The dragon bogey

Winston was a boy of about your age. But there ends the likeness. For Winston always picked his nose. Continuously he had a finger in his nostrils, then two fingers, then three. He pushed them in to get hold of the bogeys. He pushed so hard that his nostrils started to grow. As the nostrils grew bigger, so did the bogeys. Winston thought it was fun pulling out one big bogey after the other - until he got a bogey that he couldn't get out.

It started one morning when Winston got out of bed. While walking to the bathroom he pushed his index finger way up his nostril to pick the bogeys from the night. But instead of having a big, fat, bogey on his fingertip - he burned himself! Winston pulled his finger out as fast as he could and cooled it of in water. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he saw smoke coming out of his nose.

This scared Winston. Carefully he tried to peel out the bogey again with the wet finger. A beam of fire shot out of his nostril. "Au," Winston said and pulled the burned finger out. He bent down to the tap and washed his nose to extinguish the flame. But the water started to boil in his nose, and that hurt a lot.

Winston decided not to pick that bogey any more and went off to school. But when he held up a pencil to ask for something, fire shot out of his nose and ignited the pencil. The teacher became angry and shook her finger at him. "You should not play with fire at school," she said. The bogey then burned her finger, making her scream and jump about in the classroom. Winston's schoolmates laughed. But poor Winston was sent out and had to wait outside for the school doctor.

At least he will fix my nose, Winston thought. But the bogey burned a hole in the doctor's coat. And the instruments the doctor used, trying to remove the bogey, melted in his nose. "I can't help you," the doctor said resignedly while hanging away his burned coat. "It's better if you stay at home for a day or two, maybe it will go out by itself."

Winston went home unhappy and crept to bed. He could not eat nor drink, because the bogey burned everything that came near his nose. By evening time Winston was so exhausted that he could hardly keep his eyes open. Suddenly he heard a voice saying: "Where are the knights?" Winston peeked about in his room, but there was nobody there. "Who's speaking?" he asked. "It's me," the voice said. "The dragon bogey."

"Dragon bogey?" Winston said in disbelief. "Of course," the voice said irritably. "What do you think all the flames are for. It's high time that you curled up outside a princess' castle and protected her from knights in shining armours." "But I'm no dragon," Winston replied. "Don't be foolish," the bogey snorted sending out a lot of soot covering Winstons' quilt. "Only dragons have as large nostrils as you have." "You are mistaken," Winston cried. "They are just a normal child's nostrils that I have picked too often." He looked down at his huge nose. Some smoke came out of it and Winston sighed. "Did you think I was a dragon just because I have large nostrils?"

"Bother," the dragon bogey said. "I've been fooled again. You see, we bogeys travel by night to find suitable nostrils to live in. Small bogeys find children's noses, large bogeys enters adult noses and dragon bogeys like myself try to find a dragon." "That can't be easy," Winston said. "Easy! It's almost impossible. It's so dark at night. We bogeys have to feel our way, and when I felt your huge nostrils I was so happy. I was sure that I had finally found a dragon."

Winston was relieved to hear all this. "I am sorry, dragon bogey. I did not mean to trick you," he said. "From now on I will quit picking bogeys, and I'm sure my nose will shrink and become little again. So you won't be mistaken another time."

That night the dragon bogey went away, hunting for a real dragon nose, and Winston started to blow his bogeys in a handkerchief instead of picking them out with his fingers. His nose shrunk until it became as pretty a little nose as the one you have.

But where do you think the dragon bogey is? Dragons are rare you know, so it may still be looking. So be aware. Don't pick you nose too much. Or your nose could fool the dragon bogey as well.

© Martin Nygaard