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"His tail doesn't look too good," Beetle said. "You ought to have a look."
Spit Fyre's tail was a mess. The lightning bolt had struck just before the barb, and it had left a mangled jumble of scales, blood and bone and had very nearly severed the barb itself. Septimus crouched down for a closer look. He didn't like what he saw. The scales on the last third of the tail were blackened and burned, and where the lightning had hit, Septimus could see chunks of white bone glistening in the moonlight. The sand underneath was already dark and sticky with dragon blood. Very gently, Septimus put his hand on the wound. Spit Fyre gave another half-strangled roar and tried to move his tail away.
"Shh, Spit Fyre," Septimus called. "It will be all right. Shhh." He took his hand away and looked at it. His hand shone wet with blood.
"What are you going to do?" asked Beetle.
Septimus tried to remember his Physik. He remembered Marcellus telling him that all vertebrate creatures were built to what he called "the same plan," that all the rules of Physik that worked for humans would also work for them. He remembered what Marcellus had told him about burns - immediate immersion in salty water for as long as possible. But he wasn't sure if you should also immerse an open wound. Septimus stood, indecisive, aware that both Jenna and Beetle were waiting for him to do something. Spit Fyre roared once more and tried to move his tail. Septimus made a decision. Spit Fyre was burned. He was in pain. Cold salt water would take away the pain and stop the burning. It was also, if he remembered rightly, a good antiseptic.
"We need to put his tail in that pool," said Septimus, pointing to a large pool set back in the narrowly missed rocks.
"He won't like it," said Beetle, running his hand over his hair like he always did when he was trying to solve a problem. He frowned. His hair was sticking up like a chimney brush. Beetle knew he shouldn't be thinking of things like hair right now, but he really hoped Jenna hadn't noticed.
Jenna had noticed Beetle's hair. It had made her smile for just about the first time that night, but she knew better than to say anything. "Why don't you go and talk to Spit Fyre, Sep," she suggested. "Tell him what we're going to do, and then Beetle and I can lift his tail and put it in the pool."
Septimus looked doubtful. "His tail is really heavy," he said.
"And we're really strong, aren't we, Beetle?"
Beetle nodded, hoping his hair didn't wobble about too much. It did wobble, but Jenna deliberately stared at the tail.
"Okay," agreed Septimus.
Septimus kneeled once more beside Spit Fyre's inert head. "Spit Fyre," he said, "we need to stop your tail from burning. Jenna and Beetle are going to lift it and put it in some cold water. It might sting a little, but then it will feel better. You'll have to shuffle back a bit, okay?"
To Septimus's relief, Spit Fyre opened his eyes. The dragon stared glassily at him for a few seconds, then closed them once more.
"Okay!" Septimus called back to Beetle and Jenna.
"You sure?" asked Beetle.
"Yep," said Septimus. "Go ahead."
Beetle took the injured part of the tail - which he knew would be by far the heaviest - and Jenna took the barb at the end, which was still hot to the touch.
"I'll say 'one, two, three' and then we'll lift, okay?" said Beetle. Jenna nodded.
"One, two, three and - oof! He is heavy!"
Staggering under the dead weight of the huge, scaly tail, Jenna and Beetle lurched step-by-step backward toward the pool, which shone flat and still in the moonlight. The muscles in their arms were screaming under the weight, but they dared not drop the tail before they reached the water.
"Sep, he needs to...kind of...swivel," Jenna said, gasping.
"Swivel?"
"Umph."
"Left or right?"
"Um...right. No left, left!"
So under Septimus's direction, Spit Fyre painfully shuffled around to the left, and his tail obligingly traveled to the right, taking its two lurching helpers with it.
"Now back - back!"
Slowly and very painfully, Spit Fyre, Jenna and Beetle shuffled backward along a narrow gap in the rocks toward the pool.
"One...more...step," grunted Beetle.
Splash! Spit Fyre's tail was in the rock pool. A great spray of water rose up. Spit Fyre lifted his head and roared in pain - the water stung a lot more than Septimus had told him it would. A loud hiss came from the pool, and steam rose as the heat burning deep inside the dragon flesh was dissipated through the water. A colony of small octopi marooned in the tidal pool turned red and shot for cover in a crevice of a rock, where they spent an unhappy night white with fear, trapped by Spit Fyre's tail. Spit Fyre relaxed as the cold water began to soothe the burn and numb his tail senses. Gratefully he pushed his nose into Septimus's shoulder, and Septimus promptly fell over. Spit Fyre opened his eyes once more and watched Septimus get up, then he laid his head down on the sand, and Septimus saw that the natural curve in the dragon's neck had returned. A minute later the dragon's snores had also returned, and for once Septimus was glad to hear them.
With Spit Fyre asleep, Jenna, Beetle and Septimus flopped down beside the dragon. No one said much. They looked out to sea and watched the moonlight on the waves, which were calmer now and fell with no more than a busy rush onto the sand. In the far distance they saw the beams of light from the strange lighthouse that had guided them to safety, and Septimus wondered what the little man in the window was doing right then. Jenna got up. She took her boots off and walked barefoot across the fine sand down to the sea. Beetle followed her. Jenna stood at the edge of the waves, looking around. She grinned as Beetle joined her.
"It's an island," she said.
"Oh," replied Beetle. He assumed that Jenna had seen it from the air and he felt a little embarrassed that he had had his eyes closed.
"I can feel it. There's something...islandy about it. You know, I read about some islands in one of my Hidden History classes," said Jenna. "I wonder if this is one of them."
"Hidden history?" asked Beetle, intrigued.
Jenna shrugged. "Queen stuff. Really boring most of the time. Gosh, the water's cold, my feet have gone numb. Shall we go and see what Sep's doing?"
"Okay." Beetle followed Jenna back to the dragon, longing to ask about "Queen stuff" but not daring to.
Meanwhile Septimus had gone domestic. He had pulled the sodden saddlebags off Spit Fyre and had spread the contents out on the sand. He was very impressed - and touched - by what he found. He realized that, during the dark winter evenings by the fire, when he had often talked about his time in the Young Army, Marcia had not only listened to his descriptions of the night exercises, she had remembered them - right down to the makeup of various survival backpacks. To Septimus's amazement, Marcia had put together the perfect Young Army Officer Cadet Hostile Territory Survival Pack, with some rather nice added extras in the form of a self-renewing FizzBom special, a Ma Custard bumper variety pack of sweets and a fancy WaterGnome. He could not have done it better himself. He was eyeing the collection with approval when Beetle and Jenna sat down beside him.
"Anyone would think Marcia had been in the Young Army," said Septimus. "She's put in everything that I would have."
"Maybe she was," Jenna said, grinning. "She does the same kind of shouting."
"At least she doesn't do the same kind of shooting," said Septimus with a grimace. He held up a small box with a circular wire attachment on the top of it. "Look, we've got a stove with that new Spell she was doing, FlickFyre. You just flick it like this - " He demonstrated, and a yellow flame shot out of the top of the box and ran around the wire.
"Argh, hot!" Septimus quickly put the stove onto the sand and, leaving it burning, he showed off the rest of the contents of the saddlebags. "See, there's food to last us for at least a week, plates, pots, cups, stuff to build a shelter and look - we've even got a WaterGnome." Septimus held up a small figure of a little bearded man wearing a pointed hat.
"Is that one of the rude ones?" asked Beetle.
"No way," Septimus said with a laugh. "Can you see Marcia letting one of those through the door? The water comes out of his watering can. See?" Septimus tipped the figure and, sure enough, a small spout of fresh water came out of the WaterGnome's tiny watering can. Jenna picked up one of the leather cups and held it under the spout until it was full, then drank it down in one gulp.
