Part 1
Cranston Thorndike was a mean, mean, little boy. Early on in the story, he tries to drown his little sisters' cat in a well because he had just finished reading about little Tommy Lin, the boy who drowns a little cat in a mother goose rhyme. The cat (Tuffles) gets away, and sings Cranston a funny little song about perseverence. (By the way, the story is a musical!) Cranston goes on to play at the playground, and he beats up a little boy, and steals his little toy Dragon.
Cranston comes home, and is greeted by his mother who is mad because of the cat incident, and she sends him to his room for punishment. Cranston Lays down on his floor and fumes over his punishment. He then feels a burning sensation on his back and gets up to see that little toy Dragon running around breathing fire. Cranston tries to stop it with his pop gun, but the Dragon just bites it in half.
Cranston starts really freaking out now, and the Dragon grows to a much larger size.
Cranston runs under his bed and falls down a hole. And he keeps falling, and falling, through darkness. He lands "With a thump," on "something warm and plump." It turns out to be "a real, live bugbirdman!"
The bugbirdmen capture Cranston because he has a cold heart, and they sing a creepy song about the Dragon burning up little boys and girls that have cold hearts or "hearts of stone" and using their "hot little stone hearts to keep his castle warm at night." Cranston lies to them and says he's been nothing but kind all his life, and the bugbirdmen yell for the "grob on the golden cart" who tests hearts. The grob reaches down through Cranston's mouth, and grabs (or maybe Grobs?) his heart. He tells the bugbirdmen that this boy's "heart is made of stone and that I guarantee!"
[Cover*Part One*Part Two]
