My Diary from the Edge of the World Read Free Page A

so early; Mom says that happens sometimes. From this distance he looked to be the size of a miniature pony, but I couldn’t be sure. Then, very faintly, I heard him let out a desperate howl, and then another. With each howl he sunk a little farther toward land and a little puff of smoke floated up and away from him.
    Just as I was making sense of it all there was a horrible screech behind me. I must have been too distracted to hear him coming until he was too close. As it was, I barely had time to turn around before something eclipsed the sun above me, and in a rush of horrible stench and a thud of giant wings, the father dragon was overhead.
    He was about the size of a large city bus, and his bluereptilian wings stretched out twice as long in either direction. He looked down at me only once, craning his neck to glare at me, his eyes green, speckled, and bright as limes. For a moment we were gazing at each other, and it sent a chill right through me. He smelled horribly of caves and moss and rocks and dead, burned animals. If he’d so much as let out a heavy breath, he would have melted me. But he gave me only a momentary glance before he turned his attention back toward the valley, swooping over me with a sound like sails catching wind. He was so close I could see the pearly scales along the bottom of his tail as he glided past.
    I don’t know what came over me, but instead of rolling into a ball—which is one of the first things they teach you in kindergarten about surviving dragon attacks—I stretched my hand toward that pearly blue tail, mesmerized by his glistening scales. That was a bad idea.
    The impact threw me back against the church stone. There was a horrible crunch, but at first I thought I’d broken the stone instead of myself. Then for some reason I had the thought (it makes no sense now) that my arm was a carrot wedged in the refrigerator door.
    The dragon kept going—I could see him soaring into the wide open space over the valley like an enormousblue kite, casting a dark shadow over a line of cars on Route 1 and then hovering just above the baby, flapping his wings, his screeches echoing off the mountains. The baby called back to him with a weak screech, then seemed to gain courage. Soon he was flapping harder and straighter, and lifting instead of sinking. I think that’s when I first suspected it was me that was broken instead of the church stone. I guess it was the scalding pain that suddenly shot out of my right elbow. Then the pain was everywhere.
    *  *  *
    Now my right arm will be in a cast for weeks. Well, at least I’m left-handed.
    In the hour since I’ve been home, I’ve revoked my membership in the Orphan Dragon Rescue group online that Millie signed me up for, though I’m staying in the group that helps the endangered unicorns that live in the Sierra Madres. Arin Roland says her dad says that only “bleeding-heart crazies” sign up for dragon rescue groups anyway, though Arin Roland is the most annoying girl in my sixth-grade class.
    PS: Mostly the rescue groups buy large rural pieces of land in England and Scotland so the dragons can have somewhere to live where they won’t wreak too muchhavoc. It actually helps people, too, because in the sixties about half of London was occupied by dragons and nobody could do anything about it. Real estate prices for the safer side of the city skyrocketed. So take that, Arin’s dad.
    *  *  *
    I just went down to the kitchen to see if maybe Millie lied and actually did hide some leftover potato candy somewhere, but instead I ran into Dad, sitting at the kitchen table and studying a big paper chart. Tilted the other way and lying half across the chart was a map.
    â€œHey, honey,” he said, glancing up at me distractedly. “What are you up to?” Dad always forgets we have a bedtime, which isn’t surprising since he sometimes forgets we exist at all (or at least