The Bug Dragon Project

by Suzie Taylor

  Emily gave Nexus a hug. “I’m gonna miss you Mr Nexus. We will see you again won’t we?”

  Nexus started in surprise at the hug. He hesitated for a moment then wrapped his four arms around Emily for a squeeze.

  “I guess it’s been a while since you’ve been hugged,” whispered Emily.

  Nexus nodded without speaking and she noticed the hint of a tear in his eyes. He shook hands with the others without a word.

  Nadia approached Gypsy and they stared at each other apprehensively. Nadia reached out and touched Gypsy’s hair which immediately changed colour.

  “That is way cool,” said Nadia.

  Gypsy considered the compliment for a moment then breathed a puff onto Nadia’s dark curls causing them to glow.

  “Awesome!” said Emily “Can I have some on my ponytail?”

  “Guys, we need to go,” said Ben impatiently. “Come and stand over here.”

  The soldiers put them in a tight group, and flew back to put some distance between them. Nexus adjusted some settings on the modifier and there was a brief shimmer of light.

  The children began to grow. Emily giggled and said it made her toes tingle, and Alf’s hair went static and stood on end. Once they had reached full size, the bug dragons flashed their tails as a goodbye gesture and headed back upstream. Only Mouse remained to act as their guide. They clambered back around the giant fig tree and were once again in the human world. Nadia’s phone immediately started going off with successive dings. She looked down at it in consternation.

  “There are a million messages on here. What on earth should I say?”

  “Easy,” said Alf, “just say that we were abducted by aliens. It always works for me.”

  They were all grounded for the rest of the holidays with added chores.

  It wasn’t just the lateness of the hour or the search parties; (including a helicopter with a searchlight) it was the state they were in when they were found. Exhausted, covered in mud, clothes torn, hair filthy, Nadia tired and shaky and Emily limping badly. Bags and bike helmets missing and Alf’s phone damaged beyond repair.

  The explanations given were varied; a generally garbled account of exploring, climbing and crawling in the mud - apart from Alf who claimed that he had been eaten and digested by a giant rock monster before being forced down an enormous toilet into another dimension. It only served to re-emphasise Ben’s mother’s theory about more than two children having ‘no brain at all.’

  Ben slumped down on his bed with his head in his hands, not because he was in despair, but because his brain was exhausted and overloaded. Once his parents had got over the relief and joy at having them back, his father had launched in with a severe reprimand and phrases like ‘I thought you were more mature,’ and ‘so disappointed in you,’ had cut like a knife. What on earth would they think if they knew the truth? Feeling both exhilarated and confused, he lay down and pulled the doona up around his chin, marvelling at how flat and mundane his room looked. Exhaustion eventually took over however and the visions in his mind became increasingly muddled until he finally fell into a deep dreamless sleep and didn’t wake up until noon the following day.

  He had been banned from seeing Alf – at least until they started back at school, but it didn’t stop them from messaging each other on the computer. Alf was complaining that they didn’t bring back any goggles to try out at home. He had missed his chance to explore the paranormal; he was sure the barn at the end of the paddock next door was haunted.

  Emily and Nadia were likewise separated physically but they messaged each other like crazy, discussing every aspect of their adventure and what they needed to do about it. Nadia was determined to equip herself with more advanced armour and weaponry. She had spent a good amount of time the day after their return, admiring the images of female crusaders that she had found on the internet and had even sketched out her own design. Perhaps Nexus would agree to make it for her?

  Emily was concerned about her friend’s propensity to violence. “What about the poor magpies and bats,” she objected. “I don’t think it’s their fault! You just need one of those coloured light guns like what the bug dragons have to set them free.”

  Nadia was reluctant to back down. “I suppose a fully automatic version of one of those... but not for the spiders. They need to die! And this armour is purely self defence.”

  Alf got straight into researching everything he could think of and was stuck to his computer for hours on end. He researched fairies and got nowhere. He tried ‘cave dragons’ and ‘luminous dragons’ and ‘mini flying glowing dragons’ and any number of other descriptive combinations but to no avail. He then diverted his search to include the latest scientific data on other dimensions, but there didn’t seem to be any recorded incidents of anyone actually experiencing one. His mother finally said enough was enough and told him to get some exercise and walk the dog.

  “How’s the research going?” asked Ben when they finally got a chance to talk at school.

  “Haven’t found much,” sighed Alf. “Only one lead, but not a very good one.”

  “What was it?”

  “I googled Fairy horse and that led me to Fairy foal... there was a picture book called ‘Fairy Foals’ written years ago about little horses similar to the one we saw, in someone’s garden. Don’t know if it has any relationship with our experience.”

  “Probably just a coincidence. Can we get hold of the book?”

  “Out of Print.”

  “Library?”

  “Yeah maybe. Looks very girly though. Ask Emily to look. Have you written down everything that happened to you like I said?”

  Ben groaned. He hated writing. It was bad enough having to do it for school.

  “You have to do it! You’ll forget details otherwise! You need to write down everything – what you saw, what happened and the stone thing... you said it talked to you, so you need to write down what it said and what it did.”

  Ben groaned again. He didn’t mind a few notes and pictures but there was so much! It would take hours.

  “I did mine,” said Alf fishing in his bag for the file. “It’s a fabulous read.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Get Emily to write hers... and get her to message Nadia. Nadia even has real pictures! We need to compile all accurate and relevant material. Meeting next Saturday?”

  “Yup.”

  Saturday evening arrived and nobody was late. They began the meeting with a walk around the back garden and the fringes of the forest but there were no bug dragons to be seen so they gave up and headed back inside for snacks.

  “You could have tidied up a bit,” Emily complained as she made a space on Ben’s desk for the chips and brownies. “By the way Nadia, what happened to the colour in your hair?”

  “Faded away in the sunlight,” sighed Nadia. “What about your arm Alf?”

  “Kept it covered,” grinned Alf. “Still purple, look!”

  Ben cleared his throat and put on his best official voice. “This meeting has been called so we can put together our notes and complete the Bug-dragon Undercover Research Project – as well as to make plans for the future.”

  Alf handed him a file that was about an inch thick.

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s all relevant stuff.”

  Ben flicked through the file and came across a picture of Dracula. He gave Alf the eye.

  “Well, he sucked the life out of things,” said Alf defensively, “and he had bats as well – see?”

  Emily’s contribution was painfully tidy and well organised with individual headings and a contents page.

  Ben took it without a word. “So Nadia,” he said, “show us the pictures. Did they come out as 3D on the paper?”

  “Yep,” she said proudly and handed him her file.

  Ben flicked through the initial pages of wild scrawly writing then stopped, frowned and looked at Nadia in consternation.

  “What?” she asked.

  “They’re pa
intings!”

  Nadia snatched the file back and looked at it in disbelief. She then grabbed her phone to check through the image gallery.

  “That’s impossible!” she objected. “It was all fine yesterday!”

  “Did you leave your phone unattended at any time?” asked Alf.

  “Well yes... overnight of course. But it was in my room.”

  Ben shook his head. “Try taking a photo now and see what happens.”

  She did so and the result was normal.’

  “Something is going out of its way to make sure we have no hard evidence,” said Ben.

  “We don’t need evidence,” said Emily. “We’re not planning to tell anyone are we?”

  “No, definitely not,” said Alf. “It’s an X-file, but we still need to get the bottom of this.”

  “What about your notes Ben?” asked Emily. “What do you have?”

  Ben briefly held up a couple of pages, printed in large print with a few diagrams and one carefully coloured illustration. “We have in fact discovered everything we originally intended,” he said, stashing his file away quickly before anyone could object to its lack of content. “We know what the bug dragons are, where they live and what they wanted.”

  “When are we going back?” asked Emily. “I want to know what happened to the person who lived in the cottage.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Nadia agreed. “And you know what I’ve been wondering? Why were the insects dragging us up the tree? I mean they could have just done us in on the ground.”

  “Good question,” said Ben. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Nexus needs to look at the phones,” grumbled Alf, “and I really want a pair of those goggles. We have to get back there somehow.”

  That was the real difficulty. There was no way the parents were going to let them out on an expedition again by themselves and if they pleaded or argued, people would be certain to get suspicious. All they could do was to keep an eye open for nocturnal visitors once again... surely the bug dragons had not abandoned them forever?

  Almost every night Ben snuck out of bed when everyone else was asleep, hoping to see something. He even put some egg on the birdfeeder only to find it drying out and going crusty the following day. But then one evening, his mother asked him to hang out the washing.

  “Why do you always do this at night?” Ben grumbled, his gaze fixed stubbornly on the TV.

  “Because that’s when I get around to it.”

  He tried to ignore her until she asked him a second time and his father gave him the eye. Ben extracted himself from the lounge with a sigh and went to the laundry where he opened the machine, yanked out the clothes, and headed outside.

  A tiny light in the frangipani caught his eye.

  “Needles!” he exclaimed. But it wasn’t Needles; it was Scamp, stuck to the back of the leaf like a limpet, grinning mischievously. Ben’s eye’s narrowed.

  “What do you want?” he asked suspiciously. “I ought to string you up like a light bulb after what you put us through.”

  Scamp beckoned for him to follow and sped off up into the garden.

  Ben hesitated before running after him, pausing briefly at his sister’s window to share the news. He then raced up to the lawn and looked around, wondering which way to go. He considered the back gate but changed his mind. If this was going to be another trek through the rainforest, he would need to be prepared. As he stood there trying to spot any lights in the darkness, Emily came up the stairs and joined him. There was the sound of a soft whistle and they turned to see Mouse sitting by himself at the edge of the patio. Ben approached and realised he was holding something – it was a fine silver chain upon which hung the pearl earring. Mouse looking very pleased with himself, held it up for him to admire. The piece that used to go through the ear had been replaced with a loop, making it a fine pendant. Ben took the necklace gently and realised that there was another alteration. The pearl glowed softly in the dark with a myriad of subtle colours that changed slightly as it was tilted from side to side.

  “Beautiful,” Ben murmured. “Thank you for bringing it back Mouse.”

  At that point scamp reappeared. He too was holding something which he offered to Ben with a look of great seriousness. It was the mangled remains of a silver spoon.

  “Ben, what are you doing on the lawn?” It was his mother’s voice “How many times do I have to tell you to hang out that washing?”

  Ben looked at his sister.

  “May as well give it to her,” said Emily.

  “But she’s going to want to know what happened and how it ended up like this!”

  “Just say you found it.”

  They went back down to the house and found their mother stacking the dishwasher. Ben dangled the necklace in front of her. She stopped what she was doing and stood to her feet in astonishment.

  “Where did that come from?”

  “It was outside near the patio.”

  She took it gently in her hands and admired it more closely. “That’s amazing. It’s definitely my earring but remodelled and... Well look at it!”

  Emily was grinning from ear to ear.

  “And you just found it?” she continued. “In the back yard? How did it get there? Mark! Mark come and look at this!”

  Mr Prinsloo, hearing the excitement in her voice emerged from the lounge-room. His wife held out the necklace. “Are you responsible for this?”

  “No...” he said, genuinely surprised.

  “The kids said it was out in the garden.”

  Mr Prinsloo examined it more closely then looked at Ben with raised eyebrows.

  “It was. Honestly.”

  “And neither of you know anything about how it was altered like this?”

  Ben and Emily exchanged glances.

  “I think the fairies did it!” said Ben with sudden inspiration.

  Mrs Prinsloo laughed. “Well I guess they did! I thought I saw some little lights out in the garden earlier this evening...”

  “That was the Bug Dragons,” Ben continued. “They live in a cave in the rainforest and they visit the garden sometimes. They’re all different colours and they glow in the dark. They can even make other things glow as well... like this!”

  Emily’s eyes opened wide.

  “Is that right?” his mother smiled, “Well, they can come round any time they like!” She took the necklace and headed for her bedroom. “I guess whoever it was that vandalised our place is sorry, and that’s good enough for me!”

  Mr Prinsloo went back to catch up with the football. “Very strange.”

  Emily gave Ben a ‘what were you thinking of?’ gesture and he grinned and shrugged.

  “I knew they wouldn’t believe me!” he said.

  T H E E N D

  SUZIE TAYLOR’S first book “Fairy Foals” was a picture book published in 2006 under the pseudonym ‘Suzanah’.

  Since then Suzie has developed the concept of a much broader series and produced many paintings in her garden studio, affectionately known as the Magic Art Cubby. She lives in Perth, Western Australia with her husband, two children, dog, ducks and chickens.

  To see more of Suzie’s artwork in colour, please visit

  www.themagicartcubby.com