sofia stomped into the living room and dropped onto the rug like a bag of rocks. She pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket and wrote three big words: MAYA WAS MEAN. Justin looked over from the couch and tilted his head. "Okay," he said slowly. "Tell me everything."

Sofia told him about Maya, who had laughed at her drawing and said it looked like a squished bug. Sofia's voice went wobbly at the end. Justin scratched his beard and got a look in his eyes — that bright, restless look he got right before a big idea arrived. "We are going to build a game," he said. "A pretend game. Dragon School."

Justin said Dragon School was a place where you practiced the hard stuff before it happened for real. He was the pretend bully. Sofia was the dragon in training. "You can say anything here. It's only pretend." Sofia smoothed out her scrap of paper and wrote the rules herself, in her most careful letters.

Justin scrunched up his face and did his silliest pretend-bully voice. "Ha! That drawing looks like a squished bug!" Sofia opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She stared at the rug. Justin waited. Sofia's shoulders drooped, and she crumpled her practice note into a tiny ball.

"That is not how Dragon School works," Sofia muttered, and she threw the crumpled note toward the bookshelf. It missed and bounced off the corner. Justin did not rescue her. He just sat back and said, "What do dragons do when fire doesn't come out the first time?" Sofia looked at the crumpled note on the floor. She picked it up.

They tried again. And again. Sofia practiced saying, "I like my drawing," in a big voice, in a tiny voice, in a funny voice, until she found the one that felt true. She wrote that voice down on a fresh scrap of paper in her neatest handwriting. She did not throw this one away.

Justin did the pretend-bully voice one last time. Sofia stood straight, looked him right in his hazel eyes, and said clearly, "I like my drawing. It looks like a squished bug AND a rocket ship." Justin blinked. Then he laughed so hard he fell sideways off the rug. Sofia laughed too, but she kept standing straight.

That night Sofia unfolded the scrap of paper one more time and smoothed it flat against her knee. The paper was a little wrinkled from being crumpled and thrown and picked back up again. She folded it carefully and tucked it into her pocket — the same one she had pulled it from when she stomped in. Tomorrow, she would see Maya.