It was such a good idea that he decided to fly off to Favorite Pear Tree right then, and practice a little first. It had been at least two thousand years since he had done any serious magic, and he probably needed to brush up. He was sure that it would all come back to him.

When Dragon reached the large and very old pear tree it was dark, and there seemed to be no one about. Which was fine, thought Dragon. He might be a little rusty with his magic and it would be embarrassing to think that any of the forest folk were watching him practice.

It took Dragon quite a while to find just the right combination. Once he turned the pears on Favorite Pear Tree into sea shells!

"Oh, my!" he said out loud. "This will never do. Never do at all. I wonder what went wrong? Maybe if I just go backward to where I started out...."

That worked, and the fat, growing pears were once again pears instead of seashells. Dragon spent most of the night trying to find the right recipe for turning pears into silver bells. He twirled, he stood on his head, he turned hundreds of color combinations, he huffed and puffed, made faces, put his fingers in his ears and hopped on one leg.

Fox, passing through the forest looking for something to eat, watched Dragon with amazement, and decided that it would be a good plan to move on. He remembered when Dragon blew all the feathers off Spotted Owl. He certainly didn't want that to happen to his beautiful long fur.

Finally Dragon was completely exhausted. He folded his wing and sat under Favorite Pear Tree. He had turned the pears blue, and he had turned them into oranges once, and pink balloons. And then of course there was the sea shell mistake. He thought that he really ought to practice his magic recipes more, but he hardly ever needed to use them.

Overhead he heard a little sound that went "tink." A small night breeze had flown in. Another "tink", and then "tonkle tonkle," and "tinkle tonkel". He looked up, and hundreds of little silver bells that used to be pears, were tinkling away. The breeze passed through on its way to visit the fir trees, and the bells were silent, but twinkling from the reflections of starlight.

Dragon clasped his paws. "How beautiful! he sighed. "How gorgeously, splendiferously, extravagantly, overwhelmingly...neat! And I did it. I must write the recipe down so that I can remember it."

He was so tired out that he fell asleep under Favorite Pear Tree, until the sun peeked into the orchards and wakened him.

"I must get PearBear and show him his surprise. Favorite Pear Tree is the only enchanted tree in all of the forest or fields. He will be soooo pleased. I think." Dragon unfurled his wing, revved it up to full speed, and zipped of to the bear's house. Pearbear was naturally eating his breakfast pear.

"PearBear, come quickly with me, I have the most awesome surprise for you! You'll be so happy when you see what I did during the night! Come along. Close your eyes and follow me. No peeking now." Dragon was so excited. "How can I follow you when my eyes are closed?" asked PearBear.

"Oh. Yes. Well." Dragon thought about that for a minute and said, "Um. OK. Just close one eye and walk along with me, but look down at the ground. I want this to be a really really big surprise." Dragon was a pretty peach blush pink this morning.

The pair walked up the forest path until they came to Favorite Pear Tree. Of course, Pearbear knew exactly right where he was.

"Don't peek yet!" said Dragon, hoping for a morning breeze. Sure enough, there was one right at that very moment. Quite a strong one as a matter of fact. As soon as the bells started to tinkle loudly, Dragon shouted, "OK! Open your eyes!"

PearBear raised his head and looked up at Favorite Pear Tree, twinkling and tinkling away without a single pear on it. Not a single one! He was speechless.

"I knew you'd be surprised! Oh, isn't it wonderful? I worked all night to find the right recipe. I wanted you to have the biggest surprise you ever had in your whole life," Dragon said as he jumped up and down.

PearBear still couldn't find any words.Surprise was putting it very mildly. All the pears....gone! Favorite Pear Tree tinking and tonking, and no birds anywhere close. The forest was very silent, except for the silver bells. Finally he found his voice.

"Put them back, Dragon," he said slowly. "Put every one of the pears back, and stop that noise. The birds are gone. The forest folk won't come here. They'll be frightened. Oh! What have you done?"

Dragon was so disappointed that he started to weep. Blue tears, too. "I only wanted to repay you for all the nice things you have done for me. I was sure that you'd love the bells," he said sadly.

"Please put the pears back. Pretty please. And make them stop that noise," said PearBear.

Dragon stopped sobbing but he had blue tear tracks running down his cheeks. A rather bad thought had just occurred to him. "You know what? I don't even know for sure how I did it. I should have written down the recipe. I worked on this all night, just for you," Dragon sniffled.

"Nonsense." said the bear. "You told us all that you had forgotten the spell to put feathers back on Spotted Owl until I mentioned pea soup. Then you remembered. Is that it? Do you want pea soup? Why didn't you just say so?"

"No, really, PearBear. I have no idea what I did because I tried lots and lots of spells. I have no idea which of them worked. I can't remember what I did!"

"Well try to remember everything you did, only do it backward."

Dragon sighed. He thought that the pear tree, which really wasn't a pear tree any more, looked so lovely. He also thought that if PearBear didn't like silver bells, he sure wasn't going to like sea shells, pink balloons, blue pears or oranges, which would probably happen if he did everything in reverse. But he'd try.

And he did. It all seemed to come back to him. He did all the things that he had done all night long, only backward. Nothing was happening except the tinkle and tonkle of the bells. They were even beginning to annoy him. He was simply exhausted.

Finally he sat down next to PearBear on the ground, folded his wing, and said in a very small voice, "I'm really really sorry."

They both sat there for a while, and thought about things. PearBear thought about pears, and Dragon thought about bells. Which, they both thought of at the same time, were no longer ringing. They looked up at the branches of Favorite Pear Tree. The pears were back! Hundreds of plump, green pears.

PearBear was so happy that he gave Dragon a great bear hug, which is a very big hug indeed.

"PearBear, you are squeezing too hard! You'll break my wing," he puffed.

Pearbear let go and went over to give Favorite Pear Tree a big hug.

"My wing," Dragon said thoughtfully. "My wing! I folded my wing after I did all that magic stuff and the magic worked. Both times. Oh, PearBear, I've got it! I have to write this all down so that we can remember the recipe."

PearBear was still patting Favorite Pear Tree, and turned to Dragon. "No, please don't write it down. You might be tempted to do it again,"

"I wonder if it would work on apple trees," murmured Dragon, and flew off to look for a pencil.