As she pulled it open, she was face to face with Mr. Bumble, who was standing in front of the door, his right hand was raised ready to knock and in his left hand he held a dirty chimney brush.
'Charlotte Smyth, you're in Molly McDonald's room again I see,' he gave her a crooked-toothed grin.
'She's helping me,' Molly said, as she quickly walked over to Charlotte's side. 'With a project. Check with Miss Moffat if you want,' she forced a smile.
'I believe that the fire-alarm sounded from your room, again!' Mr. Bumble muttered.
'Yes, I left my hair-straightener on,' Molly flicked a strand of her curled hair behind her back. 'I mean curlers, I left my curlers on.'
'I see, are you sure it wasn't the toaster again?'
'Quite sure.'
'Good, because remember what I said the last time this happened? You may be head girl but no one's allowed food in their rooms, not even you,' he stared at her. 'Perhaps you should be more careful in future, after all, this is the third time I've been called out to your room this week.'
'Message understood, I'm sorry for wasting your time. I'm in no doubt that you have some chimneys to clean,' she gestured to the brush in his hand.
'Indeed,' he glared at her. 'I'm watching you McDonald, just as Bumbles have been watching the likes of you for the past fourteen generations. Nothing gets past us Bumbles, not so much as a jabberfly.'
'I don't doubt it,' Molly failed to hide her smirk.
'Good, good,' he grunted before he shuffled off, turning briefly to glare at the two girls before he continued up the corridor.
'Now I'm really late,' Charlotte gave Molly a wave as she rushed up the corridor. 'See you later.'
'Yeah, bye,' Molly shouted after her.
Molly sighed as she closed her door and walked over to her wardrobe.
'Flame, you can come out now,' she opened the door.
He pounced out and smiled up at her, before he curled up by her feet.
'You're a funny one,' she bent down and patted his head. 'But I have to go to class.'
He looked up at her, rested a foot on her knee and then gave her his best pleading look.
'Here,' she took another apple out of her pocket and held it out to him, he immediately gulped it down.
'Okay Flame, I really do have to go to class,' she said softly to him. 'You have to be more careful, no setting fire to anything else or I'll have no choice but to take you back to the dungeon.'
He gave her a smile and then licked her face.
'Lovely,' she wiped the bits of chewed up apple off her face with the back of her sleeve. 'There's water,' she pointed to the water bowl that was hidden beneath her bed. 'And you can sleep on my bed, just please stop chewing my blanket.'
Flame hopped up onto the bed and lay down in the middle of it. He looked at Molly before he closed his eyes.
'Bye Flame,' she whispered, as she shut the door, careful to fully close it behind her.
A minute-passed before Flame opened an eye and peered out at the silent room. He opened his other eye and stayed still. Slowly he uncurled his wings and got up onto his front legs. The bed groaned beneath him and he looked down at it with frightened curiosity.
He moved out his front leg and the bed groaned again, he let out a spark and jumped backwards, watching as the embers fell down and burnt a small hole in the middle of the blanket. He dabbed at it with his foot before he jumped down onto the floor and looked around the room.
Molly and Charlotte weren't here anymore, he was all alone and there was no one to tell him what to do.
He quickly became bored and chased his tail in a circle, but found that it always ran out of his reach. He clattered into a pile of leather-covered books and let out a yelp.
A creaking sound caused him to slide under the bed. The door slid open and he glared up at it from the comfort of his hiding place. Someone shuffled into the room, their shoes heavy and black. They stood in the middle of the room and spun around before letting out a grunt.
'It stinks in here, it's worse than a dead skunkfox,' Mr. Bumble wafted his hand in front of his face.
'It wasn't like this in my day, we wouldn't stand for such disrespect. We'd wash our socks and our feet too. None of us would dare to leave our rooms smelling this foul. She would have been out of here, out on her stinky unwashed feet. They wouldn't have tolerated the rule-breaking and the disgusting stench. Out on her ear she would have been, with her wand doing somersaults after her,' he muttered to himself, as he shuffled his way over to the window.
He lifted it open and breathed in the fresh air.
'Much better, my nostrils no longer smell like skunkfoxes,' he mumbled his way across the room. 'It wasn't like this in my day, my room smelt of roses it did, fresh and airy. Not like this, they wouldn't stand for this in my day.'
'Curlers she said, Pfft. Nonsense if you ask me, she's hiding something and it's up to me to find out. Us Bumbles always find out the answer, always. Then Miss Moffat will appreciate me, she'll upgrade my room to one overlooking the meadows and not the stinky old garbage yard. She'll proclaim today as Mr. Bumble Day and all will kneel before me and as I pass them and they will whistle a lovely tune,' he gave a thoughtful sigh.
'Come on Archibald, there are jobs a plenty to be done. The cracks in the floor don't fill themselves in and those statues don't polish themselves, they don't. Perhaps I should teach them how to, now there's an idea,' he gave himself a gleeful nod before he stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Flame stuck his head out from underneath the bed and sniffed. When he was sure that the odd man who liked to talk to himself had left, he pulled himself fully out from underneath the bed and stretched out his wings.
He entertained himself, at least for a while. He lapped up his water, chased a piece of dust and got temporarily stuck beneath Molly's blanket, at least that was until he chewed a hole through it.
Eventually boredom set in again and he found himself tapping his tail against the bed-frame and longing for something to do. A gust of air blew through the open window and knocked over a plastic ornament of a witch on a broom that had been placed on the windowsill.
Flame took cautious steps forwards and perched on the windowsill. He sniffed at the fallen ornament before a noise outside caused him to jerk his head. A bird flew past, its wings outstretched, the air ruffling its feathers…free. Flame cocked his head and stared at the bird.
He wanted to be flying free like the bird instead of being cooped up inside, trapped. He stuck his head out of the window and flicked out his tongue. Air…fresh…never-ending sky. There was a part of him that wanted to stay where he was and to wait for the kind blonde haired girl and the frizzy haired girl to return. He liked them both, they were kind to him and they made him feel safe. Still, there was a larger part of him that wanted to leave the confines of this room and fly.
He took one last look back into the room and at the closed door before he leapt through the window and flew through the air.
***
Molly's day had been hectic. At break time she had to run a meeting with the prefects, then at lunch time she barely had time to finish her crackle green soup before Miss Moffat insisted that she gave the potential new librarians a guided tour and then she made her sit in on the interviews. By the time this finished, she arrived late to her lesson with the Mistress of the Spells, who insisted that she stay behind afterwards so that she could go over the parts of the lesson that she had missed.
By the time Molly finally got back to her room she was exhausted and couldn't wait to fall down onto her bed with Flame snuggled up by her feet.
'Hi boy, I've missed you,' she said, as she stepped into her room and closed the door behind her.
She hurriedly looked around the empty room.
'Flame,' she said, as she peered under the bed.
'Flame, where are you?' she opened the wardrobe and looked in there.
'So you wanna play hide and seek do you?' she searched her bathroom
.
She felt panic starting to rise in her chest, she perched on the edge of her bed and tried to control her breathing.
'Please Flame, this isn't funny,' she pleaded, as she scanned the room.
Her eyes stopped on the open window, her heart jolted in her chest and her mouth went dry.
'Oh no,' she said under her breath.
She rushed over to the window, placed her hands on the windowsill and peered out of it. She looked down and saw Miss Dread and Miss Firmfeather holding a training lesson for the third year Save the Princess team. She mouthed the word Flame, before she turned away from the window and began to pace up and down her room.
'Where would I go if I was a flying obsessed dragon?' she muttered to herself. 'Think Molly, think,' she tapped her hand against her head.
A knock at her door woke her from her thoughts. Her heart flipped, what if it was Miss Moffat? What if she'd found Flame and now she was sending him away, or worse, what if she was going to let him be destroyed?
Molly forced a smile on her face as she opened the door, a flood of relief washed over her when she saw Charlotte standing there.
'Hi,' Charlotte smiled, as she went to step into the room…but Molly remained in the way.
'I'm busy right now,' Molly said.
'That's okay, I've finished all my homework, so I can look after Flame while you do your work.'
'He's not here.'
'Well, then I'll go to the dungeon and see him.'
'No,' she said abruptly. 'I'll go, in a bit. I'll take him apples, he loves apple. And shoes, I'll take him a shoe,' she forced a smile.
'Oh, okay,' Charlotte replied.
She knew something was up and she longed to find out what. She thought about reading Molly's mind, but she'd told her that she wouldn't do that again. Instead she smiled at Molly and walked away.
Molly watched Charlotte leave and then closed the door. She didn't want to involve Charlotte any more than she already had. She was the head girl at this Academy and Charlotte was a first year student. She shouldn't have entangled Charlotte into her mess. Not any more, this was her problem and she was going to sort it out by herself.
***
As soon as night had fallen, Molly took a backpack filled with apples and snuck out of the Academy to begin her search for Flame.
She searched around the grounds with no luck and then rushed to the dining hall, her mind in turmoil.
During dinner, she'd caught Charlotte glancing over at her and hoped that she hadn't read her mind. All she could think about was Flame and where he was. She was supposed to be responsible for him…yet she'd left him alone in her room where anything could have happened to him.
She'd tried looking for Flame earlier that day. It was obvious that he'd flown through the open window. She'd searched the grounds but she hadn't been able to do a thorough job, not when the grounds were still being used by the students and staff. Still, she'd tried. She'd walked all around the Academy and narrowly avoided a third year girl flying into her on her broomstick. She'd even looked in the garbage bins, just in case Flame had looked in there for food and then had got stuck or fallen asleep.
She'd seen no sign of him and she wasn’t sure if this was a bad or a good thing. She didn't want him to be seen by anyone else, but she was also worried that he'd flown off way beyond the Academy grounds and that she'd never see him again. He was only a baby; he wasn't old enough to fend for himself yet. He needed her to look after him, she just hoped that he would realize this and not act recklessly. Then again, he was a dragon, he didn't understand the meaning of acting recklessly and the consequences this action could bring with it.
She knew that postponing her search was the wisest option and just hoped that no one spotted Flame before she did.
The night was still and her voice carried through the silence. She went from speaking the word Flame to mouthing it, as she wondered through the Academy grounds.
'Apples,' she mouthed, as she held out an apple and twirled it in the air.
She searched the area behind the kitchen, even checking once again through the stinky garbage. She flew through the entrance maze, checked the Save the Princess tower and even jumped on a snoring Dexter's belly to see if it would give her a better view of the grounds.
After an hour of searching and no sign of Flame, she slumped down onto the ground in the yard and tried to work out what was the best way to break the news to Miss Moffat. Hi Miss Moffatt, nice day, I must say all the girls are doing so well at this academy and by the way I lost the dragon. No, that was definitely not going to go down well with Miss Moffat.
Molly knew that she couldn't sit there moping all night, she needed to go back to her room and rest and then face the consequences tomorrow. She was about to get up onto her feet, when she saw something perched on the branch of a nearby tree. She slowly stood up and took a few cautious steps closer to the tree, noticing how two large red eyes were glaring back at her.
She held out her hand that was still clutching the apple and waved it in front of her. There was a flash of wings, a shadow zoomed past her, gripped onto the apple, snatched it out of her hand and gulped it down in one go. She watched as the figure flew back over to the tree and perched on the same branch.
'Flame,' she said under her breath.
He looked down at her and excitedly wagged his tail and stuck his tongue out at her.
'Flame,' she said, as she took cautious steps closer to him. 'Flame, come!'
Flame cocked his head and looked at her. She wasn't sure if he'd heard her or not, but he didn't budge from the branch.
'Flame, come!' she said a little louder.
Flame twitched his ears…but again he didn't move.
Molly reached into her bag and pulled out another apple and a long piece of looped rope.
'Flame, come here right now!' she held out the apple in one hand and the rope in the other.
Without hesitation Flame swooped down, gripped onto the apple and flew off. Molly threw the rope but it fell to the ground, Flame was just too quick for her.
'Flame, you're being a very naughty dragon,' she said through gritted teeth.
Molly hopped onto her broomstick and flew towards Flame, she was clutching the rope tightly in her hand. She hovered alongside him and held out her hand to pat his head. He licked it and gave her a smile before he stretched out his wings and flew off. She threw the rope, but he was too fast.
'Flame,' she growled, as she quickly gathered the rope and then flew after him.
He swooped over the top of the Academy before he circled around the building and then flew off towards the Dark Forest.
'Flame,' Molly growled, as she sped after him.
He lowered himself down until he was flying amongst the trees and he led Molly in-between the branches. She tried to grab his tail, but he darted to the left which caused Molly to come to an abrupt halt before she slammed straight into a tree.
Flame flew off across the black swamp and stuck his tongue out in excitement as he looked back at a furious looking Molly. Arms made out of tar reached up out of the swamp and grabbed at Molly's broomstick and tried to pull her down into the murky water. With one hand she gripped firmly onto her broom and with her other hand she tried to adjust the rope so that she could maintain a better grip on her wand.
'Saeclum,' she flicked her wand down at the tar hands.
They began to disintegrate into the swamp, including the one that was clutching onto her broomstick. Molly rubbed speckles of the black substance off her broom, before she flew after her wayward dragon.
'Flame, get back here now,' she groaned.
He ignored her and kept on flying. To Flame, this was the most exciting game he'd ever played and he was in no hurry for it to end.
He swooped through the trees and then flew up above them, somersaulting in the sky as he flew off towards the meadows. Molly was still following him but she was exhausted. She should have been in bed right now, not chasing after a dragon. She couldn
't keep up with him and found that she could barely see him. She came to a stop mid-air and brushed the sweat off her forehead.
'You win this round,' she puffed, as she caught her breath.
Flame looked behind him but he couldn't see Molly. He didn't understand why she'd stopped chasing him when they were both having so much fun. His wings were starting to tire, so he decided that maybe he should go and rest and then they could continue this game later.
Molly flew back to the Academy and landed in the yard. She'd managed to lose Flame, again. Miss Moffat was going to be livid and Molly knew that she'd probably end up losing her head girl status. She hoped that she wouldn’t be expelled.
Books for Girls - WITCH SCHOOL - Books 2-6: Book 1 is FREE! Page 30
