How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [103]
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“But I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
Greg looked back at her, confused.
“School starts, remember?”
“Oh, right,” said Greg. “I-I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She flashed him a smile that weakened his knees even more than a grin from Ruuan, then stooped to check on Manny while Greg reluctantly turned and headed down the path toward his house.
Greg’s muscles ached beyond belief, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next two weeks, but still he had a spring in his step that hadn’t been there since early that summer. First he had rescued a princess from a fire-breathing dragon, and now, even more miraculously, Kristin Wenslow had actually talked to him!
It had to be a dream, all of it. The trip to Myrth, the dragon Ruuan, the Witch Hazel, and now Kristin Wenslow. All just a fabrication of his overactive imagination.
Even so, Greg’s heart beat so hard he thought it might explode. In fact, he actually felt his skin squirm under his shirt. He nearly fainted when his buttons popped open and something sprang from his chest.
With the lightest of thumps, a small, furry creature landed on all fours on the path by Greg’s feet.
“Rake!”
The shadowcat shook off the indignity of having fallen and then rubbed up against Greg’s shins, his tail stretched high. No, it wasn’t a dream at all, Greg admitted to himself. He’d been faced with an adventure bigger than any he’d faced in his own journal, and now here he was, home, alive, and Kristin Wenslow was expecting to see him tomorrow. It was just possible this year wouldn’t be nearly as bad as he’d been dreading.
Greg scooped up Rake and placed him gently on his shoulder, where the shadowcat happily curled up behind his neck, its soft fur comfortably familiar on Greg’s skin. He began walking again, uncertainly at first, his sneakers squishing rhythmically. A part of him wanted to go back and continue his talk with Kristin, but an even bigger part was dying to get home.
Soon he began to trot. Rake crawled beneath his shirt so he wouldn’t be flung off, and for the first time in what seemed an eternity, Greg found himself sprinting joyously along the winding path toward his house.
He couldn’t wait to get a new journal, to jot down everything that had happened to him on Myrth these past months.
No. He would buy a tablet, a memo book, even an address book before he got another journal. Never again did he want to confuse his made-up adventures with real life. A moment later he broke from the woods and sprinted across the green lawn toward his house. The day was hot for this late in summer, but Greg couldn’t remember when a summer’s day had ever felt as good.
The Adventure Continues!
Coming Soon
Journals of Myrth: Book Two
The Hero Who Slayed Ruuan
A Hart Day at School
Short of a valley full of purring shadowcats, nothing could drain away a boy’s consciousness faster than one of Mrs. Beasley’s excruciatingly long algebra lectures.
“Did you not get enough sleep last night, Mr. Hart?”
“Wha-huh?” Greg’s head snapped up and tottered about in a fair imitation of a bobblehead doll. Eventually the snickering of his classmates managed to reach Greg’s ears. He ran his fingers through his hair, but the unruly nest, now bent further backward from resting his head in his arms, refused to lie flat. “Oh, no ma’am . . . I mean, yes . . . er, I’m fine.”
Mrs. Beasley peered at him over her spectacles, her lips scrunched up smaller than a dime. Rumor was the woman possessed no sense of humor, but before it could be proved she would have to listen to at least one thing a student had to say. Her cold stare never wavered as she spoke, and her voice dug under Greg’s skin like a rusty knife.
“Why don’t you come to the board, Mr. Hart, show us all how to solve this equation?”
Greg’s stomach knotted even tighter than Mrs. Beasley’s lips. The laughs took up again, which was bad enough, but one booming chortle lingered long after all others died away. Greg turned to see Manny Malestino, or Manny Malice, as he was better known, sneering