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  To Sam and Cassie

  —S.A.

  For Meghan, with love

  —J.M.

  Once there was a small town

  beside a wide river.

  The town was called Berry Town.

  Everyone who lived there

  was crazy about berries.

  They loved to eat berries.

  They loved to look at berries.

  They even loved to smell berries.

  In the spring, the people

  of Berry Town went over the bridge,

  across the river, and to the fields.

  There they planted all kinds of berries—

  strawberries, blueberries, blackberries,

  raspberries, and even huckleberries.

  In the summer,

  when the berries were ripe,

  there was a big parade.

  Everyone marched

  through the town

  on their way to the berry fields.

  But one year,

  when the people of Berry Town

  reached the bridge,

  something was wrong.

  That something

  was very big,

  very scaly,

  and very scary.

  It was a dragon!

  “No one may cross this bridge,”

  the dragon said.

  “The berries are all mine!”

  The townspeople

  sadly turned away.

  They wanted the berries.

  But what could they do?

  The dragon was bigger

  and stronger and scarier

  than any of them.

  “Wait!” came a small voice.

  It was a little girl named Holly.

  “I have an idea,”

  Holly said to the dragon.

  “Let’s have a contest.

  If I win, you have to go away.”

  “Okay,” said the dragon.

  “But if I win, then everyone

  has to work in the berry fields for me.”

  “Is that okay?” Holly asked.

  The people of Berry Town nodded.

  It was their only chance.

  The schoolteacher stepped forward.

  “I see that you have a set of scales,”

  he said to the dragon.

  “I will ask three questions about weights,”

  said the teacher.

  “Whoever gets two out of three

  questions right wins.

  The dragon’s scales

  will decide who is right.”

  “Okay,” said Holly.

  The dragon was not used

  to this kind of contest.

  But he knew that

  whoever is biggest

  and strongest

  and scariest always wins.

  So he nodded.

  The dragon gave his scales

  to the teacher.

  Then the dragon and Holly

  stood back to back.

  They took one, two,

  three steps.

  “Which weighs more,” asked the teacher,

  “one apple or two peas?”

  The dragon snorted.

  “Everyone knows that two things

  weigh more than one thing,” he said.

  “So two peas weigh more than one apple.”

  “Two things don’t always weigh more than one thing,” said Holly.

  “What matters is how heavy

  the things are.”

  “I know that an apple

  is heavier than two peas.”

  “Let’s see who’s right,”

  said the teacher.

  The teacher put the apple

  on one side of the scales.

  He put the peas on the other.

  The apple side went down.

  The peas side went up.

  The apple weighed more

  than the peas!

  The townspeople cheered.

  The dragon snarled.

  Holly and the teacher smiled.

  “Next question,” said the teacher.

  “Which weighs more,

  a little bag of gold

  or a big bag of cotton?”

  “Big things weigh more

  than little things,” said the dragon.

  “So the big bag of cotton must weigh

  more than the little bag of gold.”

  “Just because one thing is bigger

  than another doesn’t mean

  it is heavier,” said Holly.

  “I know that even a big bag of cotton

  is lighter than a little bag of gold.”

  “Who is right this time?”

  said the teacher.

  The teacher put the bag of gold

  on one side of the scales.

  He put the bag of cotton on the other.

  The gold side went down.

  The cotton side went up.

  The gold weighed more

  than the cotton!

  “Time for you to pack up,”

  said Holly to the dragon.

  The dragon started to cry.

  Holly felt sorry for the dragon.

  “I’ll ask you one more question,”

  she said.

  “If you answer it right,

  then you can stay.

  But you have to promise to be nice.”

  The dragon sniffled.

  “I really am nice,” he said.

  “But no one ever wants

  to share with a dragon.”

  “Which weighs more,” Holly asked,

  “a bucket of bricks or a bucket of

  feathers?”

  “The buckets are the same size,”

  said the dragon.

  “Two things that are the same—”

  “Think very carefully,” said Holly.

  The dragon took a deep breath.

  He thought very carefully.

  “Bricks are heavier

  than feathers,” he said.

  “So even though there is

  the same amount of

  bricks and feathers,

  the bucket of bricks must weigh more.”

  Holly put the bucket of feathers

  on one side of the scales.

  She put the bucket of bricks

  on the other.

  The brick side went down.

/>   The feather side went up.

  The bricks weighed more

  than the feathers!

  The dragon was right!

  And that’s the story of how

  Berry Town got its very own

  watchdragon!

  Text copyright © 1998 by Sarah Albee. Illustrations copyright © 1998 by John Manders. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Albee, Sarah.

  The dragon’s scales : a math reader / by Sarah Albee ; illustrated by John Manders.

  p. cm. — (Step into reading. A step 3 book)

  SUMMARY: When a dragon threatens to disrupt the life of the townspeople, a little girl challenges the scaly creature to a math contest involving knowledge of weight.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-55575-5

  [1. Dragons—Fiction. 2. Weights and measures—Fiction. 3. Contests—Fiction.]

  I. Manders, John, ill. II. Title. III. Series: Step into reading. Step 3 book.

  PZ7.A3174 Ds 2003 [E]—dc21 2002015215

  STEP INTO READING, RANDOM HOUSE, and the Random House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Sarah Albee, The Dragon's Scales

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