The Boy Who Dreamed of Dragons Page 2

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, worried that my bed was going to be a mess of sticky goo.

  ‘Herbert,’ she whispered. ‘You killded Herbert.’

  Oh no! Who on earth was Herbert? Had she taken to hiding small animals in my bed now? I knew she was desperate for Mum to let her help look after the strays she brought home as part of her work as a vet. But she wouldn’t have let Lolli bring one here. Would she?

  I didn’t want to look. What had I done? First almost squashing a dragon and now squidging a … a what? I peered closer, bracing myself for the worst. A splatted hamster? A flattened bunny? A crushed beetle?

  And then I saw Herbert. He was none of these things. Herbert was a stick.

  Not even a stick insect. Just a stick.

  ‘Herbert in the hoppital,’ Lolli said, pointing to a collection of sticks laid out on cotton-wool pillows next to her bed. ‘I got to show Mummy what a good looker-afterer I am.’

  ‘So you’re practising your skills?’

  She nodded eagerly.

  ‘Well, it’s a shame we can’t tell her how well you looked after Tinkle. Then she’d know how good you are.’

  Lolli smiled. Then she looked sadly at Herbert.

  ‘Have you ever fixed a broken bone?’ I asked, as I picked up and cradled a bent and sorrowful Herbert in my hands.

  Lolli shook her head, tenderly holding his little twiggy arm.

  ‘Right, well, no better time to learn,’ I said. ‘Run to the bathroom and get some sticky plasters.’

  Lolli giggled, ‘Sticky plasters for sticky Herbert.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Now look lively – this could be tricky. A tricky sticky situation,’ I added, grinning.

  She gave a little frown and waggled her finger at me, before she hurried off, just in case I forgot the seriousness of the situation.

  When she came back I realised I probably should have gone with her, you know, rather than staying with the stick.

  She was draped in toilet roll and had stuck plasters all over her face. I guess to make them easier to carry, since her hands were full of Nana’s face cream, antiseptic and toothpaste.

  She seemed to find a use for it all as we fixed up not just Herbert, but the rest of her hospital inpatients: Bea, Malik, Sam and Elena, who were also all sticks – and the names of her friends at nursery. Finally we were just left with Stefan, which was our postman’s name. Except this Stefan wasn’t a postman – or a stick. He was a wooden spoon that Nana was all set to throw away due to the split down his ‘head’. Lolli carefully wrapped a bandage round it and tucked him into a sock sleeping bag.

  ‘Snug as a bug,’ she said.

  Sitting back on my bed, I had to admire her attention to detail.

  ‘Night, night, Stefan.’

  I woke from a dream where I was flying, skimming low over a snaking glacier. Dragons of all sizes and colours flanked me, their scales glittering and their eyes fixed on a huge red sun melting into the horizon ahead. I threw off my covers, my ears still ringing with their bellows and roars, feeling ready for the world.

  While Nana took Lolli on an expedition to get more toothpaste and toilet roll, Grandad and I headed down the garden.

  ‘Seems like your zippy visitor had a right old party in my veggies,’ Grandad said. ‘And look at my pansies. Me and Jim are hoping to be picked to grow the flowers for the main display in the Village in Bloom show next year. And that dragon’s just turned my flowers into confetti!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I replied. ‘I really hoped he’d got used to his wings enough to fly off properly.’

  ‘Oh well, never mind, Chipstick. I dare say we’ll soon have things shipshape again.’

  I looked at the mess and hoped the superhero squad were on their way. I didn’t want Grandad to have to do much of the work. Although he was better since his stay in hospital, when they’d fixed his hip and sorted out the right medicine for his poorly heart, I still kept one eye firmly on him. As if that could keep him safe. Every so often a picture of him lying in a hospital bed would pop into my head. And each time it was like an ice-cold wave had crashed over me, freezing my insides. I couldn’t help thinking that if I took my eye off him, an icy wave might just sweep him away from me for good.

  But there was no way he’d sit by and watch me do it all by myself.

  Luckily it wasn’t long before Kat, Kai, Ted and Liam arrived. As they came down the garden they caught sight of the state of the vegetable patch and I could see their collective shoulders sag. But being the superhero squad, they quickly got to work without a single moan.

  ‘OK, captain, give us that spade and our orders,’ Kai said to Grandad, taking the handle out of his grasp before he could object.

  With so many extra hands, it wasn’t long before we had set the garden to rights. Then, as Grandad headed back to the house for a sit-down, the rest of us made our way over to the dragon-fruit tree.

  ‘Right,’ Ted said. ‘Dragon watch! I’m saying … purple tail, yellow body, black wings and two horns.’

  ‘Breathing?’ Liam asked.

  ‘Green fire.’

  There were a handful of fruits on the tree that were red and ripe. We gathered round one that was beginning to glow and bulge, grinning at each other.

  Seconds later a tiny dragon burst out. It was a dull brown, with no horns and no spines.

  ‘You were way off the mark,’ Kai said.

  It was hopping from foot to foot on the ground in front of us, shaking its wings to rid itself of the mess of pulp and seeds. When it turned, it suddenly noticed us all staring down at it. Alarmed, it lowered its head and spread out its wings. Fierce red eyes glared back at us. A pattern on the underside. And then its whole body shook and its scales lifted until they were all sticking out like tiny spears. We laughed and backed away.

  ‘OK. OK,’ Ted said, hands raised. ‘We come in peace.’

  We watched another hatch, this time a purple dragon with yellow wings and electric-blue spikes under its chin.

  ‘It reminds me of Crystal,’ Kat said. ‘I wonder if this one breathes ice too.’

  It didn’t, but it did hiccup a breath of freezing fog that crystallised some onions.

  When all the glowing fruits had hatched, we headed into the shed to raid Grandad’s goodies tin.

  ‘What happened in here?’ Kat asked, noticing the wreckage the little clumsy dragon had caused bumping into things.

  And so I told them about almost treading on the dragon fruit and the sky-blue and silver dragon that had shot out straight into my face.

  ‘He really wasn’t very good with those huge wings, and he was a bit hyper-charged,’ Ted said.

  ‘I think I might have launched at you, if you’d almost squashed me with your foot,’ Liam replied.

  ‘I bet you would.’ Ted laughed, giving him a friendly nudge. We all remembered what Liam had been like before he joined the superhero squad. Though looking at him now, you’d be hard pressed to believe it. He grinned and shrugged, accepting the tease as fair comment.

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ I said defensively. ‘I was just … distracted.’

  Kat smiled. ‘Off with the fairies – isn’t that what your grandad says?’

  ‘Off with the dragons in your case,’ Kai laughed.

  ‘We’ll all be off with the dragons later, when we head to the nature reserve,’ Ted said. ‘I can’t wait to see Sunny.’

  ‘I was just thinking about Flicker, that’s all, wondering how long he’ll stay this time. Don’t you think about that with Dodger?’

  Kai shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  Kat snorted. ‘Stop acting like you’re any different to the rest of us,’ she said. ‘You’re not the only one scanning the sky whenever they’re not here, Tomas. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times he’s dragged me out of bed thinking he’d spotted them, only to find it was a cloud.’

  ‘Right, is everyone strapped in for take-off?’ Grandad asked, giving a giggling Lolli a wink. We cupped our hands to our mouths and dr
agon-roared at the top of our voices. We were always ready to see the dragons!

  He laughed. ‘You know, actual dragons would be quieter than you lot!’

  When we got to the nature reserve we all leaped out of the car.

  ‘I’m popping over to collect some more seeds and pots. I’ll pick you up on my way back,’ Grandad said.

  He bent down to give Lolli a hug. She wrapped her arms around him and whispered something.

  ‘I know you will, Lolli,’ he said. He looked up. ‘She’s told me not to worry because she’ll be keeping an eye on you.’ He gave me a wink and I gave him a thumbs up. Lolli ran over and clung to my leg, as if to prove she was on the job.

  Standing by the edge of the water, we peered across at the island. We could usually spot a glimmer of scales or a tree that swayed oddly when there was no wind. But today there was no sign of them.

  ‘They are still there, aren’t they?’ Kai asked.

  There was a sudden whoosh of air that made my hair stick out. And I got that prickly feeling on the back of your neck when you have a sense you’re being watched. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything.

  ‘Maybe they can see something we can’t,’ I said.

  Then Dodger, whose camouflage skills were on a whole other level these days, suddenly appeared in front of us. We screamed and leaped back, Lolli squealing in excitement.

  ‘Naughty,’ she shrieked, wagging her finger at the dragon. He circled back and landed, thwacking his tail on the ground, obviously pleased with his surprise attack.

  Lolli was jiggling about so much by this point I had to laugh. She wasn’t allowed to sky-ride yet, so this was the only time she got to fly on a dragon, when we didn’t go high, but skimmed the surface of the water. When I clambered up behind her, I could almost feel her body buzzing! It reminded me of the little dragon that had hatched the day before.

  Once everyone was securely on Dodger’s back, he tipped his head from side to side and stretched out his wings. And then he darted forward, leaving all our stomachs floundering in the mud.

  On the other side of the water, the rest of the dragons were waiting. We jumped down and rushed over to them. Sunny immediately gave a rumble, sniffing out the treats Ted’s pockets were always loaded with. Crystal blew an icy breath that frosted the trees around Kat, making icicle wind chimes for her to tap. Maxi, who often got a bit overexcited, blasted out a green breath that instantly made some ferns turn gigantic and swamped a laughing Liam. And Tinkle, the smallest of the dragons, tilted her head for Lolli to hug, filling the woodland with a song that made all our hearts soar.

  And then there was Flicker. Too big now to sit on my shoulder and wrap his tail around my neck. I leaned against his flickering scales and he curled around me, his tail and head touching as he brought his kaleidoscope wing across to shelter me. Inside the little shimmering cocoon, I stared into his diamond eyes and breathed in the warm smoky smell of him.

  As the yelling from the others got louder, I peeked out. Dodger, Sunny and Maxi were taking it in turns to suck up huge mouthfuls of water and then let them out as steam. With a well-aimed breath from Crystal, the droplets were turning into glistening flakes of snow as they fell.

  Lolli and Kat raced around with their tongues hanging out, until Kai told them they were basically eating frozen dragon slobber!

  ‘Me and Ted are going to make an epic abominable snowman,’ Liam cried. ‘Come on, Ted – you’re in charge of the body.’

  Lolli had already grabbed my hand.

  ‘Snow dragon, snow dragon …’ she chanted happily.

  Half an hour later, having finished our ice creations, we stopped to warm our hands and feet against the dragons.

  I was pretty chuffed with our snow dragon. Lolli had found jet-black stones for its eyes and I’d used a stick to carefully carve scales along its sides. I’d curled the tail round and fashioned an arrowhead point just like Flicker’s.

  I looked over at Ted and Liam’s round-bellied snowman. ‘It’s not very abominable, is it?’ I said to Liam.

  ‘No.’ He laughed. ‘Not very epic either.’

  Suddenly a huge pile of snow hurtled at the snowman and sent it flying, covering Ted in the process. We all turned to see Dodger, one eye blinded by snow, flicking powdery drifts at us with his tail. It didn’t take long for the other dragons to join in. They surrounded us, flinging snow till we looked pretty abominable ourselves. And then Flicker began making tiny whirling tornadoes that chased after us. Despite our best team effort to throw snowballs back, it was a bit one-sided.

  ‘Hey.’ I laughed. ‘You should know by now that you can’t beat a dragon in a snowball fight!’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ everyone cried in unison, laughing as the flurries of snow covered us, leaving us in a giggling heap.

  Eventually we waved our hands in surrender and ran to the dragons, letting the warmth of them dry us through. After that we settled down to feast on the picnic supplies that Nana had packed for us.

  ‘Can I adopt your nana, Tomas?’ said Ted through a mouth full of cake. ‘My gran is great, but right now she’s too busy doing half-marathons to make me treats.’

  ‘The amount my nana bakes, she could probably keep even Sunny satisfied,’ I laughed.

  ‘Challenge accepted!’ Ted grinned.

  It was Lolli who spotted Grandad on the other side of the lake, flashing his torch in our direction through the dusk.

  ‘Tomas,’ she said, pulling at my arm, ‘Guppie here.’

  She ran over to Tinkle and wrapped her arms around the dragon’s neck. And got a long sonorous note in reply. A note that tugged at my heart.

  I knew then, even without looking at Flicker, that the dragons were preparing to leave.

  I watched everyone saying their goodbyes. Flicker nudged me with his nose and I looked up at him. I hated this part. I moved closer, wrapping my arms around his neck and squeezing my eyes shut. It never got any easier saying goodbye, because we never knew when we would next be seeing them.

  As Dodger, Sunny, Maxi and Tinkle launched up into the air, Crystal blew an icy breath across the lake, freezing a bridge for us to cross that sparkled and shone and sent rainbows shooting out across the water.

  She turned and Kat ran over to her, and for a moment their heads leaned together, Kat whispering something.

  Flicker gave a rumble and blew a warm breath around me, and then he flapped his wings and lifted from the ground.

  I stood with Kat and watched the dragons soar into the sky. As the others skated their way over the glittering bridge towards Grandad, I kept my own eyes fixed on the ruby glow disappearing from view.

  When we got home after the weekend Mum and Dad were in what I’d call a happy-flappy state. All wide-eyed and talking really fast and waving their hands about. It turned out that while we’d been at Nana and Grandad’s they’d had some pretty cool news. Mum had been asked to be resident vet at a local radio station. People could phone in and she’d give them advice on their poorly pets. And now Dad had had the brainwave of making little videos of Mum that they could put up on a website.

  ‘I can record some of the animals and make a jingle. We’ll have our own show,’ he cried.

  ‘Sounds great,’ I said, laughing, as Mum caught Lolli up in a dance and began twirling her around the room.

  ‘It’ll be super-busy,’ Mum called.

  ‘You won’t mind helping out, will you?’ Dad said, swooping in and pulling me into the dance too.

  ‘Do the dragon, do the dragon,’ Lolli squealed.

  And before I could reply, Dad had leaped onto the sofa, spread out his arms, thrown back his head and was roaring as loud as he could.

  Now, it wasn’t just hatching dragons I was looking after. I had something else hidden in my room that needed my care and attention. Quite a few somethings in fact. So leaving them to it, I headed upstairs.

  I went straight over to my windowsill and peered down at the row of pots I’d lined up. Each one had a tiny se
edling poking out. I groaned when I saw that four of the seedlings were lying limp and shrivelled. I tried lifting one up as I poured a little more water into the tiny pot, but as soon as I let go it flopped back down.

  There was a small roar behind me and I turned to see Lolli in the doorway, in her best dragon pose.

  ‘I’m an ice-cream dragon,’ she giggled. Then seeing my sagging shoulders, she hurried over. ‘I’m not a scary dragon,’ she said apologetically.

  I smiled. ‘It’s OK, Lolli, it’s not you. It’s these.’ And I held up one of the seedlings. ‘I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong,’ I said sadly. ‘All I know is I don’t have Grandad’s green fingers.’

  ‘Are they sunflowers?’ she asked, studying the little seedlings. ‘I got a sunflower that grew this big.’ And she flung her arm skywards and stood on tiptoe.

  ‘No,’ I said, and then, checking no one was out in the hall, I whispered, ‘they’re dragon-fruit trees.’

  Lolli’s eyes went wide and she clapped her hands.

  I went on. ‘Do you remember how Liam found a dragon-fruit tree at the botanic garden?’

  She nodded and said seriously, ‘Maxi breathed on all the fruit and all the little dragons grew.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Well, the thing is, that breath of Maxi’s didn’t just activate the fruit, it activated the seeds. Every time a dragon burst from a fruit, think of all those seeds being scattered.’

  Her face screwed up and she stared at her fingers, obviously trying to do some important maths.

  ‘Only seeds that have been breathed on by a special dragon like Maxi will ever become dragon-fruit trees that can grow dragons. So they’re really important. That’s a lot of little trees on the floor of that glasshouse, which might one day hatch dragons. We couldn’t just leave them there. So we’ve been hunting for the seedlings, collecting them, and –’

  She let out a squeak. ‘You brunged them here?’

  Now it was my turn to nod. ‘The trouble is, dragon-fruit trees are really, really hard to grow.’ I sighed.