Free The Dragon's Eye by Dugald A. Steer

briefly at the bowl, tossed his head, and then turned to continue his tail thumping.
    Mademoiselle Gamay had given up on the remains of the beef and instead had gone to fetch an old penny-farthing bicycle. Suddenly, Emery dashed forward, snatched back the bowl of glass beads, and hopped onto the bicycle. Wobbling a little, he pedalled off as fast as he could towards the forest.
    Jamal, noticing that his gift had been taken away from him, now gave Emery his full attention, letting out a roar as he turned his twelve-foot bulk and half flew half ran after Emery, who was whooping with all his might. Soon, both of them had disappeared amongst the trees.
    â€œHe’s only a baby,” said Dr. Drake with a smile. “The glass beads trick usually works. But I do wonder how he keeps on getting out.”
    â€œFather’s not going to be pleased,” said Billy.

Dr. Drake said that he needed to go off in case Emery needed help recapturing Jamal, and so lessons ended for the day, but not before he set us some homework to do. Beatrice, Alicia, and I had to study the map on the wall and write short descriptions of all the dragons we found. Billy and Darcy were going to help us with names and descriptions of the species of dragons that they knew. Dr. Drake had also handed them sheets of paper with information about two new dragon species they hadn’t studied before. I had soon copied the map into my record book and drawn rough sketches of the dragons on it. I thought I could recognise a knucker, which looked like Weasel; a wyvern, like Jamal; and a European dragon, which looked a bit like an adult Scorcher.
    â€œEuropean dragons live amongst mountains or in sea caves,” said Billy. “They grow up to forty-five feet long, breathe fire, and mainly eat cattle, deer, or sheep.”
    â€œI haven’t actually seen Scorcher breathe fire,” I said. “Only smoke.”
    â€œThat’s because he’s a baby. It takes them a little while to learn how to do it properly.”
    â€œAnd what’s this dragon?” I asked. It was in Australia.
    â€œIt’s a marsupial dragon,” said Billy. “I’ve never seen one, but according to Dr. Drake, they raise one young at a time in a fiery pouch.”
    â€œAnd they like to box,” I said. I remembered what he had told me about the shady dealer from Shadwell Dock.
    Soon I had made a list of names and descriptions of the dragons in my record book, and Billy had gone into a corner to read the sheets that Dr. Drake had given him. Beatrice, meanwhile, had gotten together with Alicia and had raced through the map exercise with Darcy. I listened as she started asking him about the other posters on the walls.
    â€œWhat’s that?” asked Beatrice, pointing to a poster that showed a picture of a hat that had diamonds hanging round the rim.
    â€œThat’s a Back o’ Bourke bush hat,” said Darcy. “They use them in Australia to attract marsupial dragons. You see, Australian cattle drovers sometimes hang corks round their hats to keep the flies away, but dragonologists use fake diamonds instead.”
    â€œWhat sort of dragon is that?” asked Alicia, going over to Billy and pointing at the sheet he was reading.
    Billy immediately swung round so that she couldn’t see the sheet.
    â€œIt’s advanced dragonology,” he said. “I don’t expect you girls will get to this level for a while. I’ll show Daniel, though. He seems to catch on quite quickly.”
    He winked at me, and I was just about to go over and have a look when Beatrice hissed, “Daniel, that’s not fair.”
    I sighed and sat down again. It did seem a bit unfair.
    We went back to the house to find that Dr. Drake and Emery had returned from rounding up Jamal and reinforcing the fence on his compound. They were deep in conversation, and Dr. Drake looked very worried, but they hushed up as soon as we appeared. Emery fetched