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	John slid out of the station wagon, pulled his green bag off the back seat behind him
	and immediately felt crushed as Penny closed in. 
	
	"It's a dragon," she barked close to his face as he turned, her intended whisper failing
	dismally.  She glanced about to make sure no-one else had heard. "The egg hatched last 
	night, and it's a dragon!" 
	
	John shouldered his bag, edged around Penny's podginess and walked towards the path that
	led to the school grounds. "Don't be stupid, Penny. There's no such thing as dragons. 
	They're a myth, the product of an overactive imagination." He sounded like a world renowned
	scientist, which is what he wanted to be one day.
	
	Penny fell into step behind him. "Well, he's got four thick legs, a long round body, and a 
	long grey neck like a dragon. And no feathers. So you tell me what it is."

	"Maybe it's deformed."

	"Deformed? It is not!"  

	John stopped and stared at her freckled round face. "Does it have wings?"

	She shook her head, sent red curls bouncing down her back. 

	"No wings, huh? Then it's definitely not a dragon."

	Penny's lips thinned and her eyes narrowed. "But you just said there's no such thing as 
	dragons, so why should it have wings?"
	
	John slipped his black-rimmed, thick-lensed glasses from his face and viewed her again. 
	"In mythology," he said, pointing an arm of his glasses at her, "all dragons had wings.
	If yours has no wings then it is definitely not a dragon. Sorry to disappoint you, I'm 
	just stating my case." He slipped the glasses back on his thin, square face. "I don't know 
	what to make from your description, Penny," he said, stroking his chin lightly with long 
	thin fingers, "I just know it can't be a dragon." He skimmed a glance over her, then slowly 
	looked around her. "Where did you leave it?"

	"At home of course! Do you think I'm so stupid as to bring a dragon to school?" 

	John's eyebrows rose and he shrugged, then ducked as Penny swung her school bag at him. 

	"He seems to want to sleep a lot," she explained, shelving her annoyance, "so I left him 
	in his box in the cupboard, snuggled up against one of my old rag dolls."
	
	The rest of her words were swamped by the school bell and were lost as John shouldered his
	bag higher and hurried towards the school gates. Penny scurried after him. There was something 
	she needed to know - and John knew everything. He was the smartest boy in the whole school.
	
	"So, ..." she said, joggling ahead of him, "what do dragons eat?"
	
	"There's no such thing as dragons," John repeated firmly without stopping.  "But try flies
	and insects."
	
	"Flies and insects!" Penny's nose wrinkled. "Oooo!" Did she really have to go collecting
	flies and insects?


	© Helen Iles 2004



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