The Boy Who Grew Dragons

by Andy Shepherd

  ‘He’s mine,’ I said quietly.

  Kai scowled. It reminded me of how Lolli looked just before she lost it. Of course Kai was old enough not to go supersonic, but I could see he was pretty ticked off.

  It was at this point that Ted had his brilliant – or not so brilliant – idea.

  ‘Hang on. Didn’t you say there were others that hatched out of those weird fruits?’

  ‘Yeah …’ I said, knowing exactly where this was heading.

  ‘Well, then we could all have one, couldn’t we?’

  After school, we were sitting around my room talking about caterpillars – Hah! Only kidding – I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Obviously we were talking about dragons. Kat was poring over pages of the library books while Ted and Kai were feeding Flicker runner beans and laughing as he let out smoky hiccups.

  ‘Have you read this?’ Kat asked. ‘About the legend, I mean.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘But it’s horrid.’

  ‘What’s horrid?’ asked Ted. ‘Flicker’s exploding poo? Yeah, I know. I had one on my forehead remember.’

  ‘No, this legend. What it says about how when a dragon breathed out its last fire, it’d also breathe out a dragon fruit. But there were warriors who would seek out and slay the dragons, so they could present the precious fruit to the emperor as a treasure. It’s so cruel,’ she said crossly.

  The others nodded.

  ‘Dragons always get a raw deal in stories,’ I said. ‘There’s always some stupid knight stomping off to flush out a dragon somewhere, who was probably just minding his own business anyway.’

  Ever since my grandad had read The Reluctant Dragon to me, we’d never liked pumped-up heroes looking for glory. We’d both sided with the dragon.

  We all looked at Flicker, who had settled on my lap. Kat reached over and stroked him.

  ‘I hope they were just stupid stories,’ she said quietly. ‘How could anyone hurt something as fantastic as him?’

  ‘So you’re sure these flowers mean more fruit is coming?’ Ted asked for the gazillionth time.

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed, ‘I’m sure. I told you, first you get those long vivid tendrils. Then over one night these moon-white flowers blossom and after that the fruit starts to grow. When they’re red they’re ready to hatch.’

  ‘So now all we have to do is wait,’ Ted groaned.

  I don’t know about you, but I find waiting for something is just about the hardest thing to do in the world. Imagine if Christmas, your birthday and a trip to Disneyland all happened to be on the same day and you’d just been told you could be magic for that day and ride there on a flying carpet while being served free ice-cream sundaes. But first you had to wait. And you didn’t know how long. So imagine yourself that excited. And that’s about half as excited as we felt.

  Every day before school I raced over to Nana and Grandad’s, hoping to see signs of the fruit.

  And as I got into class, three eager faces waited for me. Every time I shook my head it felt like I’d just told them someone had gone back in time and uninvented TV. And they weren’t the only ones who were disappointed. I could tell Grandad was too. He kept asking if I was coming back in the afternoon to help out. But ever since I’d told the others the truth, all they wanted to do was play with Flicker. And I didn’t want to miss out on that.

  At last, after several agonising weeks, I ran into school. And I didn’t need to say anything. Because Ted, Kat and Kai could see the news written all over my face – like I had a neon sign there declaring it.

  The fruit had come. And although they were only teeny tiny and nowhere near red and ripe, we all knew what it meant. We were officially growing dragons!

  Luckily for us, dragon fruit grow surprisingly quickly and by the start of the following week the fruits had reached the size of mangoes and started to turn red. The plan was this: we would ask my grandad if we could camp in his garden overnight. Then it would be simple enough to sneak down to the vegetable patch and look for the hatching dragons. My grandparents wouldn’t even know we weren’t fast asleep! And surely there’d be no chance of running into Grim in the dead of night.

  Even luckier, there was a teacher-training day at school on Friday, so we could camp on Thursday night, catch the dragons and then have an extra-long weekend to play with them. You really do have to admire our optimism.

  So with Kat and Kai as our team organisers, Operation Fruit Burst got into full swing.

  Planning is what the twins do best, and by Wednesday morning we had provisions plans, equipment lists and an hour-by-hour timetable of the whole event.

  It wasn’t the worst plan ever. It might even have worked.

  In the afternoon, as Flicker settled down in the toy box, scratching my latest comic into comfortable-sized pieces for his bed, I looked at the list supplied by Captains Kat and Kai. I scanned to see what I was expected to bring. It seemed pretty thorough. You know, for just the one night.

  PROVISION AND EQUIPMENT LIST

  by Kat and Kai

  SANDWICHES (Kat): Marmite & peanut butter/honey & chocolate spread/golden syrup with hundreds and thousands

  CAKE (Ted’s basic collection): iced buns, currant buns, jam doughnuts, custard doughnuts, gingerbread, treacle tarts, lemon sprinkle fairy cakes, chocolate muffins, chocolate-chip cookies, chocolate cupcakes and chocolate brownies

  Chocolate (Kat and Kai’s birthday left overs)

  Emergency Chocolate (for hypothermia)

  Extra Emergency Chocolate (for when Ted eats Emergency Chocolate)

  Tent

  Sleeping bags

  Sleeping mats

  Torches

  Night-vision goggles

  Walkie-talkies

  Compass

  Water bottles (filled)

  Mallet

  Bandages

  Smelly stuff for repelling bugs

  String

  Woolly hats

  Nets

  Face paint

  USEFUL BOOKS:

  Camping in the Wild Outdoors

  The Ultimate Survival Handbook

  How to Survive a Bear Attack

  A Hundred and One Deadly Plants

  I wasn’t sure where I was going to get half this stuff. The only walkie-talkies I could find were Lolli’s Dora the Explorer ones and I wasn’t going to be taking those. As it turned out, the main thing we needed was the tent. And I bet you can guess what we forgot.

  So there we were on Thursday, finally ready to put the plan into action. And yup – no tent. Luckily Grandad had one kicking about in the garage, along with various bits of dodgy camping kit, including some rusty saucepans which none of us fancied touching, let alone eating from, and an old lantern.

  ‘We’ve had a fair few adventures with this lot, me and your nan.’ Grandad chuckled.

  ‘Stick it in the front garden,’ Nana said. And then added, ‘That way you’re nice and close for anyone needing to pop in to use “The Facilities”.’

  Which is her polite way of saying the downstairs loo, which is just inside the front door.

  So under Grandad’s instruction, and in between his stories of camping in the wilderness, we put it up.

  ‘Smells like feet,’ whispered Kat, screwing up her nose.

  ‘It looks a bit small,’ muttered Kai.

  ‘And droopy,’ mouthed Ted.

  ‘Good sturdy tent that,’ said Grandad, resting his hand on one of the tent poles, and then quickly taking it away again as the whole thing sagged precariously.

  ‘Good job we aren’t planning on sleeping much,’ murmured Ted.

  By the time Grandad left us to go inside, we had got pretty well organised. There wasn’t much room, but we figured being that close together would probably help prevent the whole hypothermia thing, which Kai insisted on reading to us about from Horrendous Hazards and How to Avoid Them – A Guide to Camping Safely. I’m not sure we needed to hear in such detail about the stages of frostbite, or to see all t
hose pictures of fingerless hands. But as Camp Doctor, he was taking no chances.

  ‘Right,’ said Kat, as we huddled round the flickering lantern, ‘time to get camouflaged. Operation Fruit Burst is GO.’

  I’d like to say it happened like this: we strolled down to the end of the garden, picked up a few dragons, strolled back and had a good night’s sleep in our luxurious tent. It didn’t though.

  First of all, the face paint we’d been going to use for camouflage stripes had dried up. So we improvised with dirt … only Kai soon realised he’d accidentally used the horse manure Grandad keeps for his roses.

  ‘Well, it’s better than dragon poo,’ Ted snorted.

  ‘Yes, at least that doesn’t explode,’ I added.

  We tried, and failed, to stifle our laughs.

  ‘It’s a good thing,’ said Kat, biting back a snigger. ‘Animals won’t smell your human whiffiness and run away, so it’ll help with sneaking up on the dragons.’

  ‘Go on then, you smear yourself with it,’ said Kai, who was getting grumpier by the second.

  ‘If you want to escape a T. rex you cover yourself in poo so it won’t eat you,’ added Kat in a fit of giggles. ‘So if a big mummy dragon turns up, you’ll be the safest one of us.’

  I snorted so much at this point that the lemonade I’d been guzzling shot out my nose.

  ‘Shh,’ Kat suddenly hissed as the kitchen light flickered on.

  Grandad appeared at the window and stared out at us. A second later he was at the back door. ‘Everything all right, Tomas?’ he asked. ‘No one having second thoughts? I want you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow – I’ve been looking forward to having some extra hands in the garden.’

  Poor Grandad! I’d been so busy looking after Flicker I’d hardly spent any time helping in the last few weeks.

  ‘We’re all fine thanks, Grandad,’ I said quickly. ‘Just, you know, having a stretch before bed.’ We all started stretching our arms up and running on the spot like we were in some manic exercise video.

  Grandad looked at Kai’s poo-smeared face. For a second his eyebrows furrowed, but then he said, ‘Okey-dokey, sleep tight then.’

  I smiled at him. But the heat from the lie was already burning my cheeks – I just hoped the mud was hiding it.

  We’d all felt quite brave talking it through beforehand, but when we actually ventured down the garden, we kept a bit closer together than usual. And no one said much. We were all too busy listening.

  Night-time noises are freaky. Things that you don’t notice in the day, like branches creaking in the breeze, suddenly make you twitchy. Every other tree cast a shadow that made it look like some terrifying monster was just about to jump out on us. So it wasn’t surprising that we all shrieked in terror when a cat in Grim’s garden made a high-pitched yowl as we passed.

  When we got down to the end we were all a little jumpy to say the least. In fact, when a stray leaf drifted down onto Kai’s hair, he started karate-chopping the air in a mad panic, shouting, ‘Something’s on me, get it off, get it off!’

  At which point we all leaped about as if we were being attacked – until we finally figured it out. At least laughing about the attack of the killer leaf made us relax a bit.

  As we crept towards the dragon-fruit tree, we began to realise we were not alone.

  Strange dark shapes flitted above us, careering about, darting over our heads and criss-crossing under the branches of trees. At first we thought they were bats. But when one of the winged creatures dived towards Kai, it soon became clear that they were dragons! A whole flock, herd, flight – I don’t know, what do you call a mass of baby dragons? – whatever you call it, we had one right there.

  I looked around at the others. Kat had her hands plastered over her open mouth, trying to hold back the squeal that was threatening to escape. Kai was standing staring up into the trees, eyes wider than a wide-eyed lemur who’s just sat on a drawing pin. And Ted looked like the cat who’d not only got the cream but a huge bowl of sardine trifle too.

  A few of the dragons were simply flying off up into the moonlit sky, but others had obviously decided to stop for a bite to eat. It was easy to see why Grim thought he was the victim of vandals. The dragons were not exactly bothered about the mess they were making. They had even finally found a way into his greenhouse and were happily demolishing the tiny new shoots. I knew exactly who’d be the ones getting the blame for that. Sparks fizzled in the night air as the little dragons darted from one plant to the next.

  ‘Quick,’ said Ted, waking up from his stupefied gazing. ‘Get the nets.’

  We dashed around, fruitlessly trying to capture the flitting dragons in our fishing nets. But they were way too speedy for us. We staggered about the garden, tripping over brambles and landing in muddy heaps.

  ‘This is no good,’ cried Kat. ‘We’ll never catch them like this.’

  She watched sadly as another dragon zipped over her head and flew up, up and away into the night.

  Suddenly there was a THLUMP and we turned to see one of the fruits drop from the tree. A second later the red spiky skin began to bulge and then, just like with Flicker, the fruit burst open and out shot a little grey dragon with yellow spines. Before any of us could get to it, it had darted away.

  We made our way over to the dragon-fruit tree and gathered round it, eyeing up each of the fruits still left hanging there. A handful of them were fat and red ripe. All we had to do was wait.

  But as you already know, some of us aren’t very good at waiting.

  ‘Maybe we should pick them, like apples,’ Ted suggested, prodding a low-hanging fruit. ‘Perhaps the dragons only hatch when they come off the tree.’

  ‘They have to fall off,’ Kat said. ‘You can’t pull them off before they’re ready.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ted asked. ‘They look ripe.’

  ‘Tomas, tell him,’ Kat urged.

  ‘OK, what did you do, Tomas?’ Ted asked.

  ‘Flicker’s fruit just came off in my hand,’ I said, remembering how I’d held it and gently lifted it aside, out of the way of the others. Kat was frowning at me, while Ted gave me a knowing look. They obviously didn’t believe me when I said it had just dropped off.

  I was sure I hadn’t pulled it off though – at least I hoped I hadn’t. I looked at Flicker, who was still almost as tiny as the day I found him, and suddenly wondered if he had hatched too soon. What if he wasn’t growing properly – because of me? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  Kat cupped her hands gently around one of the fruit.

  ‘This one feels too hard to be ripe. I think we should leave them,’ she said. ‘Until they’re ready. We can come back tomorrow.’

  ‘And hope they don’t drop off, hatch and fly away in the meantime, you mean?’ said Kai crossly.

  ‘If that’s what it means, yes,’ Kat said sternly.

  I could tell the twins were about to lock horns. I kept my eyes on the dragon fruit in Kat’s hands.

  ‘Wait, Kat. Look,’ I said. ‘It’s glowing.’

  And not only that, the fruit was no longer attached to the tree.

  ‘I didn’t pull it off!’ Kat cried immediately.

  But before any of us could reply, the fruit started to bulge. A minute later, with a loud POP, the thing exploded. We stood open-mouthed, splattered by a spray of fruity pulp. And there on the ground was a tiny purple dragon, covered in sticky seedy goo.

  Kat let out an excited squeak as the dragon stretched its neck and raised its long elegant head, sniffing the air. When it opened its wings we could see shades of purple lightening into a beautiful electric blue. The patterns swirled like the tie dye T-shirts we had made in art. This dragon had fewer spines than Flicker, but under its jaw were spikes, hanging down like icicles. Quick as a flash Kat gathered it up in her hands, delighted.

  As she scraped the sticky pulp off her dragon’s wings Ted and Kai started reaching out to the other fruit left on the tree, feeling each one in turn.
<
br />   ‘Careful,’ I cried. ‘Just be careful.’

  At first nothing happened; none of the fruits did anything. But then one of the ones Kai was holding flickered and began to glow. Kai’s hand sagged as the weight of it fell into his palm.

  And then, POP.

  Another dragon shot out. This one was a vivid greeny blue with scales that glistened like the sea on a really hot day.

  ‘Look at its wings,’ Kat whispered. ‘They look like peacock feathers.’

  And she was right. Although not actually feathers, the detail on the wings formed a feather design, and there were shapes like yellow and blue eyes leading to the outer edge, just like on a peacock.

  Ted’s eyes stayed fixed on the tree as if he was looking for the one perfect fruit. He reached up to squeeze a few of the redder ones.

  ‘Ow,’ he yelled, drawing his hand out fast. ‘Rotten tree, bit me.’

  I laughed. ‘It’s got some fierce thorns on it.’

  He sucked at the scratch, but since he had a mouthful of marshmallow his hand came away covered in pink stickiness. Undeterred, he thrust his hand back in. It brushed one of the fruits and he stifled a yell of excitement as the fruit suddenly shone, as if his touch had turned it to gold. Carefully he cradled it in his hands, holding his breath. And then, just like the others, almost as if it had chosen his hand to fall into, the fruit let go of the tree.

  Immediately it started to swell up, the red skin stretching under the pressure of the creature wriggling inside, fighting its way out. And then it burst, sending a spray of pulp all over Ted. But he didn’t look as if he minded one bit, as he held up a slender yellow dragon. The shine from its golden scales made his hands glow brightly. He stared at it, his mouth hanging open. Not to get all poetic or anything, but if you’d been able to hold a bit of the sun, that’s what I imagine it’d be like. Only without the hand-melting heat of course!

  Standing there, holding our dragons, we looked at each other with stupid grins plastered over our faces. I had to admit it was going to be pretty cool to all have dragons!