“Ssssss!” She raised her wings, ready to leap on whatever dared hiss at her so much.
Sssssssss.
Was it in the cave with her? With Pointy Teeth Lady and the big boring man?
She peered over her shoulder at the big boring man, her eyes narrowed. He was so big, and the bigness just made his boringnessmoreboring. She didn’t know why Pointy Teeth Lady went hot and happy when she looked at him. There wasnothinginteresting about him. His mouth was even hanging a little bit open while he was asleep, and she could see his teeth, and they wereboring.
Hmph.
She was about to go back to finding the hissing thing, or at least deciding whether to hiss at it again, when something moved in the shadows.
Crouching low to the ground, all senses focused for the hunt, Maggie crept forward. There! A slinky piece of darker shadow was curling up from behind the big boring man. It curled up, and up, and tucked itself into Pointy Teeth Lady’s hand, lying upturned on her lap.
Maggie stared. She’d never seen a shadow like that before. One thatmoved.
Maybe big boring man wasn’t so boring after all.
Sssssssss.
Maggie jumped into the air. The hissing thing! It was back! Pointy Teeth Lady was still asleep. Maggie had to protect her, like she had protected Maggie from the horrible water.
Scales prickling, wings shivering as she stretched them out as big and high as she could, Maggie prowled towards the noise. It was a slow noise, asneakynoise. It hissed and then stopped for long enough that she almost thought it had gone away, and then! It hissed again!
She jumped into the puddle of sunlight at the mouth of the cave. Blinded by brightness, she rattled every single one of her scales, puffing herself into the biggest, scariest dragon the hissing thing hadeverseen.
“Sssss! Sssss! Sssss!”
Ssssssssss.
Her eyes cleared. She widened them, then narrowed them, the way that always made Lance and Keeley jump and shout at her to not do the thing she was about to do, and then—
Maggie stared in flabbergasted horror as a gentle wave washed up on the pebbly shore.
Sssssssss.
It was thewater.
Thewaterwas hissing at her. The horrible, cold, lashing, swallowing, stealing water that had tried to gobble her up and Pointy Teeth Lady and boring shadow man too. Was hissing. Ather.
Howdareit?
She pounced forward. And again. A few more times, because the water was actually quite far away. Was it running away from her? She would show it!
9
Moss
The ocean was calling to him. Pretty nice, for a dream. Usually these days he got chased by that big crab fromMoana, or sank into a hot bath only to realize too late that he was relaxing in a sink of dirty dishes.
Nothing like this.
He felt completely at ease. Comfortable. At home. The ocean’s song swirled around him, whispering to him about everything the salt could taste: the ripple-hush of gentle waves on sand, the shellfish loosening their grips on the rocks as the storm became a distant memory, the anemones stretching out their tentacles, waiting for something to flicker past…
Sharp claws skittering on a rock, dancing out of reach of the lapping seawater.
“Pree! Pree pree pree!”
He jolted awake. Carol was already stumbling towards the mouth of the cave, and the events of the past day rolled over him. He couldn’t breathe.
