Dragon Overnight by Sarah Mlynowski

Author:Sarah Mlynowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2017-03-22T04:00:00+00:00

The Atrium of Healing was a large greenhouse with glass walls. It was filled with plants. The air inside was thick and tropical. Many flying dragons came from south of the equator. None of them breathed fire or hunted aggressively, so it was safe to be with them.

Mo gave the students a twenty-minute lesson on why certain orphaned whelps struggled with flying and ways the campers could help them. Many of the whelps had been injured. They hesitated to flap their hurt wings. They needed to build up strength—and confidence. Right now there were several different flying breeds living together, all young ones. The goal was to get them strong enough so they could be released back into the wild.

“Mostly they need encouragement,” said Dragonologist Hendricks, who was in charge of the atrium. “Those of you who aren’t Flyers, come over to this petting area. You can stroke them and feed them peanuts. Mimic the flapping movements Mo described. They’ll copy you, and it’ll help build their wing strength. Have fun—and I mean that. We don’t have any adult flying dragons right now. These whelps have no one to show them how fun it can be.”

Andres shrugged out of his brickpack, his spirits soaring. The moment his pack dropped off him, he was up in the air. He floated to the ceiling right away, but then he pushed off and worked on flying purposefully, the way he did with his tutor in the school gymnasium. The Atrium of Healing was much bigger than the gym, though. Way bigger.

To fly down, Andres planted his feet on the ceiling and bent his knees. One powerful jump sent him shooting toward the ground. Hendricks had rigged the atrium with zip lines, so that the dragonologists could easily access tree-nesting dragons. Andres caught one and swung around it to change his direction. He did it again. And again! He could snag one with his foot if he got going too fast. He could propel himself from one zip line to another to another.

He hardly even looked at the dragons. He flew for the pure exhilaration of it. Tip and Tomás cheered him on. Then, remembering what he was there for, Andres pushed off the ceiling and found a low tree branch to hold on to. He grabbed on to the branch with his arms and legs and held on tightly. Nearby, Hendricks and Mo were talking to the non-flying students.

“The little green ones—see them?” Hendricks said. “They’re called Arbor Dragons. Dragon Haven has six of them. They don’t fly very high, but they seem to enjoy sitting on the zip lines.”

“Like birds on telephone wires,” one of the Sage kids said.

Hendricks nodded.

Just underneath him, Andres noticed a nest of leaves. Inside the leaves, a small Arbor Dragon was curled into a ball.

“That’s Zog!” called Mo. “You can pet him. He’s friendly.”

Andres leaned toward the nest. “Hi, Zog.”

Hendricks swooped to Andres’s side. “Police officers found him on top of a lamppost in a crowded, bustling city.

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