The Last Dragon Rider

Chapter 4

Autumn.

I raced up through town to reach the school. I am starting fourth grade. Katy is starting first grade. Mom was walking Katy to school while I chose to run there on my own. Dad was still gone. He left at the beginning of summer for some work thing. I don't know exactly what. 

I reached the steps to the small school building and slowly walked inside. The school was small and only had one classroom for each grade. The school held pre-school through twelfth grade.

I quickly found the fourth-grade classroom and went inside. The teacher was a woman named Amorina. I walked up to her and shook her hand.

"Hi! I'm Alena! It means light! What does your name mean?" I introduced myself.

"Hello, Alena! Welcome to fourth grade! Amorina means 'love"."

I looked around the room and found my desk. There were twelve kids in my grade. Seven girls and five boys. The village wasn't tiny or large. So, there were only a handful of kids in each grade.

I waved at all my friends and noted who was missing. There was one new boy and one girl had moved away. I walked up to the new kid and introduced myself.

"'Hi! I'm Alena! My name means light! What's your name? Where did you move here from?"

"Um, hi. I'm Edan. It means fire. I moved here from a village that is around a ten days walk away."

"Nice to meet you, Edan! Was moving hard? We rarely get new kids here."

"Nice to meet you too. Yeah, it was hard. We had to rent a small wagon to carry our stuff."

"Wow! I've never seen a wagon before. What do they look like?"

"Well, they're hard to describe. I would show you, but the guy who helped us get here took the wagon back this morning."

"Oh, okay. Well, I should go back to my desk now. Class is about to start. Bye!"

"Okay, bye!"

I went back to my desk and glanced over at the kid one last time. He had ginger hair and green eyes and was a little short. I had never seen a ginger before. My village consisted mostly of blond, dirty blond, light brown, brown, and dark brown. Once there was a lady with black hair, but she left. 

About thirty seconds later, Amorina started class. First, she introduced herself and then had everyone say their name and what it meant. Everyone seemed to fit their name except Erin, who was fidgeting a lot in her desk. 

After that, we had a couple minutes to chat with everyone. Then Amorina decided to start lessons. 

"History first today." She informed us all. "Does anyone have any history questions to ask before I start?"

My hand shot up. I was the only one.

"Yes, Alena?"

"I've been wondering this for a couple years but never thought about asking till now. Have dragons ever existed? Or are they just creatures someone made up for fun? Also, is there any other reason we are taught to read for other than school?"

"Um, well, Alena, there are books you can read for fun. Our village doesn't normally let kids read for fun though because it is not a job and it is not useful for the economy."

"Oh. What about the dragons?"

"Does anyone else have any questions?"

No hands went up.

The girl next to me leaned over and whispered, "I think she's avoiding your question because she thinks it's stupid."

I nodded, but different thoughts were going through my mind. Why wouldn't she just tell me no? Are they real but we can't know? And is there another reason why we can't read? Not just for economy reasons. Maybe it's to prevent us from learning stuff the leader of the village doesn't want people to know about.