“You have to go quick,” Leaper advised me. “If you go too slow, you could lose your nerve or your balance or both!”
My main problem when riding Woody was that I wasn’t strong enough to hold on as tightly as I wanted to. Worse, if I fell off into the net, I had a terrible time climbing back to the wooden platform above. There was no ladder—only a rope with knots at intervals which had to be climbed.
The first time I tried to climb it I realized a terrible truth—I had almost no upper body strength. At least, not compared with the other cadets. Even the plump and awkward Toady could make his way back up faster than I could and my arms ached for hours afterwards.
I knew I needed to get better at riding Woody if I was ever going to manage riding a real dragon—assuming that one would have me—but I fell off over and over. Much to my chagrin, Professor Leesbruck began using me as an example of what not to do. It seemed that though I was doing very well academically, physically the other cadets were leaving me in the dust. I had to get better—stronger…but how?
It was a problem I didn’t have an answer to and it worried me a lot.
After an hour on the Flight Simulator, I returned to my Second-year classes and had Dragon Husbandry and then The Ethics of Command—a class I seriously doubted I would ever use. Who would want to follow a scrawny runt who was smaller than any other cadet into battle? Still, I did my best, throwing myself into the Academy curriculum and learning how to manage a Wing, as well as advanced command decisions, which I was certain I would never have to make.
After my last class, the Great Bell rang for dinner—my favorite meal of the day because I could be sure of getting a bowl of Dragon Custard for dessert. I still shared it with my friends, but I savored that single spoonful of the silky-sweet custard and looked forward to it every day.
Following dinner, the First-years went back to their dorms, while the upperclassmen had time to go flying and bonding with their dragons. Once bonded to a human, a dragon will suffer if it doesn’t get to see its rider every day—so I learned in Dragon Husbandry. This bonding time was extremely important, and nothing was allowed to infringe on it.
I wondered if I would have a dragon to spend time with in the future…or if all the eggs would refuse me because the drakelings inside could smell that I was female instead of male. I wouldn’t know until the eggs that had been laid by the Head Master’s turquoise Gold-wing dragon hardened enough to be approached, which was still some time away.
After the First-years went back to our dorms, we all had to go for our daily bathing time in the Cook-pot. I still felt shy and vulnerable, but I no longer worried so much about being naked around the other cadets. I did keep my towels on right until I slipped into the steaming water and I made sure to get out before the Second-year cadets arrived, though—there was no point in pressing my luck.
Several times, I saw Ryse Skoren looking at me again, but I was always already wrapped up and heading back to the dorm by the time he came to the Cook-pot. So there was nothing for him to see but a scrawny First-year cadet swathed in towels.
I liked my routine. Though my daily fights with Woody, the Flight Simulator, were humiliating, I had the sense that I was slowly getting better. I excelled in everything else, and I was making straight A’s, even in my most difficult subjects.
My life settled in other ways as well.
At first, I was worried all the time that Chud Larson would come after me. I caught him looking at me sometimes with such hatred in his small, no-color eyes that it froze my blood. But he avoided me and didn’t try anything at all and after the first few days I began, slowly, to relax. After all, the only class I still had with him was the Flight Simulator—which, I told myself, was a good thing.
The fact that I was embarrassed there on a daily basis by constantly being bucked off Woody’s broad, wooden back probably made Larson feel like he was already getting revenge. He was always the one who pointed first and laughed the loudest when I fell and he often called attention to how slow I was climbing back up the rope too.
“Look at that little shit!” he’d laugh, staring down at me while I struggled to climb up to the platform. “He’s got arms like two limp noodles! Fucking weak!”
His insults and taunts made my blood boil and my cheeks burn, but if it got the hatred he felt for me out of his system, it was worth it—or so I told myself. Of course, Larson didn’t need the Flight Simulator practice—he had his own dragon to fly. I had no idea why he hadn’t been excused from the class or given at least one Second-year class to take its place. Maybe it was part of his punishment for cheating. Whatever the cause, I was glad it was the only class I had with him.
In the dorm, I avoided him carefully but since he mainly ignored me, except for Flight Simulator class, I gradually let down my guard and stopped scanning the room for him every time I walked into the dorm. I started to believe that what Professor Griven had said was true—that cadets didn’t fight because it was against the Academy rules.
I was wrong…but I didn’t find out until it was too late.
20
AURORA
In retrospect, I never should have gone to the Flight Simulator alone. But I told myself I needed the extra practice. Of course, I had no one to work the controls for me, but I could at least practice the right flight stance and get used to moving up and down the wooden dragon’s wings and spine.
So I took to getting up even earlier in the morning and going up to the Flight Simulator alone. Of course, in theory our Dorm Monitor, Professor Hanmish, should have stopped me. But in practice, he snored like a drunken bear and almost never woke before First Bell himself. It wasn’t difficult to sneak past his room and the rows of slumbering cadets in their cots to get out of Dorm A without anyone being the wiser.
Or so I thought.
One morning, about two weeks after I’d started my new routine, I made my way up the endless stairs to the Fourth Level where Woody was hung. There were only a few lights burning high up on the ceiling and the natural light from the holes in the cavern wall to let in sunlight was absent, since the sun hadn’t risen yet. So the area below the wooden dragon was still obscured in darkness.
I couldn’t see the rope net swaying below Woody, but I trusted it was there—it was always there.
That knowledge gave me the courage to run lightly across the wooden beam and onto the wooden dragon’s back. I settled in the saddle and reached as far as I could with my legs, trying to find the stirrups with the toes of my boots. Unfortunately, my legs were too short, which was one reason I got bucked off during class so much.
I was still reaching, willing my legs to stretch just a little further, when Woody twitched underneath me.
I frowned and gripped the wooden dragon spine in front of me. What could have caused that? There was no one to run Woody’s controls from the Observation Balcony above. How could the simulator work if no one was working it?
Before I could answer that question, Woody twitched again. And then he started moving—dipping and jerking in a way that made me gasp and hang on for dear life.
