Miss Percy's Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons) (A Miss Percy Guide Book 1) by Quenby Olson

Author:Quenby Olson [Olson, Quenby]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Worldtree Publishing
Published: 2021-10-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Young dragons show a similarity to their human counterparts in that they have a tendency to grow and acquire new skills in leaps and bounds. A failure to acknowledge such spurts of progress may leave one underestimating the competence of the creature before them, much to their detriment.

-from Chapter Twelve of Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons)

* * *

Mildred spent the night at the vicarage. There really wasn’t much choice in the matter. Or there was a choice, but it was between walking all the way back to Ashby Lodge (Mr. Wiggan swore that he would accompany her if she was determined, but the warmth and comfort of Mrs. Babbinton’s kitchen along with a reluctance to face her sister again crumbled that determination as easily as one of the housekeeper’s lemon biscuits) or remaining where she already was, with tea and a fire and a seemingly endless supply of comestibles for her enjoyment. Though it was Fitz who ultimately made the decision for her, as he absolutely refused to descend from his perch on her shoulders for over an hour. By then, Mildred knew her family would have already retired for the night, with the doors locked up and the lights put out until morning. (She might have allowed herself a fleeting fantasy of someone in the household waiting up for her, worrying over her safety and perhaps even teasing with the idea of organizing a search party to—

—no, not even in her imagination could she conjure up such a scenario from her family. Though if Matthew and Nettie were still awake, she did not doubt they would be the first to race off to rescue her—and Fitz, of course—should they believe her to be in any real danger.)

“I can stay up with him first,” Mildred said, while Fitz gamboled around the kitchen at her feet, chasing after a frayed end of string she dangled for him. They had already agreed to take turns keeping watch through the night, as the evening’s incident (a mild way of describing the young dragon’s unintentional arsonist tendencies) had made them aware they could not leave him unattended for any length of time. Even returning him to his pen was out of the question, as he had already proved capable of opening the latch in a matter of only a few seconds. (An experiment of placing him in there again and putting themselves just out of sight had produced the result of his climbing halfway up the door, fiddling with the latch with an alternating process that involved his nose and jaw, and then lolloping onto the ground beyond the confines of the pen with all the brazenness of a creature well aware of the tenuous limits on his captivity.)

“Are you certain?” came Mr. Wiggan’s reply. Mr. Wiggan who had begun to noticeably droop twenty minutes before, managing a poor job of stifling his yawns and appearing as rumpled as the bed he no doubt wished desperately to crawl into.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.