Physik - By Angie Sage Page 0,49
an empty space recently occupied by the Port barge that Jannit and Rupert Gringe had just launched. Spit Fyre ignored Jannit. He didn't like people waving their arms at him and shouting, "Over here, over here! Oh, gunwales and gimlets, what is the idiot creature doing?"
Spit Fyre flew right over Jannit's head, missing her by a hairbreadth, and landed on the pilothouse of an old trawler, which was in a rather delicate state. The pilothouse could just about withstand the odd seagull landing on it, but it had no chance against a dragon whose total weight in seagulls was exactly 764. With a loud crack, the pilothouse collapsed, and Spit Fyre and his passengers found themselves in a pool of stagnant water in the trawler's hull.
"Up, Spit Fyre, up!" yelled Jenna, giving Spit Fyre a hefty kick on the right. With some difficulty, accompanied by a lot of squeaking from the end of his tail, Spit Fyre flapped and clawed his way out of the hull in a rather undignified fashion and landed beside the trawler.
"Look what you've done!" protested Jannit, arriving breathless beside the wreckage. "We could have repaired that. Rupert was going to make a start on it tomorrow. Now look at it."
"I'm sorry, Jannit," Jenna apologized as she slipped down from Spit Fyre's neck. "I really am. But the RatStranglers are on their way to smash up the Dragon Boat."
"Whatever for? She's not a rat."
"I know," said Jenna rather curtly. Leaving Wolf Boy to keep hold of Spit Fyre, Jenna ran off toward the Dragon House.
Jannit set off in pursuit. "Jenna!" she called out to her. "Jenna!" But Jenna did not stop. Jannit was annoyed; she didn't like the sound of this. It was true that she had not been exactly thrilled when the half boat, half dragon had turned up unannounced in the middle of the night a few months back. But now that the Dragon Boat was in her boatyard, Jannit considered it to be her responsibility, and no one messed around with Jannit Maarten's boats, especially not a bunch of thugs calling themselves RatStranglers. Jannit liked rats.
"Rupert," said Jannit, waylaying Rupert Gringe, who was busy sawing wood, "take as many yard hands with you as you can find and close the tunnel gates. Put the bar across. Quick!" Rupert Gringe dropped what he was doing and went to do Jannit's bidding at once. He knew when Jannit meant business.
The Dragon Boat lay at the end of the Cut, until recently a dead-end piece of water that lay to the side of the boatyard, which had ended at the blank cliff face of the Castle wall. Ever since Jannit had had the boatyard she had wondered what the point of the Cut was. Three months ago she had found out. She had woken in the middle of the night to find that a huge cavern had opened up deep into the wall at the end of the Cut. Not just any old cavern either, but a towering lapis lazuli hall, covered in golden hieroglyphs. Jannit did not go in for opulence and thought the whole thing was a bit of an embarrassment, but she could not help being impressed all the same. She doubted that any other boatyard in the world had such a place - or such a boat - and that made her proud.
What dismayed Jannit was that although she, Rupert Gringe and Nicko had repaired the Dragon Boat beautifully - so that you would never know the dragon had been hit by two ThunderFlashes and had sunk to the bottom of the Moat - the creature itself was still unconscious. The dragon lay with her head resting on the cool marble walkway on the side of the Dragon House, her great green eyes closed, her breathing quiet and slow. Her tail had been carefully placed on a marble ledge at the back of the Dragon House, neatly coiled by Jannit and Nicko, like a huge piece of green rope, and it had not moved since.
A great clang reverberated through the yard as Rupert put the bar in place across the doors to the tunnel. A moment later an even louder clanging and banging started up. The RatStranglers had arrived just in time to see the doors closed against them.
"I'm not having that urmily mob in here wrecking my boats." said Jannit, catching up with Jenna. They squeezed around a large stack of planks piled up against the great Castle wall, then they