Well, it’s a new month, so it’s time to talk about a new book.  The Drache Girl, book 3 of the Senta and the Steel Dragon series was actually the second book of that series to be written back in 2008.  It remains my favorite book of the series.  I think that is mainly because I enjoyed writing about the characters at that age.  Senta and her friends are twelve, and I based a lot of their interactions on things that were going on with the twelve-year-olds in my class.

I remember one day, one of my little blond girls came to class with scratches all over her forehead and nose.  Her little brother had put gravel on her face while she was asleep and then pounded on it with a rubber mallet!  That week, I wrote that Senta fell down, while running down the road, and got bits of gravel imbedded into her face.

Twelve years of age is a really special time.  Most kids have reached the peak of childish confidence and haven’t yet been overtaken by teen angst or adult dread.  Of course some are ahead and some are behind in their social and emotional development.  They think they know everything, but they know virtually nothing.  Or course, some are ahead and some are behind in that too.

I think you can see much of this phase in Senta, when you read The Drache Girl.  She’s much more confident than she is in The Voyage of the Minotaur, even bossing Zurfina around.  She still considers Bessemer to be her personal baby doll, as we see when he is accidentally shot by hunters.

Suddenly he heard gunfire erupting from directly in front of him.  One, two shots.  Then a pause.  Then one, two, three, four, five, six, pause.  He looked up above the trees and saw a flash of steel shoot across the sky.

“Oh, bloody hell!” he shouted and ran at top speed in the direction of the gunfire.  That he carried no other weapon than a heavy truncheon worried him not a bit.  Two men with military issue service rifles, but wearing expensive hunting clothes, stood in the middle of the gravel road.

“Guns down!” yelled Saba, as he skidded to a stop in front of them.  “Drop your guns now!”

“See here chap,” said the first man, his accent labeling him as plainly as if he had worn a placard that he was from Old Town Brech.  He must have been very new to the colony, because Saba made it a custom to get to know everyone, and neither of these men he recognized.

“We’re doing nothing illegal,” said the second man.  “Just shooting some pests.”

“What exactly were you shooting?”

“We heard from some of the neighbors that these velocipedes….”

“Velociraptors,” Saba corrected.

“Yes, them.  They’ve been a menace lately, to the point of endangering the local children.”

“Quite,” said the first man.  “We went out to put a few down and found a small group digging right into those garbage bins.  We shot a few and killed two, I think, but one took off and flew into the trees.”

“If you listen to me very, and I do mean very, carefully,” said Saba.  “I just might be able to save your lives.  Lay your rifles down on the ground.”

“But I don’t under….”

“Do it!”

The men leaned over and carefully placed their weapons on the white gravel road.

“Nobody told you velociraptors don’t fly?”

A loud whomp made all three men jump, and they found themselves standing next to a pony-sized reptile with twenty foot wings, and more importantly a mouth open large enough to swallow a human head.  Steel scales reflected the light from the winter morning sky like shields and swords on a forgotten battlefield.  The steel dragon let out a huge roar, rending the air with a noise that must have been heard all over Port Dechantagne.  Little puffs of smoke flew out of his mouth at the two men as well as bits of saliva which burst into little sparks in the air.

“They bloody shot me!”  The dragon’s four word sentence disintegrated into another roar of rage.

One of the hunters started to bend over for his rifle.  Saba stepped on the gun and put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Let me see your injury, Bessemer,” he said.  The dragon folded its left wing, and held out the right wing showing an ugly lead mark on a shiny steel scale about midway between the first joint and the shoulder.

“It doesn’t look that bad,” said Saba.  “And you know this was an accident.  They were trying to knock off some velociraptors.”

“So was I,” said Bessemer.  “I didn’t expect it would get me shot!”

“It was an accident, honest and truly,” said the first hunter, shaking a little.  “Maybe we can make it up to you.”

“There was a time,” said Bessemer.  “When the only acceptable payment for this type of transgression was a virgin given at midnight on the full moon.”  Then he burst out laughing.  “Of course I didn’t mean you, Saba.”

The two hunters laughed, a bit nervously, along with the dragon, happy that the anger he had arrived with seemed to be going away.

“Well, no harm then,” said one.

“You daft fools,” said Saba, looking down the road.  “He’s the least one of your problems.”

By this time, neighbors from six or seven close by houses had come out to see what all the shooting and roaring was about.  Saba saw it first, because he had been watching and knew just what to look for—a black and white streak was racing down the road toward them.  And it was coming up quickly, headed directly for the two hunters.  Saba reached out and caught it as it zipped by him, all spitfire and claws.

“Settle down girl,” he said, holding Senta around the waist and lifting her feet, which were still running, off the ground.  She kicked and hissed for another moment and then stopped.  He set her down.  She stuck out her index finger at the two men.  Saba grabbed her by the wrist.  “None of that.”

He turned to the two men.  “You’d best be on your way home, in case the big one comes along.”

“The big one?”

“I’ll boil your giblets,” hissed the girl.

“Bloody hell, man.  Did you not bother to find out about where you were going to be living?  You’ve already got Zurfina’s dragon and Zurfina’s apprentice after you.  Do you want to wait around for Zurfina herself?”

Both the men turned the color of porridge.  “The sorceress?” asked one.

“Yep.”

“We’ll… We’ll just head home, then.”  The two men bent down and picked up their rifles and scurried away at a quick walk, glancing nervously over their shoulders as they went.

“Run now!” yelled Senta after them.  “I’ll find you and then…”

“Little girls do not go around threatening people,” said Saba, turning her by the shoulders to face him.  “It’s not even nine o’clock.  You should wait till at least noon before boiling people’s giblets.  Trust me, I know.  My mother’s a cook.”

She stuck out her lip.  “I’m not a little girl.”

“Of course you’re not.  You’re a very frightening sorceress, with a very nice hairstyle, I might add.”

“Thanks.”  She blushed for just a moment and then broke away from his hands to rush over to the dragon, throwing her arms around his thick serpentine neck.  “Are you all right, baby?”

The dragon’s voice, which normally put one in mind of a young man, went high and weak and pathetic sounding.  “I’ve got an owie on my wing.”

“And you just let them go,” growled the girl, looking at Saba.