With illustrations by Mónica Armiño
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP
www.barringtonstoke.co.uk
Title of the original German edition: Lesepiraten Champion – Der Mondscheindrache © 2011 Loewe Verlag GmbH, Bindlach
Illustrations © 2014 Mónica Armiño
Translation © 2014 Barrington Stoke
The moral right of Cornelia Funke and Mónica Armiño to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request
ISBN: 978-1-78112-353-9
Printed in China by Leo
This book has dyslexia friendly features
For Robin
Chapter 1
A Dra on and a Kni ht
The moon shone into Patrick’s room. It turned the carpet silver. Even Patrick’s jeans on the chair looked as if they were woven out of silver threads.
Who could sleep on a night like this?
Patrick lay in his bed, stared out of the window and counted the stars.
Patrick had almost dropped off to sleep when he was startled by a soft rustling sound on the floor by his bed.
He peered down to see what it was. There was a book on the floor. Patrick had read the book earlier that day. It was about dragons and knights. Now it lay open on the carpet, even though Patrick was sure he had closed it.
Strange.
Patrick reached down to close the book. Then he heard another sound. The white pages moved, as if an invisible hand had turned them over.
Then Patrick heard a soft snort. He was so startled that he hid under his blankets. After a moment, he peeped out and looked down at the book.
Now Patrick could hear a loud panting noise. As he watched, a scaly tail appeared from between the pages of the book. The tail was followed by two claws, then a silver body with wings and spikes on its back and then – THUD!
A dragon slid out from the book and landed on Patrick’s carpet.
“Oh dear, oh dear!” the dragon moaned. He looked around. “Where am I? I was in my den. Where have I ended up now?”
The dragon was very beautiful to look at. He had silver and blue scales and a great long tail. He was just like
the picture Patrick had always had in his mind of how a dragon would look. The only difference was that this dragon would fit inside a jam jar.
The pages of the book moved again, and this time Patrick heard the clatter of hooves and the clink of iron.