Fourteen-year-old William Gannaway Pritchard is in deep trouble--as usual. This time he"s picked up an unusual-looking object from an airplane crash site. He thinks it"s a giant seed pod, but he"s wrong. It"s an egg that hatches a rare baby dragon! Now, along with his best friend Amanda Laura Fitch (called Spunk), he is in a race for his life. He"s lied to government agents, the police, his school principal, and his father. What"s even worse, Wil and Spunk are forced to form an uneasy alliance with another 14-year-old, Jerrod Hathaway, the bad-tempered stepson of the very man who is leading a desperate mob, chasing them and the dragon all over Southwest Virginia. Wil can understand the government being desperately interested in the dragon, but why "Preacher"? As "Preacher" Hathaway closes in Wil, Spunk, Jerrod, and Dragonbreath, are forced to hide in Collingworth Mansion, a sprawling, dark, abandoned hulk of a building overlooking the Clinch River. The attic is allegedly haunted by the ghost of Ernest Ignatious Collingworth, a murder victim whose vengeful spirit is said to have already killed two intruders visiting his house. What Dragonbreath finds in the attic, however, is more terrifying than any ghost. His hideous discovery leads to a wild chase through the rugged Clinch Mountain country that involves three teenagers, one dragon, a mob of desperate men, and the Federal government.