Free Bronze Pen (9781439156650) by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page B

of the sound and seeing nothing but the edge of the bed and, beyond that, only moonlit curtains. And then…And then, slowly stretching up into sight, two long, slightly curved plumes came into view, distinctly silhouetted against the moonlit windows. Feathery plumes that looked like the feelers of a moth or a butterfly, only much larger and longer. The limber feelers bent and turned and then raised up higher as something else came into view. Just below the feelers two other objects appeared. The wings of a very large bat? No. More like dark, spiky ears. The ears twitched back and forth and moved higher, and then, just below them, Audrey was able to make out a rounded dome, down the middle of which ran a row of sharp-looking spines. The dome turned, raised up higher, and she was staring into two round, glowing holes at the end of a long snout and, just above them, two bulging golden eyes.
    She gasped. Pulling the covers up almost to her own eyes, she cowered back against the head of the bed and watched as the dragon’s head—it was now obvious that’s what it had to be—raised up higher, and higher still, on a long, limber neck. A very long neck that kept stretching up higher and higher until two skinny legs appeared. Legs that ended in large claws that curled down to sharply pointed talons.
    Audrey gasped again, and the dragon suddenly noticed her. It jerked back, and the glowing holes at the end of its long, thin muzzle released, not a rush of flame so much as a brief fiery flicker, followed by a small puff of white smoke.
    In spite of the fact that she kept trying to tell herself that it was only a dream, Audrey was frightened. A dream she told herself firmly. I must be dreaming about my old pretend dragon. But there was a part of her mind that wasn’t accepting that explanation. A part that kept bringing up the fact that this creature was a lot more explicitly dragonlike than anything her five-year-old mind had ever been able to produce. Her preschool imagination had been pretty creative, but it had never conjured up such details as the glaring golden eyes and spiky ears that Audrey was now able to see so clearly, or the way the claws curled down to end in such long, sharp spikes. A dragon who probably wouldn’t be so easily discouraged as the one created by a five-year-old’s imagination. But then again, perhaps it would be worth a try.
    Suddenly dropping the sheet she’d been clutching, Audrey leaned forward, clapped her hands sharply, and said, “Shoo!”
    It worked. Jerking its head up and back, the dragon made a startled-sounding “Oooff,” and ducked down to disappear from sight. And a moment later Audrey felt, once again, the scratching and thumping that had awakened her. The thumps continued for several seconds, became less noticeable, and stopped. Stopped altogether—for a minute, and then for several more.
    Do dragons sleep? Perhaps not, but then again…Audrey went on straining her ears to listen. Nothing. No sound at all, but no sleep for Audrey, either. Lying wide awake, she listened and waited, wondering what had really happened and what she ought to do about it.
    She thought briefly of getting out of the bed and looking under it. Very briefly. The dragon had been too real, too distinctly seen. But at last she did do something. Clutching a blanket, she stood up, breathlessly gathered her courage, and jumped. Jumped toward the door, snatched it open, and kept going. Out the door and down the hall to wind up on the couch in the living room next to where Beowulf was sprawled out on his baby crib mattress. He woke up only long enough to watch Audrey arrange the couch’s pillows and her one skimpy blanket into a more or less comfortable bed, and went back to sleep without commenting beyond a sleepy grunt.
    By the time she woke up the next morning, feeling a bit cramped and chilly, Audrey could look back at what had happened in a more realistic way. It