Dragon Games 2/4

Next day the race was due to start just before dinnertime. The course was three times round the island, with judges at all the turning points to make sure no one cut corners. Thirty contestants were lined up, mostly the younger fitter dragons.

Fred and Cyril were side by side at the starting line and wished each other luck. Clarence hadn’t entered because he thought racing was a bit beneath his dignity.

“I’m a bit too old for that game. My talents lie in skills like flaming and rock dropping, not just flying round in circles.”

The chief dragon gave the word to start the race and the thirty enthusiasts ran along the beach and took to the air. Cyril tried his hardest to keep up with the crowd and was lying fifth at the end of the first lap. Fred was flying quite easily alongside him.

“This is quite slow so far,” he said, “when I lived in the alternate world, we had to fly much faster than this if you wanted to catch something to eat.”

Cyril was a bit too much out of breath to reply, so he just smiled politely and then slowly fell behind as he started to climb higher.

During one of his trips to visit his Aunty Megan he’d been surprised by a low flying jet fighter. When he’d got over the fright, he’d asked her what on earth it was.

“Always practising they are round here,” she’d replied, “Jennifer Jane will tell you all about them if you really want to know about the nasty noisy things.”

Jennifer Jane had told him about aeroplanes that could fly so fast, that they left the noise they made a long way behind them. “They have very powerful engines, of course, but one of the reasons they can go so quickly is that the wings are swept back, rather like an arrow head.”

Cyril took a good look at the aircraft, the next time he had an opportunity and saw what she meant. That had given him an idea for improving his speed when the dragon races were next held. Now he intended to try it out.

He continued to climb slowly for another complete lap of the island. After his practice the previous night, he now thought he was high enough for his idea to work, but he still had to wait for another half lap before it would be worthwhile putting into effect.

In the meantime he flew as quickly as he possibly could to try and catch up with the other dragons who by now were quite a long way in front of him.

At last he flew over the point where he intended to make his effort. He was absolutely exhausted, but it didn’t matter any more; he half folded his wings and began to glide down towards the finishing line. Once he had the line of his glide correct, he folded his wings even further until only his shoulders were keeping him airborne.

His speed was building up rapidly as he dropped down. He’d already overtaken several of the slower competitors and was quickly catching up with the leaders.

With about two hundred yards to go, he hurtled past a very surprised Fred, who by this time was in the lead, and flashed over the finishing line with fifty yards in hand. He was going so fast that he couldn’t open his wings to stop him self. He just managed to force his shoulders to a slightly upward angle thus levelling out enough to avoid crashing into the ground, and then he leaned slightly to his right and swerved out over the sea.

If he was going to crash, then he certainly didn’t want it to happen over the ground. He just managed to slow a little more and was able to open his wings a tiny bit extra as a result.

That was just enough to allow him to climb at a very shallow angle and his speed rapidly dropped off to the point where he could open his wings completely and fly back towards the beach and the cheering crowd. Fred was one of the first to congratulate him.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the speed you flew past me. However did you manage it?”

Cyril explained the theory behind jet fighters and swept back wings.

“It must have been one of them that scared me so much when I first came to this world. I thought it was a very large dragon at the time.”

Megan and Clarence came over to congratulate him on his win. “Don’t you ever do that again now,” said Megan, “far too dangerous when you got near the ground.”

Clarence looked at Cyril over Megan’s shoulder and winked. “Very dangerous,” he agreed, “but very well done all the same!”