By 4th Grade Students at Cadwallader Elementary
Feb 2014
The dragon guarded his cave. Jack watched. He was a hunter. This dragon looked like an amazing prey. He could care less what the dragon guarded. All he cared about was the hunt. The dragon was enormous, as big as a castle. He was super scaly. He was a dull bronze. Jack noted that he had no wings. He wouldn’t be able to fly away. But he did have very sharp claws. Jack thought the dragon could breathe fire. Little tendrils of smoke came from his nostrils. The dragon blinked his eyes and curled up and fell asleep. Jack was sure that he hadn’t seen him yet. The dragon’s scales looked as if they would feel like rough metal. In the dragon’s sleep, he revealed his underbelly. It was not scaly. It was skin-colored and looked squishy and vulnerable.
The dragon smelled like fireworks. He assumed the smell came from the fire the dragon breathed. He didn’t like it. It was too strong. Every time the dragon breathed in, he farted, and every time he farted, Jack smelled rotten eggs. Jack breathed in the aroma. Man, that smelled good. He heard squawking coming from overhead. He looked up. There was a flock of birds passing over the cave. Not the kind of birds that interested him as a hunter. He quickly went back to studying the dragon.
Off to the right a hiker passed by. The hiker didn’t seem to see the dragon. Jack wasn’t going to point him out. It was his prey. The hiker munched on salty crackers. Man, that made Jack hungry. They looked crunchy delicious. But he forced himself to remain focused. He would tough it out, because right now all he wanted was to bag him some dragon meat. The dragon woke up. Jack decided he needed a closer look. He dropped to the ground. He left the tree that he hid behind and did a marine crawl to get closer. He wore camouflage and hoped that the enormous dragon wouldn’t be able to detect him as he crawled on his belly.
The dragon lumbered into the cave. Jack followed, but the dragon’s tail blocked him. He could see a golden glow coming from the cave. He wondered what was causing the glow. Was it the dragon? Was it the dragon’s fire? Was it a mountain of gold? Suddenly, he had to know. It could be riches and he liked the idea of riches very much. He tried to lift the tail so that he could sneak in, but the tail was too heavy. He dropped it with a huge thump.
The dragon shifted. Jack held his breath, but the dragon didn’t come out of the cave. He wasn’t yet caught. He saw that the dragon’s tail no longer completely blocked the cave. He managed to squeeze past. The first thing he saw was a bright gold coin on the ground. He looked up and saw that most of the cave, besides where the dragon was, was filled with gold.
The dragon saw Jack but he didn’t seem to care that Jack was there. Jack felt ignored. He heard a slight noise. He looked over his shoulder. A young girl, no older than six, skipped into the cave. What the heck? What was she doing here? He thought this was the strangest thing to have a random girl skip into a dragon’s lair.
Suddenly Jack was being lifted into the air. He realized that the dragon had picked him up. He also picked up the girl. She screamed. The dragon stomped out of the cave and set them both on the ground. He breathed fire over their heads and Jack took that as a warning.
The little girl made a break for it and ran under the dragon’s legs back into the cave. Jack followed. She pulled a key off a chain she wore around her neck and opened a little door. She ran in. Jack continued to follow. There was a large chest in the middle of the room. She used the same key to open it. When she lifted the lid, Jack gasped. It was full of priceless diamonds.
Jack whistled. His Pegasus horse flew into the cave. Jack grabbed the chest and the girl and leapt onto his horse. They blasted out of the cave and past the dragon. The dragon pursued. He couldn’t fly, but he was huge and ran fast. He caught up and grabbed the horse by the tail.
The dragon roared. With his roar, five dragons flew to his side. Jack had to act fast. He pulled out his sword. With his flaming sword, he attacked the dragon.
The “Cliffhanger” Ending.
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