By 3rd Grade Students at Mission San Jose Elementary
November 2017
The dragon guarded his cave. Ethel watched. She was 10 years old and had never seen a dragon before. She didn’t even imagine that they existed! She was surprised, but also very excited. How cool was it to see a live dragon?
He was huge – as big as a house. He was bright green with little bits of dark red. His tail had a sword on the end that lit like a candle, and he had golden claws.
Ethel thought his skin was as hard as bone and would be super rough. She saw spikes running down his back that looked crazy sharp.
The dragon stank of rotten fish – yuck! Disgusting.
Suddenly the dragon roared. He looked right at her. Uh-oh! He had seen her, and he did not look happy. Whatever he was guarding he clearly was very protective. Ethel wasn’t sure what to do. Should she hide? Should she run?
“Hey, who’s making that racket?”
Ethel swung around. A man stared at her. He was chomping on a chocolate bar. Yuck, she thought. Chocolate was so bitter. Disgusting!
“Hey,” the man said. “There’s a dragon! That’s not good. We need a plan. Follow me. Let’s figure out how to trick the dragon into leaving so we can get into the cave.”
“Uh, I don’t think so,” she said. “If you want to help, you can stay, but I don’t go to strangers’ houses – even when there’s a dragon!”
“Fine,” said the man. “Then I’m leaving.” He marched off.
Meanwhile, Ethel ran and dived behind a bush. She waited till the dragon stopped roaring. She kept waiting till the dragon got sleepy and finally nodded off. Then she snuck around to the back of the cave and crawled inside through a small hole.
The cave was very dark, but something glowed purple in the distance. As her eyes adjusted, she saw that it was a very strange purple-glowing egg. She also saw eight other eggs. She immediately decided that they were dragon eggs. Was the dragon their papa?
She was overcome by the idea. She felt very strange and then… she felt nothing.
Slowly she woke up. She didn’t feel good. Had she fainted?
Light streamed in through a crack in the ceiling of the cave, and she heard stomping. The dragon had arrived. She thought it might be dawn. She was a little worried about the dragon catching her.
“Hi, “ she said to the dragon, but then she decided to hide.
The dragon didn’t seem to realize that she had spoken or been there at all. He looked around and then flew off.
Ethel came out from her hiding place and looked at the eggs. Suddenly the purple one cracked open and a green alien jumped out. It looked fully grown.
“Hello,” said the alien happily. “My name is Ellie.”
“My name is Ethel,” Ethel whispered, stepping backwards slowly.
“This is so weird,” said the alien. “I’m pretty sure I was stolen from my family.”
“Oh you poor thing. I’m so sorry, that you’ve been stolen from your family. I want you to find them. But if you can’t, I will give you a home. I’m sure my parents would love for you to stay with us.”
“Wow!” said the alien. “You are very nice.”
Something stomped into the cave. It was the dragon. He had a fish in his mouth. He dropped the fish and roared!
“Oh no!” said Ethel. “He has seen us. Follow me!” She ran.
Ellie ran after her. They crawled out of the cave and kept running.
Then a flying saucer arrived and landed in front of them. Aliens came out of the saucer.
“Look,” Ethel said. “It’s your family!” The aliens looked at Ethel and Ellie and said, “We are here to steal the dragon egg. Have you seen any?”
“Oh no,” thought Ethel.
They weren’t Ellie’s family at all. They had weapons and they wanted to steal the eggs. Suddenly, Ethel wanted to save the eggs for their daddy! To be continued…
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