Short fantasy/sci-fi story in an anthology aimed at young readers in the late 70s/early 80s - I seem to remember reading it in late elementary school, though it could have been middle school. Story was about an Air Force pilot who lost a friend to a dragon in a storm cloud, but no one believed him, so he stole a plane and went back up to kill the dragon. He was catatonic and white-haired when the plane landed, and everyone thought he was just crazy, until they watched his gun-camera footage of his attack runs on the dragon.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
Comment by requester: I read this in a collection of short stories aimed at younger readers, and I believe it was one of my Language-Arts “classroom library” books – if not, then it must have been a school-library book, but I definitely borrowed it from the school. One big problem is, I can’t remember the other stories in that book – just that they were all sci-fi/fantasy stories, and I *THINK* there was one of Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles stories in there. Conventional paperback sized, and not terribly thick – max of 150-200 pages all told. Story had a few B&W illustrations – I remember one in particular of the pilot flying towards the dragon in the cloud.
I’ve been looking for that story as well, because one of the drawings at this year’s Art All Night exhibition reminded me of it. I vaguely recall reading the story as a separate, thin paperback book, but that was many decades ago so I could be mistaken. https://www.artallnight.org/index.php/enter-the-show/display-panel/display-artwork/?did=8961