Ever since he could remember, Ford was treated cruelly by his parents, Liddy and Wicker Forks. He cannot figure out why they hate him so much. It is only when he discovers that his father isn’t really Wicker Forks but instead is a mysterious, red-eyed stranger that he goes on a quest to find his true identity—and much, much more.

As he heads forward down the path of danger and illusion, he uncovers a world that he had never imagined, a world of dragons. Ford must decide who he is—a dragon or a boy—and whichever path he chooses will be his future for forever. After all, once you are a dragon, there is no going back.

 

“Get out of the way,” Ford’s mother, Liddy, screamed as she passed over him with a steaming pile of hotcakes balanced on her thin, spindly arms. “Move it, boy.”

This was a scene that Ford Forks, the son of the owners of Wicker Pancake Mill, was far too used to. Regardless of the fact that he was a high school student, he still had to rise at four thirty every morning to help his mother open the restaurant. He was all too used to this scenario, though, and his grumblings were minimal.

“Sorry,” Ford said underneath his breath, shrugging his shoulders as he dodged yet another incoming tray of food.

He picked up a steaming plate of hotcakes that his father had whipped up behind the wall that separated the breakfast bar from the kitchen, wondering whether or not his family realized that he was their son and not just a server. As he walked forward, he smiled at one of the regular customers sitting at the metal bar, who waved and gave him the only source of friendliness that he would know that morning.

As he walked over to the customer that had ordered the food in his hands, he quietly listened to the usual accusatory remarks that cranky morning diners usually had. Ford did his atypical soothing routine, which happened to include an overabundance of apologies and sympathetic head nods. He was so good at it by now that he hardly noticed the crick in his neck.

“Boy,” his mother called from behind the bar, “get your butt off to school right now. You’re going to be late.”

“Yes, Liddy,” he called back.

It was an unusual thing to call a mother by her first name—or last, for that matter—but that was the first lesson that he had learned in his family. His father, Wicker, had an obscene dislike for parental words, and whenever he heard Ford say “Mom” or “Dad,” he would get a seizure in his face so powerful that Ford wondered whether he was having a stroke.