himself into the tunnel. There was barely enough room for him to squeeze in. Grunting with exertion, he crawled along on his belly, pushing himself along with his knees and elbows. As he advanced, the light at end of tunnel grew brighter.

“C’mon,” he murmured to himself as he blinked dirt out of his eyes. “Just a little farther...”

Then, when he was but two feet away from the end, he heard a low rumbling. A moment later, the tunnel began to shake and dirt rained down on him, causing him to cough and choke. Afraid of being buried alive, Kit redoubled his speed.

Finally, his hands felt air. He wriggled his shoulders free, and, kneeling on the tunnel, his fingers blindly groped among the rocks on the outer surface of the wall for a handhold. Finding one, he swung himself out of the tunnel and clung to the wall for dear life.

But with rocks pelting him from overhead and the wall shaking beneath him, he couldn’t hang on long.

“Aah!” Kit yelled as he slid down the wall, an avalanche of rocks tumbling down with him. He landed on floor with his shirt torn and the wind knocked out of him.

Almost as soon as he hit the ground, the earthquake stopped. When the battered boy finally looked up, he saw that the tunnel that he had climbed through had collapsed. In the opposite direction, beyond a large mound of recently-fallen rocks came the hazy, orange light.

He was trapped with the dragon.

End of part 5

No Time Like the Present
part 6

The Dragon’s Den

Great. Just great, Kit thought, not daring to even whisper out loud for fear the of alerting the dragon to his presence. It’ll take me days to dig through that, if I can dig through it without bringing the whole wall down on me. He pounded his fist against the solid, rocky barrier dividing him from Baloo and Dunder in frustration. Maybe there’s another way out of here, he thought. His eyes wandered to the other side of the cave, towards the source of the hazy orange light. He gulped. Past the dragon...

Loathe as he was to enter that deadly chamber, the stifling hot cavern was filling up with smoke. If he didn’t get out of there soon, he’d suffocate.

Eyes stinging from the smoke, he cautiously crept towards the mound of rocks half-blocking the entrance to the next chamber...and the dragon. Every tentative, crunching footfall seemed to echo forever. As he drew closer, Kit’s legs started to tremble and his heart began to thump so loudly that he was sure that the dragon could hear it.

Rooooooooaaaaaaaar!

The earth shook violently, knocking Kit off his feet.

I guess it can hear me. Swell, he thought, coughing into his sleeve to muffle the sound.

Kit sat there for a while, thinking. He didn’t know if he could handle going head-to-head with a fire-breathing dragon that was obviously angry at him for trespassing.

Using his time travel watch briefly crossed his mind. He could definitely use it to escape.

But it was too risky. Because he didn’t know how the watch worked, he could wind up someplace worse.

Though it can’t be much worse than being stuck with a dragon, he thought wryly. He pulled out his watch and looked at it for a moment. Then, with a shake of his head, he returned it to his pocket. I can’t just leave Baloo here.

Gritting his teeth in determination, Kit crawled towards the mound of rocks at the entrance to the next chamber. When he reached the base, he looked up at it, and, with a weary sigh, started to climb, forcing himself to swallow his yelps of pain whenever the jagged rocks gouged his tender, bruised skin.

At long last, he reached the top. With perspiration oozing from every pore, he slowly raised his head for a half-fearful, half-curious peek into the smoky room.

What he saw made him gasp in astonishment.

Through the thick orangish haze, his eyes could barely discern the outline of something shiny that seemed to stretch from one side of the chamber to the other, presumably the dragon’s scaly back. Just as he leaned forward to get a closer look, there was a sudden spurt of fire.

Rooooaaaaaaaar!

Startled, Kit lost his balance and toppled off the wall. He had just shakily pushed himself up off the ground and was trying to gather what was left of his courage when he heard...

“Shoot! Burnt to a crisp again!”

What?Kit thought in astonishment as he wiped his brow with his sleeve. The dragon can talk?

He eagerly listened for more.

“They just don’t make metal like they will.”

There’s something familiar about that voice, Kit thought, his mind racing to place it. But I’m not going to find out by just sitting here. Taking a deep, hitching breath, he quickly climbed up and over the mound of rocks.

Upon reaching the dragon’s chamber, Kit crouched at the base of the wall for a few moments. He blinked furiously, his eyes watering from the smoke.

Then, he spotted something moving towards him. Instinctively, he froze. Every muscle in his body was tense, prepared to either fight or flee.

His vision was partially obstructed by tears and grimy sweat as he watched the oddly-shaped shadowy figure glide closer and closer.

What is it? The dragon’s tail? Foot? Head? What is it?

Suddenly, Kit breathed an enormous sigh of relief and leapt to his feet. “Buzz?”

“Did someone say my name?” the inventor, who had just emerged from the smoke, wondered calmly. He was awkwardly toting an armful of firewood.

“What are you doing here?” Kit asked. He picked up a piece of wood that Buzz had dropped and fell into step beside the short-legged, googly-eyed inventor.

“Trying to fix my time travel watch,” Buzz said matter-of-factly as if he wasn’t the least surprised to see Kit. “It broke when I accidentally landed on it.”

“No. I meant what are you doing in Hammalot?”

“Oh, that,” Buzz said, smiling. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to visit Hammalot. Knights in shining armor bravely riding to battle on noble steeds, mighty sword fights, jousting matches, slaying dragons...”

Kit had to jump back as Buzz jabbed at an imaginary dragon with a stick. He peered through the smoke thoughtfully. “By the way, where isthe dragon?”

“Dragon?” Buzz yelped, dropping the firewood.

“Yeah, the dragon causing all the earthquakes and fire and smoke and stuff.”

“That’s just my welding machine. Come see. It’s really neat-looking.” He pointed eagerly to a large, odd-looking contraption.

“I’ll say...” Kit said, awed.

Up close, he could now see that the shiny thing that he thought was the dragon’s scaly back was actually a long piece of metal tubing that looked suspiciously like the arms and legs from a suit of armor spliced together end to end. The skinnier end was capped with a gauntlet. The opposite end was stuck into a hole in the wall above a huge fire blazing in a natural recess. On the floor, in front of the ‘fireplace’, was a pair of gigantic bellows.

“I’ll show you how it works,” Buzz said excitedly. He was giddy as a schoolboy for a chance to share his contraption. “The bellows pump the fire up into that metal tubing. When I’m ready to weld, I pull the cap off the gauntlet’s forefinger here,” he demonstrated by pulling off the cap; “and a concentrated flame comes out, allowing me to weld this metal together.” To himself, he added, “At least it should. Works in theory, but not in practice. Maybe if I...Hmm...” He shook his head. “No, no, no. That would never work.”

“Uh, Buzz?” Kit interjected. “Why don’t we just use my watch?”

But Buzz, intent on tossing firewood into the fire, didn’t hear him. “It’ll be easier with you here. You can work the bellows while I man the torch.”

Realizing that it was useless to argue, Kit shrugged. “Okay."

Buzz wrapped strips of his cut-up lab coat around his hands to protect them from the heat of the metal. Then Kit helped him to don the helmet and cuirass, otherwise known as the breastplate and backplate, from the suit of armor. The armor, which hung from his skinny shoulders to his ankles, weighted him down so that he could barely stand up. The tip of his beak comically protruded out of one of the slots in the visor. He then picked up the gauntlet and, in a tinny voice, told Kit to start pumping.

Kit stood between the bellows and, putting his hands on the handles, started to squeeze them up and down alternately. First, the right one. Then, the left one. Right. Left. Right. Left. With each concentrated puff of air, the fire grew in intensity. Sweat rolled down Kit’s face and his arms grew weary, but he continued to pump steadily.

Smoke billowed from the fireplace as well as the seams of the makeshift welding machine. The cave started to shake from the pressure building up within the metal tubing. A steadily-growing roar filled Kit’s ears.

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