Excerpt:
Time.  David shot his watch hand up.  “Oh no!” he exclaimed.  “I should have been at school ages ago.  I’m supposed to be having a tutorial with…” Leaving the end of his sentence hanging, he shot down the hall in search of his coat.

Liz patted Lucy’s arm and told her to work on G’reth a little more.  “Take him up to the den when you’re finished.  We’ll kiln him when I get back.”  Grabbing her car keys, she went after David.  “Come on,” she said, overtaking him on the porch, “if it’s that important, I’ll give you a ride.”

On the drive into Scrubbley, Liz said quietly, “You seemed a little uptight in the kitchen.  Not just about G’reth.  Is there something on your mind?”

David ran the zipper of his bag back and forth.  “I’m meeting Sophie for dinner tonight.”  A smile spread slowly across his face at the mention of his girlfriend’s name.  “She says she wants to tell me something important.  I think she might want me to move in with her.”

“I see.  Do you think you will?”

David bit his lip and looked the other way.

“We’ll miss you,” said Liz, taking his silence as a yes.  “It’s going to be hard telling Lucy, though.”

“I’ll come and see you.  Regularly.  I promise.”

Liz smiled and touched his arm.  “If you need to move on, that’s all there is to it.  You can’t stay in our mad dragon house forever.  Don’t worry, we’ll cope.”

She brought the car to a halt at the gates of Scrubbley College.  “Go on, we’ll talk about this another time.  I hope you’re not too late.  Who’s this guy again?  The one you’re having the tutorial with?”

“Dr. Bergstrom.  He’s a polar research scientist.  He’s only in the country for three or four weeks, doing a sort of lecture tour.”

“Bergstorm,” said Liz, running the word like a spell off her tongue.  “Is that Swedish?”

“Norwegian, but he works in Canada – with polar bears.”

Liz nodded and lifted her gaze.  Her bright green eyes seemed suddenly very distant.  “Well, he won’t mind this weather, then.”

David turned to the windshield.

Impossible as it seemed, it was specked with snow.