Chapter 1:
I Slay a Dragon
My name is Era. I'm twelve years old girl with medium-length dark hair and dark eyes. I live in Manhattan and go to school at Rockfall Middle School. My name is short for Terra, meaning earth. No, not Earth as in the planet I mean earth as in rocks and that type of stuff. I know it's kind of a cheesy name, but you don't know the half of it. For example a month or so ago me and my best friend Jake were in the library during break when suddenly your average everyday school bully Jack Wenster walked up to us. "Hey, Era, why don't you and your little friend go back from whatever place you came from and leave us the trouble of beating you up?"He said.
See, I'm ADHD and dyslexic which is pretty much an excuse for bullies to beat me up so they can blame me. Another thing about it is that it gets me kicked out of school a lot. But other than bullies and hyperactivity my life was just great and normal until about a month ago.
Mr. Simpton (my pre-algebra teacher) called break and everybody rushed into the halls talking and fighting and otherwise acting like idiots.
When I finally found Jake he was sitting outside the cafeteria, eating carrots. He signaled for me to come over to him.
Jake is a vegetarian, which is probably why he's so scrawny. He's about 6 foot 2 (the tallest kid in our grade) with curly brown hair and the start of a short beard. He usually wears a T-shirt and baggy pants with sneaker that look two sizes too big for the rest of him.
I joined him and he asked me if I wanted to sneak out back. I knew Jake liked going out back because there was nice little woodland area with a small pond. "Sure" I replied, and off we went.
Sneaking out wasn't the hard part, it was getting back in that was the challenge, because usually when people sneak out it's near the beginning of break and not many teachers are out then. When you get back in, on the other hand, there are usually more teachers out trying to get everybody to calm down, and two kids sneaking in to school is pretty suspicious.
After we got outside, there was the blacktop to cover, which was empty because there were no P.E classes going on. Jake and I walked across the blacktop in silence until we reached an old rusty fence, with an even older, rustier sign that said: FOR SCHOOL USE ONLY! I hit the signbefore climbing up the gate with Jake lagging behind.
The thing about Jake is that he has this weird muscle disorder that lets him sit out from P.E for the rest of his life, but I've seen him run as fast as some Olympic athlete when needed.
As we were climbing the fence Jake's shoe fell off a little and what I saw looked suspiciously like Styrofoam, but I decided to let it go, say it was a sock, and blame the rest on my ADHD.
When we finally finished climbing over the fence, we made our way down to the pond.
I take back what I said about its being a pond, I think it's more of a puddle actually. But I had a feeling that somewhere down at the bottom of the pond there's something valuable. I'm just not sure what.
As I was poking around the bottom of the pond, I noticed a stop in Jake's pacing. I looked up to see what happened, and what I saw was Jake looking slightly panicky. "We need to go, now" he said urgently. I was about to ask why, when suddenly I heard a rustling sound. "Now!" Jake said, even more urgently.
I figured I wouldn't argue, because I didn't want to meet whatever was in that bush.
Jake ran so fast that I had a hard time keeping up, and he didn't stop running until we reached the back door.
When we got back inside I looked at my reflection in the water fountain and what I saw could only be described as one thing. Hades's helm of darkness.
...
After I caught up with Jake, I asked, "What was that about?" He took a deep breath, and then looked like he was going to say something of amazing importance, but just at that moment the intercom beeped to life and a slightly choppy voice said, "Break time is now over!" Jake then said quickly, "I'll tell you after school," and went scampering off.
After break was P.E. I figured I'd just try and forget about the incident that happened over break. It was kind of hard because seeing the woodland area, even from the black top, brought back the whole incident. Although I don't think I was as nervous as Jake, who kept glancing back at the woodland area, as if suspecting something to come out and pounce on him.
After doing a few basketball drills, then Coach Serman blew his whistle and everybody ran in to a big white circle drawn with chalk, which is where we were supposed to go to when the coach blew his whistle.
After a couple of minutes of him going over the drills for the fifth time, he announced we are going to have a signal. Cheering rose from the crowd and Coach Serman motioned for us to calm down. Then he started calling out the teams.
"Team one will be..."
But he was interrupted by a muffled gasp from Jake, which made some kids turn towards what Jake was looking at.
There stood the strangest creature I'd ever seen. It looked like a bird with brown and green feathers and no wings, but that wasn't the strangest part. The strangest part was that it had two heads! It also had two necks leading up to its two heads.
Coach Serman told everybody to calm down and line up in an orderly fashion, so the school could call animal control and find out whatever the heck that thing is.
I was about to join them in lining up, but then I noticed something. The bird was grown! I's two head started turning scaly and it's two necks started growing longer. It started growing scales and an extra pair of legs, until it was a twelve-foot-tall dragon with brown and green scales, two heads and two long snaky necks.
My first instinct was to run, but then it picked up Jake by the pan leg and started lifting him off the ground.
I wasn't about to let my best friend die, so I stood there petrified in terror as I watched my best friend get eaten.
Right before Jake was going to become monster chow, I heard him mumble "curse these shoes," then kicked his shoes and foot, revealing cloven hooves!
Then he kicked the dragon in the snout.
The dragon dropped in more of surprise then pain. Then the dragon zeroed in on me and spit, which was enough to knock me back to reality, so I jumped out of the way just in time. Where the dragon had spit the black top was slowly dissolving.
I was about to say something, but Jake said it for me "run!"He yelled, as we scrambled down the hall the dragon close behind.
When we made it inside, the first thing me and Jake did was dive into the science and hide behind a table.
The kids working at the table seemed startled at first, but then they heard the sound of the dragon prowling through the hall. Their surprised quickly turned to fear, as they decided to follow are example and jump behind a table.
"What is that?" I asked Jake
"Shhh!" Jake hissed
The dragon prowled into the room like a jungle cat stalking its prey.
"'His eyesight isn't good," Jake whispered.
"Just don't make any sudden movements"
Then, suddenly the dragon approached our hiding place. His nose was about an inch away from my shirt, when he bellowed and knocked the table aside using one of his heads.
Before I could react, he threw me in the air and attempted to swallow me, but as I was about to land in his throat a strange feeling exploded through my body. It was kind of like a surge of energy, sort of a feeling like that I can do this, I would survive.
Right before the dragon swallowed me' I stepped on of his front teeth and used as a platform to jump off of. Right when I pushed off against the tooth I heard a loud CRACK!
The next thing I remember was the dragon roaring in pain and surprise and spitting acid at the wall where I was standing, which I dogged, and in that acid, there was a tooth..
I grabbed the tooth, knowing I only had one shot. I aimed for the chest and threw the tooth hoping it would fly straight, but I t missed by a little.
The dragon roared a triumphant roar, and corned me against the wall.
I braced myself to die, but just then the dragon went rigged, fell on the floor and exploded into dust. Where the dragon used to be standing was Jake holding some sort of bronze knife.
Then the principal came in looking furious that her school was almost destroyed by a dragon, but it ended up the dragon didn't get any blame, because some kid pointed at me and Jake and yelled "they did it!"
The principle immediately turned toward us and yelled " Terra Emerson, Jake Windbush, what is the meaning of this!"
I was about to tell her a dragon attacked me and then disintegrated to dust, but before I could say anything Jake grabbed my shirt collar and pulled me through the hole that the dragon had made in the wall.