Free First Aid for Fairies and Other Fabled Beasts by Lari Don Page B

you?” laughed Helen.
    Then she passed round her notebook so they could all see the sketches.
    “The most likely stone circle for our riddle is the Ring of Brodgar on the main island of Orkney, just off the north coast. It’s a huge circle, with almost thirty stones still standing, and at least one of the standing stones has runes carved on it. Also a stone went missing from there years ago, and it had a rune on it too. So we could take the stone home, and find your Book at the same time. The only problem is, how do we get there? It’s about 250 miles north of here.”
    Sapphire grunted quietly. Perhaps she didn’t want to roar and set the trees on fire. Rona explained, “Sapphire will fly us. She can fly youand me on her back, Catesby can keep up with us and Lavender can perch on our shoulders.”
    Yann said slowly, “But I can’t go, can I?” He stamped a hoof, and spoke angrily. “I can’t really fit on Sapphire’s back, not for that long, and even at a gallop I won’t get to Caithness tonight. And the currents in the Pentland Firth are too strong for me to swim anyway. I can’t go. The human girl can go, but I can’t.”
    Rona patted his withers. “No, you can’t come this time, but you can go home, and help prepare for the Gathering and keep our people from worrying about where we are. If all of us are missing every night this week, they will start to think we are up to something.”
    “So I go home and do housework, while you face danger and find the Book?”
    “Have you found out about those teeth yet?” asked Helen, “The teeth of the creature that bit you? You thought that might be useful.” Yann humphed and turned his back on her.
    She tried again. “I think I was being watched at school today, by something with a tail, something that breathed in a raspy way. Perhaps you could spend some time working out what is watching us. That would be more useful than sulking, for example.”
    He swung back towards her. “I wasn’t sulking. I was thinking.”
    Lavender swooped down and pointed her tiny finger at Yann’s nose. “I had to practise synchronized spells while you leapt into the walled garden. You can go and help stamp out the dance floor while we go island hopping. It’s only fair.”
    So Yann agreed to go home, to be seen helping with the Gathering preparations, and to work out what creatures the Master was using.
    Helen grabbed the last few cheese sandwiches, and watched a drooping Yann walk off through the trees. Then she put the rucksack on her back and joined the others at the edge of the wood. Sapphire had lowered her belly to the ground, and was holding out her front leg as a step. The dragon was clutching the grey riddle rock in her silver claws. Rona climbed on, sat between Sapphire’s neck and wings and beckoned Helen to join her.
    Thinking of all the dragon rides she had dreamt of as a child, and wondering if this was real, Helen put her foot gently on Sapphire’s leg and held onto the dragon’s slender silver spikes to pull herself high up behind Rona.
    Sapphire certainly felt real. In dreams dragons felt like couches or bikes, comfy and safe. But Sapphire was too wide to sit on comfortably, her scales were bumpy and poky, and as she took a single lurching step forward, Helen nearly fell off. She grabbed onto the nearest dragon spike and held on tight.
    Rona turned round anxiously. “Are you alright?”
    “I think so.” Helen laughed. “I’ve never done this when I’ve been awake before!”
    Then Sapphire took one more clumsy step and leapt into the air. Helen couldn’t see how something so solid could possibly fly, but with a couple of powerful beats of her huge blue-grey wings Sapphire was high in the air and moving forward at great speed.
    “Go north!” Helen yelled. “Just go north until we see the sea!”

Chapter 9
    Helen found it easier to balance on the dragon when she was in the air. The smooth beats of Sapphire’s wings didn’t swing her from side to