Jerry Mouse wanted one thing: the fat cheese wheel locked inside the kitchen's forbidden pantry. He had smelled it for three nights straight. Tonight he crouched under the little wooden house where he lived, staring at the towering cupboard beside it. Its shelves rose higher than any mouse could dream. The cheese sat somewhere in there, waiting. But Jerry had never once looked at how a mouse got inside. That was the problem. He knew the smell. He did not know the door. His stomach pushed him to just run for it. Charge in, grab the wheel, run out. But Jerry stopped himself. A mouse who blundered into a strange pantry blind could end up trapped behind a closing panel, with no way back to his burrow. He had watched a cousin vanish that way. He would not vanish too. So he chose to scout first. He would learn the entrance before he risked his life inside it. Jerry crept along the base of the cupboard. He ran his paws over each seam in the wood. Most panels were shut tight. Then he found a gap near the bottom corner, low and dark. A draft leaked out of it, cool and sharp with the cheese smell. This was the way in. He pressed his nose to the gap and peered through. Inside, shelves climbed into shadow. Jars stood in rows. Baskets bulged with food. And on the highest shelf, catching a thread of moonlight, sat the cheese wheel. Round. Golden. Bigger than his whole body. Jerry studied the gap itself. He noted its width. He noted how the panel hung. Then he saw the danger. The panel above the gap sat on a hinge, and it leaned inward, held only by a small stone wedged beneath it. If the stone slipped, the panel would swing down and seal the gap shut. A mouse inside would be trapped. Jerry did not go in. Not yet. Instead he crept back out into the open and dragged a broken twig across the floor. He wedged the twig hard beneath the leaning panel, beside the stone. Now two supports held it. Even if the stone slipped, the twig would hold the gap open. He tested it. He pushed the panel with both paws. It held. The gap stayed open. Jerry breathed out. He had done what he came to do. He knew the entrance now. He knew its trap, and he had jammed it open so he could get back out. But as he backed away, his twig shifted the stone. The stone rolled free and tumbled deeper into the pantry. It struck something in the dark. A low sound answered from inside the shelves. Not the creak of wood. A slow, breathing rumble, and the shine of gold scales turning toward the gap. Something huge lived in the pantry. And now it was awake.

The gold-scaled creature filled the pantry floor. Jerry froze at the gap, half in, half out. The cheese wheel sat on the high shelf beyond the beast. To reach it, Jerry had to pass the creature. If it saw him, it would eat him. The creature lifted its head. Black scales ran down its back, marked with lines of gold. Wings folded against its sides. It was a dragon, small enough to live in a cupboard, large enough to swallow a mouse whole. Its eyes swept the dark. Jerry pressed flat against the wood. He held his breath. The dragon sniffed. Its nose turned toward him. Then a voice rang out from the shelf above. "Beast! Turn and face me!" Jerry looked up. On the second shelf stood a tiny figure in gold armor. A knight, no taller than Jerry himself. His helmet shone. His cape hung down his back. He held a sliver of metal like a sword and pointed it at the dragon. The dragon swung toward the shelf. Its tail scraped the floor. It had forgotten Jerry. "You woke it, didn't you?" the knight called down. He grinned, not afraid. "Ted Goldsworth doesn't run from dragons. Get your cheese, mouse. I'll keep its eyes on me." Jerry stared. He had never met this knight. But the words were plain. Ted would risk himself so Jerry could reach the wheel. The dragon roared and struck at the shelf. Ted leaped aside. He jabbed his blade at the dragon's nose. The beast flinched back, more surprised than hurt. Jerry moved. He ran along the wall, past the creature's clawed feet. The floor shook under him. He did not look at the dragon. He looked only at the shelf where the cheese sat. The dragon snapped at Ted again. Ted dodged, but his foot slipped on the edge. He fell to the floor between the dragon's paws. His blade skittered away. Jerry stopped. The cheese was close now. But Ted lay pinned under the dragon's shadow. Jerry did not run for the wheel. He turned back. He grabbed a dry bean from a spilled basket and hurled it at the dragon's eye. It struck. The dragon jerked its head. In that instant, Ted rolled free and scrambled up a jar to the shelf. "Fast paws!" Ted shouted, laughing. "You just saved a knight." But the noise had done its work. The dragon reared. Its wings snapped open and swept the shelves. Jars crashed. The high shelf tipped. The cheese wheel rolled off the edge and dropped past Jerry, past the gap, and out into the dark kitchen floor beyond the pantry. The dragon's head whipped around. Both eyes fixed on Jerry now. Jerry ran. He dove through the gap, under the propped panel, into the open. Behind him the dragon's claws raked the wood. He was out. He was alive. But the cheese wheel had rolled somewhere loose in the kitchen. And a hungry dragon now knew his scent.

The cheese wheel rolled across the open kitchen floor. Jerry chased it. It wobbled, slowed, and dropped flat in the middle of the tiles. No cupboard stood near. No crack. No shadow to hide in. Jerry stood in the open beside his prize. Behind him, the dragon squeezed through the pantry gap. Its black scales scraped the wood. Gold lines glinted along its back. Both its eyes found Jerry. He grabbed the cheese wheel and shoved. It was taller than he was. It rolled a hand's width, then stopped. The dragon spread its wings. It stepped onto the tiles, slow, sure that Jerry had nowhere to run. "Mouse! This way!" Jerry looked up. Ted Goldsworth stood on the leg of a fallen chair, the knight who had risked himself so Jerry could grab the cheese. His gold armor caught the light. He had not run. He waved his thin blade toward a dark gap under the cupboard. "Roll it here!" Ted shouted. "I'll slow the beast!" Jerry threw his shoulder against the wheel. It turned. Slow, then faster, rolling toward the gap Ted pointed to. The dragon lunged. Ted jumped down between them. He jabbed his blade at the dragon's foot. The beast hissed and pulled back one claw. "Come on, come on," Ted said, not to Jerry, to himself. He darted left. The dragon's head swung after him. Jerry kept the wheel rolling. Its edge caught the lip of the gap and stuck. Jerry pushed with all his weight. The wheel tipped. It fell through the gap into the dark space under the cupboard. Safe. Hidden. Jerry dove after it. But Ted was still out on the tiles. The dragon reared over the small knight. Ted swung his blade high. The metal caught the light like something far grander than a splinter of steel. The dragon flinched, just a breath. Ted turned and ran. He slid under the cupboard beside Jerry as the dragon's claws struck the floor where he had stood. The two of them pressed against the cheese wheel in the dark. The dragon's snout pushed at the gap. It was too big to follow. It snorted hot air. Then it drew back. "We did it," Ted said. He was breathing hard, still grinning. "Your cheese. My blade. Good team." Jerry rested a paw on the wheel. It was his now, out of the dragon's sight. But the space under the cupboard was small and closed. There was no other way out. The dragon settled its weight onto the tiles just beyond the gap. It did not leave. It waited. Jerry had the cheese. He could not carry it anywhere. And the dragon would not go.