The Boy Who Sang with Dragons Page 4

  The next day on the way to school, Aura came racing up to me, her hair looking even more messy than usual.

  ‘Tomas,’ she hissed, ‘we need to talk.’ And she dragged me out of the way of Kayin and her mum, who was wrestling a double buggy past some wheelie bins that were blocking the pavement.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Is Rosebud OK?’ I glanced upwards and then peered into Aura’s jacket. She shook me off. ‘She’s at home, she’s fine. It’s nothing like that. It’s Mamma.’

  I must have looked even more alarmed, but she waved it away.

  ‘She’s fine too. Well, sort of. Oh, I don’t know. Is someone fine if they can’t see what’s right in front of them?’

  I stared blankly at her. I was used to Aura talking fast, but right now it was like the words were in an Olympic sprint to get out of her mouth.

  ‘Slow down,’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I asked her,’ Aura said. ‘About Amma living in your grandparents’ house. A part of me still couldn’t completely believe it, you see. But I told her the address. And it’s true. But then out of nowhere I felt like a dragon had set a fire in my belly. I just got mad. I mean, how could she have sold the house, knowing the dragons were growing and Amma wasn’t there to look after them? She was acting like she didn’t even know what was in her own garden.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t,’ I said.

  ‘How could she not? Amma knew. She showed me the dragons. Why wouldn’t she have shown her own daughter?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I couldn’t believe she’d kept that from me, or that she’d walked away from the dragons. At first I was tiptoeing around, asking what if we’d left something behind, something important. But she insisted that it was just a house and a garden. So then . . .’ She paused. ‘Then I did something you’re not going to like.’

  I looked at her and she bit the corner of her lip.

  ‘I asked her straight out about the dragons. About Amma growing dragons and looking after them.’

  ‘Aura!’ I cried. ‘How could you?!’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. The thing is, she just smiled. And started acting as if they were just Amma’s stories.’

  For a second I relaxed. Until Aura spoke again.

  ‘So I did something you’re really not going to like.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I did a blurt,’ she said. ‘Like you did when you showed me Zing.’

  I took a step back, remembering how I’d got cross and stormed into my room with a bemused Aura trailing behind and flung the toy box open. To prove a point.

  ‘What did you do?’ I stared at her waiting for the words to drop like concrete bricks on my feet.

  ‘I showed her Rosebud,’ Aura said. She was biting her whole lip now and her face had escalated to way beyond even a grinace.

  ‘You what?’ I spluttered.

  ‘Hold on,’ Aura pleaded. ‘That’s not the thing.’

  ‘That’s quite a Thing,’ I blustered. ‘Giving up the secret of the dragons. That’s a giant-sized Thing with a capital “TH”. What were you thinking?’

  ‘She didn’t see Rosebud,’ Aura said quietly.

  ‘Good. Well, at least that’s something,’ I said, still cross.

  ‘No, I mean she didn’t see her. Rosebud was right there on my hand and Mamma was looking directly at her. She even fluttered all around her head! But Mamma didn’t – I don’t know, couldn’t – see her.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Aura agreed. ‘Nor do I. It was like Rosebud just didn’t exist for her.’

  11

  Zing Leads the Way

  During school, at every possible opportunity, Aura unleashed question after question about Elvi and Arturo. She’d spent the whole evening poring over her grandmother’s diaries. I have to admit it had been a bit of a wrench, handing over the box of Elvi’s things before we left Nana and Grandad’s the previous day. But they clearly belonged to Aura now, so what could I do?

  ‘We have to find out if there are any more things hidden away,’ she said over the lunch table in an urgent hushed voice. ‘I want to know why Mamma can’t see the dragons. Maybe something happened to her? And maybe Amma knew. She might have written about it. There just has to be another hiding place in the house or garden. Perhaps I’ll remember something if we go back again. It’s worth a try.’

  When the bell finally rang, we all rushed straight to Nana and Grandad’s. I didn’t need convincing to go hunting again. I wasn’t sure Rosebud’s breath had helped the seedling. In fact, one of the leaves was already going brown around the edges. The sooner we found Arturo’s letters the better. Assuming, of course, that there were letters to be found.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Aura said, as we stood together in the garden. Liam was dangling a magnet in the shape of a cat on a piece of string in front of her face.

  ‘Hypnotising you,’ he declared. ‘To unlock your memories. I’ve seen someone do it on the telly.’

  Aura rolled her eyes and pushed his hand away.

  ‘We found the other things under the floor of the shed,’ I added, ‘but I’ve looked and looked and there’s nothing else there. Can you remember anything? Maybe you saw her hiding stuff?’

  Aura didn’t reply. She was scanning the garden. We waited, watching the concentration on her face finally flicker to frustration.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said sadly. ‘I don’t remember ever seeing her hide anything. Not in the house and not here. I thought it might come flooding back like before, but I just don’t think there is anything to remember.’ She slumped down on the bench. ‘I’m sorry, Tomas.’

  Suddenly Zing zoomed down from a branch and darted past her head, clipping her with one of his wings.

  ‘Ow,’ she said. ‘He buzzed me.’

  I watched Zing as he started dive-bombing the compost heap. Something he’d been doing rather a lot lately, now I came to think of it. He paused, then darted back, and this time he gave me a quick sharp shock, before he zoomed off again. We watched him hopping up and down on the pile of compost, eyes fixed on us. What was he playing at? What was so important about a heap of compost?

  Then my eyes fell on the shed. And suddenly I got it!

  ‘Hang on!’ I cried suddenly. ‘When we were here yesterday, you said there were two sheds. Not one.’

  Ted, Liam and Aura exchanged a look, eyes wide.

  With a jolt I remembered Grandad once saying they’d pulled down another shed when they first moved in, because one of the back panels had been damaged.

  We all raced over to Zing.

  ‘The floor of the shed would have been right underneath the compost heap,’ I said, excitement spilling out like froth from a shaken can. ‘I bet that’s where the hidey hole is!’

  ‘Do you think Zing knew all along?’ Aura said, pointing at the dragon, who was hopping up and down and jabbing at the heap with his tail.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Ted said. ‘Sharks have a sixth sense; they can detect electric charge. Maybe Zing’s like that and could sense what’s buried.’

  ‘He was with me that day I looked under Grandad’s shed,’ I said. ‘And he was acting weird then, flying at the compost. I thought it was just, you know, Zing being Zing.’

  I looked over at him and gave him an apologetic shrug. He flared bright silver and disappeared, only to reappear above my head. His tail batted my arm and a little zap of electricity buzzed me. I laughed. ‘Next time I’ll listen, I promise.’

  ‘Right, who’s going in?’ Liam asked. ‘That stuff reeks.’

  ‘That’s because it’s got manure in there too,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, great,’ Ted said. ‘More poo.’

  Aura and I grabbed a spade each and started digging, heaping the compost into Grandad’s barrow for Ted and Liam to wheel away, while Zing darted to and fro above us. By the time we’d cleared the side nearest the shed, uncovering old wooden floorboards, we were all sweating and groaning and Ted was mumbling
about the lack of cake. I had to admit I could have done with some water and maybe one of Grandad’s caramel toffees.

  ‘I hope you’re right about this,’ Liam said.

  I looked at Zing, who had just flown down and was hopping towards the back of the heap. He paused and then started scratching frantically at the compost.

  ‘I think we’re close,’ I said. ‘OK, Zing,’ I whispered. ‘I’m listening. Let me get in there with my spade.’

  Zing turned, fluttered up and clung to my back. His eyes fixed on the point where my spade had just dug in.

  I pulled it out and Aura and I looked at each other as we heard a scrape of metal on metal.

  ‘There was a handle on the loose floorboard in Grandad’s shed,’ I gasped.

  Aura thrust her spade in and together we cleared the space, revealing the wood underneath. And there, sticking out of one plank, was a metal ring.

  12

  Treasure!

  ‘What is it?’ Liam asked, craning over my shoulder. ‘What’s in there?’

  Having pulled up the wooden board, we were all peering down into a hole. It was bigger than the hole under Grandad’s shed, but this one looked empty. I sank back onto my heels and let out a groan of frustration.

  But then Zing hopped inside the hole, lighting it up as the silver threads in his wings and body flared brightly.

  ‘Look, there,’ Aura said, and she began to scrape away at one side of the hole. Dirt cascaded down over her hands until suddenly we saw the edge of what looked like a wooden box. ‘Help me pull it out,’ she cried.

  I leaned in and together we dragged the box up and out.

  I remembered how exciting it had felt to find the ‘treasure’ buried under Grandad’s shed. As I looked around at Liam, Ted and Aura, I knew this time I wasn’t the only one jiggling.

  No one spoke as we lifted the lid. I reached in and pulled out a stack of letters. Flicking through them I felt a grin bound onto my face like an over-excited puppy.

  ‘They’re from Arturo!’ I squeaked.

  ‘And there’s another diary!’ Aura said, waving a notebook in the air, delighted.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Liam asked pointing at a slightly shrivelled pod-like thing, about the size of my head. ‘Is it a dried-up dragon fruit?’

  I took the pod from him and examined it. ‘I suppose it could be. But it doesn’t look quite the right shape.’

  Ted was shaking a tin to his ear. ‘Hey, there’s something rattling in here.’ He tried to peel the lid off, but let out his breath in a gasp as he failed to undo it.

  He passed the tin to me, and I levered the lid off with the edge of a trowel. Inside were beans. They looked a bit like the coffee beans Mum grinds up to make what she calls ‘proper coffee’.

  ‘Look at this,’ Aura said quietly. ‘It’s a picture of my abuelo.’ She held out a photograph that had slipped from between the pages of the diary. ‘He’s my grandfather,’ she added, showing the picture to Liam and Ted.

  I took the photo from her and stared down at it. A man with short black hair and a wide smile was standing outside a house, one hand on a fence and the other resting on the shoulder of another man with a close-cropped beard. A man I recognised.

  ‘That’s Arturo,’ I said.

  ‘So they did know each other,’ Ted said.

  ‘I guess so.’

  I opened my rucksack and slid Arturo’s letters inside. Then I looked up and saw Aura watching me.

  ‘Just for tonight, so I can read them,’ I explained, suddenly wondering if I actually had the right to take them away.

  ‘OK, great. I’ll have plenty to read with this,’ Aura replied. She’d already turned back to the diary and was flicking through it. She paused, then held it up, a finger pointing to a drawing on one of the pages.

  ‘I don’t believe it – it’s the dragon,’ she said. ‘The one I always draw. The one with four wings.’

  I stared at the pencil sketch in the diary. She was right. It looked exactly like the dragon I’d seen in the pictures stuck up all over Aura’s bedroom walls.

  I swallowed the rather large lump in my throat and felt it sink down into the hollow pit of my stomach.

  It was clearer than ever that Aura’s history with the dragons went back long before I ever came into the garden.

  13

  Doubts and Dumplings

  That night I had a dream. I was in Grandad’s garden. I could see the fruit trees reaching their crooked arms out towards me, and feel the brambly fingers of the hedge scratching at my coat as I stood on the fringe of the veggie plot.

  Aura was over by the dragon-fruit tree. Dragons flew all around her, flitting past her head and landing on her outstretched hands.

  She was laughing in delight.

  I opened my mouth to call to her and tried to go to join her by the tree, but my voice sounded tiny, like a weeny ant with a sore throat. And my feet were heavy with mud, rooting me to the spot.

  All I could do was watch as dragon after dragon flew to her, their sparks dancing in the air, leaving me forgotten on the sidelines, slowly disappearing under a tangle of weeds.

  OK, so sometimes dreams can be weird and difficult to fathom, but other times they’re crystal clear. Waking up, I knew that Liam’s words had sown a seed in my head, a seed that had quickly grown into that tangle of weeds. Was he right? Would Aura take her rightful crown as Queen of the Dragons? After all, she was Elvi’s granddaughter. And they had grown dragons long before we had. It was her tree. Her dragons.

  Before my head took me places I didn’t want to go, I needed to talk to someone about all this. And I knew just who that someone was. Two someones in fact. I looked at my watch: 5.50 a.m. Good. Kat and Kai should be on their lunch break. With the time difference, we’d had to work out when we could talk on the computer. And luckily first thing in the morning was one of those times.

  I sent a request and waited, tapping the table.

  Zing flew down and clung to my back, his head resting against my neck and his tail thumping me gently. His wings were spread out so I could see the tips of them sprouting from my shoulders. As the twins appeared on screen, I waved, letting out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Hello from Suzhou,’ Kat said.

  ‘All right?’ I replied. ‘What’s up with Kai?’ I said watching him wince his way through a mouthful of his lunch. ‘Don’t you like the food there or something?’

  ‘The opposite.’ Kat laughed. ‘He burned his mouth on a shengjian bao at breakfast this morning. Couldn’t cram it in fast enough.’

  Kai mumbled something.

  ‘Yeah, I like dumplings too, but that’s not why Tomas is calling us. Look at him, it’s like he’s been sat on by that Tyrannodragon and then had a poo explode all over him. What’s happened, Tomas?’

  I told them all about Aura and Elvi and how we’d unearthed the rest of the things Elvi had hidden.

  ‘So Aura’s really Elvi’s granddaughter? That’s amazing,’ Kat exclaimed, and Kai nodded.

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘Really amazing.’

  Kat’s face loomed large as she peered into the screen. It took me by surprise and I leaned away, almost falling backwards off my chair.

  ‘You’re worried, aren’t you?’ she said.

  There was no point hiding it. I nodded.

  ‘What about?’

  It was a good question. What exactly was making my stomach so squirmy? It was probably time I had a good look, rather than just shoving the uncomfortable feelings I’d been living with under the rug and pretending they weren’t there at all.

  ‘I found the tree in Grandad’s garden,’ I said slowly. ‘And now . . . Well, what if Aura wants to take it away? I mean, it was Elvi’s garden after all. And she was her grandma. Really the tree belongs to Aura.’

  ‘Come on, Tomas. It doesn’t belong to anyone,’ Kat said. ‘I get it, I really do, but from what you’ve said, I don’t think Aura sees it like that at all. You can trust her. Just like Elvi trusted Artu
ro.’

  ‘Course you can,’ Kai insisted. ‘Now shut up and listen to this. We’ve found dragons!’

  As my eyes widened, Kat elbowed him and laughed.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘For real?’

  ‘Well, maybe,’ Kai said sheepishly. ‘Once upon a time.’

  It turned out that when Crystal and Dodger had found their way to the twins, they had flown them over Shanghai, landing in the Yuyuan Garden.

  ‘The garden is so beautiful,’ Kat said. ‘There are all these bridges and colourful pagodas and –’

  ‘And dragon walls,’ butted in Kai.

  Kat looked at him crossly. ‘Can I ever just finish my own sentence?’

  ‘We’ve seen plenty of dragon fruits too,’ Kai went on. ‘They sell them at the market. And we saw a tree poking over the wall of someone’s garden.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘I don’t think any of them are active,’ Kat said quickly.

  ‘Not that we know about,’ Kai piped up. ‘But who knows what we’ll find? I’m leaving no dragon-fruit tree unchecked for as long as we’re here!’

  14

  Is That a Dragon on Your Head?

  Although I’m used to seeing my mum with a cockatoo on her head, I still wasn’t prepared to see Aura’s mum with a dragon on hers.

  When I called round at their house on Sunday, Rosa opened the door wearing a brightly patterned dress and a yellow beret with Rosebud sitting comfortably on top of the hat. My eyes flicked to Aura, who was half tumbling down the stairs towards us, fizzy with excitement.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ Rosa asked, touching the sides of her beret.

  ‘Er . . . yes,’ I said, realising I’d been staring at her head.

  Rosa closed the door and turned to admire her hat in the hall mirror.

  ‘Are you sure she can’t see Rosebud?’ I whispered to Aura, who was grinning widely.

  ‘Positive,’ she said. ‘Watch this.’

  She lifted a hand and Rosebud launched herself off Rosa’s head and flew to and fro right in front of her. The little dragon even did a somersault, but Rosa didn’t bat an eyelid.