Dragonfire by Anne Forbes

the first place!”
    “I ken! I ken, but I’m that cold and starving hungry. How long do they keep these children in the classrooms for anyway?”
    Jaikie fluffed his feathers against the chill mist and shifted on his claws. “Don’t ask me,” he muttered, “but Hamish said we had to talk to Neil, so we’ll just have to hang around until they let him into the playground.”
    Archie eyed him sulkily. “Let’s do something then. What about taking a look through the windows to see if we can see him or Clara?”
    Neil, as it happened, wasn’t hard to find. The pigeons spotted him at the first window they looked through. The children in the class looked up as the birds fluttered against the glass.
    “Look, Miss! Pigeons!”
    “Yes,” agreed the teacher, “and you have all seen pigeons before, so don’t try to change the subject. Now,” she looked at the clock, “make a line by the door. It’s time for play.”
    A short time later Neil followed the rest of his class downstairs, full of excitement at seeing the pigeons. They’d never, ever, come to the school before. Something really important must have happened, he thought, for them to takesuch a risk.
    The school janitor, Old MacGregor, stood dourly by the playground door. Neil saw him peering suspiciously into the mist and hurried towards him. A thin, dirty-looking black and white cat seemed to be the object of his wrath. He stamped his foot at it threateningly as it tried to slink into the warmth.
    “Shoo! Shoo!” he shouted at it, “go on, off with you!” The cat miaowed pathetically and backed off into the mist.
    “Dinna you be feeding that cat,” the janitor called after Neil as he went into the playground. “I’ve seen you encouraging it with bits of sandwich!”
    “But it’s a stray and it’s starving, Mr MacGregor,” Neil protested.
    “I’m no’ having it here! Now mind what I say or I’ll be telling your dad on you!”
    Neil grinned at him, knowing that the threat was an empty one, and slipped with the rest of his class into the swirling whiteness of the haar. He walked to one side and had barely taken the sandwich from his pocket when he felt the cat rubbing round his ankles. Kneeling down, he undid the plastic bag and broke the sandwich up for her. Poor thing, he thought, she was so thin and the summer holidays were near. Who was going to feed her then?
    A burst of loud laughter told him that Graham Flint and his gang were nearby. The cat heard them too and alert to danger, disappeared before he could give her the other half of the sandwich. It was only when he looked round to call her that he realized how really thick the haar was. Fear gripped him for an instant as he remembered his last encounter in such weather. Quickly, he groped his way towards where he thought the school wall ought to be and sighed with relief when it loomed in front of him. Now that he had his bearings, he felt more confident. “Hamish!” he called quietly. “Hamish!”
    There was a sudden flap of wings as two pigeons fluttered down to land on his shoulders.
    “Hello, Neil,” said one. “Hamish couldn’t come. I’m Jaikieand that’s Archie.”
    “I thought it was you when I saw you at the window. What’s happened? Is anything wrong?”
    “We’ve brought a message from the MacArthur for you to pass on to your father and Sir James. That man, Dougal MacLeod, he got into the hill and discovered Arthur!”
    “Dougal MacLeod! In the hill?” Neil gasped at this particular piece of information. “Gosh! That’s a disaster!” he muttered, horrified. Then he visualized the effect it would have on Sir James. “Good Lord!” he whispered, “Sir James will go absolutely mental! But what happened? Where is he now?”
    “He’s in the hill. We have him prisoner. The MacArthur wants to see Sir James urgently.”
    “I bet he does,” said Neil feelingly, “but look, there’s a problem. I’ll not be able to leave school until half past three.”
    “That