The London Pride by Charlie Fletcher Page A

assessment with anyone she was talking to.
    ‘So what was Tragedy’s good idea?’ asked Jo.
    ‘What?’ said Ariel, primping a curl and smiling at her reflection.
    ‘You said he had a good idea?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘He thought the way to get around the city without the dragons seeing you was to go underground. On the Underground. I mean, through the tunnels. Because obviously the trains aren’t working. And dragons don’t go underground – at least I’ve never heard of them doing so – so the fact they can swoop around the sky looking for you wouldn’t matter.’
    Jo instinctively thought this was a bad idea. She was about to start listing the very many reasons why, beginning with the whole electrified-third-rail thing, but Ariel went on.
    ‘He says you want to get back to your mother, and this does seem like a good and unusual idea. He’s small but quite clever, for a boy …’
    She stepped back, smoothing the material that rippled round her body as she admired her handiwork in the glass window. Jo still couldn’t quite believe how little actual fabric there was, or work out how it always managed to stay eddying round her like a skein of golden smoke, no matter in what direction she moved.
    Ariel caught Jo looking at her and smiled.
    ‘You know, you could look perfectly nice if you did something to your hair and wore a dress,’ she said.
    ‘Shut up,’ hissed Jo.
    ‘I was only—’ began Ariel.
    Jo just grabbed her and pulled her towards the escalators, ricocheting off the frozen people.
    ‘Mind my arm!’ screeched Ariel. ‘You’re hurt—’
    ‘Shhh,’ hissed Jo again.
    But it was too late. The truck-sized lion she had spotted moving towards them through the windows of the red double-decker heard Ariel’s screech and bounded round the front of the bus, heading straight for them.

16
Will, herded and hunted
    Will and Filax followed Tragedy quietly down the stairs. As they went, they heard other noises in the building, the sound of big creatures patrolling the floors that they tiptoed past.
    Tragedy held up a hand as they moved on down from the ground floor to the basement. They paused, holding their breaths, Filax tense and ready to pounce at whatever was snuffling noisily on the other side of the fire door, but whatever it was either didn’t smell them or was unable to figure out how door handles worked, and it stayed shut. The noise moved away and they breathed again.
    ‘Come on,’ said Tragedy, and led the way down the last flight into the bright white light of the kitchen. It was a glaringly lit maze of efficient steel units and countertops, with a frozen cook stuck in the act of turning an omelette in a pan. He looked bored with his job.
    ‘Jo,’ said Will urgently. ‘We’ve got to get Jo.’
    ‘She’ll be fine,’ said Tragedy. ‘Ariel was out there.’
    ‘Zee little fraulein vent flyink off zee roof and tumbled through zee air like a rag doll,’ piped an overexcited child’s voice from the other end of the kitchen. ‘Seriously, it vas completely highwire bananas! I thought she was goink to splat like a rotten tomato on zee ground, but Ariel caught her so zee Bob iss your uncle and no spilled milk to cry over.’
    The head of a small boy made of dark bronze, just like Tragedy’s, grinned round the corner. His face was more refined than the little imp’s and his cheeks a little better fed, but the smile was just as puckish. He wore an old-fashioned wig with side-curls, and a perky little bow and pigtail at the back; he had a long jacket, a bit like a pirate’s, with the ruffles of his shirt poking out of the cuffs, and more flounces tumbling over the high collar of the brocaded waistcoat he wore beneath it.
    ‘What?’ said Will, looking at Tragedy. ‘Who’s … ?’
    There was so much adrenalin pumping through his system, swirling in with his fears for Jo and the overall rising tide of exhaustion that was threatening to drown him, that this new thing, this