The Dragon's Gift

Part 1

They're dangerous. They're strong. They're mighty. They're dragons.

I woke with a jerk. I had had a nightmare. A terrible one. But, I couldn't remember what it was about. But I knew that it was terrible. I sat up on my bed. I looked at my clock and it was eight o'clock. I groaned. I lay back down and tried to fall asleep again. But I just couldn't. So, I got out of bed and went into my living room. I sat on the couch and turned on my TV. As I was flipping through the channels, I heard a thump coming from the hallway. I looked over at the hallway, but didn't see anything. I shrugged and looked at the TV again. I kept flipping through the channels. I was bored so I turned off the TV. I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Nothing but fruit and vegetables. Like every other day. I closed the fridge and looked at the time. It was only eight ten. I sighed. This was not going well. I thought about what I was going to do all day. It was the first day of summer break, and I wasn't a fan of summer. All you could really do was play outside and watch TV. I found that school was much better than summer break because you could never be bored. I also liked reading and writing. People at my school also used to tease me about it and they told me that I needed to do something fun. Reading and writing was fun to me. And it always will be. In my spare time, most of the time, I write stories and read books. Right now, I'm writing a story called "The Wolf's Howl". It's not very good so far, but I'm working on it.

Anyway, back to the story.

I walked down the hall, back to my room. I opened my door and sat on my bed. It was only eight fifteen. I groaned. I wanted the summer to go by faster. It was taking so long for even one morning to go by. I shrugged and grabbed a pencil and my notepad. I started writing. I was writing a poem. But I didn't know what about. Sometimes, I just start writing. I kept writing and writing but I still didn't know what I was writing about.

"Tamalia!" someone yelled. It was my mother.

"Yeah, Mom?" I called back.

"Where are you?"

"I'm in my room!"

I heard footsteps getting louder and louder. Obviously it was my mom. She opened my door. She smiled when she saw me. She looked as if she'd been up for hours. Not one bit of sleep in her eyes. But, she was still wearing her pyjamas. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail and she wasn't wearing makeup.

"How long have you been up?" she asked.

"Not long," I said. "I've just been trying to write something, but it's not really working."

"What are you writing?"

"I think it's a poem." She came into my room and sat on my bed with me.

"You've been writing an awful lot since you were little," she said. "Are you all right?"

"What?" I asked. "Why wouldn't I be?" Mom shrugged.

"I don't know," she said. "Well, most kids don't read and write in their free time. They play outside, play inside, play video games, swim, watch TV, and all that stuff."

"So?"

"So, you are into reading and writing. Don't kids tease you about it?"

"Is it a bad thing that I'm different?"

"No," she said blankly.

"Then what is it?"

"Well," she started. It looked like she wanted to tell me something important. "Never mind." She got up and walked out of the room. I shrugged and went back to writing my poem.