Defeating Dragons

Chapter 1 - Work Experience

My uncle is an opal miner.

What relevance does that have, you ask?

Well, I'm in year 10 and need to complete a week of work experience. But people are annoying and Uncle is weird. Weird is cool. So, I'm doing my work experience with him.

My first task was to fill out all the forms. My mum got mad, but my dad helped me with it - he also used to work for Uncle, so he knew all the important things.

And now I'm here in Coober Pedy.

I grin as the truck rolls up to the place just as barren as the places we've passed. Aunt picked me up and I slept to her chatter. But I am meeting Uncle soon.

We park in the garage then head underground.

I shiver in excitement.

"Boy?" A gruff voice fills the air; I turn to its person.

"Uncle!" I run up to him and he welcomes me in a hugged headlock.

"Hehehe," I grin.

Aunt rolls her eyes, before throwing my bag from the car to me. Uncle grabs it and pulls me up in the other arm, hording me into their underground lair.

Well, it's just a house dug out underground, but ... it's a house underground! I can't help myself. It is a lair, and I am excited.

I'm basically thrown on the coach as Aunt asks what I'd like to eat.

I glance at Uncle, then pull my face muscles down, "A coke and a sausage roll." I try to make my voice as gruff as Uncle's. It's nowhere near his, but it gives him a chuckle.

Aunt just rolls her eyes again as she heats up a couple sausage rolls for me and Uncle.

I hope to grow as big as him someday, not just flapping around with my silly twig arms. Not that I care. But it'd still be cool.

We eat our sausage rolls and drink the coke. Crumbs fall onto Uncle's beard.

Aunt bustles around somewhere doing something.

I yawn.

"Didn't sleep enough in the car?" her voice can still be heard.

I nod, not bothering to wait for Aunt's reply of sarcasm.

"Rest for now, we'll work you tomorrow," Uncle says as he brushes the crumbs off his beard.

I grin, nodding enthusiastically this time.

Uncle tells me a story about the mines, then Aunt takes me to my room for the holidays.

I snuggle in well and sleep, dreaming of opals and Uncle's thick beard.

...

Early in the morning, Uncle wakes me up and I stumble into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes. Aunt had cooked us up a hot meal. It was only by the end of it that I am properly awake.

In the car I grin as Uncle tells me of the work he does. Today's work would be to start a new mining sector.

Well, technically, the work to find it and prep it was already done, but the machines would start today. First is to bulldoze.

Once on the site, Uncle takes me in the bulldozer. After an instructive lap of the sector, he gives me the wheel.

As long as I promise not to tell the school.

Or my mum.

So, I have a go. The wheel is quite heavy. I take a long, wonky lap of the place before Uncle takes it back, chuckling.

I want to be able to laugh as booming as Uncle. He sounds so cool and adultlike and in control. Nothing scares him.

After several laps, Uncle stops the bulldozer. He calls over the other two bulldozers working for him. The three guys come over.

Uncle points to a random spot on the ground and asks them, "Did you guys hear that?"

One of the guys gives a half-convinced nod. Another just looks as confused as I feel.

Uncle sighs, "Paul. Notice these things sooner mate."

Paul half-heartedly laughs as he scratches the back of his head.

Uncle looks at the third guy, who takes out a stick of opal and throws it on the ground. It sticks up, slightly tilted though. Uncle gives a hearty laugh.

"Let's get them jackhammers."

I'm still confused. While Uncle and two of the guys leave, the opal stick man looks to me and says, "The opal gods have spoken. There is some below. Much opal."

I nod my head. This must be the weirdo they replaced dad with. He's the best at cleaning and cutting the opal though.

Soon the guys and my awesome Uncle come back. They start jackhammering, with Uncle telling opal stick guy, Lorenzo, to teach me about jackhammering.

See, he even has a strange name for here. He seems to be someone who likes strange words. But I get most of what he says. I think.

Either way, it isn't long before they hit something hard.

Then they start arguing and shovels and brushes are soon uncovering a metal sheet.

"Is this normal?" I ask Uncle.

He looks at me, then sighs, looking at the sky, "No, it's not normal. Don't even think I've heard story of it happening to anyone."

"What?!" I nearly yelled. Even if it hadn't happened to Uncle before, for him to have no story of it means it's unheard of - like really actually unheard of - like, its-not-even-a-conspiracy-theory unheard of. And it doesn't even seem that strange to me.

I look to see them still digging and finding the sheet getting bigger and bigger.

Yeah, that's getting stranger.

I mean, it's not the same as Minecraft or something that you can find readymade mines already... I know that. But even if I didn't believe it before, I do now. I think. Yeah, so, back to the metal.

As it is being dug out, (I have a shovel now too), it just keeps getting bigger.

Then it stops. A large enough square to fit my house on.

As the sun rises, it hits the sheet. We shield our eyes as it reflects the light to us. Isn't this too bright?

We all fall as the sheet opens.

I scream.

I'm not the only one. Even Uncle grunts.

See, Uncle isn't afraid of anything. That is, until we look up and see a dragon.

No exceptions, we all faint.