Flying To New Heights

Chapter Nine

    Adelaide walked to the door, eager to get home. What would her mother say?
"Leaving?" Oliver asked, yawning.
"Yes," Adelaide said sadly. "My mother would get too happy if I never came back. And we can't have that, can we?" Oliver looked her in the eyes and wrapped his tail around her.
"Your mother must really, really hate you," he remarked quietly.
"Yes. She does," Adelaide said sadly. She wiggled out of Oliver's tail's grip and opened the door. She glanced back at Oliver and smiled.
"Wait, Adelaide," Oliver said.
"Don't worry about me, Oliver. I promise I will be all right," Adelaide said. Oliver back away reluctantly and Adelaide left, her heart breaking the moment she closed the door. She didn't want to go back, but if her mother caught her being out alone when she was supposed to be home, she would be punished.
     Adelaide walked down her street, popping her knuckles just to hear some noise. The streets were oddly quiet. Sure, around lunchtime and late at night, the streets were quiet, but never like this. What was going on? And then she remembered: a huge battle was taking place. The human forces were storming a nearby dragon fortress. Everyone must be anxious, waiting to hear about how the siege went. But why would everyone be in their homes? Adelaide was beginning to get creeped out. She glanced over her shoulder and ran for her front door.
She slipped inside. The curtain were all closed. Where washer mother? Where was Jamie?
"Mother?" Adelaide called out into the seemingly empty house.
"Why did you go there?" Her mother asked from behind her, making her jump. How had her mother snuck up behind her without her seeing? Then again, her mother loved to scare her and had been doing so since Adelaide could talk.
"Go where?" Adelaide asked. She had a hunch that her mother was talking about Adelaide going into dragon territory, but how could her mother have known where she had gone?
"Into dragon territory," her mother said. How had she found out?
"I didn't. I never went there," Adelaide lied, rocking back and forth on her heels.
"Yes, you did. And I have proof," her mother said. Meredith took a stack of papers off of the ottoman in the living room.
"How could a stack of papers prove I went into dragon territory?" Adelaide asked stiffly.
"They aren't ordinary papers. They are letters. To and from a dragon named Oliver," her mother said. Adelaide snatched the lettered out of her mother's hands. How had she gotten ahold of these? They had been hidden in Adelaide's room!
"How? How did you get these?" Adelaide accused.
"Biscuit brought one shortly after you left last night. I read it, and assumed there must be more from the same dragon. So I simply searched your room," her mother said.
"Can I have the letter?" Adelaide asked.
"No. In fact, I'll be taking those," her mother said, grabbing the letters out of Adelaide's hands.
"Those are mine!" Adelaide shouted. "Oliver sent them to me!" Adelaide tried to grab them from her mother, but her mother was taller than her and held the letter out of her reach. Tears were now forming in Adelaide's eyes.
"They are mine now," Meredith said. "And you are no longer my daughter. I don't want to have a child who betrays her own kind!"
"But...mother!" Adelaide said, tears streaming down her face. "You can't do that to me!"
"I can do whatever I want!" Her mother sneered. "Get out!" Suddenly, a loud boom shook the ground and the house. What was going on? Adelaide rushed to the window only to see a house across the street being engulfed by flames.
"Get out!" Her mother roared. Adelaide didn't want to go. She was scared and crying and needed her mother more than ever. But obviously her mother didn't want her around anymore. Adelaide glanced back at her mother once more, and ran out the door straight into a fiery battle.