didn’t want to think about their absent friends, so he ran ahead to the loch shore, hoping to see the otters. There was no sign of them, but after a minute or two of gazing over the surface of the water they spotted two round heads, and suddenly Wattie and Lottie were shooting up to the shore and climbing onto their usual rock, shaking the water from their thick coats.
“Wha’ve ye bin daein’?” said Lottie, looking at the muddy snouts and talons of the two dragons.
“Digging roots.”
“Wha’ fer?”
“We cook and eat them,” Emily explained, washing the mud off in the loch and shivering in the cold water. Wattie pulled a face. “Sounds mingin’!” he said. “Comin’ fer a swim?” Tom agreed, took a deep breath and dived in, but Emily shook her head.
“Aye, water’s a bit nippy,” Lottie agreed, climbing off the rock and joining Emily on the shore. “Gettin’ icy further roond. Dad says we’re in fer a bad winter. Loch micht freeze ri’ o’er.”
She trotted away round the shore, and showed Emily a thin skin of ice stretching across a shallow bay. Reeds stuck stiffly through the ice, each rimmed with frost. The sun hadn’t reached this part of the loch and it was cold in the shade.
“How will you manage to fish if it does freeze over?”
“Nae idea. Dad’ll ken wha’ tae dae. We’ll no’ starve. He sez the loch froze richt o’er when he was oor age, an’ they a’ had a great time slidin’ o’er the ice. Mum sez we c’n coorie doon ‘n’ sleep a lot o’ the time, so we dinnae get as hungry in the winter.”
Emily put one foot on the ice, but it cracked and shifted under her.
“Not strong enough yet,” she said. “It will be fun when it is, though. We’d better get back to Dad. TOM!” she shouted as she saw him surface further out in the loch. He waved and started back to the shore. Emily went to meet him, followed by Lottie. He scrambled out, carrying a medium-sized fish in one talon.
“Did you catch that?” she asked, impressed.
“No, Wattie did,” Tom admitted. “He gave it to me. Said they’ve caught lots today.” They shouted thanks to the young otters, waved, and set off back through the wood. On the way back, Emily spotted another patch of Silverweed, and noted it for later. It wasn’t far from the beech tree.
“Mum Huffed that lunch is ready,” said Duncan as they came close to his diggings. He had made quite a pile of new roots for them to collect later, and was covered in mud. “You fly on, and I’ll have a quick wash and catch you up. Nice fish, Tom! Did you catch it?” He set off without waiting for Tom’s reply.
“Come on, let’s fly fast. You’re shivering,” said Emily, setting off up the hill. Tom shook water off his wings and followed, looking forward to a hot meal by the fire.
Gwen had chopped some of their roots and added a good clawful to the beetle broth simmering on the fire. There wasn’t much flavour to them, but they certainly added bulk and filled them up. She was looking a good deal happier. She was delighted with Tom’s fish, which she said they could have for supper, and even more pleased to hear about the tree full of beech nuts.
“I think we should go down this afternoon as well,” she said as Duncan, clean again, flew down to join them. “You never know what the weather will be like tomorrow.”
“Lottie’s Dad says it’s going to be a hard winter. There’s ice on the loch already,” Emily reported.
“Then we’d better not waste a good foraging day,” Duncan agreed.
They collected their bags and flew back down as soon as the meal was finished. Gwen made a nest in the grass under the beech tree, and persuaded Lily to climb inside. “Coorie doon, Lily!” Emily said. “That’s what Lottie says. I think it means snuggle down,” she added for her mother’s benefit as they tiptoed away.
With Lily asleep, the others found foraging much easier. Duncan bagged up his pile of roots and sent Tom back to the cave with them, while he started on the digging. Tom happily joined him when he returned with the empty bag. Gwen and Emily flew up to the spreading branches of the beech tree, tied their cloth between twigs, and started to fill it with nuts. The sun filtering through the branches felt surprisingly warm on their scales.
“Are you sure this is the start of winter?” Emily asked. “I’m lovely and warm.”
“That’s because there’s no wind,” said Gwen, dropping a clawful of nuts into the cloth. “It’ll be cold again when the sun goes down. The frost hasn’t melted in that patch of shade down there.”
“Are we really going to be short of food?”
“I don’t think so,” Gwen didn’t sound too sure, “but it’s as well to be as prepared as we can. The Otter is probably right about the winter being a hard one. He’ll know the signs if he’s lived here all his life. Frosty days like this are all right, but too much snow can be a problem. Food will certainly be hard to find, so we need our stores. I’d hate you and Tom to go hungry.”
“Tom would get really grumpy!” Emily agreed.
“He wouldn’t be the only one! Can you keep an eye on Lily while I take these back to the cave?”
Emily agreed and as there was no point in collecting more nuts until the bag was brought back, she flew to the topmost branch of the tree and perched, swaying gently. From there, she could see Tom and Dad still digging in the wood. Looking south over the loch she saw all four otters rolling and playing in the deep water and watched a pair of small deer tread warily to the edge of the loch for a drink before disappearing back into the trees. Two eagles, high in the pale sky, circled lazily. How would they all manage in a hard winter? There were months of cold weather still to come...
A wail from the ground below the tree interrupted her thoughts. Lily was awake. That probably put an end to foraging for the day, Emily thought, gliding down to reassure her wee sister that she had not been abandoned.
As the sun sank lower the frost returned, and the night was even colder; but the dragons, snug in their heather beds, ‘cooried doon’ and slept in comfort.
Chapter 3
The Tail-Stane Game
For the next week, the weather stayed calm and bright, but very cold. The frost thickened, outlining every twig on the trees with white, and only melted briefly where the sun caught it. The ice round the edge of the loch hardened day by day. The mountain hares that lived on the higher slopes had turned white. The foraging continued, and the young dragons went to bed early and slept late. Emily didn’t mind about this, because it was when they were sitting round the fire in the gloaming that she missed her friends the most. It was better to go inside and read in bed until she fell asleep.
Gwen had been right about the hibernating snails, but by the end of the week, the shelves in the main cave were better stocked with stores of roots and nuts to join the supplies of dried fruit, berries, beetles, slugs and fungi, and the remains of the seaweed that the children had brought back from their seaside expedition in the summer. Duncan had set
