Gruffen Read Online Free

we’re chatting,” she said. She put her hand on Henry’s shoulder and guided him down the hall. “Thank you for telling us about the bat, but I really don’t think we need to do anything too drastic. As it happens, I know an expert in bat…technology. He’ll sort it out in a jiffy, you’ll see.”
    “Expert?” asked Henry, poking his ear. Why was there ash on his fingertip, he wondered?
    “Oh, he’s the best there is,” said Liz. And she pushed Henry out and came back into the kitchen.
    Straightaway, Lucy echoed Mr Bacon’s confusion. “Expert?” she said, with a twitch of her nose.
    Liz lifted the cosy off Gruffen and the jug. The young dragon was blushing a deep shade of green. He blurted out what he’d found out about bats in his book.
    “Exactly,” said Liz. “It needs to be protected. And what better champion could it have than a guard dragon going by the name of Gruffen…?”

Chapter Six

    That evening, Gruffen abandoned Lucy’s bedpost and sat on her windowsill instead. By now, Lucy was not afraid. All afternoon she’d been poring through her wildlife books, reading up on anything she could about bats. She had discovered, for instance, that bats were mammals, just like people, and gorillas – and whales! They lived all over the world, she read, in caves and trees and even under bridges. There were mentions of barns and farm buildings too, but nothing about house roofs with loft insulation. For food, they caught insects, moths and the like. And – but this was something she knew now, anyway – they were fantastic at flying. Indeed, she stressed to Gruffen, bats were the only mammals that could fly.
    At bedtime, she reminded Gruffen of these facts again. Being a patient, sensitive dragon he had found it interesting – the first time he’d heard it. By the tenth time he was beginning to wish that Liz would make a special lullaby dragon that could send Lucy off into a deep, deep sleep. But her mother soon did what mother’s always do when children go to bed and stay awake too long: she came into the bedroom, took the book out of her daughter’s hands, put it on the bedside table and said, “Head on the pillow now, please.” Then she turned out the light. And that was that.

    The moon rose over Wayward Crescent. From his windowside perch, Gruffen watched eagerly, missing not a rustle in the branches of the trees. Stars winked. Clouds and hours went drifting by. The night fell into silence, barring the distant hoot of an owl.

    Then out of the black sky came a small shape. The bat! To Gruffen’s delight it darted twice around the globe of the street lamp then zipped back and forth in front of the window without ever once looking like it might crash into it. It was moving so swiftly that to anyone on the ground, it must have looked just like a flying rubber ball. But Gruffen was able to quicken his vision and see that the bat had wonderful if really quite delicate wings. To you or I they would have looked like a kite stretched over thin wooden poles, but Gruffen could see that the bat had arms and fingers like a human. Like a mammal, in fact! When Lucy woke up, he would tell her that.
    But for now, his mission was to find out more. He needed to know what the bat was doing here. He felt it was his duty, as a good guard dragon, to warn it not to stray too close to Henry Bacon’s house. So he flew upwards to the open part of the window and launched himself into the night.

    Almost immediately the bat came to join him. It whipped around his head so many times that Gruffen felt quite dizzy at first. The bat was also trying to speak to him. It had a high-pitched squeaky voice, far above the husky tones of dragontongue. Every shrill little peep made Gruffen’s ear scales sing. He tried to speak back, but the bat chittered in fear and flew further away, perhaps a little wary of the throaty growls. Gruffen adjusted his voice scales a little, until out of his mouth came a thin little Hrrr that the