Becoming a Dragon Read online

  "It's early days, you'll make friends. You just need to find your feet, and talk to people."

  Daisy smiled. "Advice on making friends? Are you sure you can help me there?"

  John shook his head and laughed. "No, I guess not. I guess the best I can do is show you how not to do it. What I mean is, if you let people to get to know you, they'll like you. Don't worry about your brother so much."

  "Sit down, John," Daisy told him. "You're talking to me anyway, so you're not really listening to Crystal or Arthur. I'll take your suggestion to not worry about my brother by ignoring his advice and talking to you."

  John sat down reluctantly and unwrapped his meagre sandwiches, which he began to nibble. Daisy paused for a moment before asking her next question.

  "I never asked you, John, what happened about your model? Did you repair it?"

  John shook his head. "It's lying in pieces in a box in my room. I don't think I can fix it."

  "That's too bad. They should make Kal do it. It was his fault."

  "I know, but I doubt he would be able to fix it. I wouldn't trust him to do a good job."

  Daisy laughed. "I guess not. I'm really sorry it was broken. It looked amazing. You should try and repair it. I'm sure it can't be as bad as it looked."

  John shrugged and pointed to her plate of food. "You should eat that before it gets cold."

  Daisy looked down at her food. "A little late for that advice. Speaking of advice, why don't you take your own? You could try harder to make friends as well as me."

  John shrugged. "It's difficult for me. I'm not really used to talking to people. I don't know how to begin."

  "You seem to be doing fine with me."

  John nodded. "It's easier with you; you start the conversations for me. I just have to reply. I don't know how to start conversations with the others."

  "You just need more practice. Are you going to Seth's birthday party tomorrow? It's straight after flying."

  John shook his head. "I wasn't planning on going. I doubt I'll be welcome."

  "Don't be silly. It's an open invite to the whole class. Come, it'll be good for you."

  "This hasn't been the most enjoyable week for me. There are some people who I wouldn't mind having a break from." After John's model had been smashed, Daniel and Joel picked on John relentlessly, latching on to his misery and making as much of it as they could. John had disappointed them by hardly reacting at all, but underneath he was finding it a little too much.

  "Are you talking about Daniel? He's horrible, isn't he? But he won't be there tonight. His father is in Furnace, and he will be with him. I heard him complaining to Joel about it. Joel will be there, but he won't say anything without Daniel. Come on, I'll talk to you if no one else does."

  "Don't!" John replied in alarm. "I'm not going to ruin your chances of making friends. You should talk to new people."

  Daisy shook her head. "Fine, if you insist. But we can talk at school still, like this? I'm having lunch on my own most of the time anyway."

  John frowned. "Alright. If you promise to try and make new friends tomorrow at the party."

  "If you promise to come as well. I promise I won't talk to you!"

  John laughed. "Alright, it's a deal." He held out his hand, which she shook very formally. John stood up. "Thanks for eating lunch with me."

  "Thank you," Daisy replied. "See you at the party."

  After lunch, as it was the last day of the week, the students had their favourite lesson: flying. This was their fifth lesson, and they had been making good progress.

  "Mother wasn't that keen on me coming tonight," Crystal told Jenna as they walked to the amphitheatre. "She'd have been even worse if she'd known we were flying to Seth's house."

  Jenna shrugged indifferently. "You tell her too much, that's your problem."

  "No, you do. Listening to you is why she doesn't want me to go to parties."

  Jenna laughed. "If she really didn't want you to go to this party she wouldn't have let you."

  "She was in two minds about it. She's made Seth send one of his guards with us to walk us home at the end of the night, to make sure we get back safely. I'm really surprised she's letting me stay at yours."

  "I'm not. It's much nearer, and she probably trusts me much more than you realise."

  Crystal laughed. "Now that is unlikely." They had just reached the changing huts and went in to transform. "So, what do you think he'll teach us today…"

  Most students flew to the party, leaving straight from their lesson, and if their flying teacher disapproved he didn't show it. Daisy and Arthur of course were accompanied by their bodyguards, as were a few of the other students. Crystal really couldn't understand the point; as dragons, there was very little that could happen to them other than crashing, and there was nothing their guards could do to stop that.

  Crystal flew low over the ground, figuring that if she crashed from this height she couldn't hurt herself too much. As she flew, she watched John disappear high in the clouds above her. She was a little envious of his ability to do this, but was also relieved, assuming that he wouldn't be coming to the party. Jenna showed rare loyalty to her by flying with her instead of with the twins, staying low and taking a longer route.

  Seth's house was huge, and although Crystal knew that he was a distant relative of the King, she didn't realise how wealthy his family was. Seth always talked of them as if they were the poor relatives in the royal family. Despite it being his birthday, Seth's parents were out for the night, and he assured them that the servants and guards who were there were very discrete and as a favourite of theirs, wouldn't report anything back to his parents. In the house there were several bathrooms where they could change out of their school clothes, so Crystal shared one with Jenna, who helped her get ready for the party. As always, Jenna put a lot of effort into her appearance, and insisted that Crystal did as well, helping her with her make-up and jewellery. The party had been going for some time when they finally went down to join the others, and a few of the guests already looked like they'd had a little too much to drink.

  "Here, Crystal, I've brought you a drink," Seth announced as he passed her a cup filled with the green punch. "It's a special recipe of mine." His face was almost as red as his hair, but was smiling at her inanely.

  "You can't drink that," John told her quietly. Crystal spun around to glare at him. She thought and hoped that he wouldn't have come. He was wearing some ridiculous brightly coloured shirt instead of his usual bland attire, obviously making an effort but getting it all wrong.

  "What makes you think you can tell me what to do? Why are you even here anyway?"

  "She has a point, John," Seth told him, putting his hand on John's shoulder in a friendly way. "You're not exactly popular here. Why don't you just take an early night?"

  Crystal lifted the drink and took a long sip. She paused to glare at John, daring him to comment before finishing the cup. She smiled at Seth. "Thank you, that was delicious."

  Seth smiled back, pleased with himself. "I'll get you another." He took her cup and headed back into the house.

  John shook his head in despair, but didn't move, watching her expectantly.

  "Still here?" Crystal asked icily. "When your host suggests you leave, that's when normal people would leave."

  From the other side of the room, Crystal noticed Daisy, who waved at her and John cheerily. She was talking to a tall young man who bore a striking resemblance to Seth.

  "You're not still spending time with her, are you?" Crystal asked derisively. "That's Seth's cousin she's talking to; he's actually a reasonable match for her. Good-looking, isn't he? I think he's something like sixth-in-line to the throne. Yes, he could offer her a lot. What do you think someone like you could offer her? She's a princess. From the richest of the principalities. What are you compared to her?"

  John said nothing, just watching her patiently.

  "What?" Crystal asked, beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. John said nothing
, but just stood there, still watching her.

  Suddenly Crystal put both hands on her stomach, doubling over in pain. After a second it was gone, but she was starting to feel very sick. John moved towards her and took her arm and led her away from the house into the garden.

  "Hey, what are you doing?" she asked, but without any real conviction. Her stomach turned again, and she wretched, but nothing came up.

  "Come on," John urged her quietly, "you don't want to be seen like this. Move quickly."

  Crystal stared at him, confused, but let him lead her away. She gasped as the stomach pain returned, and she bent over in pain. John didn't let her stop, but lifted her from the ground and carried her quickly along the garden path and out of the grounds. The guards at the gate didn't even blink as they passed by.

  Eventually, the pain passed and Crystal struggled in his arms. "Hey, I can walk!"

  John let her down gently, but took her arm again to lead her away.

  "Stop, where are we going? I feel fine now."

  Before he could answer, the sudden pain in her stomach caused her to collapse, and she immediately vomited into a bush. She closed her eyes, feeling terrible, but John lifted her to her feet and started to lead her away again.

  "Keep moving," he told her. "If you stay here people from the party will hear you."

  She shook his arm off. "I'm fine now. It's over. I want to go back in and get a drink. Of water!" she shouted at him, misreading his look.

  He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but it isn't over. It won't be for hours."

  Crystal started to object, but found herself retching again without any warning, and John just dodged out of the way as she vomited a second time.

  "What's happening to me?" she asked weakly. "I had one drink!"

  John was leading her away quickly, and she didn't object this time. "You can't drink," he told her. "I didn't mean that you shouldn't, I meant that you can't. Your body can't cope with it. Even a sip would be enough to make you vomit, and feel pretty ill for some time. I tried to stop you."

  "Not hard enough," she objected lamely.

  John shrugged. "Perhaps. I wasn't sure how to stop you."

  Crystal dropped to her knees again and retched, failing to bring anything up. It felt like her insides were ripping apart. "Please, make it stop!" she begged him.

  John paused, and then removed his shirt.

  "What are you doing?" she asked in amazement.

  "You need to drink water, plenty of it, but there's none that near to here, unless you want to go back to the party, which I don't recommend. There's a stream a couple of miles away, but it'll take ages to walk there."

  "So what do we do?"

  John didn't reply but just walked away from her and disappeared behind a tree. Crystal collapsed again, clutching her stomach. When she looked up she saw a large red claw reaching towards her and before she could object, John had scooped her up and took off. She was in the air for barely over a minute, but found it almost impossible to avoid vomiting again, or rather trying to; her stomach had emptied itself already. John deposited her beside a small stream before transforming back to his human form and putting his clothes back on.

  "You should have asked my permission," she objected angrily as she sat up and collected herself.

  "Light is failing," he replied simply. "A minute longer and I wouldn't have been able to fly. Drink, you'll feel better."

  Crystal crawled to the water's edge and scooped a handful of cool water from the fast flowing stream. She managed to hold it down for just a few seconds before retching again.

  "I don't feel better at all! That's worse if anything!"

  John sighed. "Sorry, but you have to try. It'll get better eventually." He turned away from her and put his shoes back on. "Keep trying. I'll be back soon."

  "Wait, you can't leave me!" Crystal cried out, but John had already jogged out of sight. Crystal hated him more than ever at that moment. She returned to the water's edge and stared at the water miserably, waiting for his return.

  After what felt like hours, John returned. "Feeling better?" he asked.

  "No," she lied, still angry with him. "Where did you go?"

  "To get you this," he replied. He held out a handful of leaves.

  "And what am I supposed to do with those?"

  "Chew on them," he replied. "It won't taste great, but it'll help you get better."

  Crystal eyed the leaves suspiciously, but took them from him anyway and chewed a leaf gingerly. The leaf tasted of nothing—or at least she couldn't taste anything, which may have been due to the acidic taste of bile in her mouth.

  "What are they?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "I forget the real name, but it's supposed to be an effective treatment."

  "Supposed to be? Haven't you tried them?"

  "I've chewed them, but not for alcohol poisoning. I've never drunk alcohol."

  "Then how do you know that you can't drink it? And how did you know that I couldn't?"

  John nodded. "Fair question. It's not that uncommon, you know. One in a hundred Red Dragons has this condition."

  She glared at him. "One in a hundred is not a lot of people. Not enough to know; and you did know, didn't you? You were waiting for it to happen."

  He shrugged. "I know I can't because my father told me. People like us, well, those with blond hair, we can't drink alcohol."

  "People with blond hair? There are more of us? Why can't we drink alcohol?"

  "Well, it's like I said. You're special."

  "Aaargh!" she yelled. "That doesn't mean anything, and it doesn't tell me anything. You and I, we have nothing in common but our hair colour. Why do you think we have some special bond? We don't!"

  John nodded. "I never said anything about a bond. Just that you're special. Why are you so sure that I'm wrong about this?"

  "Well for a start, you never give me a reason to believe you. If there was a reason, you would say."

  John paused. "Let me ask you a question, and please, think about it before yelling at me."

  "I won't yell!" Crystal yelled. "Right, forget that. Just ask your question."

  "Do I seem like the kind of person to lie to you?"

  Crystal stared at him. Much as he irritated her, for reasons she could never put her finger on, she had to admit that John did strike her as an honest sort of person. She shook her head.

  "Then please trust me when I say that I don't mean it lightly when I say that you're special, but you're not ready to be told how you're special yet."

  Crystal paused. "If you were slightly closer, I'd probably punch you in the face right now," she told him calmly.

  John laughed. "In that case, you're probably feeling a lot better. You haven't been sick since I returned with those leaves."

  Crystal realised that he was right. She hadn't noticed, but her stomach pains had stopped. She stood up cautiously.

  "Have you had plenty of water?" he asked.

  "Yes," she snapped.

  "Good," he replied calmly, ignoring her tone. "Let's try walking." He took her arm and led along the edge of the stream.

  "Let's try walking," she replied, imitating him. "Have you any idea how irritating you are? It's like being with a forty-year-old. You're sixteen. Why do you never react to anything?"

  "It's quite a long walk back to where you live. Are you going to be like this the whole way?"

  "Depends. Are you going to be like this the whole way? If you knew I couldn't drink, why did you wait till tonight to tell me?"

  "You're sixteen; I thought you'd have found out by now on your own."

  "Well I hadn't. Thanks for nothing."

  The stream had reached the edge of a small lake. John paused. "You have some vomit on your clothes; you can't go home like that. Your mother will work out what you've been doing."

  Crystal turned to glare at him again. "Fine." She reached down to the edge of the water and scooped up a handful of water to wash the vomit from her sleeve. "Better?" she asked irr
itably.

  John paused, gave a wry smile, and rubbed his chin. "Hmm, no. I think you missed a bit. Here, let me…" and with no warning, he gave her a firm shove, sending her toppling over into the water.

  Crystal plunged under the surface of the cold stream and struggled in the water. For a second she panicked, being a poor swimmer, before realising that she was in quite shallow water and could stand. She found her feet and stood up to face John, who to her surprise was giggling like a small child.

  "How dare you!" she screamed.

  John shrugged. "You would have smelled of sick."

  "Now I'm covered in mud! How can I explain this?"

  "You can tell your mother you tripped and fell in a stream."

  "Or I can tell her that some idiot pushed me in a stream. I'm completely soaked!"

  "It's just water. It could be worse. It could be ink."

  Crystal's response died in her mouth. If she was going to deny knowing anything about what Daniel and Jerome did with the ink bottle, she had paused too long for it to be believable. "Look, I'm sorry about that. But I didn't have any part in it."

  John gave her a hard stare. "But you knew, didn't you? I could see it in your face. You sat right beside them. You knew what they were going to do."

  "I guess so. Look, it was just ink. Is it such a big deal?"

  "Not to you, no," John replied coldly, turning away from her as she waded out of the water.

  Crystal couldn't see why he was still making a fuss about this. "It's probably a good thing. That flying top was looking a bit old. You needed to replace it."

  John turned to stare at her. "It was a gift from my mother. The only one in a long time. I'm sorry it doesn't meet your standards."

  "Oh," Crystal said. "Is she, um, is she…"

  "No, she's alive. I just haven't seen her for a long time."

  John started walking again, and Crystal hurried after him. They reached a road, and John started to walk in the direction that would lead to her house instead of heading back to the party.

  "Look, I'm not meant to be going home tonight. I'm meant to be going to Jenna's. She'll be worried about me."