Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke Page B

back and looked around. A mountain towered high into the sky above them. The dragon yawned and looked around for a sheltered place among the rocks, while his riders made their way cautiously to the rim of the plateau.
    The sight of cows looking no bigger than beetles on thegreen slopes below made Ben feel quite dizzy, and he quickly took a step backward.
    “What’s the matter?” asked Sorrel sarcastically, venturing so close to the edge of the chasm that her furry toes were over empty space. “Don’t you like mountains?”
    “I’ll get used to them,” replied Ben. “You’ve had to get used to flying, right?” He turned to look back at Firedrake, who had found a good place and was coiled up in the shadow of a projecting rock, muzzle on his paws, tail tucked around him.
    “Flying is terribly tiring for dragons,” Sorrel whispered to Ben. “If they don’t sleep it off they get melancholy. So melancholy you can’t do a thing with them. And if it rains as well,” she added, rolling her eyes, “oh, my word! But luckily,” she decided, looking up at the sky, “luckily it doesn’t look at all like rain. Or do you want to argue about that, too?”
    Ben shook his head and looked around.
    “The way you gape at everything I guess you’ve never been in the mountains before, have you?” asked Sorrel.
    “I once went tobogganing downhill on a trash can lid,” said Ben, “but it was no higher than that tree over there.” He sat on his backpack in the grass, which was wet with dew. He felt extremely small among the tall peaks — as small as an insect — but all the same he could hardly stare his fill at all the rounded and craggy summits rising against the horizon.On one peak far, far away Ben saw the ruins of a castle. It towered black into the morning sky, and although it seemed not much bigger than a matchbox it still looked menacing.
    “Look.” Ben nudged Sorrel. “See that castle over there?”
    The brownie yawned. “Where? Oh, that.” She yawned again. “What about it? There are lots of those where Firedrake and I come from. Old human dwellings.
You
ought to know about them.” Opening her backpack, she stuffed some of the leaves she had picked under the bridge into her mouth. “There we are!” She threw her pack down on the short grass. “One of us can have a snooze now while the other keeps watch. Shall we toss for it?”
    “No, that’s okay.” Ben shook his head. “You lie down. I couldn’t sleep at the moment, anyway.”
    “Whatever you say.” Sorrel marched over to the place where Firedrake was sleeping. “But don’t go falling off anything, will you?” she called back over her shoulder. Then she curled up beside the dragon, and the next moment, she, too, was asleep.
    Ben took a spoon and a can of ravioli out of his backpack, opened the can with his penknife, and sat down with it on the grass at a safe distance from the precipice. As he ate the cold pasta he looked around him, remembering that he was on watch. He glanced at the castle. There were tiny specks circling in the clear sky above it. Ben couldn’t help thinkingof the ravens Gilbert Graytail had mentioned.
Oh, come off it,
he thought.
I’ll be seeing ghosts next.
    The sun rose higher and higher, driving the mist out of the valleys and making Ben feel drowsy, so he rose to his feet and walked up and down for a while. When Sorrel began snoring loudly he went over to her, looked in her backpack, and found Gilbert Graytail’s map.
    He opened it carefully and took the compass out of his pocket. Then he pulled one of the dangling ribbons and had a closer look at the mountains where they must have landed. Next he anxiously examined the entries made by the rat. “Oh, wow!” he murmured. “I thought so! We’ve landed in one of those nasty yellow patches. We’re too far east. I don’t like this at all.”
    Suddenly there was a rustling sound behind him.
    Ben raised his head. There. There it was again. Perfectly clear. He turned