Rhiannon - Dragonrider

Chapter Six - The Idea of the Island

"This," I said, clearing away some of the rubbish so it was obvious.

"I can't see anything," Megan insisted.

I gave her a bit of a look. The thing was the size of a football [soccer ball!] and was this amazing glistening, metallic red colour... and it was right in front of her...

And... I mean... I knew she'd never joke around with me like that...

So I did the only thing I could think of. I flipped into the cloud world and slipped inside her head.

There was definitely something really strange going on. In a way she could see the ball but something was kind of stopping her from... well... being aware of the thing. And, as I probed deeper, I found some sort of block. I eased it gently to one side and...

Something seemed to click inside Megan's head and a little explosion of pain flashed across her cloud, which vanished in an instant. But, in that instant, I caught a glimpse of a hidden corner of her mind that burned even brighter than the fisherman's.

I was vaguely aware that, back on the beach, Megan had screamed so I flipped back. She had this stunned look and was holding her hands to her head. "Are you alright?" I asked.

"There was this sudden, horrible pain but..." She blinked a couple of times, "but it's totally gone now. Hey, is that the ball you were talking about? I don't know how I missed it. It's really pretty."

Dropping to her knees, she started scraping around in the pile and uncovered three more: two green and a blue one. "You know... I don't think they're balls at all," she went on. "They're more... well... egg-shaped. But they can't possibly be eggs. I mean... I've seen an ostrich egg and it was a lot smaller than these things."

I went all cold and reached out towards the things with my mind. In a way they burned almost as brightly as that terrifying stranger but hardly any of the power was leaking out. Instead it was being used to kind of hide whatever it was that was inside.

"You're not going to believe me..." I said but I sort of trailed off, hardly daring to say the words.

"Go on, you might as well say it," Megan said. "I know there's something funny going on round here."

"They're dragon's eggs," I breathed. I mean... I didn't really believe it but it was the only answer I could think of.

"I'm not sure what I think," Megan said with a shrug, "but I guess they come from up there." She was pointing to this sort of crack a little way up the cliffs that had been exposed by the rock fall.

She was right... and, looking around, you could see that the things were going to be washed away in the next storm.

I had a look at the cliff and decided it might be possible so I clambered up to the crack. "Pass 'em up here!" I told her.

With a fair bit of heaving and grunting, we managed to get the eggs back up into the crack. They were surprisingly heavy. Then I got Megan to pass me up some of the rocks and stuff and wedged them in as securely as I could.

I was just about done when she gave a funny squeak thing. "Look out!" she yelped. "We're about to be cut off!"

We ran to the headland and managed to make it back round by scuttling between waves. I mean... I managed to pick up a bootful of water and Megan was pretty much washed away when a wave broke over the rock she was standing on but we made it.

But as we stumbled into the other bay, we came to a sudden stop.

Droopy was standing there with her hands on her hips and you could tell she'd been hunting for us for ages.

So I put a hand on Megan's shoulder then, without really thinking, I slipped into Droopy's mind. I spread feelings of calm and tried to make the bit of the cliffs over by the path seem really interesting.

"Maybe they've gone back up," Droopy said and she started to trundle back across the beach with the rest of the gaggle in tow. I mean... she was still shouting our names but she was nothing like as stressy about it anymore. I hurried Megan up towards the cliffs and then we called back to Droopy.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "We were starting to get a bit worried."

"Sorry, we didn't hear you. We were up here by the cliffs, looking for fossils."

"You're not going to find any fossils around here. These are igneous rocks," she told us.

I even knew that... I was just giving her something else to think about!

Go me!

And, as she started her lecture on basic geology, I knew we'd got away with it!

The rest of the day wasn't too bad. We ate our sandwiches and then Droopy let us mess around on the beach for a while. And the beach bit was big enough to let me get away from the rest of the gaggle for a bit. I mean... for a while, I even managed to forget about 'Caery Draig' and the dragons and everything.

But then, later that afternoon, as we were clambering back up the path, I happened to look out to sea...

And there it was again... my island. We were much closer here... and it was obvious that the things flying round the top weren't birds.

And I'd sort of known it all along but it suddenly became clear. That's where all the answers were. That's where I had to go.