By 3rd Grade Students at Huff Elementary
Jan 2013
The dragon guarded her cave as eleven-year-old Ben, the dragon rider, watched her. Ben knew this dragon very well. This dragon was Roxy, and she was guarding a treasure chest. Ben really wanted to be rich, and he wanted that treasure chest. It would make all his dreams come true.
The dragon was on the small side. She was about 5 feet tall and about as wide as a student table in Ben’s classroom. She was light, lime-green in color. One of Roxy’s wings dangled in a twisted way that told Ben she was injured. Along her back and tail, there were fat, sharp spikes that were on fire. The fire looked sort of cold with red at the base of the flames and yellow flaming up to the tips. Steam dramatically billowed from her nose. There was a time when Ben could have touched Roxy, and her skin would have been smooth and slimy. When she trusted him, it was easy to touch her. However, when she didn’t trust him, like now, he knew from experience that her skin would hurt him if he touched her. It would even cause his hands to blister. Roxy smelled like roses. Gosh, he hated that smell. It reminded him of the time he fell in a rose bush and was ripped up by the thorns.
Roxy was stomping her feet in pain over her injury. She was frowning at Ben. While he watched the dragon, Ben decided to eat his snack. He pulled out the chocolate cookie he bought at the bakery on his way to the cave and took a large bite. It was okay, but not great. It was dry. He preferred chewy cookies. This was not the cookie he had hoped for! He threw it on the ground and ran the mile necessary to get to the other bakery in town. He bought five new cookies. Before leaving, he checked that they were chewy. He raced back to the cave.
“Oh, no,” thought Ben. Now Roxy stood in front of one opening to the cave, and her five daughters had arrived, each sitting in front of all the other openings. The good news for Ben was that the girls were not really paying a lot of attention to their guarding jobs. Three were busy texting on their cell phones, and the other two started playing tag. Ben needed to distract them even more, so he pulled out a light bulb and threw it. It made a loud, crashing noise when it landed. Three of the girls went to investigate the noise, leaving three openings unguarded. Ben threw another light bulb in a different direction, and the other two girls ran after it. Now, he just had to distract Roxy. He built a fake cave out of cardboard and put it near the first cave entrance. Stealing the treasure would have been so much easier if he hadn’t made Roxy mad at him earlier. If only they hadn’t played together, and if only Ben hadn’t hurt her wing, then she would still trust him.
Fortunately, the daughters were easily fooled by Ben’s false cave. They were convinced that the cardboard cave was their cave. They told their mom to move to the cardboard cave. Roxy wasn’t so easy to fool. She refused to guard the cardboard cave. Instead, she hunkered down in front of her cave and ordered her daughters to return. Ben had to try something else.
Using his dragon rider telepathy, he sent a message to his dragon rider friends. All eight dragon-rider teams came quickly, riding in on their dragons. All the dragons got super excited when they saw each other. “Let’s play tag,” one called to Roxy. Even though she was hurt, Roxy seemed to cheer up at the idea of dragon tag. Her daughters really wanted to play. They all started playing a loud and fun game of tag.
Ben convinced his friends to play tag, too. They leapt on their dragons’ backs and joined the game. Ben took this opportunity to make his move. He raced in to the cave. He grabbed the treasure chest and made a run for it. Roxy saw him leaving the cave with her chest. She hissed and lunged for her treasure. She grabbed it, and then swatted Ben with her tail, knocking him into the air. Fortunately, for Ben, one of his rider friends caught him before he crashed to the ground. Unfortunately, Ben did not get to steal the chest of treasure.
Maybe next time…
The “Cliffhanger” End.
Click here for another great Dragon story…
To find out more about my writers’ workshops, click here.