The Boy Who Lived with Dragons

by Andy Shepherd

  Flicker flitted down and settled on my shoulder. His tail batted to and fro and I could feel the heat from his little body. He was getting hotter and hotter. Either he was as agitated as I was or he was about to unleash a fiery sneeze.

  But then suddenly, instead of edging closer to where we were all crouched and carrying on his investigation, Liam yelped like he’d been stung and we heard his footsteps crashing away in the other direction. I let out my breath in a relieved whimper and sank back onto the ground. Flicker nibbled my ear and wrapped his tail around my neck, as his scales, which had flared orange, returned to their familiar red.

  ‘Ha! Serves him right,’ Kat said. ‘Bet those nasty stinging nettles zapped him.’

  Ted’s cheeks deflated as a barrage of s’more splattered out of his mouth. ‘That was too close,’ he wheezed.

  I nodded. If Liam ‘King of Trouble’ ever found out about the dragons – well, I didn’t want to think about what might happen.

  ‘You know, maybe we shouldn’t take the dragons into school tomorrow?’ I said.

  It was something we’d been talking about for the past couple of days. Flicker had always been quite happy to curl up in my room and wait for me to come home. I missed him of course, and there was always a certain amount of damage to clear up, but with Liam’s beady eyes locked on me it had felt like the safest option. The others wanted to keep their dragons with them all the time though. And I didn’t like the idea of being the only one of us without my dragon. But seeing Liam again made me wonder if we should risk it.

  ‘I think we’re better off keeping them with us,’ Ted said.

  ‘Yeah, come on, Tomas, they’ll be fine,’ Kai said. ‘I’m not letting Liam spoil things. What could go wrong?’

  As it turned out – quite a lot.

  By the time we got to school the next day – and after a lot of debate – we’d decided to stash the dragons in our rucksacks in the walk-in art cupboard just off the main hall. First in through the school gates, we flashed Mrs Muddleton, our head teacher, our widest, most innocent, ‘we’re not really up to anything and are just here on time for once because we’re super-keen to learn’ faces. Of course, by the look on her face she might not have picked up on all of that. But it was enough to make her cast her glance elsewhere and leave us to duck in through the door to the hall, rather than carry on towards our classroom.

  Checking there was no one about to see, Kat pulled the cupboard door open and we all stared in. It was a bit of a mess, chock-full of paint trays and brushes and crates full of cardboard for junk modelling. We made a space near the back, behind some boxes full of cereal packets, then put some huge art folders and a box robot made by the Year One kids in front of the rucksacks.

  ‘Come on, Tomas,’ Kat said, as I lingered by my bag.

  ‘Do you think they’ll be OK in here?’ I asked.

  ‘Course,’ Ted said. ‘I brought enough snacks to keep them all quiet for a week, let alone till lunchtime.’

  ‘You mean the snacks I saw you chomping your way through on the way to school?’ laughed Kat.

  Ted looked sheepish, but before I could check on the dragons’ remaining supplies Kai piped up.

  ‘They’ll be fine. But we won’t be, if we’re late for class. Come on, hurry up, you lot.’

  So whispering a reluctant farewell to Flicker I followed the others out of the cupboard and hurried into class. I just hoped Liam’s beady eyes were pointed in any direction other than at us today. And I hoped everyone was right and that the dragons would be OK until lunchtime when we could take them down to the end of the field and let them out for a quick fly. If I’m honest, there seemed to be a lot of hoping going on. Hoping things wouldn’t go wrong. Hoping we didn’t get found out. Hoping we didn’t run into trouble. But of course run into trouble we did – smacked headlong into it, in fact. Because as it turned out, trouble was just around the corner.

  It was a few minutes before lunch and we were late back from PE. Ted and I were hurrying to catch up with the rest of the class, while Kat waited for Kai, hissing at him to get a wriggle on. As we turned the corner to pass the staff room we ran into Mrs Fear – I know, great name for a teacher, right? She was actually one of the nicest, despite her name. She was talking to Mr Woddle, the caretaker. Or she was until Ted bounced off her and landed in a heap on the floor.

  ‘This is why we don’t run, boys. Now run along to class.’

  We looked at her, waiting for her to cotton on to what she’d just said and laugh or something. But she was completely unaware and returned her attention to the caretaker.

  ‘But how would a duck get into the art cupboard, Mr Woddle?’

  ‘How should I know that? All I know is a duck has been dancing its way all over that cupboard. And it’s a right old mess.’

  Mrs Fear gave a little sigh.

  ‘Right, let’s have a look then, shall we?’

  Kat and Kai had caught up with us just in time to hear the jist of the story. And as Mrs Fear and Mr Woddle headed off down the corridor, the four of us stared at each other in horror.

  ‘One of them must have escaped and got into the paints,’ Kat gasped.

  ‘I bet we can guess who,’ I said.

  Sunny was always hungry, and no doubt had decided he’d had enough of waiting for us to return with the next snack.

  Kat suddenly gave a blood-curdling shriek and started staggering down the corridor after Mrs Fear and Mr Woddle’s retreating backs. Me, Ted and Kai looked at her as if she’d gone completely bonkers, as the grown-ups spun round.

  ‘Kat!’ Mrs Fear said, shocked. ‘Whatever has got into you?’

  Now, Kat was quite the actress. She’d been lead in the school play for the last three years, and here’s why. She could go from zero to ‘convincing hysteria’ in about three seconds flat. She winked at us and we quickly realised what she was up to.

  ‘Oh, miss, it was horrible,’ Kat wailed. She was only just managing to get her words out through huge gasping sobs. ‘I hate them, you see. I’m terrified of them.’

  ‘Of what?’ Mrs Fear said, as Kat clung to her arm. I was so impressed I was even starting to worry for her myself until Ted kicked my foot and made a very obvious nodding movement for us to get away.

  ‘Pigeons, miss.’ And here Kat gave another drawn-out sob, accompanied by a dramatic shudder. ‘And this one flew right at me.’

  ‘A pigeon?’

  ‘Yes, a pigeon. It attacked me. And I can’t stand birds, I really can’t. Oh, miss, it flapped right at my hair, and I’m sure it was chasing me. And it must have been some kind of mutant pigeon, because it had a purple head and yellow feathers. Is it still there? Can you see it?’

  Mrs Fear sighed, put her arm around the inconsolable Kat and turned to Mr Woddle.

  ‘It looks as if we do have a little feathered friend on the loose, Mr Woddle. Not quite a duck, but it seems you were on the right lines.’

  Ted, Kai and I hurried away in the opposite direction, trying not to break into fits of giggles.

  ‘The attack of the killer mutant pigeon,’ laughed Ted. ‘Good one, Kat.’

  ‘Genius,’ Kai agreed.

  When we opened the door we found the space had been completely redecorated in rainbow colours and was covered in dragon footprints. Dodger was chewing happily on the ears of the box robot, which had been decorated with sweet wrappers and obviously still had the scent of something delicious on them. He had upset an easel with paint pots and his scales were now speckled orange, lime green and red, and his claws and tail were dripping paint.

  But there was no sign of the other dragons. We searched the cupboard in a panic, but they weren’t in the rucksacks or hiding away in any of the boxes.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Ted hissed, while Kai bundled Dodger back into his bag. ‘The door was shut the whole time; they couldn’t have got out.’

  And then I saw the hole high up in the wall of the cupboard. Where the grille covering an air vent was hanging loose.

>   ‘Look!’ I pointed. ‘They must have got out through there.’

  Before I could clamber up and peer through we heard an ear-splitting shriek, quickly followed by the sound of something metal clattering to the floor.

  We hurried out into the corridor. There was another clatter and Liam came flying out of the double doors at the far end and ran right past us, clutching his rucksack to his chest.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ Kai hissed. ‘Not like him to miss an opportunity to get us into trouble.’

  ‘Yeah. What’s his game? I bet he’s up to something really evil,’ said Ted. ‘Lulling us into a false sense of security while he hatches his ultimate dastardly plan.’

  But we didn’t have time to wonder about the inner workings of Liam’s mind or what his evil plan might be, because just then the double doors burst open again and Mrs Battenberg the cook came charging through.

  ‘Bat!’ she howled as she sprinted past us. ‘There’s a great flapping bat in the canteen!’

  ‘The dragons!’ I hissed. We raced off down the corridor and as we skidded into the canteen splodges of mashed potato hit us in the face. Sunny was sitting in a tray of the stuff, his tail flicking great lumps of it into the air as he burrowed his way through the rest. Meanwhile, Crystal had successfully iced the entire kitchen counter and was happily devouring the fish pie. I looked around for Flicker, but couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Mrs Battenberg’s prize herbs in their little individual plant pots, usually so neat and well cared for, were strewn across the floor. Soil and long dangly roots were scattered everywhere.

  Kat, who had come running in behind us, picked up one of the plants and tried to stuff it back into its pot. But it was way too big for the container in her hands. She looked between the plant and the pot, unsure what to do next. In the end she shoved the plant into a saucepan and left it spilling out over the sides.

  ‘What a mess!’ she moaned.

  An upside-down pan started edging its way across the floor towards me. I reached down and lifted it up. Flicker flew out and rose up to perch on my shoulder. I thought for a minute he’d turned a dark brown, until I saw the gravy dripping down my shirt.

  ‘Not you too,’ I said, shaking my head.

  By home-time that day, the story had taken on a life of its own. The imaginary unruly pigeon that had started the whole thing had been transformed into an irate ostrich. An ostrich that had escaped from a local farm and tried to trample Mrs Fear in the corridor as it made its escape from Mr Woddle. He, in turn, had been trying to lasso it with a fire hose. And Mrs Battenberg’s lone bat had become a whole colony of blood-seeking vampire bats that had threatened to attack the whole dinner hall. You know, we probably could have got away with telling the truth and no one would have batted an eyelid in our school. Even so, we didn’t think we’d risk it.

  One thing was clear, if we wanted to keep the dragons, we really needed to find a way to teach them some basic commands. You know like: stop, stay, don’t demolish the fish pie – that kind of thing. We spent the rest of that afternoon at Kat and Kai’s, trying to come up with ideas.

  Because I’d been the one who’d first found the dragon fruit and Flicker, I think everyone expected me to know what to do. But honestly, I was as clueless as the rest of them. Flicker had always come to me and followed me of his own accord, not because I’d trained him to do it.

  I was very aware that I was not fulfilling my role as Grand High DragonMaster. Which meant I needed to up my game and figure this out.

  When you have a dragon, you have to expect the unexpected. So, when Kat and Kai’s mum dropped me off home that day, I wasn’t as surprised as you might think to find what greeted me when I opened the door.

  First off, there was my dad with his head in the downstairs toilet. Then my mum with two ferrets cradled in her arms and a cockatoo clinging to her hair. And finally my little sister, Lolli, shrieking with laughter and running in circles dressed in a pair of gardening gloves and a tutu. A very muddy tutu.

  ‘They’re just here for a few nights so I can keep an eye on them,’ Mum said as the cockatoo launched itself from her head. ‘But I’m afraid these two might have had a disagreement with your dressing gown. Sorry about that, love. Bit of a troublemaker, this one.’ And she stroked the silky fur of the snowy-white ferret who eyed me as beadily as Liam.

  Being a vet, Mum often brought animals home ‘to keep an eye on’. Sometimes they even stayed for months, if they were strays and she had trouble finding them a home.

  ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ I said.

  The truth was, the furry duo had done me a favour. It was Flicker who had destroyed my dressing gown with his treading claws, and I’d been trying to keep it out of sight ever since. I would have pointed the finger at Tomtom – he was getting the blame for a fair bit of dragon damage – but lately our cat had been keeping a very low profile. Probably wise under the circumstances.

  ‘Thanks, love. Oh, by the way, don’t use the loo.’

  I turned and saw Dad, a plunger in his hand, ready to reach down into the stinky depths.

  ‘At least not till Dad’s finished fishing,’ Mum added.

  As usual Dad was plugged into his headphones with the music turned up so loud you could have sung along to it halfway down the garden. He was nodding to the beat so manically I was afraid he would actually lose his head down the toilet as well as the plunger.

  ‘It’s blocked,’ Mum went on. ‘Flooded everywhere.’ She made a face and I realised that, having kicked off my trainers, my socks were now squelching on the carpet. I hastily jumped onto the first step of the stairs.

  I thought of all the dragon poo I had put down the toilet in the last few weeks. As you know, dragon poo is explosive, but only if it dries out. So I’d figured the best thing to do was get to it quick and stick it down the loo. That way it couldn’t detonate. But I always flushed, so surely it couldn’t be that, could it? Then again, I had also hidden a few bits of dragon-destroyed evidence down there. You know the kind of thing: burnt socks, chewed letters, the odd bit of scorched homework.

  I gulped. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the poo if it started blocking the drains.

  Just then Dad shouted, ‘Eureka!’ and started waving a bedraggled sock puppet in the air. Its googly eyes were spinning wildly and its wonky grin was even more wonky now. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was Lolli’s. It looked as if I wasn’t the only one hiding things down the loo.

  I could feel Flicker starting to wriggle in my rucksack, so before I could get roped into ferret-watching or toilet-plunging I hurried away upstairs to my room. Except Lolli saw the rucksack moving and immediately followed me, calling, ‘Mewannaflicka!’ all the way up.

  Lolli was the only other person in the family Flicker had allowed to see him. And she was besotted with the little dragon. And who could blame her really? A real live pocket-sized dragon living right there in your house!

  Flicker was great with her too. He flickered sparkly gold whenever he saw her. And he didn’t even mind when she tried to feed him with her doll’s fake milk bottle or bounced around my room with him stuffed into her jumper like a mummy kangaroo. Sometimes I found him blowing warm breaths on her toes as she drifted off to sleep. And then she’d have an even bigger grin than usual on her always sticky face.

  ‘Mewannaflicka,’ she giggled as she came in after me.

  ‘Just a second,’ I said, lifting Flicker out and settling him on my bed. ‘Give him a chance. He’s been cooped up in there – he probably needs a fly.’

  Sure enough Flicker soared up into the air and started whizzing back and forth. Lolli jumped around madly flapping her arms, trying to take off after him. She chased him, squealing with delight when he sent out little smoke rings for her to bat away.

  I didn’t want Mum hearing the noise. Lolli might be small but she has the footfall of a baby rhino, so in an attempt to calm her down I grabbed a book and waved it at her.

  ‘Story, Lollibob Bobalob?’
I said, using her full nickname to be sure to get her attention. ‘Your favourite.’

  She flapped over and flopped onto my lap, leaning back on me like I was a chair. Her thumb went in to her mouth as Flicker in turn settled on her legs. By the end of the story my bum was completely numb, but at least everyone was calm and I’d been in the house a whole half an hour with no mess to clear up. Which was definitely a result.

  Sadly the lack of mess didn’t last. When we headed down to find some snacks for us, and some broccoli for Flicker, Lolli took my hand and pulled me into the lounge first. From the lack of parental shrieking, I could only think that the ferrets and the toilet had kept Mum and Dad too busy to notice what Lolli had done in there. Because what she had done was make a monumental mess.

  I understood now why her tutu was quite so dirty. In the middle of the carpet was a huge mound of mud. Wet, mucky footprints led in and out of the patio doors to the garden. Several upturned plant pots littered the floor and Lolli’s pirate bucket and spade were lying on the sofa, leaving soil smeared across the cushions.

  ‘What have you done, Lolli?’ I hissed. Lolli and I have this unspoken pact that we stick together. And I owed her big time for keeping Flicker secret and saving the day in Grandad’s garden, back when cabbages were flying and Grim was about to launch another attack. But even I didn’t know how I was going to talk us out of this one.

  ‘Mewannadagon,’ she said with a smile.

  My eyes fell on the mound. There was something sticking out of the top. I leaned forward and pulled it out. It was a pineapple. Now a very dirty pineapple. And suddenly I knew exactly what Lolli had been trying to do. She must have decided a pineapple would be the next best thing to a dragon fruit. And she had planted it, hoping to grow a dragon tree of her own.