Summer of the Dragons by Ed Clarke

Author:Ed Clarke [Clarke, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241360507
Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK
Published: 2020-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Mari was still in shock when Dylan joined her in the empty cave.

‘Where …? What …?’ His mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish’s.

‘She’s gone,’ said Mari quietly. ‘He’s taken them all.’

‘He can’t have. They must have escaped before he got here.’

But they both knew what must have happened.

‘I guess we won’t be needing the gate now, then,’ said Gareth, arriving on the scene.

‘Gweeb!’ Mari cried, as if her little dragon might hear her, wherever she was. But her voice’s echo around the cave was the only reply.

‘What time do you call this?’

At once, three torch beams whipped round to see who was talking.

‘Ffion!’ cried Mari.

‘I thought we said eight thirty,’ she replied, clambering down into the cave from outside.

‘Well, where have you been, then?’ asked Dylan.

‘I,’ said Ffion, swinging a rucksack off her back and on to the floor of the cave, ‘have been looking after these guys.’

She peeled back the zips, and out crawled a teeming mass of tiny red dragons, all slightly dazed from being crammed into their temporary home.

‘Gweeb!’ cried Mari as the last dragon out of the bag flew up on to her hand.

She raised Gweeb to her cheek, to feel the dragon’s scales against her skin. Gweeb curled her tail around Mari’s ear, and it made her giggle with glee.

‘So, fortunately, one of us was early,’ said Ffion, a dragon perched on her finger. ‘And when I saw Griff arrive in the car park, I had just long enough to stuff the flock into my bag and get clear before he and Petra came into the cave.’

‘So they have been inside?’ said Mari. But before Ffion had a chance to reply, she suddenly realized something. ‘The eggs!’

She wheeled round and threw a beam of light over the cave floor, crouching down to get a better look. The female dragons that had spilled out of the bag were already spreading out across the cave in search of their eggs. Gweeb leaped down from Mari’s palm to go to hers. Hard though they were to make out in the torchlight, Mari began to see the tiny eggs scattered among the rocks where the dragons had left them. She breathed an enormous sigh of relief.

‘They must have thought the cave was empty and failed to see the eggs!’ cried Mari. ‘You’re a superstar, Ffion. An absolute superstar.’

She stood up to hug Ffion. Ffion cautiously returned the embrace, as if she wasn’t sure if Mari meant it or not.

Mari pulled back and held her by the shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘You’re, er, welcome,’ replied Ffion.

There was an awkward silence for a moment, then Mari noticed a dragon appear out of Ffion’s pocket. It had the same ruby-red body and emerald-green eyes as Gweeb, but its wings were streaked with black and it was holding a little crystal of rose quartz in one of its claws.

‘Oh, this is Garnet,’ said Ffion.

‘Garnet?’

‘He’s a little red magpie. Loves stealing my shiny things. So I named him after a gemstone.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Mari to the dragon.

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