The winter leaves were blades of ice, and the lawn crunched like glass. Cal breathed slowly. Plumes of white bloomed from his mouth.
"I'm a dragon!" he cried.
Cal was a dragon all the way to school. In the playground he showed his friends his smoky breath. They found that they were dragons too. The school was a school for dragons. Mrs Lake came into the playground, and her breath was dragoniest of all.
"LINE UP, CLASS!" she roared. Smoke billowed into the air, and the children watched it drift.
Cal's own smoke disappeared, though, in the classroom. "There's a spell to stop me breathing fire here," he insisted. "The school might burn down, otherwise. Dragons are dangerous!"
Cal practised his writing, but the pen kept slipping through his claws. The chair got in the way of his long, scaly tail.
At playtime he found some rubies by the slide. "Dragons like treasure," he said, curling his tail round to guard them.
The other dragons were jealous. Matthew became a knight. He and Cal fought a dragon fight, until Mrs Lake made them stop.
"I'm bored of this game," said Matthew. "I can't even see my breath now. Let's be aeroplanes."
"But I'm a dragon!"
So they were aeroplanes, all except Cal. He lay guarding his treasure, though no one tried to steal it. He watched the aeroplanes crossly, and shot hot flames into the sky. But the planes were too high to reach.
"Get up, or your clothes will be ruined," warned the girls.
"I'll be a dragon for ever," he grumbled back.
He was still a dragon when the children returned to their lessons. Hours passed - but no one came to fetch Cal. The parents collected their children and took them home.
The stubborn rubies glittered under the streetlight. Cal's tail grew stiff and cold. He slept a cold, stiff sleep, and dreamed he was a dragon by the slide. His eyes were red glass. He lay all year in rain and shine. The children climbed over him, planting muddy feet on his cold head.
On frosty mornings dew steamed from his stone skin and drifted.
It looked for all the world like smoke.
