Gruffen Read Online Free Page A

bat did seem to understand.
    “What are you?” it asked, flying closer again.
    “A dragon,” hurred Gruffen.
    “A driggon?” said the bat, whizzing past. “I don’t think I’ve met one of those before.”
    Gruffen cast his voice higher and repeated his words. It wasn’t easy. The effort was making his tail point shake.
    “Oh, a dragon!” said the bat. “I’ve heard of them! My name’s Hattie. What’s yours?”
    Gruffen said his name and blew a quick smoke ring for her.
    Hattie whizzed through it. “You can fly,” she said, which seemed a bit obvious as Gruffen was as high as the gutters of the roofs. But he hurred and gyrated his wings a little, just to show that he wasn’t held up by strings.
    Hattie seemed pleased. “I like flying,” she said. “Can you do this?” She dived towards the tree and performed a spectacular loop around a branch.
    “I don’t think so,” Gruffen said warily, thinking back to his crash with the wardrobe. Trees, he was sure, would be equally as hard.
    Hattie zoomed overhead and did an aeroplane dive. “I can teach you,” she said, “if you know how to echo.”
    Hrrr? went Gruffen. He didn’t understand.
    “Echo,” she said. “I go ‘ping’ at things and they ping back. I listen to the pings and they tell me where I should and shouldn’t fly. Do you want to try it?”
    Gruffen shook his head. “In my opinion,” he said, “pinging would be better suited to a listening dragon” – of which he wasn’t one. He flapped his wings and tilted back. “Why are you here? Are you lost?” he asked.
    “No,” said Hattie. “I’m just waiting to get in.”
    “In where?” asked Gruffen.
    “To my roost,” she said. “Do you have a roost?”
    Gruffen thought about this. “I’ve got a window,” he said. “I can get into that.”
    “Umm, that doesn’t sound right,” said Hattie. “Shall I show you my roost? It’s just along here.” And without another ping, she fluttered off up the Crescent, with Gruffen close behind.
    Very soon, they came to a house with a framework of scaffolding poles outside. The top poles were reaching as high as the roof. It was on one of these that Hattie set down. Gruffen landed with an untidy wobble. The pole was slightly rusted, which made gripping its rounded surface easier. And this turned out to be very important, for no sooner had Hattie put her feet on the pole than she fell back, hanging from it upside-down!

    Gruffen gulped, held tight, and did the same. Surprisingly, it was quite a pleasant experience – once he’d got over the feeling that all his clay was rushing to his head.
    “That’s where I go in,” said Hattie. “Under there.” She pointed a wing at the eaves, the place where the roof slates ended.
    Gruffen looked across. He couldn’t see an entrance, but Hattie was very small and could squeeze into most places easily, he thought. Which made him wonder why she was stuck outside at all. What was stopping her from going in? “How long do you have to wait?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” said Hattie. She pointed to a long white strip of plastic which ran all the way across the front of the house just behind the gutter. “I can’t get in, because the people who mended the hole in the roof put that there. I’ve been waiting out here for days.”
    Gruffen raised an eye ridge, which made him sway gently. (He tightened his grip and gave his wings a quick flap.) He looked closely at the plastic. It seemed quite fixed, which meant that Hattie might never get in. “Shall I try to burn a hole in it for you?” he asked.
    Hattie squeaked gratefully, but seemed a bit concerned. “I don’t think the people would like that,” she said.
    The wind blew, rocking Gruffen back and forth. He snorted a leaf off his nose and thought how Henry Bacon might react if he was the owner of this house and its plastic. Maybe Hattie was right. No burning. Not yet. “What happens if you don’t go in?” he asked.
    Hattie rustled her