The Return of the Dragon Read Free Page A

become Dragon Friends, marked by the dragon’s claw in the center of their palms with a spark of shining gold.
    There was the sound of a heavy body shifting on the cave floor. Then there came a soft hiss in the darkness as the dragon, awakened, softly flamed. The cave blossomed into light. A pair of neon-green eyes opened, at first narrowed into gleaming slits, then growing wider.
    “Fafnyr,” breathed Zachary.
    The dragon made a rumbling sound deep in its chest and brushed a golden claw across its eyes. It arched its neck, unfolded its smooth golden wings, and stretched them out one at a time, first to the right and then to the left.
    “Dear me. I must have dozed off,” it said in a scratchy voice. It cleared its throat.
    “How nice to see you all again,” it said. It nodded majestically to each child. “Hannah. Zachary. Sarah Emily. Delightful.”
    “It’s wonderful to see you, Fafnyr,” Hannah said. “We’ve missed you terribly. It has been months and months since we’ve been here.”
    The dragon gave a jaw-cracking yawn.
    “I have missed you too, my dears,” it said. It cleared its throat again in an embarrassed manner. “Or,” it added, “I would have, if I had been awake. I do need my rest, you understand.”
    The dragon yawned enormously for a second time.
    “Months, you say,” it said. “How time flies. And what have you been doing since we saw you last?”
    “Oh, we’ve been at school,” said Hannah. “We haven’t been doing anything important. I’m taking art classes. And I’m on the field hockey team.”
    “And you, dear boy?” The golden head turned toward Zachary.
    “I’ve been building model rockets,” Zachary said. “I named the best one after you, Fafnyr. I painted it a sort of gold color, so I named it Goldenwings. You should see it fly.”
    “Is it the kind that explodes?” the dragon asked in a delighted voice. “I always liked the ones that explode. A bang, and then all those glittery bits.”
    “Those are fireworks,” said Zachary. “These are different. They have engines. You launch them and then they come back down on parachutes.”
    “Ah,” the dragon said. It rolled its eyes briefly upward in the direction of the cave ceiling, as if looking for a descending parachute.
    Then it turned toward Sarah Emily. “And you, my dear?” it asked. “How have you been?”
    “I’ve been fine,” said Sarah Emily. “I’m taking piano lessons.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I’m not very good yet. I’m only up to a thing called ‘The Happy Froggie.’”
    “Practice makes perfect,” the dragon said. “I have no doubt that you will shortly triumph over this . . . cheerful amphibian.” It hummed a few bars of something unrecognizable. “I myself have musical ambitions,” it confided. “We must collaborate sometime. Perhaps a duet.”
    “Fafnyr,” Zachary cut in worriedly, “did you know there are strangers on the island? They’re camping on the beach, right near the bottom of the hill. And there’s a big boat anchored offshore — with a man on it who’s watching your cave. Have you seen him? Do you know what he’s doing here?”
    “He could be dangerous,” Sarah Emily said.
    “He could be a
spy,
” Zachary said.
    Hannah sighed.
    “We don’t know that he’s watching the cave,” she said fairly. “We couldn’t tell what he was looking at. Lots of people have binoculars. He could be a bird watcher.”
    The dragon thought for a moment.
    “Has this . . . boat person . . . done anything frightening?” it asked finally. “Threatened you?”
    “Well, no,” said Zachary. “We just saw him looking at the hill through binoculars.”
    “So he
could,
in fact, be bird watching,” the dragon said. “Or perhaps he’s a student of rock formations. Or a landscape painter.”
    “Well,” Zachary said doubtfully, “I guess he could be. We didn’t really see him do anything wrong.”
    “I don’t think Aunt Mehitabel would like trespassers,” Sarah