Joe took the cylinder. Its weight and smoothness seemed familiar. A memory rose up, from the days when he’d followed his father round like a little shadow, asking endless questions and receiving patient answers, all day long.

Standing in his father’s study, still so small he could barely see over the desk.

‘What’s that?’ Joe had asked, pointing at a smooth black leather cylinder. 14

‘That’s my shipwreck kit,’ Nestan had told him. ‘It’s saved my life three times now.’

‘How?’ Joe asked, not understanding.

‘When a ship goes down, you have no time,’ his father explained, reaching for it. ‘Three things saved me: luck, swimming skill, and this.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘Flint and tinder, blade, fishing lines, hooks, oilskin, compass …’ Nestan pulled it open and shook the contents out onto his desk. ‘Everything you need to survive.’

And now Joe held his very own shipwreck kit. ‘Wow, thanks, Dad,’ he said, touched. And then he teased, ‘Are you expect­ing me to need it?’

‘It’s traditional. Ours are sea-people,’ Nestan said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, his blue eyes wreathed in laughter lines. ‘Once upon a time, every Norlander child received their own shipwreck kit on their twelfth birthday. You keep it close and hope never to need it.’

‘Well, not today at least?’ Joe put it on the shelf and turned back to the white robes he needed to wear this morning, like a blank sheet of parchment till his purple dragon bonded with him.

‘I think we can be sure of that. Now, if you get changed quickly, we can still be on time.’ Nestan ran one hand raspily over his white beard, while the other leaned on his walking cane. ‘Your brother and sister will be waiting.’ But he didn’t move, not yet.

Joe’s mother slid one arm round Nestan’s waist. His 15parents stood there together, both looking at him in a strange way, their smiles slightly wobbly and damp.

‘What?’ He stared back at them. ‘Are we in a rush or not? What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, nothing’s wrong, Joe!’ Josi said. ‘We’re just so proud of you.’

That was a new thought for him. ‘I haven’t even done anything yet.’

‘We’re proud of you,’ his father repeated, blinking hard and clearing his throat, ‘whatever happens today.’

Joe’s mother flicked a tear from her cheek. ‘Oh, look at me! I’ll spoil this silk, and it’s not even the ceremony yet.’ She sniffed loudly and wiped her face on her husband’s shirt sleeve.

‘Go on, I’ll be down in a moment. We won’t be late – promise!’ Joe turned away to hide his face as it hit him: if today went well, he would never live under his parents’ roof again. He’d been so busy thinking of his dragon, he’d forgotten that part. With another pang he realised he was ready for it all: ready to grow up and leave his home behind, ready to make his parents really proud, and, most definitely, ready for his dragon.