The London Pride by Charlie Fletcher Page A

her.
    ‘We stay together and we get through this together,’ she said out loud. She heard herself and suddenly knew she had a choice: she could be saying that to torture herself with how hollow the words now sounded. Or she could decide to live up to them. And living sounded better than torture.
    ‘OK,’ she said quietly, as she leaned on her stick. ‘Lions at the front, bugs at the back. Let’s see what happens at the side …’
    She was halfway across the width of the building when she found out. First there was a whomping sound, like helicopter rotors in slow motion.
    That stopped her in her tracks.
    Then, through the rain that was now pelting down like stair rods, she saw something rise into view from beneath the edge of the building.
    First a dark puff of steam, then wingtips that disappeared as the dragon beat downwards, raising its spiny head above the parapet. Then the full and dreadful span of wings as it clawed itself higher into the pelting downpour. The muscular tail that hung beneath it lashed into view and it bounced up and forwards over the railing and landed with a thunderous crack on top of a big skylight, whose raised plinth gave it even more height above her, and added to the theatrical horror of its appearance.
    It looked nastily pleased with itself, red tongue lolling out of a monstrously fanged smile. It was so busy enjoying the effects of its surprise appearance that it did not attack immediately, but stood there enjoying the moment.
    She gripped her stick in both hands, ready to swing it in self-defence; she was surprised to find she was determined to go down fighting, no matter how futile that might be.
    It didn’t feel like she was being brave. It didn’t feel like a choice at all. It was simpler than that: she had nowhere to run. She was done. All she could control was how she went. And getting all teary and blubbery would only add to the win for the dragon. And this dragon was not getting any more win from her. Giving it more win to gloat about would be … undignified.
    ‘Come on then,’ she said, voice gravelly with the fear she was trying not to show. ‘What are you waiting for?’
    The rain beat down. It rat-tailed her hair and plastered her clothes to her back. It made the hot metal of the dragon’s neck and chest steam and hiss, so that it had a kind of permanent ghostly ruff around its shoulders. It was in no hurry. It was wallowing in expectant gloat.
    She had more time to think, then. She knew she could move quite fast, especially if she ignored the pain in her knee, but she really didn’t think she could make it through the fire-escape door before the dragon snatched her with those savage talons, or crisped her with a blast of wildfire. But maybe if it leapt for her and she sidestepped it …
    Maybe, just maybe, in the very short interval it took to turn itself round she might buy enough time.
    So, in the extra moment the dragon’s gloating allowed her, that became her plan. After all, it was at least something, and something is always better than nothing, and there was just the one dragon.
    ‘Just the one dragon,’ she said bitterly, laughing at herself. She could hear the hysteria rising behind her voice. It was, however, like football. She’d been good at football before she fell through the roof and had her leg pinned back together. And one thing she knew was that to avoid someone’s tackle, you had to wait until they had committed themselves to it, and then you could move out of their way as their momentum worked in your favour and took them past you. She just had to make this thing move.
    She knew how hopeless and unrealistic this was, but no realistic plans were occurring to her right now. She must look pretty silly, standing braced like some kind of rain-sodden ninja-samurai wannabe, legs apart, flimsy stick held two-handed like a sword, dwarfed and soaking. Maybe that was why the dragon was giving her such a very nastily amused look.
    The situation was