"You're stuck with it now," Aunt Zelda told Septimus as she bandaged his bleeding finger. "It Imprinted you when it bit your finger. It's going to be a bit of a handful when it grows up, mind. You ought to get yourself a Dragon Training manual from somewhere. Though where you'd find one nowadays, I don't know."

Septimus sat looking at the cracked remains of the rock that Jenna had given him during their previous stay with Aunt Zelda. She had found it while Septimus was helping her escape from the Hunterit had been lying in the tunnel that led to the temple where the Dragon Boat was hidden. Septimus had treasured the rock; it was the very first present that anyone had ever given him. As he stared at the thick green eggshell that lay in pieces in his cupped hands, Septimus could not believe that his beautiful rock had turned out to be a dragon eggwhat were the chances of that happening? he wondered.

The chances were remote. Septimus did not know that there were only about five hundred dragon eggs scattered throughout the world, and it had been many, many years since a human had helped to hatch a dragon. Dragon eggs are usually found in old, long-forgotten dragon haunts, and many people who find them do pick them up and keep them on account of their beautiful sheen. Not all dragon eggs are greenmany are blue and occasionally a rare red is found. But generally they spend their days in display cabinets or tucked away in old shoe boxes and never hatch, for a dragon egg needs to follow a complicated sequence of events, all in the right order, all within a certain amount of time, to allow it to become a baby dragon. The last time that had happened had been five hundred years ago on a small desert island, when a lone shipwrecked sailor had awoken one morning to find that his treasured blue rock had hatched into an unexpected, and extremely troublesome, companion.

Like the shipwrecked sailor, Septimus had unknowingly done all the right things that needed to be done in order to hatch a dormant dragon egg. Firstly, he had kick-started the incubation by leaving the egg close to the fire at Aunt Zelda's on his last visit. A dragon egg needs sustained heat of over eighty degrees for at least twenty-four hours in order to get the process going. It then needs a year and a day of constant warmth and movement.

After rescuing the dragon egg from beside the fire, Septimus had decided to keep it in his pocket, which provided not only the warmth that the dragon needed but also the sensation of movement. A dragon will not hatch just because it is warm; it needs to think that its mother is carrying it around with her and will be there to care for it when it hatches. To a dragon egg, no movement means no mother. Septimus unwittingly provided the egg with a year and a day of warmth and quite enough running and jumping to convince the tiny dragon that its mother was very lively indeed. After the year and a day had passed, the dragon would be almost ready, but even at this stage all could go wrong. It now needed a sharp tap to wake it upif this did not happen within the following six months, the dragon would die and never have the chance of hatching. A dragon mother would normally use this time to find a safe place in which to hatch and bring up the baby dragon. When she had done so she would give the egg a very gentle bite. Luckily for Septimus's egg, the wolverines had thoughtfully stepped in for the dragon mother when they had broken their teeth crunching the outer shell. At that point the baby dragon was very nearly hatchednearly, but not quite. There was one last thing it needed, and this was provided not by Septimus, but by his brother Simon. The dragon egg needed a touch of Darkenesse.

All dragon mothers had different ways of providing the last requirement. Some would kidnap a passing Thing and show it to the egg; some would leave the egg outside a Darke Witch's house overnight and hope that it would still be there in the morning.

Some dragons had enough of their own Darkenesse and no need to go looking for more. So when Simon's cloak had become a snake and wrapped itself around Septimus and the egg, it had provided the final touch and started the clock ticking. The baby dragon was then set to hatch in twelve hours' timewhich was exactly what it had done.

"I don't know much about dragonswell, not newborn ones anyway," said Aunt Zelda as she finished bandaging Septimus's finger and the last bite of her cabbage sandwich at the same time. "But I do know that the sooner you give them a name the better. If you leave it too long they will be Nameless and never come when you call. It's hard enough getting them to take any notice of you at the best of times, from what I understand. And for the first twenty-four hours it should not leave your sideso you'd better let Septimus have it back now, Jenna."

"Here you are then, Sep," said Jenna a little regretfully. She scooped the tiny winged lizard out of her lap and handed it to Septimus. "It's cute, isn't it?"

Septimus stared at the sleeping dragon, which lay curled up in the palm of his hand. It felt surprisingly heavy for its size,cool to the touch and as smooth as the egg from which it had hatched.

Nicko gave a loud yawn and stretched sleepily. "Gotta get some sleep," he said. The yawn was catching.

"Name first, then sleep," said Aunt Zelda. "What's it to be?"

Septimus had no idea. He stared at the dragon and caught Nicko's yawn. He was far too tired to go making up names for dragons. Suddenly the dragon sat up and coughed up some egg sac; two tiny bursts of flame spluttered from its nostrils and scorched Septimus's hand.

"Ouch!" he gasped. "It's spitting fire at me. That's itSpit Fyre. That's its name. Spit Fyre."

"Go on, then," said Aunt Zelda.

"Go on what?" asked Septimus, sucking his burned fingers.

"Dragons like everything to be done by the rules," Aunt Zelda told him. "You have to say ... now let me think ... ah, yesOh,faithful companion and fearless friend, who will be with me until the end, I name thee Spit Fyreor Poodle-Face or Derek or ... well, whatever you happen to have decided."

Septimus stared at the dragon in his hand and murmured wearily, "Oh, faithful companion and fearless friend, who will be with me until the end, I name thee Spit Fyre." The dragon gazed at him with its unblinking green eyes and coughed up some more egg sac.

"Yuck," said Septimus.

Septimus did not get much sleep that night. Spit Fyre was fretful; whenever Septimus dozed off the dragon nipped his fingers or scrabbled at his clothes with its sharp claws. Eventually, in a bad temper, Septimus stuffed the dragon back into the pouch he had kept the egg in and at last it settled down to sleep.

They were all woken far too early the next morning by Spit Fyre fluttering frantically at the window like a butterfly trying to get outside.

"Tell it to be quiet, Sep," Nicko said blearily, stuffing his pillow over his head and trying to get back to sleep. Septimus got up and snatched Spit Fyre off the windowpane. He was already beginning to see what Aunt Zelda meant about a baby dragon being trouble. The dragon scrabbled against his hand with its sharp little claws, and Septimus shoved it back into its pouch again.

The morning sun was already high in the sky and shining through the marsh mist. Septimus knew he was too wide-awake to go back to sleep again. He glanced at Jenna, Nicko and Wolf Boy who were all still bundled up in their quilts and had gone back to sleep. Not wanting Spit Fyre to disturb them, Septimus decided to take the dragon outside for its first breath of morning air.

Silently he closed the heavy door behind him and walked down the path toward the Dragon Boat. Someone was already there.

"It's a beautiful morning," said Aunt Zelda pensively.

Septimus sat beside her on the wooden bridge that spanned the Mott. "I thought maybe the Dragon Boat should meet her baby. I mean, I suppose Spit Fyre is the Dragon Boat's egg?"

"I imagine so," said Aunt Zelda. "Although one can never be sure with dragons. But Spit Fyre has Imprinted you, so I wouldn't complicate matters. Here, I found this for you. I knew I had one somewhere." Aunt Zelda handed Septimus a small green book bound in what looked suspiciously like dragon skin. It was called How to Survive Dragon Fostering: A Practykal Guide.

"Of course what you really need is the Winged Lizard's Almanac of the Early Years," Aunt Zelda told him. "But I doubt that even the Pyramid Library has one of those. Unfortunately they were written in rather flammable parchment and you just don't get them anymore. Still, this might be some help."

Septimus took the musty-smelling book and idly stared at the endorsements on the back cover.

"This book saved my life. No dragon tooth can get through the cover. Wear this book at all times."

"I only lost one finger while I fostered Fang, thanks to the handy hints section in this invaluable guide."

"After I got Imprinted by Skippy all my friends deserted me and I was going crazy until I read this hook. Now I am allowed out of the Asylum at weekendsand who needs friends anyway?"

"Oh, thanks, Aunt Zelda," Septimus said gloomily.

Septimus and Aunt Zelda sat in a companionable silence, each with their own thoughts, listening to the marsh sounds as the heat of the summer day began to seep through the mist and wake up the more active marsh creatures. Like Jenna, Septimus had become adept at identifying the different sounds, and he was sure he heard the squelch of the suckers of a couple of Water Nixies, followed by the sharp snap of a Mud Snapper and the splish-splash of some baby eels. Soon the heat of the sun had burned off the last remnants of the mist, and the clear blue sky promised a swelteringly hot day.

Aunt Zelda gazed up at the bright blue. There was something tense about her that caught Septimus's attention. He looked at Aunt Zelda. Her lined round face, which was framed by her crinkly and somewhat disheveled gray hair, had an anxious look to it, and her deep blue witch's eyes glittered as she focused on something high in the sky. Suddenly she heaved herself up from the bridge and grabbed Septimus by the hand. "Don't look up," she said in a low voice. "Don't run. Just walk slowly back inside with me."

Inside the cottage, Aunt Zelda quietly closed the heavy front door and leaned against it. She was pale and her eyes had a desolate expression. "Jenna's right," Aunt Zelda whispered, almost to herself. "The Dragon Boat ... she'll have to leave."

"Why? Whatwhat did you see?" asked Septimus, although he had guessed the answer.

"Simon. He's up there. Like a vulture. Waiting."

Septimus took a deep breath to try and quell the knotted feeling that had suddenly appeared in his stomach. "Don't worry, Aunt Zelda," he told her. "The Dragon Boat will be safe at the Castle. I'll take her back there."

Although he had no idea how.