Avis and the Promise of Dragons by Heather McQuillan

Author:Heather McQuillan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Cuba Press Ltd

Back at Malinda’s, Avis opened the gate tentatively and looked around. She did not want to see any evidence of Drake and luckily there wasn’t a thing. No scraps of clothing, no carelessly abandoned foot or ear, no congealing pool of fresh blood. Humbert was still under the rhododendrons, his hum rumbling with hunger and his snout twitching at the packet of sausages.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Avis. ‘That boy should have filled you up for hours. There was a load of protein in him.’

Humbert snorted. ‘Did you want me to eat him?’ he hummed. ‘It was hard to tell.’

Avis hung her head and stood still as the sense of power she had felt kicking over the ad stands drained out of her feet and into the ground.

‘It seems like I have to do what you want, no matter how much I hate it,’ she said bitterly. ‘What are you turning me into? A dragon?’

Avis felt tears coming.

‘And what are you turning me into?’ Humbert chuckled. ‘A lily-livered human? It works both ways. Besides,’ he hummed, ‘it appears that I can’t do anything that would make you feel really bad.’ He nodded his dragon’s head towards the tunnel house.

Through a window in the double-locked shed Avis could see the pale terrified face of Drake Snelling. She almost collapsed to the ground in relief.

‘I really wanted to eat him,’ hummed Humbert. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much I wanted to, but I couldn’t because you really wanted me not to.’

‘I thought I wanted you to,’ said Avis. ‘I thought I had a dragonish heart.’

Humbert snorted a laugh again. ‘You do realise you’d never have even thought of locking that boy in the garden with me if I hadn’t nudged the thought into your mind in the first place?’

Avis wasn’t so sure. Getting rid of Drake Snelling permanently had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she was glad he wasn’t dead, even if it made him an extra problem.

Humbert reached out a sharp claw and grabbed the packet of sausages.

‘Wait on,’ said Avis and she removed the plastic packaging. ‘That would make you sick, you silly duffer.’

Humbert’s laugh became a growl. ‘Don’t laugh at me just because there are things I don’t know.’

‘I am sorry, but you keep laughing at me,’ said Avis. ‘You’re going to have to stop being so sensitive.’

‘I don’t think I can. It’s a dragon thing,’ said Humbert, as he swallowed the string of pre-cooked sausages in a long slurp. Avis offered him the chilli chocolate but he shook his head.

‘I thought you’d like it,’ Avis said, disappointed not to have pleased the dragon.

‘I’ll love it,’ he hummed back. ‘It’s just that something in it slows me down and I feel like exploring. For that I need to be fast.’

‘And invisible,’ said Avis, getting his drift at once. Humbert was already bleary around the edges, as if his colour was leaching out.

‘I have to take this milk back for Dad,’ she said. ‘Don’t go anywhere before I get back.

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