The quiet acorn 8/9

Jennifer Jane flew as quickly as she could to the hills where she had first seen the dragon. She landed in the same place as she had before and looked around carefully to make sure that Abigail’s arrangements were all in place. Everything was as she’d expected, so she took a deep breath and shouted as loudly as she could.

“Coo-ee dragon, I’m back again.”

The dragon popped his head out of the cave mouth and looked at her in astonishment. “How did you manage to get back here? I was told that once I flamed anything it disappeared for good.”

“Well you were told wrong then, weren’t you. You know I’m a witch and we’re trained to move very quickly. I just hid behind the nearest tree when you attacked me, then went back home to learn a few new spells. I think you’d better come a lot closer this time to make sure you hit me. You can’t be much good as a dragon if you miss me a second time!”

The dragon had been puzzling over her words and finally came to the conclusion that this little girl was telling him he was no good at his job.

As Jennifer Jane had hoped, he lost his temper and came charging down the hill, without waiting to think what surprises might be waiting for him at the bottom.

Once he got about halfway, he slowed down and began to take a deep breath. Jennifer Jane clicked her fingers and the special spell that Abigail had arranged took effect.

A large black cloud waiting just above the dragon’s cave suddenly burst and soaked the dragon even before he could start flaming. At the same time she was moved sideways into the woods, just in case she’d got her timing wrong.

Then she started running towards the dragon as soon as she realised the plan had worked, while the dragon himself; who had swallowed a lot of water while he was taking his deep breath; was so surprised that he ran back to his cave.

Jennifer Jane followed him up the hill as fast as she could. She stopped every ten seconds or so and let fly with a huge jet of water to keep him soaking wet, before running on again.

She arrived at the cave mouth without any further trouble, flexing her fingers for the final twiddle that would finish him off. To her great surprise the dragon had vanished.

She looked round carefully before she went too far into the cave, just in case he was waiting to jump on her from behind, or maybe even fall on her from the roof. Then in one dark corner she heard a sneeze. She couldn’t see properly in the darkness inside the cave, so she let fly with another jet of water in the direction of the sneeze just in case.