Cricket was eleven, and his powers made him stronger than pa, which meant he got the worst chores.
“Get the bull in!” Pa shouted from the basement, though the sky had turned dark and the clouds were twisting like angry gods wringing a towel.
Cricket hated this farm. Hated the mud, the yelling, the way being useful never made anyone kind. Still, he ran into the wind, grabbed the bull’s rope, and dragged the terrified beast toward the barn while fences tore loose in his wake.
Inside, he slammed the doors just as the world began screaming.
The bull pressed against him, shivering. Cricket held him down with one arm around his neck, strong enough to keep both of them alive, young enough to cry where no one could see.
Then CRASH.
Rain whispered through broken slats. Cricket pushed outside first.
Ten feet from where he was lay a scaled dragon egg the size of a wagon, smoking in a trench it had carved through the field. Runes glowed across its shell. Tiny wings flickered inside.
Cricket stared, breathless.
Pa would call it trouble.
Ma would call it wicked.
Cricket sighed. “Great,” he muttered. “Another thing I’m cleaning up. Before supper, too.”
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