How to Slay a Dragon - Bill Allen [105]
“Aren’t you going home?”
Greg’s eyes snapped forward, where Kristin Wenslow’s freckled face hovered high above him. His heart lifted. For a second he forgot Manny was waiting to pulverize him. “Kristin?”
“The bell rang. Didn’t you hear?”
“Yeah, I . . . uh . . . just wanted to finish jotting down some notes before I left.”
“But your books are all packed up.”
“Huh? Oh, right. I’m done now.”
Kristin continued to stare down at him, the overhead lights framing her soft hair like a halo. Greg considered reaching out and touching her, but stopped when he imagined her shrieking and knocking over desks trying to lurch out of his reach.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“Are you going to leave or what?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Greg. “I mean no! I just remembered I need to jot down a few more notes first. Don’t worry. I’ll make the bus.”
Kristin bit her lip in the cutest way. “If you say so. I . . . um . . . guess I’ll see you later.” And just like that, she wriggled her shoulders to center her backpack, offered a confused smile, and ambled out of the room.
Greg stared dumbfounded at the door. He’d have given anything to go with her—anything at all—but if he had to be flattened by Manny Malice, he could at least do it without Kristin watching. Again he checked the clock. Three forty. He’d need to leave soon or miss his bus and have to walk home. On the other hand, if he stayed put, at least he’d be able to walk . . . .
Finally he arrived at a decision. He reached behind his chair for his backpack and jumped when something coarse and wet streaked across his knuckles.
“Rake! You scared me.”
Displaying the same reluctance Greg had been feeling, a small creature never before seen in Mrs. Beasley’s classroom peered out from the pack and gradually emerged to explore Greg’s fingers with its tiny pink tongue. Greg nearly smiled in spite of his impending doom.
Roughly the size of a squirrel, but with shimmering blue-black fur and a long tail that could easily wrap twice around its body, Rake was a shadowcat, the only one of its kind on Earth. More importantly, he was Greg’s closest friend. The two had spent nearly every moment together since they first met six months ago on the distant world of Myrth, a land of monsters and magic where Greg had once gone to slay a dragon.
Okay, technically Greg didn’t go to Myrth to slay a dragon. He went because he was too slow to react when the magicians there opened a rift between worlds and snatched him out of the woods behind his house. But they had done so with the intention of having him slay a dragon, so Greg felt that should count for something. If nothing else, it made for a better story—or at least it would have, if he could have ever risked telling anyone. He’d tiptoed around the subject with Kristin once, but quit when she felt his forehead and asked him to lie down until she could bring the school nurse. Still, it was the only time she’d ever touched him, and Greg wanted more than anything to touch her back. Telling her more about Rake just didn’t seem the best way to go about it.
“Come on, Rake,” Greg said with a sigh, “get in the pack. We don’t want to be late for our beating.”
The shadowcat stared at him quizzically, leaned forward, and smashed a furry cheek into Greg’s hand.
“Not now. We’re going to miss our bus.”
As if understanding, Rake crawled obediently into the pack. Greg quickly cinched up the straps. If anyone were to ever see Rake . . . well, Greg didn’t know what he’d do. Then again, if he didn’t figure out a way to slip past Manny Malice and onto his bus, what difference did it make? Just because he was going to die didn’t mean the secret of the shadowcat had to die with him.
After a few whispered reassurances to his backpack,