Ned's mouth dropped open when Ciara told him about the dragon in the middle of the castle. Not only was it evil, it was a king killer! In most of the stories Ned had read (or had read to him) the king and his knights had always defeated the dragon. It must have been a very scary one indeed.

"I'm sorry about your king," Ned said, feeling sad. King in stories were always his favourites. "Was he a very good king?"

He reached over and ruffled the mane of his ragdoll horse. "Did he go on a lot of adventures and defeat bad people?"

Ned started to swing his legs back and forth, the rubber heels of his shoes bumping against the bench.

"My papa told me about a king called Alfazar the Tickler. Dragons were scared of him because he was so good at tickling them, and that was their weakness."

He paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "But he did say that didn't work on all kinds of dragons so you maybe shouldn't try ticking the one in the castle." Ciara was nice, she didn't deserve to be hurt by king-killing dragons. Ned wondered if it had a proper evil dragon name, something like Karcharn the Devourer or Kilkarny the Treacherous.

Opening his mouth to ask Ciara for more information on the dragon, Ned promptly closed it again. She smiled at Ciara's offer to help him but started to shuffle a little uncomfortably.

"I don't know what my Papa would say about that..." he said tentatively, eager not to offend her.

"And if I wasn't at home for bedtime he and Mama would be awfully worried. Do you think we could try and find them before then?" Ned started to chew the inside of his cheek again.

"Papa hasn't been home in a while so I'm not sure where he is exactly...but I know we live in Spain because it's the best country in the world." Ned smiled a little sheepishly. "At least, that's what Papa says, and he travels a lot so I suppose he'd know."

Ned stared down at the dull hop-loop in Ciara's hand and reached for his ragdoll horse. He took it from her gently and clutched it to his chest. His insides squirmed every time he looked it. He knew he'd done something wrong and silly. He shouldn't have gone in his Papa's desk, and shouldn't touch things when he didn't know what they were. He couldn't even remember why he'd done it...

"This is Alfonso the Valiant," Ned explained, stroking his horse's mane. "He can jump further and higher than any other horse in the world and he never gets lost." He sighed, wishing that were true and not just make believe. If it had been true then Alfonso could have taken him straight back to his Papa. He wondered if anyone had noticed he was missing yet.

"I'm a bit cold," Ned told Ciara glumly. "Is there somewhere warm we can go? Maybe a hot chocolate? I can tell you all about the screaming dragon then if you like?"