EarthFlight Two: Dragon's Quest
Lily Ennis
EarthFlight One:
A Dragon’s Adventure
Lily Ennis
EarthFlight Two: Dragon’s Quest
by Lily Ennis
Copyright 2014 Lily Ennis
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Creator: Tugboat Design
Editor: Nola A. Dyson
About the Author
New Zealander Lily Ennis lives in Thames with her husband, five cats and an elderly sulphur crested cockatoo.
R.I.P Paddy
Also by Lily Ennis:
Fire in the Mountain, 2012
Seaton’s War, 2013
EarthFlight One: A Dragon’s Adventure, 2013
Scarlet Runner, 2014
You can find Lily at her blog - lilyennis.wordpress.com
This book is dedicated to Wabbits, because Wabbits shouldn’t be underestimated.
EarthFlight Two: Dragon’s Quest
Table of Contents
1. Noughts and Crosses
2. The Stop-Go-Cow
3. The Paleozoic Games
1. Noughts and Crosses
Wabbit tugged on Dragon’s bridle and hunkered low over his whither ducking the noughts and crosses that spun about them. She should have seen them from way back there but as usual she was daydreaming and mistook them for cotton tails, which was enormously comforting being so far from home. The crosses bounced off Dragon in all directions but two of the noughts landed beautifully on his tail.
Suddenly Dragon lurched as an apostrophe flew straight for him. But he was too late. The apostrophe had hooked up his nose.
Dragon felt a sneeze coming. ‘Ah, ah, ah.’
‘No, Dwagon,’ cried Wabbit, for she knew that when Dragon sneezed he would breathe a ferocious but most beautiful ball of fire out his mouth, which in itself wasn’t so disconcerting, but she was trying to pilot them through this maelstrom of noughts and crosses and apostrophes and a sneeze could mean an irreversible upset of balance.
Wabbit dug her feet into Dragon’s scaly side and clenched her teeth.
‘Choo!’
Backwards they flew leaving a great fiery wake behind them which was really in front of them. The crosses, warmed by Dragon’s breath turned into beautiful flutterbies of every colour and race known to natural science, and of course to Dragon because he was knowledgeable on most things. Wabbit excitedly clapped her hands then slipped sideways off her saddle because she forgot she was the pilot. Dragon gave a shrug to set her right. The noughts, quite alarmingly, turned into snakes that started off with their tails in their mouths but ended up unfurled, their natural lizardy beauty soaring through the tepid air.
Dragon started to laugh.
‘What’s funny, Dwagon?’ asked Wabbit.
‘My tail is tickling.’ Dragon snorted for he was laughing so much he could hardly talk.
‘That does sound like fun, Dwagon,’ said Wabbit. ‘How do I get a tickling tail?’
Dragon’s whole body shuddered. His scales rippled from the tip of his nose, under Wabbit, then on to the end of his giant tail. The two snakes, one of which wore spectacles and who used to be noughts, sailed off Dragon’s tail and darted around him.
‘Oh my goodness me,’ said the first snake shaking his head back and forth like it was a lemon on a tree. ‘You’ve done it now.’
‘What have I done?’ asked Dragon nonchalantly for he had no intention of taking responsibility of having done something unless he knew exactly what it was he had done.
‘We’ve hatched too soon,’ explained the snake blinking rapidly behind his spectacles. ‘We are supposed to be noughts until we reach the Red Land in the forgotten dimension.’
Dragon felt a tug on his ear. Wabbit, who by this time had three iridescent flutterbies perched on her head and one on her nose, had a thought.
‘Dwagon, we must be in the uncharted dimension if the nought snakes are on their way to the forgotten dimension,’ she said.
‘Oh dearie me, no,’ said the snake. ‘We know exactly where we are, and we’re not there.’
Dragon scratched his chin and Wabbit held herself as still as she possibly could for more and more gorgeous flutterbies landed on her. It made her tickle and she giggled like a girl, which was perfectly acceptable since she was a girl.
‘Why wait to hatch until you get to the Red Land?’ asked Dragon.
‘Oh, oh,’ interrupted the second snake hooking his tail into a V. ‘I know the answer. Can I answer it? Can I? Let me answer it. I know this one.’
The first snake rolled his eyes. It was surprising to Wabbit just how many eye expressions could be seen through the snake’s glasses. The excitable snake continued.
‘Because it’s such a long way and takes such a long time that we need to go into stasis,’ he said as if he was reciting a grocery list.
Dragon pinged out his first claw paw and nibbled on it. He felt beads of Dragon sweat begin to form on his brow.
‘Oh dear,’ he murmured.
‘And what about the flutterbies?’ asked Wabbit who by now was almost completely covered in flutterbies.
The snakes shook their heads sadly.
‘I am sorry to say that the flutterby crosses are in perilous danger now,’ said the spectacled snake. ‘They were going to be the pattern on the dresses of all the female bookworms belonging to the Fat Cat Dynasty.’
Wabbit shook involuntarily and subconsciously scratched her left ear. The flutterbies flew up like a cloud.
‘Fat Cat Dynasty?’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you know if they sing?’
‘Oh, I should think some of them sing very well,’ the snake replied.
‘I think the flutterbies will make wonderful patterns on the bookworms’ dresses,’ said Wabbit clapping her hands again. She dug her knees into Dragon’s side. ‘Can we go with them to see the Fat Cats, Dwagon? I should like to see singing Fat Cats.’
Dragon cleared his throat for he had become quite choked up at what he had to say next.
‘I’m afraid these flutterbies won’t make it to the Red Land,’ he explained in a very deep voice which made Wabbit think there was worse to come. ‘Flutterbies live but a few days. They have no mouth parts with which to drink. You will notice they carry a straw with which to drink.’
They did indeed. Wabbit had been so enamoured with the beauty of their wings and the tickling of their feet that she failed to notice a straw tied to each flutterby’s back. She frowned.
‘And what are you going to be?’ Wabbit asked the snakes.
‘Oh, oh, I know,’ said the excitable snake. ‘Let me get this one. We are going to be monkey tails!’
‘Monkey tails!’ exclaimed Dragon. ‘Excuse me for being so forward but you appear too intelligent to be monkey tails, especially as you wear glasses.’
The spectacled snake sighed and again shook his head like an apple bobbing in a bucket. ‘It’s the only work we could get. Can’t be choosy at times like this.’
‘Times like what?’ asked Wabbit.
Before the snakes could answer Dragon hiccoughed. A flutterby had inadvertently flown into his mouth then come tumbling out exhausted and crawled panting up onto Dragon’s nose. Dragon looked cross-eyed to the flutterby. What a tragedy he thought, that it wouldn’t make it to the Red Land and make a pattern on a Fat Cat dress.
As if Wabbit had read Dragon’s mind she blurted out another question. ‘Where is the Red Land?
The snakes looked at each other and shrugged their skinny shoulders. They looked at the flut
terby on the end of Dragon’s nose who shimmered its pink wings.
‘It could be anywhere,’ Wabbit supposed. ‘Isn’t that right, Dwagon? We’ll help you look for it.’
‘But if we don’t find it immediately the flutterbies will turn back into crosses and hatch into moss. And mosses can’t see or eat!’ said the spectacled snake.
Wabbit shuddered.
‘And they’re hairy,’ he added.
Wabbit imagined Fat Cat bookworms wearing dresses of hairy blind mosses. ‘Oh dear,’ she murmured. ‘What will happen to you?’
‘We’ll hang around until a herd of flying horses comes by and tail along with them,’ said the spectacled snake.
Dragon’s whole body began to heave and finally he chortled out loud, unable to hold back his delight at the snake’s joke. Then he saw that the snake was serious. He ah-hemmed and frowned. He felt compelled to think extremely hard to find a solution for quite possibly it was his fault that the noughts and crosses had hatched
