By 3rd Grade Students at Huff Elementary
March 2021
The dragon guarded her cave. A spy watched. His name was Detective H. Detective H knew that the dragon must be guarding a lot of money and maybe even dragon eggs.
The dragon was twenty feet tall and brown, and she had spikes shimmering all over her back. She had big and dark purple wings and a long tail and spiky horns on her head. Detective H thought she looked slimy and squishy, but she also looked as if she would be hard to hurt with a weapon. Maybe even impossible. Like maybe her skin would turn hard as rock if something touched it.
Detective H sniffed the air. There was the very strong scent of peaches. He loved peaches. Interesting that the dragon smelled like one of his favorite scents. It made him want to come closer and closer to the dragon. But he knew better than to follow the aroma. He’d heard that dragons put out beautiful scents to lure people to come too close. When someone got too close to a dragon, it was dangerous.
Suddenly, the dragon roared.
RAWRRRRR
Uh-oh, thought Detective H. She must have seen me.
As the dragon roared, she wacked her tail against the ground.
THWAP. THWAP. THWAP.
“Show yourself!” she yelled. At the same time, she scooped up a claw-full of ice cream and ate it!
Detective H thought it might be all the ice creams in the world at once. Yum. That sounded pretty good. But maybe it would end up tasting mostly of the bitterest chocolate, just overwhelmed by that taste. Which was fine by him, because that sweet sensation was one of his favorites.
He didn’t have time to think much about the ice cream because the dragon clearly knew he was there. He sprinted over to a bush and ducked behind it. He had a plan. He would distract the dragon. And while she was distracted, he would sneak into the cave. He knew from his research that dragons liked ramen. He had brought a backpack full of it, and a launcher to blast it far from the cave. He launched the ramen into the sky.
The dragon roared again. “Yuck! Ramen. I don’t like ramen. SHOW YOURSELF, you ramen-lobbing lover!”
Oh no! A dragon who didn’t like ramen? Detective H had to think quickly. He knew that dragons were very bored by backpacks… but he thought a launcher might be intriguing. So, he launched his launcher over the dragon’s head away from the cave.
But the dragon stayed exactly where she was. “I WILL NOT LEAVE THE CAVE. I HAVE EGGS TO PROTECT!”
Aha! Eggs! But there had to be money there too. Detective H called in reinforcements–three of his spy workmates. He asked them to bring their ATVs. He had them race around in front of the dragon in wild and speedy circles.
But still, she wasn’t distracted.
She yelled, “I KNOW YOU ARE TRYING TO DISTRACT ME! BUT IT WON’T WORK. JUST GO AWAY!”
Detective H came up with his most brilliant plan. He called in a favor and had one of his spy workmates bring him three fake dragon eggs. He pulled out his second launcher and launched the dragon eggs past the dragon.
This time, the dragon was distracted. She lumbered after the eggs, screeching, “MY EGGS! MY EGGS!”
As she ran to save them, Detective H slipped into the cave. The first thing he saw was a huge mound of gold. Ooooh! And on top of it were seven golden dragon eggs.
He thought, This dragon does not need all this gold. I can take it and donate it and do good in this world.
He walked toward the mound.
STOMP. STOMP. STOMP.
Uh-oh, thought Detective H. The dragon was returning! He froze with fear.
The dragon arrived. When she saw the detective she was so upset that she jumped into the air. She went so high that she broke the roof of the cave and kept zooming into the sky until she was out of the atmosphere. Then she fell. As she fell back into the cave, it collapsed around them. Now they were trapped in a much smaller space.
Detective H panicked. What if he never escaped? He realized that he better make friends with the dragon.
“I’m sorry, dragon, It was rude to sneak into your cave.”
Before the dragon could respond, loud sounds erupted in the small space.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
They both looked up to where the cracking was happening. It was the seven dragon eggs! As they cracked open, seven little dragon babies crawled out.
“Awww,” both Detective H and the dragon said.
The dragon rushed to her babies. “I’m willing to consider being your friend,” she said to Detective H, “but you need to prove you can be trusted.”
Detective H knew he had some work to do. And he was willing to do it.
But first, they needed to fix the cave and break free! He sure hoped they could save themselves and the babies!
The “Cliffhanger” ending.
Click here for another great Dragon story…
To find out more about my writers’ workshops, click here.