Noor's Small Glow

Noor's tail would not stay still. It curled around the doorframe, let go, and curled around it again. Noor was a small dragon with soft green scales and a nose that crinkled up whenever he worried, and tonight his nose was crinkled as tight as a raisin.

Past the top step, the garden was dark. Not a little dark. Whole-garden dark, the kind that fills up the path and the bushes and the cool space under the bench, all the way out to where the fountain was.

Noor's tummy did a small flip. He held on to the doorframe with one claw and didn't say anything about it.

"Noor," said Nana from the step, "your tea is getting cold." Nana was a big round dragon with warm gray scales and a teacup she held in both claws. She did not seem to mind the dark one bit.

Noor didn't turn around. "Ezra said the moonflowers open at night," he said. "She said they only open at night. So how can I see them if it's dark?"

"Hm," said Nana. "That is a puzzle." She sipped her tea and said nothing else, which was Nana's way of letting a small dragon think.

Noor put one foot on the path. Then the other. Then the path was dark all around his toes, and something soft brushed his ear, ever so lightly, like a whisper with a feather in it.

Noor ran back to the step so fast his tail went swish. He looked up at Nana. Nana wiggled her teacup at him, the way she did when she meant I'm right here.

"Something touched me," he said. His voice came out small.

"A moth," said Nana. "She's out every night, going from flower to flower. She's very polite."

Noor tried again. This time he sang to fill the dark up. "Dark, dark, go and play, somewhere else, far away." The dark was not filled up. The dark just sat there, soft and wide, and Noor's song got smaller and smaller until it was only a hum, and then it was nothing at all. He ran back.

"The dark is bigger than my singing," he said, and he felt wobbly inside, all the way down to the tip of his tail.

So he tried a third thing. He shut his eyes tight, because if he couldn't see the dark, maybe the dark couldn't see him. He took four brave steps with his eyes shut, and the fourth step went bong into Ezra's watering can.

Noor sat down on the path. His nose crinkled. His tail went flat.

That was when he heard the small pattering feet.

"Well now," said a voice, warm and a little prickly. "My watering can has never once been in anyone's way before. It must be a special night." It was Ezra, a hedgehog in a small apron with seeds in the pockets.

Noor looked up. "Ezra, is the dark full of things that touch you?" he asked.

Ezra sat down beside him. She smelled like wet earth and something sweet. "The dark isn't empty," she said. "That's the trouble with it. It's full of things nobody has said hello to yet."

"I don't like it," said Noor.

"That's all right," said Ezra. "I don't always like it either. But when I feel wobbly in the dark, I do something my grandmother taught me. I count good things."

"Count what?"

"Small good things," said Ezra. "Not big loud ones. Small ones that wait quietly to be noticed."

Noor sniffed. "What if there's something big in the dark?" he asked.

"There is," said Ezra. "There's me. And there's Nana on the step. And there's a fountain that never stops talking."

"What does it say?" asked Noor.

"Nobody knows," said Ezra. "It's very old, and very private."

Noor thought about that. Then he sniffed again. Something sweet was in the air, and something wet and green underneath it.

"One," said Ezra. "The fountain." And Noor listened. Out in the middle of the garden, the fountain was talking quietly to itself. Blip. Blub. Blub. It had been talking all evening, and Noor had never once heard it.

"One good thing," Noor whispered. "Thank you, dark."

"Two," said Ezra. "The jasmine." The smell came drifting by, soft as a scarf, and under it the smell of earth after rain. Noor breathed it in, and his nose stopped crinkling quite so much.

"Two good things," said Noor. "Thank you, dark."

"Three," said Ezra, and she pointed with her little paw. Along the path, one by one, the moonflowers were opening. They opened slow and wide, like little cups of moonlight, and the middle of each one glowed a warm, soft white.

Noor forgot to feel wobbly. He stood up and walked toward them, and his feet didn't stop, not once. He touched one petal. It was cool and soft, like the inside of a shell.

"Three good things," he said. "Thank you, dark."

Then Ezra laughed. "Noor," she said. "Look at your nose."

Noor went cross-eyed trying to see it. There, on the very tip of his nose, was a small orange glow, round and warm and steady, like a tiny lamp that had just woken up.

"When you stop being frightened, your glow comes back," said Ezra. "Dragons carry their own light. Didn't anybody tell you?"

Somebody had. A long time ago, Nana used to say that when Noor laughed, the very tip of his nose went orange and warm. He had just forgotten, that's all.

So Noor carried his own small light down the path, and Ezra walked beside him with her watering can, and the moonflowers glowed, and the fountain kept talking quietly to itself, blip, blub, blub, and the dark was not empty at all. It was full.

"Four," said Noor. "Nana's teacup." Behind them, on the step, they heard it: clink, as Nana set it down.

"Thank you, dark," said Noor and Ezra together.

"Five," said Noor. "Nana, waiting for me."

Then they walked back, slow, the way you walk when there's nowhere to be. Nana had a blanket open on her lap, and Noor climbed in beside her, all warm scales and sleepy tail. The blanket smelled of tea and warm wool.

"Did you find your moonflowers?" Nana asked.

"I found five good things," said Noor. "And one of them was you."

Nana's teacup went clink. The fountain said blip, blub, blub. One by one the moonflowers folded their soft white cups, because they only open for the moon, and the moon was sliding down behind the hedge.

The polite moth went by once more, on her way from flower to flower.

Noor yawned a wide dragon yawn. He put up one claw. "One," he said. "The fountain."

He put up another claw. "Two. The jasmine."

His eyes went half shut. "Three. The moonflowers." He yawned again, and the tip of his nose made a tiny orange glow against Nana's gray scales, small as a firefly.

"Four," he whispered. But he was already asleep, so the four stayed in his claws, and the dark stayed soft and wide and kind, and the garden hummed itself quiet, blip, blub, blub, all night long.