By 4th Grade Students at Cadwallader Elementary
Feb 2014
The dragon guarded his cave. Clarissa, the thirteen-year-old girl watched. Clarissa wondered what was in the cave.
He was the weirdest dragon she could ever imagine. He was tiny- only as big as a chicken. He was midnight blue with mint green scales. Even from her hiding place behind the boulder, she could tell that his eyes were hazel because they glowed with specks of blue, green, and brown. She thought that the dragon would feel bumpy-slimy if she attempted to touch him.
Clarissa pinched her nose shut. The dragon stank of the tropics- a powerful mixture of coconut and pineapple. She really hated that scent. When she was little, she had been almost overcome by a similar odor while visiting Hawaii.
The dragon was making a very loud and odd screeching noise, a cross between a bagpipe and a hairy Chewbacca. She thought it was his way of talking to the mystical creature in front of him. This creature looked a lot like blue glass pieces of a human and it shimmered as if it was a hologram. She thought it might be one of these creatures that were called Being. It was almost as if she had a flashback to her visit to Hawaii. She had seen a creature like this doing a strange ritual.
From within the cave came the beat of a hip-hop song. She wondered why. Did the dragon like hip-hop? All of a sudden, someone crunched really loud. Clarissa searched for where the noise was coming from. She saw a boy her age hiding behind a tree. He had a bag of potato chips. Yum! She loved the salty crunch of Lay’s chips. But what was the boy thinking? He was making too much noise. She snuck over to him.
In a loud whisper she said, “Stop eating those chips.”
The boy looked at her with wide eyes and nodded his head.
In a quiet voice, she asked, “Do you want to find out what’s in the cave.
He nodded again.
“You distract the dragon and I’ll sneak in,” she said.
He gave her thumbs up. He stepped out from behind the tree, and called out, “Hey, dragon, and Being, I have some awesome jokes.” He began his stand-up routine.
In the meantime, Clarissa sneaked around the dragon and Being and into the cave. The cave was very dark. Once her eyes adjusted, she saw a drawing of a dragon on the wall to the left. It looked ancient. She went further into the cave. She saw a light and followed it. In a far cavern, there were at least a dozen Vikings marching and dancing to the hip-hop music in a circle around the torch.
She quickly backed away before they saw her. She went into the next chamber. It was beautiful. The ceiling dripped with huge crystals like stalactites. She moved on.
In the next chamber, she found a pile of little eggs. She counted five. They were mint green with midnight blue dots. Hmm… She wondered what kind of eggs these were. Just then all the Vikings stormed into the room.
They yelled, ”After her!”
Clarissa ran! There was an opening in the back of the chamber. She squeezed through. It lead out of the cave. She kept running.
She looked over her shoulder and saw the Vikings crowding the little exit.
“Can I help you?” asked the little dragon.
Surprised that he could speak English, Clarissa yelled, “ Sure!”
He picked her up, showing amazing strength for such a small dragon and they flew.
She asked, “Why are there Vikings in the cave?” That seemed to startle the dragon.
“Oh no,” he cried, “My eggs are in danger. We must go back and protect them.”
She said, “You can count on me.”
They flew back toward the cave.
The “Cliffhanger” Ending.
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