Cinder was a young dragon who could not breathe fire. When he tried, he only coughed, and a few sparks the size of peas jumped out of his mouth. The big dragons of the mountain found this hilarious. "Cinder," they said, sending clouds of flame up at the stars, "you couldn't light a candle."
In midwinter he left the mountain at night and climbed down through falling snow to a village of forty houses, where every window was dark. In front of the bakery sat the baker, Mrs. Marsh, a woman of sixty, wrapped in a blanket beside her cold oven. "The storm blew snow down the chimney and put out the fire," she said. "The matches are wet, the logs are damp, and by morning there will be no bread."
She was not afraid of a dragon at her door; she had no strength left for it. "Can you light an oven?"
"I can only cough sparks," said Cinder.
"Then cough," said Mrs. Marsh.
The first spark died on the wet logs. A real dragon's fire would have burned the bakery down, but tiny sparks, she said, could be coaxed along by anyone with patience. She fetched a tin of dry shavings, and Cinder lay down before the oven door and coughed until his throat burned. The fortieth spark took. A flame the size of a thumb grew into a small fire, and the small fire into a glowing oven.
At dawn the loaves came out, steaming, and the village crowded in to eat warm bread. Mrs. Marsh hung a sign on the door: "Cinder, Official Oven Lighter." And Cinder, with crumbs on his chin, understood that his sparks had never been too small. They were exactly the right size.
