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Description
I woke up really early that morning, the sun was barely over the rooftops of the buildings outside.  I got up, and tried to walk over to the bathroom, but tripped up over my own tail and sprawled out on the ground.

"Right, dragon." I thought to myself as I picked myself up. "Gotta remember, I'm a dragon now."

And, as it turned out, dragons still get BO, I reeked really bad from all the flying I had been doing last night. So I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower and hopped in. It was pretty cramped in there, I don't think the guys who made it thought it out well, the shower head only came up to the middle of my neck. All I had been given to clean myself with was a bar of soap. Twice I banged my head on the shower head, and I dropped the soap and nearly fell over picking it up.

Finally, I got out and grabbed a towel to dry myself off. As I did, I was looking at myself in the mirror, looking at this shiny silver dragon that was now me.  I noticed some things that had escaped my attention yesterday, like how on the heels of my feet now had curved talons, and how the pale  scutes on my neck and chest appeared to have a v pattern as they descended down my chest.

I opened the cabinet nest to the mirror, hoping to find some toiletries, and found a toothbrush and toothpaste, a green comb and, of all things, a disposable razor. I picked up the razor and looked at my face in the mirror. Was I going to need this? As far as I could tell, I didn't have any facial hair.I rubbed my jawline, the 5'o'clock shadow that was usually there in the morning wasn't there any more, all I felt were smooth scales.

I put the razor back in the cabinet and pulled out the toothbrush to clean my teeth. I scrubbed at these new pointy teeth I had,  which took a while, because there were a lot of them (I didn't notice yesterday when I was eating pizza, but my back teeth were flat, like the molars I used to have), and ran the comb through my hair a few times.

"Yup. Still curly," I said to myself, as my hair fought against the comb.

Finished, I walked back to my room and opened the wardrobe to find some more clothes. I found another one of those weird singlets I was wearing yesterday, which was dark blue this time, and a pair of modified jeans. Cleaned and dressed, I left my room to grab something to eat from the fridge.

When I got to the kitchen, I saw Rosethorn sitting at the table again, with her sketchpad and pencil sitting in front of her. She was holding her face in her hands, and was sobbing.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I can't.... I can't...." she managed to say before she burst into tears again. I looked at the sketchpad on the table. I could make out a few jagged scrawls on the open page. I didn't need long to figure out what the problem was. Rosethorn probably couldn't hold a pencil properly with her new clawed hands, so drawing, which I surmised was her favourite hobby, would have been nigh on impossible. I sat down in the chair next to her and put my hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, don't worry;" I told her, as she kept on crying, "You'll be drawing again in no time."

"But I can't hold the pencil!" she sobbed, "How am I supposed to draw?"

"Like you always did." I reassured her, "Listen, you just changed from a human to a dragon a few hours ago.  You're in a body you haven't had the chance to get used to. Just keep trying, get used to using claws, and you will get the hang of it."

She moved her hands away from her eyes and looked at me. "You think so?"

"Trust me. You'll be able to sketch again."

"Thank you." She said. She wiped the tears away from under her eyes.

After the other two had gotten up, we went down and grabbed some breakfast. As I lined up to the buffet table at the canteen, I saw that the only choices available were either bacon or sausages.

"What happened to the eggs?" BlueScale asked the cook behind the table.

"No one was eating them," the cook shrugged "Yesterday no one touched the eggs, human or dragon."

"Fair enough."  He piled a bit of bacon on my plate and left with me to find the others at a table outside the canteen. We ate our breakfast quietly, didn't really talk much, until a familiar dragon came and sat down next to us.

"Jackssson," Grym cheered, "Nicce to sssee you."

"How you doing, Grym?" Jackson replied as he grabbed a fork. "Hell of a flying session last night."

"No kidding."

Jackson turned to Rosethorn, "Are you OK after last night?"

"Doing better." Rosethorn nervously replied, looking down at her breakfast.

"Me and the others were worried about you after you fainted like that." Jackson said calmly, "It's good to know you're OK."

Rosethorn had her other hand on the table, I noticed she had started clicking her claws together in a rapid rhythm, "I'm OK, thanks." she said, with a tinge of emotion in her voice.

Achilleos approached us and stood next to our table, with a clipboard in his hand.

"You two," he pointed at Rosethorn and Grym, "The guys at the lab want to see you over at the Research building, as soon as you finish eating."

"Awww..." Grym moaned, "But I had ssstuff I wanted to do."

"And that rasp of yours is the reason why." Achilleos replied, "Apparently, there are quite a few of the new dragons coming up with that hiss."

Grym poked out his forked tongue, "You think you could ssspeak normally with one of thessse?"

"That's the point, you should. In fact, out of the people with this speech impediment, you're the only one with a split in their tongue."  He made a note on his clipboard before continuing, "So when you finish, head over to the Research building and the Research team will see you there." He turned and left.

"That guy isss ssstarting to grind my gearsss."  Grym muttered.

"But he could be right," BlueScale pointed out, "That rasp might mean something else."

"I doubt that very muccch." Grym let his fork clatter on the plate and got up, Rosethorn got up too, and they both left us three at the table.

At about 11:00am, I was sitting in my room, with the Acer open, watching the animated series of Devil May Cry.  I was halfway through the fifth episode when BlueScale knocked on the door.

"Penelope's here, she has that stuff you wanted." She told me.

I got up and moved to the door. "Great!" I walked down the hall to meet Penelope in the kitchen. She smiled when she saw me, and there was a big cardboard box at her feet. BlueScale was sitting at the table, going through his box. Rosethorn went to go get Grym, leaving her box on the kitchen floor. I could see a tall wooden case on the tabletop next to it.

"I hear you guys are using alias to call each other." She said, "I gotta say, Skyder is a name I haven't heard before. How did you come up with it?"

"It kind of just came to me." I answered, "Back when I wrote fantasy stories. Skyder was one of the characters I would use the most. It seemed like a cool name, so eventually when I got onto the internet I used it there."

"OK, seems weird, but whatever works for you." She pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. "So, here's your stuff, and your mother wrote a note for you to read, and she has told us you have to call her as soon as you can."

"Is that a good idea? I don't sound like I used to."  My voice had a slight rasp, I wasn't sure how it would sound on the phone, but I knew that my mum would pick up on it.

"You sort of sound the same." She smiled, "She'll know it's you. But don't tell her about you being a dragon, not yet."

"OK, thank you."

Grym walked out of his room, and saw Penelope, "My stuff's here?"

Penelope pointed to another cardboard box behind her, which had a hard black guitar case poking out of the top. "Right here."

"Yesssss!" he went straight for the box and pulled out the guitar case. "Ah, how I have missssed you..."  he turned back to us to see why everyone was laughing.

I bent down and picked my box up, "Thanks for getting this stuff, Penelope."

"No problem, Skyder", she winked as she said my name, "I going to go drop off everyone else's things now, I'll see you later." She opened the door and left.

BlueScale was still rummaging around in his box, and cheered with triumph as he pulled out a black box, "My camera equipment!" he said as he opened the box to reveal an array of lenses,  "Now I don't have to take all my pics in standard!" He closed the box and walked to his room, leaving the rest of his things behind. Me and Grym went back to our rooms to check our boxes, see what we had. Rosethorn followed me to my room as I placed my box on the bed. She sat down next to it.

"What about your box?" I asked her.

"Yeah, it's still in the kitchen," she pointed a clawed thumb back out the door, "I'll go through it later, I just wanted to see what stuff you have."

"err.. OK." First, I pulled out a black luggage bag full of clothes. Inside was a few of my shirts, jumpers and pants. I sorted them into piles that I could and couldn't modify to wear. I wasn't sure whether I would be modifying my favourite blue shirt, because I didn't want to ruin it, but decided I would try.

Then I pulled out a shoebox, which had my white trainers in it. I looked at the shreds of my other trainers in the bin next to the desk, and wondered if I was going to be able to wear these. I doubted it. I threw the box on the bed, and Rosethorn picked it up.

"You used to be a size 16?" she exclaimed, "Your feet were huge!"

I looked down at the bare feet I was using to stand.  "Even bigger now, can't even wear socks."

Then I found all my external hard drives and cables that were my entire media collection, sitting in a pile in the box. Those hard drives had nearly every movie, tv show, song or book you could think of, stored on them. I figured I would connect my Acer to the TV in the lounge room later on, and me and the others could watch a few of my movies if they wanted.

"What are these?" Rosethorn asked as she picked up one of the drives.

"Hard drives." I told her. "I keep my movies, TV shows and music on these things."

"Are we going to be able to see any of them?"

"That's the plan. I'll connect my laptop to the TV later. "

She cheered up a bit, "That would be nice."

I found my iPod touch with the cables. It's an 8 gb 3rd generation one, which I jailbroke last year. I was going to trade it in for a better one, but I couldn't. It's been everywhere with me, and I've never been bored when I had it. The charger cable and earphones were wrapped around it, I wasn't sure the earphones would fit my new ears.

I was about to turn the iPod on, when I stopped. How was I going to use this with the claws I had now?  All I would do is scratch the screen, probably break the iPod up altogether. I put it down on the bed, sighing with frustration. Being a dragon was going to affect my life a lot more than I had bargained for.

Then, to cheer myself up, I pulled out my pride and joy, my Xbox 360. Whoever had packed this box had made sure it was carefully packaged, to which I was relieved. They had also packed with it three of my games, my limited edition of Halo Reach, Portal 2 and Mirrors Edge.

"Here you go, " I said to Rosethorn as I opened up my the box for Halo Reach, grabbed out the copy of Halsey's Journal and handed it to her, " reading material."

Rosethorn opened up the book and scrutinised a few pages, her green eyes scanning the words as she read the exploits of Dr Halsey, one of the characters in Halo Reach.

I looked back into the box, to see if there was anything left, but it was empty. Then I remembered the envelope Penelope had given me. I picked it up from the bed and opened it. There was a letter from Mum:

Are you in trouble? Have you done something wrong? I won't be angry, I just want to know that you are OK. I love you lots, you couldn't do anything to change that.

We put in some money for you, it's in your bank account. Your sister says that it'll convert if you're using your card there, so you can use it. Talk to the people looking after you, see if they're going to get you back here as soon as they can.

Please try to call me, or contact me any way you can. Me and the family are worried sick about you. We got in contact with David, he's scouting out London right now trying to find you.
Love you lots
Mum

I nearly broke down and cried when I read that letter. She was so worried, I knew she would be sitting on the couch, staring at the door, waiting for me to walk through. I had to call her, I had to let her know I was OK. I went to the desk. "Rosethorn, could you leave my room for a sec, I gotta make a call."

She got up and left, closing the door behind her. I picked up the phone off of the desk and dialled Mum's phone number. The female voice came on reminding me my call was being monitored and then I heard the dialtone. Then there was a click, and I heard my Mum say "Hello?"

"Mum, it's me."

"Babe!" I heard her move away from the mobile and call out of someone, "It's him." I heard another click and then she said. "You're on speakerphone, we can all hear you.  Are you OK, are you hurt?"

"No I'm not hurt, I'm OK."

"What's wrong with your voice?"

"I'm not allowed to say,not right now.  You'll find out soon enough."

"What do you mean not allowed to say?" The voice belonged to Jamie, my older brother.

"The people who are looking after me, they have asked me not to say anything until they have had a chance to tell everyone themselves. There's going to be a media release later on this week."

"You can tell us, we won't tell anyone."

"No, they monitor calls."

"Oh." He seemed taken aback by that.

Mum came back, "Babe, are you in trouble?"

"No."

"Because you spend so much time on the internet, have you been hacking or something? Going to places on the net you weren't supposed to?"

"No, I don't hack."

"OK, OK, but Babe, just please tell us why you are in London?"

"I can't say." I tried to change the subject, "I got the box of stuff from my room."

"That was quick, "Jamie said, "The guys came to get it yesterday afternoon."

"They used express."

Mum came back on, "I picked the clothes from your closet, hope I got the right ones."

"Yeah... " I looked back at the pile of clothes on the bed  I was going to have to modify to wear, which was a smaller pile than the clothes I couldn't wear or modify.  "...You did. Thank You."

Grym opened the door and urgently waved for me to talk to him. "I have to go. " I told Mum and Jamie.

"Babe, please call again when you can. We are worried about you." Mum pleaded.

"I will," I replied, "Love you lots. My left shoe."

"My Left Shoe" Is a phrase me and mum say to each other every now and then. It's our secret way of saying "I Love You."
I heard her sob once, before she was able to say, "Love you too, babe."

"Bye"

I put down the phone, and walked over to Grym at the door, or at least tried to. I forgot I had a tail and tripped over it again and CRASH! as I fell on the floor.

Grym tsked under his breath, "Sssmooth."

"Shut up," I said as I got up, "What did you want?"

Grym's expression turned serious, "Thossse sscientissstss were pretty intrusive. You could have warned me."
"Why? All I had to do was a give them blood test and burn a crate."

"Sssso you knew about the blood tessst?" He was acting weird now, sort of aggressive.

"Yeah, they stuck a needle in and took a sample. No big deal."

"To you maybe," Grym growled as he bared down on me, becoming imposing. I took a step back. "I happen to be ssselective about who getsss my blood."

"Calm down, Grym. They needed a sample to study."

"I am not a guinea pig for their exxxperiments!" he roared.

I had to set him straight, before it came to blows. "No, but you are one of the first dragons in a thousand years."  I told him, being firm. "You have to see it from their point of view."

"Fine.", he sighed and settled down. Within a moment, he was back to his former self. "Anyway, we're heading down for lunch, did you want to come?"

"Sure." I replied.

Description
I woke up really early that morning, the sun was barely over the rooftops of the buildings outside.  I got up, and tried to walk over to the bathroom, but tripped up over my own tail and sprawled out on the ground.

"Right, dragon." I thought to myself as I picked myself up. "Gotta remember, I'm a dragon now."

And, as it turned out, dragons still get BO, I reeked really bad from all the flying I had been doing last night. So I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower and hopped in. It was pretty cramped in there, I don't think the guys who made it thought it out well, the shower head only came up to the middle of my neck. All I had been given to clean myself with was a bar of soap. Twice I banged my head on the shower head, and I dropped the soap and nearly fell over picking it up.

Finally, I got out and grabbed a towel to dry myself off. As I did, I was looking at myself in the mirror, looking at this shiny silver dragon that was now me.  I noticed some things that had escaped my attention yesterday, like how on the heels of my feet now had curved talons, and how the pale  scutes on my neck and chest appeared to have a v pattern as they descended down my chest.

I opened the cabinet nest to the mirror, hoping to find some toiletries, and found a toothbrush and toothpaste, a green comb and, of all things, a disposable razor. I picked up the razor and looked at my face in the mirror. Was I going to need this? As far as I could tell, I didn't have any facial hair.I rubbed my jawline, the 5'o'clock shadow that was usually there in the morning wasn't there any more, all I felt were smooth scales.

I put the razor back in the cabinet and pulled out the toothbrush to clean my teeth. I scrubbed at these new pointy teeth I had,  which took a while, because there were a lot of them (I didn't notice yesterday when I was eating pizza, but my back teeth were flat, like the molars I used to have), and ran the comb through my hair a few times.

"Yup. Still curly," I said to myself, as my hair fought against the comb.

Finished, I walked back to my room and opened the wardrobe to find some more clothes. I found another one of those weird singlets I was wearing yesterday, which was dark blue this time, and a pair of modified jeans. Cleaned and dressed, I left my room to grab something to eat from the fridge.

When I got to the kitchen, I saw Rosethorn sitting at the table again, with her sketchpad and pencil sitting in front of her. She was holding her face in her hands, and was sobbing.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I can't.... I can't...." she managed to say before she burst into tears again. I looked at the sketchpad on the table. I could make out a few jagged scrawls on the open page. I didn't need long to figure out what the problem was. Rosethorn probably couldn't hold a pencil properly with her new clawed hands, so drawing, which I surmised was her favourite hobby, would have been nigh on impossible. I sat down in the chair next to her and put my hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, don't worry;" I told her, as she kept on crying, "You'll be drawing again in no time."

"But I can't hold the pencil!" she sobbed, "How am I supposed to draw?"

"Like you always did." I reassured her, "Listen, you just changed from a human to a dragon a few hours ago.  You're in a body you haven't had the chance to get used to. Just keep trying, get used to using claws, and you will get the hang of it."

She moved her hands away from her eyes and looked at me. "You think so?"

"Trust me. You'll be able to sketch again."

"Thank you." She said. She wiped the tears away from under her eyes.

After the other two had gotten up, we went down and grabbed some breakfast. As I lined up to the buffet table at the canteen, I saw that the only choices available were either bacon or sausages.

"What happened to the eggs?" BlueScale asked the cook behind the table.

"No one was eating them," the cook shrugged "Yesterday no one touched the eggs, human or dragon."

"Fair enough."  He piled a bit of bacon on my plate and left with me to find the others at a table outside the canteen. We ate our breakfast quietly, didn't really talk much, until a familiar dragon came and sat down next to us.

"Jackssson," Grym cheered, "Nicce to sssee you."

"How you doing, Grym?" Jackson replied as he grabbed a fork. "Hell of a flying session last night."

"No kidding."

Jackson turned to Rosethorn, "Are you OK after last night?"

"Doing better." Rosethorn nervously replied, looking down at her breakfast.

"Me and the others were worried about you after you fainted like that." Jackson said calmly, "It's good to know you're OK."

Rosethorn had her other hand on the table, I noticed she had started clicking her claws together in a rapid rhythm, "I'm OK, thanks." she said, with a tinge of emotion in her voice.

Achilleos approached us and stood next to our table, with a clipboard in his hand.

"You two," he pointed at Rosethorn and Grym, "The guys at the lab want to see you over at the Research building, as soon as you finish eating."

"Awww..." Grym moaned, "But I had ssstuff I wanted to do."

"And that rasp of yours is the reason why." Achilleos replied, "Apparently, there are quite a few of the new dragons coming up with that hiss."

Grym poked out his forked tongue, "You think you could ssspeak normally with one of thessse?"

"That's the point, you should. In fact, out of the people with this speech impediment, you're the only one with a split in their tongue."  He made a note on his clipboard before continuing, "So when you finish, head over to the Research building and the Research team will see you there." He turned and left.

"That guy isss ssstarting to grind my gearsss."  Grym muttered.

"But he could be right," BlueScale pointed out, "That rasp might mean something else."

"I doubt that very muccch." Grym let his fork clatter on the plate and got up, Rosethorn got up too, and they both left us three at the table.

At about 11:00am, I was sitting in my room, with the Acer open, watching the animated series of Devil May Cry.  I was halfway through the fifth episode when BlueScale knocked on the door.

"Penelope's here, she has that stuff you wanted." She told me.

I got up and moved to the door. "Great!" I walked down the hall to meet Penelope in the kitchen. She smiled when she saw me, and there was a big cardboard box at her feet. BlueScale was sitting at the table, going through his box. Rosethorn went to go get Grym, leaving her box on the kitchen floor. I could see a tall wooden case on the tabletop next to it.

"I hear you guys are using alias to call each other." She said, "I gotta say, Skyder is a name I haven't heard before. How did you come up with it?"

"It kind of just came to me." I answered, "Back when I wrote fantasy stories. Skyder was one of the characters I would use the most. It seemed like a cool name, so eventually when I got onto the internet I used it there."

"OK, seems weird, but whatever works for you." She pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. "So, here's your stuff, and your mother wrote a note for you to read, and she has told us you have to call her as soon as you can."

"Is that a good idea? I don't sound like I used to."  My voice had a slight rasp, I wasn't sure how it would sound on the phone, but I knew that my mum would pick up on it.

"You sort of sound the same." She smiled, "She'll know it's you. But don't tell her about you being a dragon, not yet."

"OK, thank you."

Grym walked out of his room, and saw Penelope, "My stuff's here?"

Penelope pointed to another cardboard box behind her, which had a hard black guitar case poking out of the top. "Right here."

"Yesssss!" he went straight for the box and pulled out the guitar case. "Ah, how I have missssed you..."  he turned back to us to see why everyone was laughing.

I bent down and picked my box up, "Thanks for getting this stuff, Penelope."

"No problem, Skyder", she winked as she said my name, "I going to go drop off everyone else's things now, I'll see you later." She opened the door and left.

BlueScale was still rummaging around in his box, and cheered with triumph as he pulled out a black box, "My camera equipment!" he said as he opened the box to reveal an array of lenses,  "Now I don't have to take all my pics in standard!" He closed the box and walked to his room, leaving the rest of his things behind. Me and Grym went back to our rooms to check our boxes, see what we had. Rosethorn followed me to my room as I placed my box on the bed. She sat down next to it.

"What about your box?" I asked her.

"Yeah, it's still in the kitchen," she pointed a clawed thumb back out the door, "I'll go through it later, I just wanted to see what stuff you have."

"err.. OK." First, I pulled out a black luggage bag full of clothes. Inside was a few of my shirts, jumpers and pants. I sorted them into piles that I could and couldn't modify to wear. I wasn't sure whether I would be modifying my favourite blue shirt, because I didn't want to ruin it, but decided I would try.

Then I pulled out a shoebox, which had my white trainers in it. I looked at the shreds of my other trainers in the bin next to the desk, and wondered if I was going to be able to wear these. I doubted it. I threw the box on the bed, and Rosethorn picked it up.

"You used to be a size 16?" she exclaimed, "Your feet were huge!"

I looked down at the bare feet I was using to stand.  "Even bigger now, can't even wear socks."

Then I found all my external hard drives and cables that were my entire media collection, sitting in a pile in the box. Those hard drives had nearly every movie, tv show, song or book you could think of, stored on them. I figured I would connect my Acer to the TV in the lounge room later on, and me and the others could watch a few of my movies if they wanted.

"What are these?" Rosethorn asked as she picked up one of the drives.

"Hard drives." I told her. "I keep my movies, TV shows and music on these things."

"Are we going to be able to see any of them?"

"That's the plan. I'll connect my laptop to the TV later. "

She cheered up a bit, "That would be nice."

I found my iPod touch with the cables. It's an 8 gb 3rd generation one, which I jailbroke last year. I was going to trade it in for a better one, but I couldn't. It's been everywhere with me, and I've never been bored when I had it. The charger cable and earphones were wrapped around it, I wasn't sure the earphones would fit my new ears.

I was about to turn the iPod on, when I stopped. How was I going to use this with the claws I had now?  All I would do is scratch the screen, probably break the iPod up altogether. I put it down on the bed, sighing with frustration. Being a dragon was going to affect my life a lot more than I had bargained for.

Then, to cheer myself up, I pulled out my pride and joy, my Xbox 360. Whoever had packed this box had made sure it was carefully packaged, to which I was relieved. They had also packed with it three of my games, my limited edition of Halo Reach, Portal 2 and Mirrors Edge.

"Here you go, " I said to Rosethorn as I opened up my the box for Halo Reach, grabbed out the copy of Halsey's Journal and handed it to her, " reading material."

Rosethorn opened up the book and scrutinised a few pages, her green eyes scanning the words as she read the exploits of Dr Halsey, one of the characters in Halo Reach.

I looked back into the box, to see if there was anything left, but it was empty. Then I remembered the envelope Penelope had given me. I picked it up from the bed and opened it. There was a letter from Mum:

Are you in trouble? Have you done something wrong? I won't be angry, I just want to know that you are OK. I love you lots, you couldn't do anything to change that.

We put in some money for you, it's in your bank account. Your sister says that it'll convert if you're using your card there, so you can use it. Talk to the people looking after you, see if they're going to get you back here as soon as they can.

Please try to call me, or contact me any way you can. Me and the family are worried sick about you. We got in contact with David, he's scouting out London right now trying to find you.
Love you lots
Mum

I nearly broke down and cried when I read that letter. She was so worried, I knew she would be sitting on the couch, staring at the door, waiting for me to walk through. I had to call her, I had to let her know I was OK. I went to the desk. "Rosethorn, could you leave my room for a sec, I gotta make a call."

She got up and left, closing the door behind her. I picked up the phone off of the desk and dialled Mum's phone number. The female voice came on reminding me my call was being monitored and then I heard the dialtone. Then there was a click, and I heard my Mum say "Hello?"

"Mum, it's me."

"Babe!" I heard her move away from the mobile and call out of someone, "It's him." I heard another click and then she said. "You're on speakerphone, we can all hear you.  Are you OK, are you hurt?"

"No I'm not hurt, I'm OK."

"What's wrong with your voice?"

"I'm not allowed to say,not right now.  You'll find out soon enough."

"What do you mean not allowed to say?" The voice belonged to Jamie, my older brother.

"The people who are looking after me, they have asked me not to say anything until they have had a chance to tell everyone themselves. There's going to be a media release later on this week."

"You can tell us, we won't tell anyone."

"No, they monitor calls."

"Oh." He seemed taken aback by that.

Mum came back, "Babe, are you in trouble?"

"No."

"Because you spend so much time on the internet, have you been hacking or something? Going to places on the net you weren't supposed to?"

"No, I don't hack."

"OK, OK, but Babe, just please tell us why you are in London?"

"I can't say." I tried to change the subject, "I got the box of stuff from my room."

"That was quick, "Jamie said, "The guys came to get it yesterday afternoon."

"They used express."

Mum came back on, "I picked the clothes from your closet, hope I got the right ones."

"Yeah... " I looked back at the pile of clothes on the bed  I was going to have to modify to wear, which was a smaller pile than the clothes I couldn't wear or modify.  "...You did. Thank You."

Grym opened the door and urgently waved for me to talk to him. "I have to go. " I told Mum and Jamie.

"Babe, please call again when you can. We are worried about you." Mum pleaded.

"I will," I replied, "Love you lots. My left shoe."

"My Left Shoe" Is a phrase me and mum say to each other every now and then. It's our secret way of saying "I Love You."
I heard her sob once, before she was able to say, "Love you too, babe."

"Bye"

I put down the phone, and walked over to Grym at the door, or at least tried to. I forgot I had a tail and tripped over it again and CRASH! as I fell on the floor.

Grym tsked under his breath, "Sssmooth."

"Shut up," I said as I got up, "What did you want?"

Grym's expression turned serious, "Thossse sscientissstss were pretty intrusive. You could have warned me."
"Why? All I had to do was a give them blood test and burn a crate."

"Sssso you knew about the blood tessst?" He was acting weird now, sort of aggressive.

"Yeah, they stuck a needle in and took a sample. No big deal."

"To you maybe," Grym growled as he bared down on me, becoming imposing. I took a step back. "I happen to be ssselective about who getsss my blood."

"Calm down, Grym. They needed a sample to study."

"I am not a guinea pig for their exxxperiments!" he roared.

I had to set him straight, before it came to blows. "No, but you are one of the first dragons in a thousand years."  I told him, being firm. "You have to see it from their point of view."

"Fine.", he sighed and settled down. Within a moment, he was back to his former self. "Anyway, we're heading down for lunch, did you want to come?"

"Sure." I replied.