“Dr. Nubbly?” Nory called. “Maybe you should come back!”
But Dr. Nubbly was in the Cuddlepuss room. Nory was alone.
The egg wiggled. Nory held her breath.
The egg jiggled.
There was one last crack, more of a crickity-crack this time, and a glowing pink line zigzagged across the egg. The two halves of the shell fell aside, and—
Wow. The dragon. The whelp, rather. It was pale pink. It nosed its way out of the egg and opened its large, dewy eyes. It was absolutely the cutest, most adorable, most lovable creature Nory had ever seen.
“Blurp!” cried the whelp. It was a teeny, tiny baby dragon roar.
“Hi, little bitsy!” Nory said in a talking-to-bunnies voice. “Hi, Roarie! I’m going to name you Roarie, okay?”
“Blurp!” Roarie trilled.
Blurp was right. Nory realized there was something familiar about Roarie. The shape of her wings and talons—that was it! Nory knew those wings and talons! She’d experienced those same wings and talons firsthand! Well, first paw. Yes! When Nory added dragon to her kitten to make a dritten, the bit of dragon she fluxed into was a Blurper Dragon! Definitely. A Blurper! Just like Roarie!
Nory put her hand to her heart. She knelt so that she was at the whelp’s eye level. Roarie’s eyes were round like lollipops. Roarie took a wobbly step toward Nory and trilled again. This time, her trill oozed with adoration.
Nory scrunched her toes inside her sneakers. Then, ever so gently, she removed the lid of the warm glass box that held the eggs. She reached the tip of her finger over Roarie’s dewy head. Roarie trilled and nuzzled closer.
Ignoring her better judgment, Nory picked up the whelp and held it close. “You smell like pumpkin seeds, little Roarie,” she said, leaning in and breathing deeply. “Pumpkin seeds and cinnamon! And grass!”
Nory knew she shouldn’t. She really did know it. But Roarie was just hatched, and alive, and all alone. Nory couldn’t just leave her there with no mother or father, teacher or aunt. Roarie was a Blurper! Nory turned into a Blurper! A Blurper kitten! A blitten!
Nory tucked the tiny dragon gently into the big front pocket of her hoodie and petted her through the fabric.
“I’ve got you, Roarie,” she whispered. “Don’t you worry. You’re safe, and everything’s going to be A-OK. I promise.”
Roarie trilled.
Nory was in love.
Sitting with the Sage Flyers at dinner, Andres ate two helpings of spaghetti, five meatballs, and some broccoli, followed by a brownie and a peanut butter cookie. After his adventures with Blade and the river dragons, he felt very, very alive. Like a new boy.
Mo stood up with the microphone. “We have some urgent news. One of the Blurpers has hatched!”
Everyone cheered.
“Yes, yes, it’s tremendously exciting,” Mo said. “Unfortunately, the whelp somehow escaped from the nursery. He or she is far too young to be alone. If anyone sees the baby dragon, please let me or one of the staff know immediately. We need to ensure that he or she is properly taken care of. Thank you.” She put down the microphone.
Andres saw Nory sink low in her seat, her hand protectively on the front pocket of her sweatshirt.
If he were sitting with Nory and the other UDM kids, maybe he’d ask her what was up. With Nory, something was almost always up. But he was with the Sage Flyers, and that was where he wanted to stay.
After dinner, Phoebe suggested the five Flyers go for a walk in the woods. She told the teachers where they were going and promised to keep to the paths. The sun was setting, but they all had their flashlights. Andres wore his brickpack and had his leash in his pocket.
“Hey, Andres!” Elliott called as the Flyers walked past the UDM table. “Don’t you want to hang with us in the cabin? We’re going to tell ghost stories with Nurse Riley. Remember? On the back porch as the sun goes down!”
“Actually, I have Flyer stuff to do,” said Andres. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“But we planned it,” said Elliott. “Bax is going to tell us that story about the phantom hitchhiker.”
“I have a good one, too,” added Sebastian. “A real thing that happened to my uncle Panagiotis. It involves hamsters. Spooky ones.”
“Maybe you can tell me another time?” said Andres. “We’re going for a walk.”
“Why is your friend wearing that cone on his head?” whispered Tip.
“Excuse me,” Sebastian told Tip. “Not only can I hear your whisper, but I can see the sound waves of your whisper. They’re a very pale green color, like the pee of an extremely sick person.”
Tip had the conscience to look mortified. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“People are always curious,” said Sebastian. He sighed as if he were bored. “My head cone helps me cope in noisy environments.”
“It’s just so big,” Tip said.
“Yes,” Sebastian said testily.
Tip cocked his head. “What about blinders, like horses wear sometimes? Wouldn’t that be easier? Or, I know! Aviator goggles. They wrap around your head and have dark sides so you only see what’s in front of your eyes. Fighter pilots wore them in World War II! And they look way cooler than horse blinders.”
“I am quite satisfied with my cone,” Sebastian said. His lips moved in an odd way. “But thank you.”
“Come on,” said Andres to Tip. “The other Flyers are waiting.”
Tip shrugged. “Okay. Let’s blast.” They bumped fists and left the cafeteria.
In the woods, Andres walked ahead, bouncing his flashlight against his palm. Everything that had happened at Dragon Haven was swirling around in his mind. He felt churned up inside. Then he made a decision. When they were solidly in the forest, with a thick canopy of trees overhead, he shrugged off his brickpack, holding it by his side.
“You’re going to fly without it?” asked Tip.
“I can’t fly with it,” Andres pointed out.
Tip thumped his forehead. “Okay, then. Unsupervised outdoor flying.” He grinned. “Dr. Snorace wouldn’t approve … which means I approve completely!”
Andres grinned.
“I shouldn’t be in charge of your leash, though,” Tip said. “I’m too light. Phoebe, come over here and take Andres. He’s going up.”
Andres didn’t want Phoebe to hold his leash. He didn’t want Tip to watch out for him the way Nory and Ms. Starr did, either.
“Actually, I’m going leash-free,” Andres told the Sage Flyers, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
Tip’s eyes widened. “You can do that?”
“Sure,” said Andres. “My teachers, they treat me like a baby. But with magic like mine, well—I can’t spend my life tied down.”
Tip looked dubious, but Tomás nodded. “Cool,” he said. “Like tightrope walking without a net.”
“No, like driving in a car without a seat belt,” said Lark, shaking her head.
“The tree branches will keep me from going too high,” explained Andres. “Chill out.”
“I agree with Lark,” said Phoebe. “I’m honestly not chill.”
“Me neither,” said Tip. “Not to be a downer, but no leash sounds dangerous.”
Andres did not want the Sage Flyers acting protective of him. Protecting him or forgetting him—couldn’t friends of his do anything else? Was Tomás the only one brave enough to back him up?
He dropped his flashlight, then his brickpack. He rose up, grabbing the branch of an oak tree and doing a loop-de-loop. Freedom! Yes!
Tomás levitated off the ground and tried to reach the same branch, but he didn’t make it. He stayed solidly three feet high, and started zipping around at that height.
“Keep trying!” Andres encouraged him.
“About your leash,” called Tip from the ground. “You’re sure you don’t need it?”
“I don’t! There are so many leaves, they’ll keep me from floating up!” Andres shouted. He pushed off one branch heading down, grabbed anothe
r, swung around, and flew into the air feet first.
He grabbed another branch, pushed off sideways and down, and swooped around his friends, who were all floating three feet up from the forest floor by now. “Sky tag!” he cried. “See if you can catch me!”
They couldn’t. They couldn’t go anywhere near as high as he was, though they zoomed and floated around beneath him, some of them vertical and some more horizontal.
Andres swung around another branch and launched himself higher.
“You’re too good, Andres!” called Lark.
“We can’t go up that far!” yelled Phoebe.
“Yeah, come down for a second!” Tip called.
Suddenly, Andres was above the trees. He had missed grabbing hold of the top branches.
Uh-oh.
“Andres?” Tip called. Worry tightened his voice. “Come down!”
Andres went up, up, up. Above him was nothing but cloudy sky, shot through with gold from the setting sun. Below was a carpet of autumn leaves.
Andres knew he was in trouble. If he couldn’t find a way to go down, he’d just float away forever!
Think, he told himself. Think!
His tutor had taught him to kick like a swimmer if regular flying techniques didn’t work. He tilted his body and swam as if diving down.
He still went up.
He imagined his body made of rocks, another technique from the tutor.
He still went up.
He imagined his body made of lead.
He still went up.
He imagined himself a helium balloon that was deflating, no longer able to float.
He still went up. What an idiot he was, thinking he could fly on his own!
Oh, how he wished now for overprotective Ms. Starr! She would know what to do. She’d call Blade or Mo, and one of them would come to the rescue. Andres even wished for bouncy, talkative, always-up-to-something Nory, who had once saved him by turning into a seriously wonky, elephant-sized bluebird.
He needed his UDM friends.
What a jerk he’d been, not standing up for Sebastian when Tip had whispered about his head cone. And for blowing off the ghost stories, which the UDM guys had been planning for days before the trip!
True, his UDM friends had let him bob helplessly behind a moving bus. And true, they had forgotten about him when he was on the ceiling and they were down below.
But just as true? They were his friends.
They cared about him. He cared about them.
He was crazy about them!
What if he never saw them again?
Twilight was coming on, but Nory was made of sunshine. Dragon Haven was made of sunshine. The world, the mountains, the forest, the universe—all of it was made of sunshine!
Why?
Because of one adorable-times-infinity whelp named Roarie. Roarie was sunshine, in dragon form.
Nory had brought Roarie to the empty kittenball court and watched the tiny whelp’s first steps. Then her first flutters. Roarie had followed Nory all around the kittenball green. She tried to eat yarn and rolled on her back for a tummy scratch. When it was time for dinner, Nory had tucked Rosie back in the pocket of her hoodie. At the cafeteria, she’d fed the dragon tiny bits of broccoli, some meatball, and several spaghetti noodles. Roarie had eaten everything.
Now Nory took Roarie to the meadow in the evening light.
Who cared if Father was uptight and judgy and un-dad-like?
Who cared if he was Snorace the Bore and thought a person labeled “double talent” was more amazing than his own daughter?
Nory didn’t care, at least not right now. She had a dragon whelp! In her hoodie! And it ate spaghetti!
She knew she would get in trouble if anyone saw her with Roarie. But she didn’t care. She loved her little dragon.
The meadow was empty, as she had hoped it would be. The UDM boys were telling ghost stories with Nurse Riley. Marigold, Willa, and Ms. Starr were going over to the river to get a glimpse of the swimming dragons they hadn’t seen yet. The Sage kids had cabins that weren’t anywhere near the meadow, so Nory didn’t think she’d run into them.
She set the whelp down on the grass. Roarie followed her wherever she walked, wobbling and fluttering. Nory stopped and squatted, wrapping her arms around her knees. She gazed into Roarie’s lollipop eyes. Roarie gazed back adoringly.
“Blurp?” Roarie trilled in a tone as clear as a bell.
“Yes, you are the cutest dragon in the world,” Nory cooed. “You want to be mine forever, don’t you?”
“Blur-bluepee, blur-bluepee!” Roarie chirped.
Maybe Nory could take Roarie home with her. Aunt Margo wouldn’t mind. Aunt Margo loved animals!
Nory would take such good care of Roarie. She would teach Roarie … well, she would read up on the things Roarie needed to learn. Roarie could sleep at the foot of Nory’s bed. She could go to school with Nory and cheer during Nory’s kittenball matches. And if anyone was mean to Nory? Once Roarie got full-sized, those people would run away and never come back. Blurpers grew larger than horses!
“And you know what?” Nory said, scooping Roarie into her arms. “If you were my dragon, I would never, ever send you away like Father sent me away.” A lump formed in her throat.
Nory stood up and started walking, Roarie perched on her shoulder. Roarie’s talons were sharp. They dug into Nory’s skin even through the fabric of her sweatshirt. She’d probably have scratch marks, with real scabbed-over blood and everything. So what? She didn’t care!
Wait.
What was that in the sky?
Her heart stopped.
It was Andres. He was high above the treetops … and rising.
Oh, no.
Was there anyone with him? That Blade guy or some other adult Flyer?
Nory couldn’t see anyone.
Andres was flying solo.
Only, Andres couldn’t fly solo. He would go higher and higher, until eventually he just …
Fear surged through Nory. “We have to save him,” she told Roarie.
Roarie chirped and launched off Nory’s shoulder. She hovered in front of Nory, her eyes filled with concern.
Nory fluxed into a dritten. Roarie trilled with surprise, but still seemed to recognize Dritten-Nory. I can add some elephant later to help Andres, thought Dritten-Nory. I’ll need to be bigger to save him.
Zoom! Dritten-Nory and Roarie took off in Andres’s direction. Nory flapped as fast as she could.
Andres floated farther and farther away! Dritten-Nory wasn’t flying fast enough. She couldn’t go any faster!
Poor Andres, she thought. Hold on, poor Andres! I’m trying, I really am!
And then … he vanished.
What? Where was he?
He had disappeared into a cloud.
The voices of the Sage Flyers were tiny, like mice.
The air around Andres grew cool and moist. He saw stripes of pink and fiery red. He’d levitated through a sunset-tinted cloud.
He laughed, feeling a bit like a madman. Oh, sure. I’ve flown through a cloud—that’s all.
This was nuts! And it was very, very serious.
Think, think, Andres commanded himself again. This afternoon, at the river, he’d been able to fly with more control than usual. How had he managed that? Blade had held the leash, but that wasn’t all of it. They’d been riding a current—a current of air above the river. That’s how the river dragons swam so fast. They swam along with the current in the water and it made them zoom! The Flyers above them had been doing the same thing!
Current, thought Andres, whipping his head about as he floated upward. I need to catch a current. Not a water current. An air current—and not just any air current. A downdraft.
On the Dragon Haven campus, the wind nearly always blew from the east. Andres had noticed it because Mo always talked about the east door and the west door. Now, he knew the sun set in the west, right? So he could use the setting sun to figure out his directions and maybe c
atch an eastbound air current.
He turned. He reached his arms out. He fine-tuned all of his senses.
Nothing. He was still going higher.
Calm down, he told himself, trying to ignore his racing heart. Stretch out your fingers. Feel for an air current.
Swooooooosh!
There! A downdraft—yes! The strongest, most wonderful downdraft he’d ever experienced.
Hello, downdraft!
Andres rolled onto it and rode it like he’d ride a wave in the ocean or a current in a river. Back through the pink-and-red cloud. Back past the tree line and into a drizzling rain! The downdraft must have come because of the approaching storm!
He grabbed the first branch he saw. The force of impact shredded his palms, and he didn’t care a bit. He wrapped his arms and legs around the branch and held tight.
“Andres!” Tip called.
Tip, Phoebe, and Tomás were flying at full speed to the patch of forest underneath him.
“Zwingo, dude, you scared the stuffing out of us!” called Tomás.
Andres panted. His muscles trembled and quaked. He’d scared himself, too. Big time. “I’m okay,” he said. “I kinda … well, I kinda lost control there.”
“You think?” Phoebe said. She put her hands on her hips and glared. “You scared us to death! And we couldn’t do anything! We couldn’t do anything to save you! None of us even had a phone!”
Suddenly, Dritten-Nory arrived. She landed on Andres’s branch, making it bounce. She was followed by a tiny pink dragon the size of a teacup. It landed on the branch, too.
“Nory?” Andres could hardly believe it.
She nodded, which didn’t surprise Andres. Of course it was Nory. No one else was ever a dritten.
The others squinted into the tree. “What the heck?” said Tomás. “Who’s the cat with wings?” He and the other Sage Flyers were still below.
Lark cocked her head. “And that … other thing. Is that a tiny dragon or a fluxed person?”
“Be polite,” said Tip under his breath. “Andres’s friends have unusual magic! You can’t just say stuff like that!”
“Nory?” said Andres.
Nory popped back into girl form. It was a neat trick, as she ended up sitting quite confidently on the large branch Andres was clinging to. She had a smear of spaghetti sauce on her sweatshirt. “This is Roarie,” she said, stroking the tiny dragon’s head. “She’s a Blurper whelp.”
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