Excerpt: Dragon Island

Chapter One

Felix grabbed the hoodie that hung from the back of the bright green kitchen door and pulled it on. Aunt Emilie glanced up from the vegetables she was arranging neatly into piles. “Keep a look out for Charles, I don’t want him missing dinner again,” she said placing diced carrot beside the red peppers.
“He’s not going to starve,” Felix said, still angry at him for letting his iguana ruin her notebooks. It was at times like these that she half wished she didn’t have a twin brother, maybe if he’d been a girl he wouldn’t irritate her so much. It didn’t help that he was the oldest, even if it was only by a few minutes.

“And don’t you be gone too long,” Aunt Emilie added pointing the knife at her sternly. “Your mother doesn’t need any more to worry about. Heaven knows she -”

“Okay, jeez... like she’d even notice if we missed dinner,” she said grabbing an apple from the countertop and pulling the door open.

“Felicity Harrington! I’ll have no more of that talk -”

“Whatever,” she called back slamming the door with more force than she had intended.

Felix leant against the door and looked up at the sky; a mixture of pinks, purples and reds with a few wisps of orange tinged cloud. The day had been almost unbearably hot and even the evening sun was strong enough to make her face tingle from the heat. She bent down to pick up her shoes from beside the doorstep and cursed silently as she realised they were in her bedroom. There was no way she was going back into the kitchen after being so rude to Aunt Em. She felt bad for what she’d said but was far too embarrassed to apologise just yet. The front door would be locked. Aunt Em had lost the key a month before they had gone to stay with her and refused to pay to get the lock changed when there was still one perfectly functioning door they could use. Felix sighed turned away from the house.

The stone path was comfortably warm underfoot, sheltered from the worst of the sun by the line of trees either side. Felix enjoyed the feel of it as she walked, the one time she’d gone barefoot in Kensington had ended in a trip to A&E and several stitches. At the end of the garden she paused to look around. No matter which direction she walked in, she would never be more than ten minutes away from Aunt Em’s house; the fact both reassured and frustrated her. She stepped off the stone path and headed left, towards the beach and away from what passed for civilisation on Lower Imago.

The sandy track to the beach had not had the benefit of any shelter and Felix had to hop between shadows and grass tufts in order to stop her feet burning. The sound of waves breaking against the rocks grew louder as she approached the shore and a gentle breeze began to stir. As she rounded a corner, the path opened out onto a wide flat ledge leading to the small cliff edge. A mass of green covered much of the ledge, mixed with a sprinkling of pale yellow flowers and stones. Ahead, a steep slope led down towards the pure blue sea and white sand beach, clear but for a couple of trees.

Felix crossed the ledge quickly and slid down to the beach. She hurried across the sand and stood in the shadow of the nearest tree. It grew at an angle, its gnarled branches ending in an eruption of green foliage and its twisted roots formed an elaborate knot above the sand. She ran her hand along its rough bark as she looked out towards the sea, where a strange speckled crab with bulbous, translucent eyes scuttled between some rocks near the water.