Handbook for Dragon Slayers

by Merrie Haskell

  Thank you to my reader-critiquers: Julie Winningham, always first; Jason Larke, always convinced not enough people die in any draft; Julie DeJong, who cried for Felix and cheered for everything else; Catherine Shaffer, for being resolutely reassuring even when I had to irrationally rebuff any reassurance; Elizabeth Shack, for liking what I write; Kate Riley, for the chaos and the encouragement.

  Last but never least: thanks to my family.

  About the Author

  MERRIE HASKELL was born in Michigan and grew up in North Carolina. She wrote her first story at the age of seven, and she walked dogs after school in order to buy her first typewriter.

  Merrie returned north to attend the Residential College of the University of Michigan, where she earned a BA in biological anthropology. Her fiction has appeared in Nature, Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, and Unplugged: The Web’s Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 2008 Download. She now lives in Saline, Michigan, with her husband and stepdaughter. Merrie works in a library with more than 7 million books, and she finds this to be just about the right number. She is the author of The Princess Curse.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors and artists.

  Back Ad

  Also by Merrie Haskell

  The Princess Curse

  Credits

  Cover art © 2013 by Kevin Keele

  Cover design by Joel Tippie

  Copyright

  HANDBOOK FOR DRAGON SLAYERS. Copyright © 2013 by Merrie Fuller. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollins.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Haskell, Merrie.

  Handbook for dragon slayers / Merrie Haskell. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Yearning for life in a cloistered scriptorium, thirteen-year-old Princess Matilda, whose lame foot brings fear of the evil eye, escapes her scheming cousin Ivo and joins her servant Judith and an old friend, Parz, in hunting dragons and writing about them.

  ISBN 978-0-06-200816-9 (hardcover bdg.)

  EPub Edition April 2013 ISBN 9780062208422

  [1. Fairy tales. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.

  3. Princesses—Fiction. 4. People with disabilities—Fiction. 5. Dragons—Fiction. 6. Authorship—Fiction. 7. Books and reading—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ8.H2563Han 2013 2012022159

  [Fic]—dc23 CIP

  AC

  * * *

  13 14 15 16 17 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FIRST EDITION

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  http://www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollins.com