Digory The Dragon Slayer

moment they met in the bush, he had somehow trusted the wizard’s words. ‘I hear music, I hear laughter.
    You’ll live happily ever after.’ But here, in his darkest hour, there was not even a trickster’s promise to comfort him.
    Gnasher carried Digory to the corner of the great chamber and dropped him on to an enormous bed of bones. Digory shuddered! His feet rested on a huge rib cage and a hollow eyed skull stared up at his elbow.
    ‘NOW, WHERE WERE WE? AH YES, YOU WERE REMOVING THAT ARMOUR,’ snapped the dragon, licking his scorched lips. ‘HELMETS ALWAYS STICK IN MY GUMS.’
    Digory did what he was told. He had no bravery left and no more shiverousness. He felt so beaten that he didn’t care whether the dragon ate him from the back or the front or tossed him up in the air and swallowed him whole. He took off the helmet, with the tooth Betsy had so proudly welded on the top, and laid it beside him on the bones. As the dragon watched closely Digory spotted something in the pile. He reached out and picked up a huge, white thing that was almost as big as the helmet itself.
    ‘THIS WAS THE LAST TOOTH TO GO,’ the dragon sighed. ‘I CHEWED TOO MANY MAIDENS WEARING BRACELETS AND CROWNS. I WAS TOO IMPATIENT. THAT WAS THE PROBLEM.’ Digory looked at the tooth on his helmet. Then he looked at the real dragon’s tooth beside it. What a fool he’d been to mistake one for the other.
    The dragon suddenly became impatient again and began to pace up and down.
    ‘HURRY UP THERE, BOY. I MAY NOT HAVE ANY TEETH BUT I SHALL SNAP YOUR THIN BRITTLE BONES WITH MY TONGUE IN A TRICE.’
    Digory pulled off his last boot and the Horrible Gnasher Toast’em Firebreath opened his foul smelling jaws.
    ‘Goodbye, sweet Enid!’ Digory cried out and shut his eyes...

    …BUT NOTHING HAPPENED.

    Digory kept his eyes shut. He was so afraid that he wouldn’t have opened them for a thousand groats. Still nothing happened. ‘This torture is even worse that being gobbled!’ he squirmed.

A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH?

    At last the Horrible Gnasher spoke.
    ‘SWEET ENID, DID YOU SAY? IS SHE A MAIDEN? IS SHE REALLY SWEET?’ Digory couldn’t believe his ears.
    ‘She’s a princess. She’s my f-f-friend,’ he blurted, opening one eye a crack.
    ‘AH, SO SHE’S A PRINCESS INDEED! MMM, PRINCESSES ARE ALWAYS SWEET - EVEN THE HUFFY ONES.’
    ‘She isn’t huffy at all!’ cried Digory. ‘GOOD!’ said the dragon. ‘LET’S GO AND EAT HER ANYWAY. I HAVEN’T
    HAD A JUICY PRINCESS FOR A MONTH.’ And he turned tail and began to hurry down the passage towards the cave entrance. ‘I’LL SPARE YOUR SCRAWNY BONES WHILE YOU LEAD ME TO HER CASTLE,’ he called out hurriedly behind him. ‘COME ALONG. ARE WE HEADING NORTH OR SOUTH, EH?’

TO BE OR NOT TO BE GOBBLED

    Digory didn’t know what to do next. How could he lead Gnasher to Enid’s castle? Yet if he refused he would certainly be eaten up and that would be the end of it. At least I haven’t been gobbled up so far, and the dragon himself is leading me out of this awful place, he thought. Maybe once we’re in the woods I’ll get a chance to escape.
    So he scrambled back into his armour, grabbed Burdock’s sword and followed the Horrible Gnasher down the passage towards fresh air and the forest.
    Gnasher was waiting at the tunnel entrance. ‘CLIMB UP THEN, QUICKLY,’ he said. ‘WHICH WAY TO BREAKFAST?’
    Digory looked at the dragon’s gnarled, scaly body silhouetted in the moonlight. His back was studded with horny spikes and from his shoulders sprouted leathery wings, the size of windmill sails.
    ‘But I c-c-can’t,’ stuttered Digory.
    ‘OH YES YOU CAN,’ roared Gnasher and snorted a lick of flame at poor Digory’s heels that made him jump like a firecracker and clamber up on the dragon’s back.
    Digory found a foothold on Gnasher’s wing and heaved himself astride the dragon’s shoulders. He clung to the cold, lizardy neck for all he was worth.
    Slowly the dragon began to snake between the trees with Digory rolling on top until he found a clearing. Then, with a creak, Gnasher stretched out his huge wings and heaved them up high. As he brought them down again there was a deafening rush of air, and the dragon and his passenger lifted off the ground and rose sharply above the forest.
    Digory’s stomach sank to his boots. Gnasher lurched to the left and swooped to the right and Digory’s stomach jumped into his throat. But as the dragon steadied his flight, Digory