Oran's Pet Cricket

• Oran Zammit, Grade 1, Mt Isa School of the Air
• Short Story
• 2017

Finalist in the 'Spread The Word 2017' competition

Once, in a time before dinosaurs, the land was made of Rocky Mountains and oceans of lava. The skies were filled with smoke and dust and there was only one creature that could live in a world like this. Dragons.
One day my three brothers and I were out exploring on our property when we found a deep cave. We dared each other to go in the cave. But I stayed outside. Darcy, Hank and Cody went deeper and deeper until all the light was gone and they were stumbling around in the dark.
Then, they saw an orange glow in the distance and they walked closer to it, hoping it was the way out of the cave. Instead of a way out they found a glowing egg. It was big, scaly, black and glowing red in some spots. It was sitting in a bed of coals. They took the egg with themselves to find the way out of the cave. Eventually, they found their way out. When they got out, I ran up to tackle them but Darcy stopped me with one hand because he was holding the egg.
I grabbed the egg and it cracked open and I saw a half white and half red dinosaur eye looking at me. I was shocked and dropped the egg. The egg cracked open and a small, quick lizard looking thing ran up my jeans and onto my shoulder and sat there looking at me like it wanted something. Darcy went to pick him up but it bit him, so Darcy flicked him away. I got mad at Darcy but before I could pick him up he had already jumped back up on my shoulder. Hank says that it looks like a lizard so we need to find it some food. “Let’s look for grasshoppers!” I yelled. We find some grasshoppers and I named him Cricket.
I offered him a grasshopper but suddenly, he blew a flame out of his mouth and cooked the grasshopper, and half of my fingers! “Ouch!”
We knew now, that we had found a Dragon!