Tamara Rosman, age 10, of Creston, Washington, for her question:

Do dragons really spit fire?

If you ever meet a real live dragon, without a doubt he will breathe flames and fumes from his nostrils. However, here we have a big problem. You never, never will meet up with a real live dragon because there is no such animal. And there never was such an animal. The dragon was invented ages ago. We call him a legendary animal because he belongs in legends, which are made up stories.

In any case, dragon tales were told again and again. And in time, most people believed he existed. He was, they thought, a great lizard type fellow who flew around on huge wings. He had terrible teeth and terrible talons, which sounds reasonable. He also breathed out fire. This is not reasonable because a fire breathing animal would burn himself to a crisp. This proves that the dragon must be a legendary animal that somebody invented. However, some of those exciting old dragon tales are a lot of fun.