I turned, and nearly jumped out of my skin. A huge, red-and-purple lizard with wings had appeared, breathing fire and getting closer all the time. Huge, scarlet bursts of flame kept leaping from its mouth, and even though I had never seen a real dragon, I knew the creature in front of me for what it was. A dragon.

Ok, now, I told myself, think rationally. Dragons can be nice, can’t they? And they are wise, and smart . . .

But fear already had a strong grip on my mind.

Monster! a panicked voice in my head screamed. Run!

So I did. The monster had come closer, and was almost upon us when I screamed and ran into the cave. It followed Kim and me inside. I looked back, and tripped over another rock. It flew over me, and I ran the other direction, toward the exit. I heard it coming back, wondered briefly where Kim had gone, and realized too late just how close I was to the edge of the cliff.

I fell for about twenty feet before I caught a glimpse of a purple-and-red fireball shooting out of the cave and heading for me. One of the flames from its mouth struck my right hand, and I blacked out as I felt a pair of talons catch my shirt and arm. I was out like a light just after the dragon had started to slow my descent.

This time I woke up quickly, but it would have been better if I had not. Laying on my side in what was probably a meadow, I opened my eyes, and received the shock of my young life. An eye, huge and golden, was looking at me. I felt my heart speed up, and I made a quick decision. I rolled to my feet and ran blindly, just trying to get away, expecting to be caught at any moment. When no pursuit came, I slowed and looked back. The dragon had raised its head, and sat looking at me with a look that I thought of as curiously. I turned to face it, and raised my hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace. One hand had been bandaged, and it took me a moment to put two and two together. For the first time, I saw that my friends were standing behind the dragon, and I noticed that they acted expectant, older, almost, not scared like prisoners. I walked back, and greeted my friends. Then I turned to the dragon, who wore a half-smile. He extended a scaly hand, and I shook it. Then he fixed his humorous gold eyes on mine and said, in a deep, booming voice, "Pleased to meet you."

I swallowed and nodded. "Likewise."

After we had exchanged names, places, and years, (from my hometown we had been zapped to a deserted place in England in 1156) my friends and I learned as much as we could about Daran. He happened to be a nice dragon, and wise, and he told us all about the magic that sent us here. Kim cursed us by accident, so now we are stuck hundreds of years before Columbus finds America. Daran told us about dragon tears, which he had on hand (of course), and we drank some. He said that, depending upon the strength of the curse, we might be stuck for days or weeks, maybe years. We just pooled together our belongings and voted on a course of action. We built several small huts, one for each of us, and we wait. We played to our strengths, and now we have a nice little community. I farm, because Daran caught several sheep, goats, pheasants, and cows before he left; he had to go since dragon slaying had become popular in the cities. I put a likeness of him in a library book, so I won’t forget. I am looking at it now.

In case you are wondering about why Jason is writing, it’s so no one calls us crazy. Of course, how could they, since it’s been four years since we came here? I don’t know if we’ll be the way we were when we left, or what, but I hope the picture in the book is still there. That’s one proof. Another is Jason’s writings. After all, when archeologists find the pages, they’ll have to wonder how modern poetry got there. Jason has a lot of poems stored in his brain, and he writes them down. After all, they won’t be copyrighted for hundreds of years.

I get up to leave, and then summon up from memory a few lines from a poem that was written a long time in the future. I tell Jason what little I can remember of it, and he writes it down.

I smile, remembering, and walk outside, the picture of Daran still smiling up at me from the page.