New Dragon City by Mari Mancusi

Author:Mari Mancusi [MANCUSI, MARI]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2022-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

I stared at my mom. Her words ringing in my ears.

I wanted you here more than anything in the world.

Anger rose inside me. I set down my fork, meeting her eyes. “Then why did you just leave?” I demanded. “You didn’t even say goodbye!”

For a moment, she didn’t speak. The silence stretched out between us, long and agonizing. Then, at last, she sighed. “Your father wouldn’t let me.”

My head jerked up. “What?”

She shrugged uneasily. “When I first found out about this place, I thought it was a dream come true. A chance for us to make things better—to finally live a life without fear. But when I went to your dad, he was furious at me for even talking to the people here. Like you said, he thinks they’re some kind of cult. Not to mention traitors to our country. I tried to reason with him—get him to change his mind, but you know how he can be. Especially about anything to do with dragons.”

I nodded slowly. I knew all too well.

“It’s not his fault. He bought into the propaganda that the government and media fed him back in the early days. That dragons were some kind of evil creatures out to destroy our world. That the only way to deal with them was to blast them into extinction.” She poked her food with her fork. “But things have changed. We know more now. We understand more of what the dragons want and how to work with them. And we believe we can still build a bright future for mankind without wiping out an entire new species in the process.”

She set down her fork. “But your father is still scarred from all he’s been through—which is understandable. It was an awful time for everyone back then. You were young—you probably don’t remember it too well. But it was so scary, not knowing what was going to happen. Your father protected us through that, and I’ll always be grateful to him for doing so. But now…” She sighed. “Now we know more. And it would be going backward not to acknowledge that and use it to our benefit. At least, that’s what I believe. Your father, on the other hand…”

She trailed off, and my mind flashed back to my dad in the hospital room, burned and battered. If he’d hated dragons before, it was going to be even worse now that one had almost taken his life.

The only good dragon is a dead dragon.

We’d made that joke a thousand times over the years. And I had always believed it, too. I mean, it seemed so obvious—dragons were the enemy, and everyone knew that.

Could we really trust them to become our allies?

“Anyway,” Mom continued. “I told him I was going. And that I was going to take you with me. He could stay stuck in his ways, but you shouldn’t have to suffer for it.” She sighed deeply. “Let’s just say he didn’t like that idea very much. In fact, he flipped out on me.

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