Free The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit

the North Pole. They went faster and faster, and the lights ahead grew brighter and brighter—so that they could not keep their eyes open, but had to blink and wink as they went—and then suddenly the great slide ended in an immense heap of snow, and George and Jane shot rightinto it because they could not stop themselves, and the snow was soft so that they went in up to their very ears.
    When they had picked themselves out, and thumped each other on the back to get rid of the snow, they shaded their eyes and looked, and there, right in front of them, was the wonder of wonders—the North Pole—towering high and white and glistening, like an ice-lighthouse, and it was quite, quite close, so that you had to put your head as far back as it would go, and farther, before you could see the high top of it. It was made entirely of ice. You will hear grown-up people talk a great deal of nonsense about the North Pole, and when you are grown-up, it is even possible that you may talk nonsense about it yourself (the most unlikely things do happen); but deep down in your heart you must always remember that the North Pole is made of clear ice, and could not possibly, if you come to think of it, be made of anything else.
    All round the Pole, making a bright ring about it, were hundreds of little fires, and the flames of them did not flicker and twist, but went up blue and green and rosy and straight like the stalks of dream lilies.
    Jane said so, but George said they were as straight as ramrods.
    And these flames were the Aurora Borealis—which the children had seen as far away as Forest Hill.
    The ground was quite flat, and covered with smooth, hard snow, which shone and sparkled like the top of a birthday cake which has been iced at home. The ones done at the shops do not shine and sparkle, because they mix flour with the icing-sugar.
    “It is like a dream,” said Jane.
    And George said, “It
is
the North Pole. Just think of the fuss people always make about getting here—and it was no trouble at all, really.”
    “I daresay lots of people have
got
here,” said Jane, dismally; “it’s not the getting
here
—I see that—it’s the getting back again. Perhaps no one will ever know that
we
have been here, and the robins will cover us with leaves and—”
    “Nonsense,” said George, “there aren’t any robins, and there aren’t any leaves. It’s just the North Pole, that’s all, and I’ve found it; and now I shall try to climb up and plant the British flag on the top—my handkerchief will do; and if it really
is
the North Pole, my pocket-compass Uncle James gave me will spin round and round, and then I shall know. Come on.”
    So Jane came on; and when they got close to the clear, tall, beautiful flames they saw that there was a great, queer-shaped lump of ice all round the bottom of the Pole—clear, smooth, shining ice, that was deep, beautiful Prussian blue, like icebergs, in the thick parts, and all sorts of wonderful, glimmery,shimmery, changing colors in the thin parts, like the cut-glass chandelier in grandmamma’s house in London.
    “It is a very curious shape,” said Jane; “It’s almost like”—she drew back a step to get a better view of it—“it’s almost like a
dragon.”
    “It’s much more like the lamp-posts on the Thames Embankment,” said George, who had noticed a curly thing like a tail that went twisting up the North Pole.
    “Oh, George,” cried Jane, “it
is
a dragon; I can see its wings. Whatever shall we do?”
    And, sure enough, it
was
a dragon—a great, shining, winged, scaly, clawy, big-mouthed dragon—made of pure ice. It must have gone to sleep curled round the hole where the warm steam used to come up from the middle of the earth, and then when the earth got colder, and the column of steam froze and was turned into the North Pole, the dragon must have got frozen in his sleep—frozen too hard to move—and there he stayed. And though he was very terrible he was very