Drake the Dragonboy

by Rebecca Schultz

  “I wish there was something I could do to help,” said Drake, tapping his dragon claws on his forehead.

  “Thanks,” said Ronan. Juniper smiled at them both.

  “You know,” said Juniper taking off her cape and flicking her wing buds. “I can feel my wings growing already. It’s making me feel a little bit …” She grinned. “A little bit wild.”

  “Imagine what we are going to be like in a few days!” grinned Drake. Although he was putting on a good show, Drake was having a very difficult time and was so worried about his dad that he was barely sleeping or eating. He really hoped that they were doing the right thing by trying to find him themselves. If it weren’t for Juniper and Drake he would definitely had told his mum by now and asked her to help.

  “I’ve got a great place to hide this stuff,” said Juniper. “And we need to start collecting some food and water to take with us.”

  “We’ll be carrying front packs instead of backpacks with these boofin’ wings,” said Ronan.

  When Drake, Juniper and Ronan met back in the girls’ toilets two days later, they had almost fully grown wings, cramped up beneath their capes. The wings made them feel powerful. Drake had noticed a change in the way the other kids looked at him and treated him since the three of them had begun hanging out. The three of them would stride down the hallways, capes flowing behind them, with a sense of confidence and purpose that was enviable.

  In the safety of the shower, they dropped their capes and excitedly examined each other’s wings. This morning Drake was also wearing knee-high bright red boots that his dad had given him. You pressed a little button and the shoe gave you a whole lot of bounce. He hadn’t worn them to school yet because he’d known the other kids would tease. Today he had felt beyond that and thought that the red boots actually looked pretty good with the red cape. He sort of looked like a superhero.

  “I can’t believe how great they feel,” said Juniper. “And for some reason, they seem to help with my Tourette Syndrome. I’ve really been able to control my fire-breathing lately,” she said excitedly.

  “I can’t believe we’ve had our wings clipped all these years,” said Drake. “And why? Why can’t we have wings and go for a fly every now and again? I’ve never even questioned it!”

  “I know,” agreed Ronan. “There’s a whole lot of stuff that doesn’t make sense. Why cut our wings? Why make us think that there’s nothing but wasteland beyond our city?”

  “Why kidnap my dad?” asked Ronan.

  “What’s your dad like?” asked Juniper, now sitting cross-legged on the floor of the shower. Drake moved down onto the ground next to her and Ronan crouched down on his knees, still towering above both of them.

  “He’s great. He’s super smart. He’s the one who invented the force field that’s up around the city. Before he did that they had some kind of huge plastic wall and people guarding day and night to shoot down any Quintas that came close by.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” said Ronan. “I wonder if that has anything to do with why he was kidnapped.”

  “I dunno,” said Drake, tapping his dragon claws lightly against his chin. “But it does remind me of the other issue we have. How are we going to get through the force field?”

  “I was kind of thinking you’d be able to do it. You are such a technical whiz,” said Juniper. Drake blushed, although he knew being called a technical whiz often wasn’t meant as a compliment. Technology wasn’t that cool at Dragon High School.

  “I’d need to know a bit more about how it works.”

  “Does your dad have any stuff lying about the house?” asked Ronan.

  “He moved out two years ago … but there’s still a filing cabinet in the study that my mum complains about all the time.”

  Drake was rifling through the filing cabinet in the study, completely absorbed in what he was doing. He’d looked through all sorts of weird and wonderful inventions — some of which came to life but many of which only existed in drawings in this cabinet. Drake’s dad had always said that of all your ideas about inventions, only a few will actually happen. That’s how it needs to be. You need to be free just to think up stuff and not worry about whether or not it will work and then sometimes out of all these crazy ideas, something will just work. He pulled out the design his dad had come up with where you add a tiny little camera to a mobile phone and take videos and pictures and send them to each other. He’d been so excited about it. Obsessively so. And so disappointed when he’d taken the designs to work and the elder board members of the company Gerry and Hubert had laughed him out of the room. His dad had still insisted that he was right. Once he got his teeth into an idea, he never let it go. Drake had just got his hands on a file named ‘Force Field’ when the doorknob turned and in walked his mother.

  “What are you doing, baby?” she asked. He wondered how old he’d be before she stopped calling him her baby. He suspected it wouldn’t matter.

  “Ummmmm … just looking at some things of Dad’s.” He let the Force Field file drop down in the cabinet so she didn’t see it.

  “Darling, you do miss him, don’t you? If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you,” she said and he knew she meant it. But he also knew she wouldn’t be able to help saying negative things about his dad if they did talk about him. She didn’t even seem to know she was doing it.

  “I’ve got the plans my dad created for the force field. They were all in his file and I think they’re pretty close to the final version, if not the final versions themselves!”

  “That’s great, Drake!” said Ronan.

  “And have you got any ideas about how to break a hole in it?” asked Juniper anxiously biting her dragon claws. She had her dragon wing glasses pushed back on her head like a hair band.

  “What he’s done, is created what he calls an impenetrable wall of energy,” explained Drake. Juniper gave him a blank look.

  “Nothing can get through it,” translated Ronan. “We already know that,” he said, a little impatiently.

  “It sounds very superhero,” commented Juniper.

  “Yes, that’s what inspired my dad to think of it. He’s very into superheroes. So, what he has done is created a vacuum of space where the atmosphere of Dragonland is kept protected from the outside world … but it seems that certain objects can in fact pass through it.”

  “Oh,” said Juniper. “Not Quintas, I expect.”

  “No, it specifically blocks them out based on their body mass.”

  “So what objects can get through it?” asked Ronan.

  “Well, it seems from his plan that dragonfolk are free to pass through any time they want. It’s only been a force field to keep us in because we thought it was,” said Drake grinning.

  “That makes me feel very stupid,” said Juniper, breathing out deeply. “But that’s great. One more thing off the list!”

  In the dead of night, under the light of the moon, three caped silhouettes could be seen stealthily creeping up to the top of Monument Hill. As its name suggested, at the top of Monument Hill was an enormous statue of Gordon Starpower Dragonfolk, one of the ancient dragonfolk heroes. The plaque told of how he and other elders had lived here thousands of years ago in caves. They’d hid from the Quintas in caves and fought them with spears, hiding under giant shields. Gordon was a brave warrior.

  “Okay,” said Juniper, shining a torch on her face. “How do we get started?”

  “Do you think we just kind of flap our wings and off we go?” asked Ronan, giving his wings a ferocious flap that sent his feet off the ground.

  “Looks like a good start,” said Drake, laughing nervously. Juniper shone the torch on each of their faces as they spoke.

  “Okay, let’s all just flap about and see what happens,” agreed Juniper. Juniper’s wings looked delicate next to Ronan’s huge black wings that spanned the length of his body. Juniper’s wings were about half the size of her body and covered in fluffy brown feathers. They were soft and downy and when she folded
them around her body they looked like a snugly doona. She flapped them gently and didn’t move at all. She tried a little harder and then with all her energy and concentration flapped them as hard as she could and lifted off the ground only to fall back down a few seconds later. She kept practising and finally managed to lift herself a few feet off the ground. Her flying was very controlled but not very powerful.

  Ronan, on the other hand, was all power and no control. He would leap miles into the air, flapping madly and flying chaotically about the sky with little choice about where he would end up. He was also laughing uncontrollably, enjoying the buzz of whooshing through the sky.

  Drake was having the most luck. His wings were just the right size. They were large enough to be powerful but small enough to feel balanced and in control. Unlike Juniper, his wings were mostly scaly and only had a few feathers here and there. As he raised his body above the ground, he felt his mind and body connect below the surface of his thoughts in a way he had never experienced before. Instead of flying straight up like Ronan was, he angled himself and rose gently into the air, paused at the height of his flight and soared, lightly flicking his wings to keep him at the same level, before calmly diving back to the ground. Once he had mastered this, he tried a few more difficult moves — a figure eight, a dive back to the ground with a few somersaults, flying straight up high quickly and powerfully, and floating back down as if he were a feather. He was so caught up in what he was doing that for a long time he didn’t notice Ronan and Juniper watching him in the light of the moon. When he did see them, he saw admiration on both their faces that he’d never seen before. He came back and landed next to them.

  “How did you go?” he asked them both. “I was so caught up in flying that I forgot to even look at you two.”

  “That was amazing,” said Juniper.

  “We can’t believe how great you are at this!” exclaimed Ronan.

  “Especially given how terrible you are at sports … oh, sorry!” Juniper put her hand over her mouth.

  “That’s fine,” said Drake, smiling. He knew how bad he was at sports and always dreaded any kind of sports day. But this was different, for some reason.

  They spent the rest of the night practising. Drake gave them both lessons and by dawn they were all flying well enough to be able to get themselves through the wasteland and out of Dragonland. They hoped they were flying well enough. It would be a long trip and their wing muscles were very under-developed. But Drake felt hopeful. They had made it this far and he hadn’t thought they would. Maybe they would be able to rescue his dad after all.

  Drake sneaked into his bedroom just as his alarm was going off and clambered into bed as his mother walked into the room to hurry him up.

  “Come on Drake, you’ll be late for school.” She threw his clean clothes on the bed and walked back down the stairs to make his breakfast. Drake sighed and dragged himself out of bed. He hadn’t slept and he was physically exhausted. He would have pleaded sick but they’d all agreed not to draw attention to themselves or look at all suspicious before the big day.

  He knew he could get through the day because they were only a day away from THE DAY. They would leave first thing the next morning, after a solid night’s sleep, at around nine when school started. Although this was a dangerous time to leave in terms of being seen, it was the best way to avoid the Quintas, who were most likely to be out in force hunting for food at dawn and dusk. They’d decided that even if they got caught leaving, they’d be up in the air and no-one would be able to do anything about it. Drake wondered if they’d left it too late. It had almost been a week since his message but their plan had taken time to put into action. You can’t just grow wings overnight.

  At school, the three stayed close together, excitedly whispering, and keeping their capes tucked tightly around each arm to hide their wings. It would be devastating if someone noticed their wings now.

  “Can you believe we’re really going to do this?” whispered Juniper excitedly in Drake’s ear. Her warm breath tingled on his cheek.

  “I can’t! Who would have imagined we’d be doing this? A week ago we didn’t even think there was anything outside Dragonland.”

  The next morning at breakfast, Drake’s mum looked at him strangely.

  “Are you okay, Drake? You seem very jittery today.”

  “I’ve got a big test today, Mum,” he said, awkwardly.

  “It’s not like you to worry about a test.” She placed a bowl of cereal in front of him and poured milk on it. He wondered how old he would be before she let him pour his own milk. I mean, seriously, was she worried he’d spill it? Would it matter that much if he did?

  “You’re right … I’ve got sports today and we have to do rope climbing in teams.” That was more like it. He hated sports and especially hated team sports where there was all this pressure not to let the team down. And he always did. He was always the one who dropped down before he hit the top knot. What nonsense, anyway. Now if he could do it with his wings fully grown …

  “Oh, why didn’t you say so?” his mum said and went and made herself toast.

  Ronan and Juniper were already waiting for Drake in the girls’ shower when he arrived. They’d decided to go there and make sure they had everything organised before they slipped out the side gates to the oval just after the bell went and everyone had gone to class.

  “Backpacks,” said Juniper. She had her hair pulled back into a long plait that sat down the middle of her back beneath her cape, finding a little home between her wings.

  “Check,” answered Ronan and Drake. Juniper put a tick on her list. She was a list kind of person.

  “Food.”

  “Check.”

  “Water.”

  “Check.”

  “Bombs.”

  “Check.”

  “Phones.”

  “Check.”

  “I’m so nervous,” said Juniper. Ronan and Drake nodded in agreement. Nerves seemed to make them both silent while it made Juniper chat endlessly. “This morning my mum was on at me constantly thinking there was something wrong.” The bell sounded and the three jumped up in fright and then giggled.

  “We’ll wait five minutes,” said Juniper, taking lead again. “Drake, time it on your watch because every second in here is feeling like an hour.” Drake started his timer and they all sat watching the seconds tick away. After three minutes had passed Juniper put her hand to her mouth and managed to turn a breath of fire into a little fire burp.

  “Ah, let’s get out of here before Juniper turns us into crispy bacon chips,” said Ronan, looking at her nervously.

  “Right, let’s go,” ordered Juniper. They all put backpacks on their fronts, swallowed deeply and exited the cubicle. Juniper went out of the girls’ toilet first, giving the boys the all clear signal. Then they all separated and went down different corridors to get to the oval. It would be less suspicious if someone saw them. They’d just think they were running late for school.

  It wasn’t Drake’s lucky morning. It seemed that Miss Tess, who was never late for class, was also late on this particular morning. She came bustling down the corridor towards him, baskets in each arms piled with material for experiments in class, and almost collided into him.

  “Drake, what are you doing?” she asked him, breathless.

  “I’m … ahh … just a bit late this morning, Miss Tess.” She looked at the large pack attached to his front and the now bulky cape stretched over his wings and raised her eyebrows. Then she dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Whatever you’re up to I’m sure it’s important. Off you go.” She continued on her way down the corridor and Drake continued on his.

  Then, as he rounded a corner, he banged right into Mr Roche. They should have waited a good half an hour into class, he thought. He wondered why they hadn’t and realised that none of them had mentioned it as an idea because staying nervously in the shower cubicle for another twenty minutes would have driven them insane. Drake bounced back and lo
oked Mr Roche in the eyes.

  “What are you doing, Drake?”

  “I’m just a bit late,” Drake said calmly.

  “Just a bit late! You’ve got a big pregnant backpack on your belly and something looks odd about that cape today. What are you up to? Knowing you, no good.” And that’s when, not knowing what else to do, Drake decided that he probably could run faster than Roche, even with a pregnant backpack on his belly. He took to his feet and ran, ran, ran as fast as he could. Roche was close behind but not close enough. Drake ran onto the oval where he met the two others and screamed out, “Now, go now … Roche is right behind me.”

  And without further fuss, they shrugged their wings out of their capes and took to the great blue sky above. “Up, up and away,” yelled Ronan, dramatically.

  Drake was only a few feet off the ground when Roche caught up and grabbed at his legs. With a swift swing of his left leg, he swiped Roche’s head and knocked him to the ground. As Drake flew up into the air he saw Roche below holding his head and rubbing his eyes in disbelief. He was screaming something but Drake was too far away to hear anything. They’d done it. The three of them were soaring far above Dragonland, off on an adventure of a lifetime. As they soared off into the distance, Juniper let out a roar of fire, releasing all the built-up tension and creating a wondrous display for all the students and teachers who were now on the oval watching them.

  They were flying in unison, silently, for some time before Juniper said, “We’ve done it.”

  “I can’t believe you kicked Roche in the head. That was awesome,” exclaimed Ronan. He was concentrating on flapping his giant wings gently to stay at the same height and speed as the others. Juniper, on the other hand, seemed to be exerting quite a lot of energy, flapping her fluffy wings ten times to Ronan’s one, to keep up with them. Drake was the only one who was comfortable. His arms were spread wide but somehow relaxed with the wind beneath his wings holding them up without any effort on his part.