by Liz Trenow
‘Quiet, Sarge,’ Eli commanded, and the dog slunk back into the shadow of the hut. ‘Take no notice of ’im, ’e’s a real softie once he git ta know you.’ He spoke in that soft Suffolk accent I was slowly learning to interpret. ‘This little lady summat to do with you, laddie?’
‘He’s my brother.’
The dog raised its head and gazed at me with yellow eyes, still growling quietly.
‘You’re that new vicar’s kiddies, ain’t ya? What’re your names, my friends?’
‘I’m Molly, and this is Jimmy.’
‘And I’m Eli,’ the man said. ‘Short for Elijah the prophet, though if I could tell the future, we’d all be rich.’ He chuckled with a deep bronchitic rattle. ‘My folks was strict Chapel,’ he added, as though that explained everything. ‘Anyways, you is most welcome to my ’umble abode on this fine day. Can I get you summat? A cuppa perhaps? I’ve just made a fresh brew. Maybe I could find a biscuit too.’
As he disappeared into the darkness of the shed, the dog growled again, more menacingly this time. ‘Thank you, Mr Eli, but we ought to be on our way,’ I said, grabbing Jimmy’s arm. ‘C’mon, we should go.’
But the word ‘biscuit’ had worked its magic on my brother. He pulled free, climbed the steps and sat down firmly on the bench. When Eli re-emerged, Jimmy accepted a mug of tea and immediately began to sip it, giving little grunts of pleasure.
‘Go on, try it. It’s sweetened with honey,’ Eli said, holding a mug out to me, using his other hand to steady his tremor.
The mug didn’t look that clean, but good manners wouldn’t allow me to refuse and I took a tentative sip. It was delicious: sweet and aromatic, nothing like the bitter brown liquid Mrs D brewed at home.
I began to relax, a little. Here in the woods I saw Eli the gravedigger through new eyes. The old brown tweed topcoat, tied at the waist with string, blended perfectly with the colours of the woodland. The long white beard seemed to give him an air of wisdom. Given a red suit, he might have passed for a scruffy Father Christmas.
He returned inside and came back with a tin that turned out to contain flapjacks. ‘Little treat for me visitors,’ he said, offering them to us.
It had been a long time since breakfast, and hunger overcame any qualms.
‘Here, ease your legs, lassie,’ he said, producing a curious-looking footrest. ‘Thass an old milking stool. Them three legs is designed for rough ground. Gew on, try it.’
He and Jimmy sat on the bench while I squatted on the surprisingly comfortable little seat, and for a few moments the three of us munched on our flapjacks, listening to the birds. The dog rested his chin on his paws and went back to sleep. I sipped my tea, wondering what Eli did with himself when not tidying the churchyard or digging graves – an infrequent demand in such a small village. He never socialised with the other members of the congregation after church. It must have been a lonely existence, living in the woods, but he seemed happy enough. Perhaps he liked the solitude.
‘Pa says you help keep the graveyard tidy and dig the graves sometimes,’ I said, to make conversation.
He shrugged. ‘It keep me busy, even if me old bones sometimes feel ready for the grave ’emselves. Your father’s a good soul. He give me regular money – not like that other fella, who only paid when some’un died.’
He puffed some more on his pipe. I followed his eyes as he glanced round his little glade. Here the trees grew more sparsely and shafts of sunlight glimmered through the early green foliage, patterning the carpet of last year’s fallen leaves on the woodland floor, which was dotted with bluebells and the purple spikes of what I’d later learn were wood orchids.
‘And where’s you two off to this fine day?’ he said.
‘See dra . . . dragon,’ Jimmy said. That hadn’t been part of my plan, and Jimmy hadn’t mentioned dragons for a few weeks, but seeing Eli must have reminded him.
The old man began to laugh with a wheeze that caught in his throat and became a full-blown coughing fit. I remembered what Mrs D had said about him having been gassed in the First World War. At last he caught his breath and wiped his eyes.
‘There’s more to this laddie than meets the eye,’ he said, ruffling my brother’s hair. Normally Jimmy would have hated it, but somehow with Eli he didn’t mind. ‘He remembers what I told ’im weeks ago. In the churchyard, wasn’t it, laddie?’
‘It’s only a fairy story,’ I said quickly.
Eli chuckled again. ‘You’s right, Missy. Some people say I oughta keep them stories to meself. But there don’t seem no harm in ’em.’ He adjusted his old felt hat and packed his pipe again. ‘Course, it weren’t no proper dragon, anyroads.’
‘Then what was it?’ I was intrigued, despite myself.
Eli put his mug down and carefully rested his long clay pipe beside it. ‘Well, it gew a bit like this,’ he began, adjusting his hat.
Jimmy gazed up at him, open-mouthed in expectation.
‘They say that long, long ago, back in what they call the Middle Ages, someone give the king a present what he’d brought back from Africa. Everyone thought it were a dragon, cos they’d never seen a crocodile ’afore. He kep’ it in the Tower of London and fed it plenty, till it grow bigger and bigger.’
Eli held his palms wider and wider apart until he could reach no further, and Jimmy’s eyes threatened to pop out of his head.
‘Eventually that old beast got strong enough to break out of its cage and escape into the River Thames.’
He filled the pipe, struck a match on the sole of his boot and held it to the bowl, took a deep draw and exhaled, resting back against the wall of the hut.
‘That poor old king was sorry to lose his pet and offered rewards, but nothing was seen of the creature for months, until some’un saw it just down there.’ He pointed down the hill. ‘Reckoned it swam down the Thames, along the coast and up our little ole river. Believe that and you’ll believe anything, but that’s how the story gew.’
We were both entranced. Eli was a gifted storyteller.
‘Anyroad, it soon started terrifyin’ the village folk and they tried to kill it, of course, but their arrows jus’ bounced off its tough old hide. Somehow rumour spread that it could only be pacified by feeding it humans. It seemed to like young girls specially . . .’
He paused for effect. By now I had goosebumps.
‘Eventually a knight come along and offered to slay the dragon – or crocodile, whichever way you want it. Some claim he was successful and the villagers was eternally grateful. But others say the creature was only injured and crawled into the Mere for safety, and it’s been there ever since.’
‘Has anyone ever claimed to have seen it, in recent times?’
‘Not that I knows of, anyroads. But they do say that if it is ever disturbed, it’ll bring evil to the village.’ He tapped his pipe against the sole of his boot so fiercely I feared he might snap it. ‘Not that there ain’t already plenty of that, round these parts.’
‘And has it been disturbed?’
‘Someone said they saw bubblin’ in the water the day afore them bombs.’
‘Bombs? In Wormley?’
‘In 1940, it was. They reckon the bomber was jess tryin’ ta find his way back to Germany and decided to drop his payload to lighten the plane. Two of ’em fell beside the church and blew out the stained glass – thass why them winders is just plain these days. Personally I like ’em – brings a bit of sunlight inta the place.’
‘Heavens. Was anyone hurt, Mr Eli?’
His voice dropped to a near-whisper. ‘It destroyed me cottage, and me wife along with it. She died there and then.’
‘How dreadful. I’m so sorry.’ I fell into shocked silence.
‘Thass all right, lassie. Yous get used to these things. We bin ’ere in the woods ever since. Ten years now. Still, we get along all right, don’t we, Sarge?’ he said, leaning down to stroke the dog’s head. ‘Despite what they say.’
I was about to ask him what ‘they’ said,
when Jimmy jumped in: ‘Water bubbling?’
Eli grinned. ‘You do like that ole story, little fella,’ he said. ‘Like a limpet, you is. Well, I’ll explain. The old dragon lives deep down under the water, farther than anyone can measure, cos the lake’s supposed to be bottomless. Anyways, they says it’s jess biding time and, if it’s disturbed, it’ll come up again to punish us.’
Jimmy’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
‘It’s only a fairy story, Jim,’ I said quickly.
‘Course it is, laddie,’ Eli added. ‘That’s just a bit of ole folklore, boy.’
Eli’s storytelling inspired me. That evening I took out my large notebook and began to write it down, exactly as he’d told it. But somehow, on the page, without his Suffolk accent and inflections, without the trees and the birds all around us, it felt flat and dull. I tore it up and started again.
Two hours later, I had tried various different ways of telling the story – attempting to reproduce Eli’s dialect, writing it in the first person, and reimagining it as a children’s story – and the waste-paper basket was filling fast. And then it came to me: I would write it as a story for Jimmy, starring himself. The Ugly Dragon was born.
THE UGLY DRAGON
by Molly Goddard
Chapter 1: Jimmy meets the dragon
Once upon a time there was a young boy named Jimmy, who was longing to meet a dragon. When he learned that there might be one hiding in a nearby lake he pestered his sister to go with him, because he knew he was not allowed to go on his own.
Each time they visited he would call out: ‘Are you there, dragon? Come and see us.’
Nothing appeared. But they returned day after day until, one hot afternoon, the still surface of the water seemed to ripple and a strange-looking head appeared. It was greenish-black with two big eyes on either side of its forehead, and a very, very long snout topped with two large nostrils. Its mouth was filled with hundreds of sharp white teeth and seemed set in a permanent grin.
Jimmy was a very brave boy and did not run away. He just said: ‘Hello, Mr Dragon.’
‘Miss, actually,’ she said. ‘But you weren’t to know. Can I join you?’
She hauled herself out of the water and settled down beside him. It was a scary sight: she was six foot long and reminded him very much of a picture in one of his storybooks. She had short, sturdy legs, lumpy spines all down her back and a long tapering tail. But somehow Jimmy did not feel afraid.
He told her what his friend Eli had said about the dragon in the lake. ‘But you look more like a crocodile to me.’
To his surprise, her eyes filled with huge tears, the size of marbles.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said.
She shook her head, flinging the tears away, and clattering her teeth alarmingly. ‘It’s been like this ever since they took me from my river in Africa. They told the king that I was a dragon, and at first he was very proud of me, showing me off to all his courtiers. But when I overheard them laughing, saying, “What an ugly dragon,” it made me sad.
‘After a while the king decided that he didn’t want an ugly dragon that people laughed at, so he threw me out of the palace. I managed to find a river and swam and swam till I found this place. It’s quiet here, and no one bothers me.’
‘So why are you so sad?’
‘I don’t want to be ugly. I just want to be normal, like any other dragon.’
7
On the last day of the spring term we finished early and Dinah, one of the girls from my maths class, said they were going to a coffee bar to meet boys from the local grammar school. Why didn’t I join them? she suggested. The others were all friends and, although they acknowledged me perfectly politely, soon resumed their conversations: the boys talking about the chances of success for Colchester United the following weekend; the girls gossiping about other girls, homework and clothes. But I didn’t mind too much; I was happy to sit and listen – until one of the boys, Frank, who seemed a little older than the rest, with a wispy ginger growth on his chin and upper lip, turned to me.
‘So where have you popped up from, Molly?’
‘I live in Wormley. My father’s the new vicar.’
‘How come we haven’t seen you around before now?’
‘We only moved here just before Christmas.’
‘Where did you live before?’
All these questions. Was he really interested or was he simply being kind?
‘London,’ I said.
‘Wow.’ He seemed impressed. ‘Did you stay there all through the war, with the bombs and everything? We had a few dropped around here, but nothing like you got in London.’
‘Actually we moved out to stay with an aunt when my dad went off to France, but we came back after the war.’
‘It must be quite a shock, moving to a sleepy little place like Wormley.’ He addressed another boy across the table. ‘Hey, Bingley, isn’t that where your friend lives?’
‘Where?’
‘Wormley.’
‘Yes, Kit Waddington. Why?’
They had my full attention now.
‘Molly lives there too. Her dad’s the vicar.’
‘Have you met Kit yet?’
‘Only briefly, at Christmas. They live in the big house. Aren’t they rather grand?’
‘His pa does something fancy in the City and is rich as Croesus, but it’s his ma who inherited the place, apparently. Kit’s quite a character. Knew him at prep school. Brilliant at sport and public speaking, not massively well-endowed in the brains department. Bit bonkers – never could rely on him. Didn’t pass the eleven-plus into the grammar, so they sent him off to a posh boarding school.’
Dinah nudged me with her elbow and whispered, ‘Made a hit there, Molly.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
She tilted her head towards Frank, sitting two away, and raised her eyebrow. ‘With Frank. Can’t you tell?’
‘Tell what?’
‘Oh, you are such an innocent. He fancies you like crazy, you dolt.’
The truth was, I had not the slightest interest in Frank. My head was filled with thoughts of Kit. So it seemed as though fate was on my side when, at breakfast the following day, Pa was flicking through the pile of brown envelopes – bills – with a series of quiet sighs, until he pulled out a different-shaped letter in heavy cream bond.
‘Whatever can this be?’ He slit open the top with a knife and pulled out a single sheet of paper, putting on his half-glasses to read. ‘Heavens. It’s from the Waddingtons. They’ve invited us for tea.’
‘Us – you mean all of us?’ I immediately felt nervous and excited, all at once. ‘Jimmy too? Will it be just our family, do you think, or other people too?’
‘I have no idea, my darling. We’ll just have to wait and see.’
Most of that morning was spent trying on and discarding various items of clothing and despairing of finding anything suitable that was smart enough, yet not too formal, or too warm or too chilly for the changeable spring weather. Finally I hit on a compromise: a skirt on which Mrs D had already worked her charms, reshaping it into a more modern pencil design and lowering the hem, paired with a blouse that had once been Mum’s and wasn’t too tight across the chest. Then I spent ages in front of the mirror examining my face, and made a disastrous attempt at shaping my eyebrows with Mother’s old tweezers. They ended up looking even more wonky than before.
Mrs D caught me trying to straighten my hair with the clothes iron.
‘Heavens, girl, whatever are you doing?’
I slammed down the iron, feeling foolish. ‘Trying to get rid of my curls.’ The picture on the cover of one of my romance novels showed a glamorous woman with long, wavy hair falling over her shoulders.
‘You’ll do that soon enough if you scorch them to a frazzle, dearie,’ she said. ‘And what’s wrong with them lovely curls?’
‘They’re childish,’ I said, feeling even sillier.
Mrs D put down her
bucket with a kindly sigh and went out into the scullery. She returned with her basket and took out a magazine, then sat at the kitchen table turning the pages until she reached the photograph of a beautiful woman with short, dark curly hair.
‘Jean Simmons. One of our most successful actresses – a huge hit in Hollywood these days. Would you say she looks childish?’
‘No, but my hair doesn’t look anything like hers.’
She examined me, tilting my head with a finger. ‘True, but it wouldn’t take too much. Have you got any kirby grips?’
Within quarter of an hour my hair was dampened and coiled into sections pinned flat to my head. Now all we had to do was wait until it dried. Mrs D didn’t actually explain why forcing it into curls would make it less curly, but she was right, as she so often was. A couple of hours later she took out the hairpins and gently brushed and stroked my hair into what were now gentle waves rather than tight curls. It looked so much more sophisticated, and even distracted attention from the wonky eyebrows.
Wormley Hall was possibly the prettiest house in the whole world, but it hid its charms behind a long winding driveway with tall hedges. Although I had already glimpsed its tall brick chimneys peeping over the tops of the trees, nothing prepared me for what came into view as we walked round the last bend of the drive.
‘It’s a moat, Pa!’ I almost shouted. ‘With water in it and everything.’
Jimmy rushed ahead and I chased after him, as best I could in my tight skirt. A family of ducks scattered, rising into the air with a noisy chorus of alarm calls. ‘Nothing like advertising our arrival,’ Pa said.
Most people think beauty lies in symmetry. At least that’s what women’s magazines say about faces. But Wormley Hall disproves the point. It is all higgledy-piggledy, with extra bits added on over the centuries: a porch here, a double-stacked chimney there, a couple of dormer windows in that roofline, a single-storey outhouse to the side.
If you stopped to count the windows – I’m guessing about thirty, just on the side we approached from – you might begin to comprehend the size of the place. But all the little additions seem to conceal its real scale, and even though it is large, the house doesn’t look overly grand or self-important, in the way of some mansions. It just appears friendly and inviting. The red brick has aged and mellowed over the years, and that afternoon it glowed in the sun with such warmth and character that it seemed to emit an inner beauty of its own.
