Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126358 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 632(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
My life settled in other ways as well.
At first, I was worried all the time that Chud Larson would come after me. I caught him looking at me sometimes with such hatred in his small, no-color eyes that it froze my blood. But he avoided me and didn’t try anything at all and after the first few days I began, slowly, to relax. After all, the only class I still had with him was the Flight Simulator—which, I told myself, was a good thing.
The fact that I was embarrassed there on a daily basis by constantly being bucked off Woody’s broad, wooden back probably made Larson feel like he was already getting revenge. He was always the one who pointed first and laughed the loudest when I fell and he often called attention to how slow I was climbing back up the rope too.
“Look at that little shit!” he’d laugh, staring down at me while I struggled to climb up to the platform. “He’s got arms like two limp noodles! Fucking weak!”
His insults and taunts made my blood boil and my cheeks burn, but if it got the hatred he felt for me out of his system, it was worth it—or so I told myself. Of course, Larson didn’t need the Flight Simulator practice—he had his own dragon to fly. I had no idea why he hadn’t been excused from the class or given at least one Second-year class to take its place. Maybe it was part of his punishment for cheating. Whatever the cause, I was glad it was the only class I had with him.
In the dorm, I avoided him carefully but since he mainly ignored me, except for Flight Simulator class, I gradually let down my guard and stopped scanning the room for him every time I walked into the dorm. I started to believe that what Professor Griven had said was true—that cadets didn’t fight because it was against the Academy rules.
I was wrong…but I didn’t find out until it was too late.
20
AURORA
In retrospect, I never should have gone to the Flight Simulator alone. But I told myself I needed the extra practice. Of course, I had no one to work the controls for me, but I could at least practice the right flight stance and get used to moving up and down the wooden dragon’s wings and spine.
So I took to getting up even earlier in the morning and going up to the Flight Simulator alone. Of course, in theory our Dorm Monitor, Professor Hanmish, should have stopped me. But in practice, he snored like a drunken bear and almost never woke before First Bell himself. It wasn’t difficult to sneak past his room and the rows of slumbering cadets in their cots to get out of Dorm A without anyone being the wiser.
Or so I thought.
One morning, about two weeks after I’d started my new routine, I made my way up the endless stairs to the Fourth Level where Woody was hung. There were only a few lights burning high up on the ceiling and the natural light from the holes in the cavern wall to let in sunlight was absent, since the sun hadn’t risen yet. So the area below the wooden dragon was still obscured in darkness.
I couldn’t see the rope net swaying below Woody, but I trusted it was there—it was always there.
That knowledge gave me the courage to run lightly across the wooden beam and onto the wooden dragon’s back. I settled in the saddle and reached as far as I could with my legs, trying to find the stirrups with the toes of my boots. Unfortunately, my legs were too short, which was one reason I got bucked off during class so much.
I was still reaching, willing my legs to stretch just a little further, when Woody twitched underneath me.
I frowned and gripped the wooden dragon spine in front of me. What could have caused that? There was no one to run Woody’s controls from the Observation Balcony above. How could the simulator work if no one was working it?
Before I could answer that question, Woody twitched again. And then he started moving—dipping and jerking in a way that made me gasp and hang on for dear life.
There was only one explanation—someone was working the controls!
I looked up at the Observation Balcony, twenty feet above, and saw a pale, lumpy face studded with patches of angry red acne staring down at me.
“You like that, you little shit?” Chud Larson’s face broke into a savage grin as I struggled to keep my place in the saddle. “You like riding a dragon? Well, you better enjoy it while you can because a wooden dragon is the only kind you’re ever going to fucking ride!”
And then Woody really went wild.
I cried out in fear as the wooden dragon thrashed under me. Dipping and diving and jerking—it was like it was trying to buck me off—which of course, was Larson’s goal, I was sure.