Opening, part 6 · page 21 2101Then Effie turned the rain tap quite full on, and presently the dragons began to wriggle less, and by-and-by some of them lay quite still, so the children knew the water had put out the fires inside them, and they were dead.102So then they turned on the hail--only half on, for fear of breaking people's windows--and after a while there were no more dragons to be seen moving.103Then the children knew that they were indeed the deliverers of their country.104"They will put up a monument to us," said Harry, "as high as Nelson's!105All the dragons are dead."106"I hope the one that was waiting outside for us is dead!" said Effie. "107And about the monument, Harry, I'm not so sure.108What can they do with such a lot of dead dragons?109It would take years and years to bury them, and they could never be burnt now they are so soaking wet.110I wish the rain would wash them off into the sea."111But this did not happen, and the children began to feel that they had not been so frightfully clever after all.112"I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry.113He had found a rusty old tap, which seemed as though it had not been used for ages.114Its china label was quite coated over with dirt and cobwebs.115When Effie had cleaned it with a bit of her skirt--for curiously enough both the children had come out without pocket handkerchiefs--she found that the label said "Waste."116"Let's turn it on," she said. "117It might carry off the dragons."118The tap was very stiff from not having been used for such a long time, but together they managed to turn it on, and then ran to the mirror to see what happened.119Already a great, round black hole had opened in the very middle of the map of England, and the sides of the map were tilting themselves up, so that the rain ran down toward the hole.120"Oh, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" cried Effie, and she hurried back to the taps and turned on everything that seemed wet. "121Showery," "Good open weather," "Nice growing weather for the crops," and even "South" and "South-West," because she had heard her father say that those winds brought rain.122And now the floods of rain were pouring down on the country, and great sheets of water flowed toward the center of the map, and cataracts of water poured into the great round hole in the middle of the map, and the dragons were being washed away and disappearing down the waste pipe in great green masses and scattered green shoals--single dragons and dragons by the dozen; of all sizes, from the ones that carry off elephants down to the ones that get in your tea.123Presently there was not a dragon left.124So then they turned off the tap named "Waste," and they half-turned off the one labeled "Sunshine"--it was broken, so that they could not turn it off altogether--and they turned on "Fair to moderate" and "Showery" and both taps stuck, so that they could not be turned off, which accounts for our climate.1 2← previousOpening, part 5next →Opening, part 7↑ back to The Book of DragonsThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg23661/6/page/2/