The Neverending Story

by Michael Ende

Bastian stopped reading. He felt miserable, as though he himself had Ygramul’s poison inside him. ‘Thank God I’m not in Fantastica,’ he muttered. ‘Luckily, such monsters don’t exist in reality. Anyway, it’s only a story.’ But was it only a story? How did it happen that Ygramul, and probably Atreyu as well, had heard Bastian’s cry of terror? Little by little, this book was beginning to give him a spooky feeling.

‘Here I am, Atreyu,’

‘And you needn’t be so surprised. I was pretty well paralyzed when I was caught in that spider web, but I heard everything Ygramul said to you. So I thought to myself: She has bitten

me too, after all, so why shouldn’t I take advantage of the secret as well? That’s ...

‘I hated leaving you to...

‘But what coul...

‘Noth...

‘You’ve saved my life all the same – even if I had someth...

‘Saved your life,’

‘for an hour. That’s all we have left. I can feel Ygramul’s poison burning my heart away.’ ‘Every poison has its antidote,’

Everything will turn out all right. You’ll see.’ ‘I c...

‘Neither ...

‘But that’s the wonderful part of it. From now on you’ll succeed in everything you attempt. Because I’m a luckdragon. Even when I was caught in the web, I didn’t...

‘My life belongs to you,’

‘if you’ll accept it. I thought you’d need a mount for this Great Quest of yours. And you’ll soon see that crawling around the country on two legs, or even galloping on a good horse, can’t hold a candle to whizzing through the air on the back of a luckdragon. Are we partners?’ ‘We’re partners,’

‘By the...

‘My name is F...

‘Glad to mee...

‘but while we’re talking, what little time we have left is seeping away. I’ve got to...

‘Have ...

‘What ...

‘Nice medicine! Good medicine!’

‘Just drink, child. Do you good.’

‘What about the white dragon?’ he asked. ‘Doing fine!’

‘Don’t worry, my boy. You’ll get well. You’ll both get well. The worst is over. Just drink. Drink.’

The clock in the belfry struck two. Bastian couldn’t hold it in any longer. He simply had to go. He had felt the need for quite some time, but he hadn’t been able to

stop reading. Besides, he had been afraid to go downstairs. He told himself that there was nothing to worry about, that the building was deserted, that no one would see him. But still he was afraid, as if the school were a person watching him. But in the end there was no help for it; he just had to go! He set the open book down on the mat, went to the door and listened with pounding heart. Nothing. He slid the bolt and slowly turned the big key in the lock. When he pressed the handle, the door opened, creaking loudly. He padded out in his stocking feet, leaving the door behind him open to avoid unnecessary noise. He crept down the stairs to the second floor. The students’ toilet was at the other end of the long corridor with the spinach-green classroom doors. Racing against time, Bastian ran as fast as he could and just made it. As he sat there, he wondered why heroes in stories like the one he was reading never had to worry about such problems. Once – when he was much younger – he had asked his religion teacher if Jesus Christ had had to go like an ordinary person. After all, he had taken food and drink like everyone else. The class had howled with laughter, and the teacher, instead of an answer, had given him several demerits for ‘insolence’. He hadn’t meant to be insolent. ‘Probably,’ Bastian now said to himself, ‘these things are just too unimportant to be mentioned in stories.’ Yet for him they could be of the most pressing and embarrassing importance. He was finished...

‘Woman!’

‘Get out of my light. You are interfering with my research!’

‘You and your re...

‘Who cares about that? The important thing is my health elixir. Those two outside a...

‘Those...

‘will be far more in need of my help...

‘Mayb...

‘But not until they are well. Move ov...

‘He’s already well,’

‘Now it’s my turn.’

‘Certainl...

‘He’ll be well when I say so. It’ll be your turn when I s...

‘We would invite you in, but it’s not quite big enough, is it? Just a moment. We...

Urgl,

‘Well, well. We seem to be getting better, don’t we?’

‘No pain?’

‘None worth mentioning,’

‘Nons...

‘Does it hurt or doesn’t it?’ ‘It ...

‘but it doesn’t ...

‘Not to you, perhaps, but it does to me! Since when does the patient tell the doctor what matters? What do you know about it? If it’s to get well, it has to hurt. If it stoppe...

‘I only wanted to say … that is, I wanted to thank ...

‘I’m a healer, after all. I’ve only done my professional duty. Besides, Engywook, that’s my old man, saw the Glory hanging on y...