“What are you doing?” I scream, breaking right to lead the dragon away from the buildings.
“Your attention spell worked on everyone!” Penny says. “They’re all coming out to watch! There’s nothing to see here!” she shouts again at the gates. “As you were!”
I glance back and see kids standing on the drawbridge and running to the edge of the ramparts. The dragon is diving again, and I decide to run at it. A ribbon of fire shoots over my head. I drop at the last moment and roll away—its teeth scrape at the ground beside me.
It pulls up, snorting in what I think is frustration, then lunges towards me, snapping its jaws. I swing my sword at its neck, and the blade catches and sticks. The dragon heaves up again, and I go with it, holding on to my sword and using the momentum to swing onto the beast’s head, my knees tucked behind its jaw.
This is better. Now I can just throttle it.
The dragon’s trying to swing me loose—and I’m trying to get my sword out of its hide, so that I can stab it again—when I hear Baz calling my name. I look up and see him running along the ramparts.
He must have cast some spell on his voice to make it carry. (I wonder if it’s a Hear ye, hear ye—I’ve never managed that.) “Simon,” he’s shouting, “don’t hurt it!”
Don’t hurt it? Sod that. I go back to yanking on my blade.
“Simon!” Baz cries out again. “Wait! They’re not dark creatures!” He gets to the end of the ramparts, but instead of stopping, he leaps up on top of the wall, then out over the moat—just takes a running jump off the building! And doesn’t fall! He floats out over the moat and lands on the other side. It’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
The dragon must think so, too, because it stops struggling with me and follows Baz with its head.
Its wings are beating less furiously. It almost lolls in the air, dipping in Baz’s direction and snuffling little puffs of fire.
Baz runs towards us, then stands with his legs apart, his wand in the air.
“Baz!” I yell. “No! You’re flammable!”
“So is everything!” he shouts back at me.
“Baz!”
But he’s already pointing at the dragon and casting a spell:
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire, and your children are gone.”
The first line is a common spell for pests and mice and things like that. But Baz keeps going. He’s trying to cast the whole nursery rhyme. Like he’s Houdini himself.
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire and your children shall burn. All except one, and her name is Nan, and she hid under the porridge pan.”
There’s nothing in our world more powerful than nursery rhymes—the poems that people learn as kids, then get stuck in their brains forever. A powerful mage can turn back an army with “Humpty Dumpty.”
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire, and your children shall burn.”
The dragon isn’t flying away home, but it’s fascinated by Baz. It lands in front of him and cocks its head. One breath of fire now, that’s all it would take to obliterate him.
Baz stands his ground:
“All but one, and that’s little John, and he lies under the grindle stone.”
I slide off the beast’s neck, yanking my sword out with my body weight as I fall.
“Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire, and your children shall burn.”
I wonder why no one is helping him—then I look around and see every student and teacher in the school standing in the windows or out on the ramparts. All still paying attention, like I told them to. Even Penny has given in. Or maybe she’s as gobsmacked as I am. Baz keeps going.
“All except one, and her name is Aileen, and she hid under a soup tureen.”
The dragon looks back over its shoulder, and I think maybe it’s thinking about hoofing it. But then it stamps, frustrated, and spreads its wings wide.