By 3rd Grade Students at Bubb Elementary
March 2014
The dragon guarded his cave. Nina, the jaguar, watched. She wondered what he guarded.
The dragon was at least thirty yards long and he was bright green. Strangely, he had no spots, unlike Nina who had really beautiful ones. And unlike a jaguar, he also had no fur. Instead, he was covered in dark scales. His teeth were a lot sharper than Nina’s. He had three long, sharp horns on the top of his head. His tail was long and full of spikes that were easily sharp enough to kill someone like Nina. She would have to be careful. She thought that his scales would feel bumpy.
The dragon smelled like grass. Nina had a lot of experience with grass. The smell made her comfortable. She liked the way it smelled like nature.
As Nina watched from her hiding place in a nearby tree, she wondered why the dragon was roaring. He’d been roaring for a long time, but she was quite sure he hadn’t seen her so he couldn’t be roaring at her. It was very loud. It hurt her ears. He had also started stomping. She thought he must be mad, but why?
That was the moment when she noticed something completely horrifying. The dragon was eating a jaguar! Worse, she thought it might be her friend Elizabeth. She was heartbroken, but she could handle it. She had handled worse. She knew that raw jaguar probably tasted like any other meat, but to her it was disgusting. She had to put her feelings aside for now because all that mattered was sneaking into the cave and discovering what the dragon guarded.
With her paw, she threw a rock past the dragon and into the cave. When he looked over his shoulder to find what had been thrown, she lept off the tree and slunk around him into the cave. The cave was partially lit by sparkling gold.
The first thing Nina saw was a huge container covered in jaguar skin. Her face turned red at the horrible sight. The container held a lot of eggs. She thought there could be upwards of a 100 eggs. The eggs were covered in dark green scales. Dragon eggs!
Suddenly, the eggs began to hatch but there was no cracking or rocking. They hatched in complete silence. From within each egg crawled out a little miniature dragon who looked exactly like the dad. Smoke poured out of their noses making a burning sound – a crackle and a pop.
The ground shook as the daddy dragon stomped into the cave. Nina thought the noisy smoke that came from the babies must be the way they called their dad to them.
Immediately, the dragon saw Nina. Nina knew this because he glared at her and bellowed and charged. She dodged first one way and then the other in an attempt to run around him and out of the cave. But he was too big and strong. He captured her between his legs.
Nina went wild. She attacked with her claws and her teeth. She was vicious. Caught by surprise, the dragon shot back and fell on his back. Nina was free! When the dragon fell backward, he had fallen on all of his babies. Even though Nina didn’t like this dragon, she was still horrified that the babies had been squashed. However, when the dragon rolled off the babies, they all popped back into shape. They were alive!
Nina turned tail to run away, but suddenly someone had her by the scruff of her neck, and she was hanging in the air. It was another dragon – the mother dragon! The dragon carted Nina off deep into the cave where there was pot of boiling lava. She held Nina over the pot.
Was this the end, Nina wondered. Was she about to be dinner? She really hoped not!!!
The “Cliffhanger” End.
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