Prairie Fire Read Free Page A

been a while since a dragon had tried to eat Hannah’s backyard forge.
    â€œWell,” said Owen as he slid into the backseat beside me. He didn’t help me with my seatbelt, even though I was having a hard time with it. “I guess we’ve done it now.”
    â€œYou’ll be fine,” Aodhan said, checking over his shoulder before pulling out into traffic. Driving in the Volkswagen with Aodhan at the wheel was commonplace for me now, but being in a regular-sized car with him still made me giggle. He had to duck to look at stoplights out the front window. “Siobhan, did you have any trouble?”
    From most people, that would have been a delicately worded question about my feelings with regard to the fact that I could barely hold a pen. I knew that Aodhan didn’t mean that, though. He had been there when I first saw a dead dragon, and he had defended the hospital while my mother worked inside it. He already thought of me as a comrade-in-arms. It’s reassuring when a giant trusts you to protect his back. And his son.
    â€œThe sergeant clearly has his doubts,” I told him. “But I do too, so I think that’s only fair.”
    â€œWe’ve still got time to work,” Lottie assured me. “And I’ve promised your father that I wouldn’t let you go if I thought you couldn’t handle it.”
    My parents had managed to wait a whole month after Manitoulin before asking if I still planned to join the Oil Watch. They weren’t surprised, I think, when I told them that I still would, if the Watch would take me, but Mum did spend a lot of time on the phone with Hannah that week.
    â€œWe’ve got almost a month to think of something specific for you to do if there’s no need for actual music, and for me to call in every favour I have left to make sure you get to do it,” Lottie continued.
    Owen had his cell phone out, and I knew he was texting Sadie. Thanks to the new towers in and around Trondheim, put up once Aodhan had provided assurances that they would not be easily destroyed by dragon fire, she might actually get the text before we got home. Her parents had insisted she sign up on a different day, to avoid the news cameras. I didn’t tell them that Sadie’s enlistment would probably merit TV cameras on its own. Sadie’s fame was entirely different from Owen’s, but it was growing, thanks in no small part to me.
    For the rest of the drive home, we talked about other things. The Thorskards were very good at avoiding certain topics of conversation, like impending doom, without making it awkward. I looked out at the fields, some newly plowed, some with winter wheat already stitched in green against the dark brown soil. Owen watched the skies, like always, but they were empty. His phone beeped. I did my best not to get in Owen and Sadie’s way, after extracting a promise from Sadie that she would tell me if I was doing something she didn’t like, because my chances of recognizing it were very low. She’d only laughed and told me I was adorable, which she did a lot anyway, and so far everything had been just fine.
    Aodhan dropped me off at the foot of my driveway, and my dad waved from the door.
    â€œIt’s done?” he said, when I was close enough that he didn’t have to shout.
    â€œIt’s done,” I told him. “Is Mum home yet?”
    â€œShe got in just after you left,” he told me. “But she said if you want to practice, she’ll be fine as long as you keep the mute in.”
    One of the (very few) handy things about being forced away from the saxophone was that a trombone could be muted and made to play more softly while still using the proper amount of air. I had an electric mute, which played only for the wireless headphones I wore while I practiced, but I also had a regular mute, which served to muffle any noise I might make. This weekend, though, I didn’t have the trombone