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look in his shimmering, emerald-coloured eyes, she guessed he had.
    ‘That wing of his is stiff, Mia. I’m not sure if he’ll ever be able to fly properly and gain the height a dragon needs, and his tail, I suspect, will always be slightly misshapen, which may cause balance problems. There is nothing more I can do. You know I have to make preparations for my return to Blackwell Castle and my dragon school.’
    ‘What would happen to a dragon that is weak and sick, and cannot fend for itself?’ asked Mia.
    ‘Sometimes dragons attack their own kind and kill those they consider weak or sick, though often they will just let them be and watch as nature takes its course,’ said the old woman matter-of-factly.
    Mia couldn’t bear to think of such a thing happening to Trig and was determined to make him better. The small dragon lapped up all the extra attention as Mia spent more and more time with him. She coaxed him from his straw bed in the corner to get up and move around and become more agile. Bella watched approvingly, well pleased with her young apprentice.
    Mia also tried to tempt Trig with a variety of foods, saving stuff from her school lunchbox and sneaking things from the fridge at home. Trig would sniff at everything curiously before looking up at her sad-eyed, rejecting the foods he did not like. By accident she discovered he loved apples and made sure tobring some every day. He also liked cheese and crackers and carrots and grapes. He adored chocolate, but she was sure it was bad for him and pretended not to have any more.
    ‘You’d best get home,’ suggested Bella, one dismal grey evening. ‘’Tis beginning to rain.’
    Mia patted each of the dragons goodbye, before putting up her pink umbrella and letting herself out the back door. It was lashing rain, the water bouncing off the umbrella as she tried to run through the wet grass. Her trouser ends and shoes got soaked. Her heart sank knowing the trouble she’d be in for staying out on such an evening. Trying to think of some excuse, Mia became aware of a whining cry close by. Was it Jackie? Something moved behind her, she could sense it.
    ‘Trig!’ she cried.
    She almost jumped out of her skin, seeing the young dragon following her.
    ‘What are you doing, you silly thing!’ she said, running back to him. He was soaking wet but oblivious to this, he butted her playfully with his snout.
    ‘You should be inside!’ she scolded, trying to sound cross with him. ‘You’ll catch cold! What will Bella say about this?’
    As if understanding, the dragon dropped his head, whimpering quietly.
    ‘You can’t come home with me,’ she explained firmly. ‘I wish you could Trig, but you just can’t.’
    Putting down her umbrella, she managed to half turn and lift the dragon. The two of them getting soaked through, rain dripping down her face and eyes, as stumbling she awkwardlycarried Trig back to the house.
    The old woman opened the door before she even had a chance to knock.
    ‘So, he followed you.’
    Panting and out of breath, Mia was glad to put the heavy young dragon down on the kitchen table and hand him over to Bella.
    ‘He must have escaped somehow, he was behind me, luckily I heard him and I–’
    ‘Trig has chosen you to be his keeper, Mia. Dragons do that. It is a bond that is not easily broken,’ said the old woman seriously.
    Mia did not know what to say, but she could see a new respect in Bella’s eyes. Soaked to the skin, her long, wet hair plastered to her scalp, she sighed.
    ‘I have to go home,’ she explained. ‘I’m in enough trouble already, but tell Trig I’ll see him again tomorrow – I promise!’

Chapter 7
Granny Rose
    T he Murphys couldn’t understand it. Mia was spending every spare minute of her time with the old Bird Woman. What the two of them talked about or did was a total mystery to everyone else. Mia raced through her homework every evening, and no longer bothered with her favourite television programmes in her