Prairie Fire by E. K. Johnston Read Free Book Online

could hear me.
    â€œYou’ve seen the clips on the news,” I told them. “The burned-out beaches and the blackened trees. But all of that happened later, when the smoke cleared. When I slayed that dragon, the air was full of fire and poison.”
    Owen was watching me with the oddest expression on his face. We hadn’t ever really talked about that day, once I’d forgiven him for putting me in a position that had cost me the full use of my hands. That had been a stupid conversation, because I had volunteered and it wasn’t his fault anyway. Since then, the topic had just never come up. There was always something more immediate to take care of. Always more dragons on the horizon, more fire in the sky.
    â€œWe stood on that beach together, but I wasn’t there to slay dragons,” I continued, falling into the style I used when I talked to reporters or elementary school students. “I was there to witness, to make sure that Owen’s story would be told.”
    Also a lie. I had a flamethrower strapped to my back just like Owen. We weren’t supposed to slay dragons at all. But no one needed to hear that.
    â€œBut dragons are fierce and hard to predict. We’d laid a good trap, but one of them hadn’t fallen for it, and it was that corn dragon that found us and separated Owen from his sword.”
    Owen was, obviously, fine, but everyone looked at me with such concern on their faces that I felt rather proud. Basic Training had sucked for me. I was made up of nothing but shortcomings. Every time I was assigned to a squad, they drooped. We never won any of the challenges. But they were looking at me now like I was worth something, like I was someone they admired. I filed the feeling away for the next time I got stymied by the fitted sheet I had to corner perfectly every morning. This was why I was here. Everything else was just a hoop we all had to jump through.
    â€œIt was a corn dragon,” I repeated. “When you’re up against a corn dragon, you run. You run and you hide. But you only do those things if you’re not a dragon slayer.”
    It was so quiet. There must have been a hundred people in the dragon shelter, and I had made every one of them hold their breath.
    â€œMy backpack was on fire,” I said. “But I didn’t think about that. All I thought about was that the dragon had turned on Owen, and Owen couldn’t get to his sword.”
    They all knew what happened after that. It had been national news for weeks. But they wanted to hear me say it. They wanted to be part of the story too. And I was going to let them.
    â€œI grabbed the hilt, even though it was heated by the flames,” I said. “It was Lottie Thorskard’s sword, made by Hannah MacRae. And it was mine too. It went into that dragon’s chest like butter: both hearts in one go.
    â€œYou know what happened after that, of course,” I said, and they all leaned back. I held up my hands, to remind them. “I screamed, because it really hurt, and then I lost consciousness. By the time I woke up, my whole world was different. I was different.”
    The dragon slayer from Chilliwack had pushed through until she was next to me. She took one of my hands in hers, gently, as most people did, because they thought they might hurt me. I squeezed her hand as hard as I could, which, thanks to the exercise ball, was decently hard, and she responded instinctively, pressing back. She started to laugh.
    â€œI’m not a dragon slayer,” I said, smiling with her. “And I don’t want to be.”
    I looked around at all these faces I couldn’t put names to. They fought fires and logistical problems and injuries, leaving the dragon slayer free to fight dragons. And I would do my best to remember all of them.
    â€œBut I am good at this,” I said. “We will learn to be good at this together.”
    There was a long moment of silence after that. Sadie