There's a Dragon in my Backpack!

by Tom Nicoll

  “Oh, I have my ways,” I said, giving him a wry smile.

  “Snoring her head off, isn’t she?” said Jayden.

  I frowned. “How do you know that?”

  “I had detention with her a couple of months ago,” said Jayden. “She slept through the entire lunch hour.”

  “Let’s hope she does the same today! Where’s Min?” I asked.

  Jayden shrugged. “She told me to wait here – she wanted to check something.”

  I looked at my watch. “We can’t wait for long,” I said.

  “Pan, are you there?” I said, taking the walkie-talkie from Jayden.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” said Pan. He sounded panicked. “I think Show and Tell is about to start. I’ve undone the zip of your bag a little so I can see what’s going on. We’re in some kind of hall. And there’s a stage. There are tons of kids sitting around, waiting.”

  “A stage?” said Jayden. “Wow, they really take Show and Tell seriously over there.”

  “Pan, be careful that Toby doesn’t hear us talking,” I said, keeping my voice low.

  “Not much chance of that,” said Pan. “Toby’s too busy telling everyone about how awesome his presentation is going to be, and it’s so noisy with all the other kids anyway. I think the whole school is here.”

  “Not the whole school,” said Min, appearing behind us.

  “Min,” I said, relieved to see her. “Where have you been?”

  “Speaking to Danny Thirteentrees,” she said with a grin. “He and the rest of the school rugby team are just getting ready to leave. They have a big game this afternoon.”

  Jayden shrugged. “And?”

  “And…” said Min, “guess which posh school they happen to be playing!”

  “You’re kidding?” I said.

  Min shook her head. “No, it’s true – they’re playing the La-Di-Da! We have to be quick though, the minibus is ready to leave.”

  “We’re on our way, Pan,” I said into the walkie-talkie. “If we don’t make it in time to stop Show and Tell, I need you to pretend you’re frozen, just like when we first met. Maybe they’ll believe you’re a toy, like I did.”

  “OK, Eric, I will,” said Pan, but I could tell from his small voice that he was worried.

  The three of us sneaked into the back of the minibus, hiding under a pile of what we hoped was clean rugby kit. Moments later I could hear the sounds of an entire rugby team clambering on board.

  “All right, lads,” said Mr Gunnar, our P.E. teacher, as he started up the van. “Everyone here? Good, let’s get going. We can’t be late, the La-Di-Da are strict about punctuality.”

  “It’s true,” said one of the boys. “I heard last week that they made Lumberton forfeit for being ten seconds late.”

  The van lurched forward. We were on our way.

  “Now, have you lot come up with a decent team name yet?” asked Mr Gunnar.

  “No,” said Danny Thirteentrees. “Well, we’ve narrowed it down to the Dimbleford Destroyers, the Dimbleford Warriors or the Dimbleford Bears. But none of us can agree.”

  “What about the Dimbleford Dragons?”

  I recognized the voice. It was Pan. Beneath the rugby kit I could see Min and Jayden’s eyes bulging out of their sockets. My heart pounding, I fumbled in my pocket for the walkie-talkie. It was on monitor-mode – I must have accidentally leaned on it when we got into the van. As I switched it off, I noticed that the entire bus had fallen silent.

  The three of us lay there, expecting any moment to be caught.

  But we weren’t caught. Instead, Mr Gunnar spoke. “I like it!” he said.

  “Me too,” said Danny.

  “The Dimbleford Dragons. Has a nice ring to it.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as a “Let’s go, Dragons!” chant broke out amongst the team. It went on for ages. Just when I thought it was never going to end, the van screeched to a halt.

  “All right, Dragons, out you get,” said Mr Gunnar.

  “Hey, look,” shouted someone outside. “It’s the Dimbleford Dunces!”

  “More like Dumbleford!” laughed another La-Di-Da pupil.

  I could hear the doors opening and the team flooding out. “We’re the Dimbleford Dragons, actually!” declared Danny proudly.

  As the two sides began to argue, we slipped out of the bus unnoticed. We sprinted toward the main building and hid behind a wall.

  We had done it. We had made it to Toby’s school.

  Now for the hard part.

  “Pan, we’re outside,” I hissed, switching the walkie-talkie back on.

  “Hurry!” shouted Pan. “Show and Tell has started and I think it’s nearly Toby’s turn. Right now there’s a girl showing off a fishing rod and it is not going well.”

  We could hear loud booing coming from the walkie-talkie.

  “Tough crowd,” said Min.

  “Yeah, Toby wasn’t joking when he said these kids were hard to please,” I said. “All right, Pan, we’re coming.”

  I looked around to try and figure out where we were. Then it dawned on me. This was a big school. Our school was a medium-sized, single-storey building. Toby’s school was more like a small town.

  “It goes on for miles,” said Jayden, as our eyes followed the rows of grand, old-looking buildings. Turrets and spires jutted out everywhere. It was like being at a family reunion for castles.

  “He could be anywhere,” said Min.

  “Pan, I don’t suppose you know what building you’re in?” I said into the walkietalkie.

  “Yeah,” said Pan. “I managed to sneak a peek. It’s a big stone building, really old-looking, with lots of pointy bits on the top.”

  I looked around again. “Every building looks like that,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Pan. “Then I have no idea.”

  “Maybe we should split up and start checking all the buildings?” suggested Min.

  “That’ll still take us ages,” said Jayden.

  “I don’t think we have any other option,” I said.

  The three of us spun on our heels. On the path in front of us was a freckle-faced boy sporting a huge grin. I could tell from the size of his hat that he was a bit older than Toby, but it was what he was sitting in that really grabbed my attention.

  A white four-seater golf cart.

  “Running late, are we?” he asked.

  “Sorry?” said Jayden.

  “For Show and Tell,” he said. “I presume that’s where you’re off to, dressed like that. I say, what odd outfits! I’m sure everyone will get quite a kick out of them.”

  An appalled Jayden looked the boy up and down. “Our outfits are odd?” he said.

  “Yes, that’s right, they are,” I said quickly, giving Jayden a nod. “For the Show and Tell – REMEMBER, Jayden?”

  “Oh right … yeah,” said Jayden, nodding back, though I’m not sure he knew why.

  “Any chance of a lift?” asked Min.

  “Of course,” said the boy. “That is why they give these things to us seniors after all – to keep the school running. Jump in.”

  “Thanks!” I said, as the three of us climbed into the cart.

  “The name’s Roger,” said the boy, shaking our hands. “Haven’t seen you three before.”

  “We’re new,” lied Jayden. “We’ve just transferred here. These are the uniforms from our old school, you see. That’s why we have them.”

  Roger nodded. “And are you all related?” he asked.

  “Ha!” said Jayden. “Us? Related? Not likely!”

  Roger looked confused. “So … you’re not related, but you all just transferred from the same school at exactly the same time?”

  I could hear Min groaning next to me.

  Jayden was a rubbish liar, which is normally a good quality in a friend, but it wasn’t helping us much here. His eyes were darting back and forth as he tried to find a way out of his lie. Eventually, he simply said:

  “Yes.”

  Roger stared at h
im for a second, before shrugging and turning back towards the path. “Jolly good. Right then, chaps, hang on. She’s a nippy little thing.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Roger pressed his foot down on the pedal and the cart shot off along the path.

  “I was just heading over to Show and Tell myself,” he said over the noise of the cart. “I was planning on watching the rugger, but then I heard about Toby Bloom. Have you met Toby yet?”

  The three of us exchanged looks. “Yeah,” I said. “We’ve met.”

  “Bit of an odd one, isn’t he? Apparently he’s been bragging all day that he’s got something really impressive to show. Won’t say what it is, though.”

  Roger put his foot down hard on the brake. The three of us flew out of the cart, landing in a heap.

  “I told you to hang on,” said Roger cheerfully, climbing out of his seat. “Everyone all right? Great! Anyway, here we are. I’ll catch you inside. Best of luck with your presentation!” He waved goodbye as he bounded up the steps in front of us into the huge auditorium.

  “Come on, let’s follow him,” I shouted, as we picked ourselves up off the ground, but by the time we had opened the thick wooden door at the top of the stairs, he had vanished. With nothing else for it, we raced down the longest, tallest corridor I had ever seen in my life, the sounds of our clattering footsteps echoing all around. The walls on either side were adorned with huge oil paintings of cranky-looking old men staring down at us. Beneath them stood imposing knight statues. They didn’t look like brave, noble knights, either – more like the kind that would chop off your head with their sword just for the fun of it.

  Eventually, we reached the end of the corridor. We looked left, then right. Both directions offered more of the same – corridors trailing off into the distance with no hint of which was the correct path.

  “Where now?” asked Jayden.

  “I dunno,” I said. “I’ve never been here, have I?”

  “Shhh,” said Min. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” asked Jayden.

  I was thinking the same thing when I heard the sound myself. “It’s like a sniffing sound,” I said.

  “Like someone crying,” said Jayden, hearing it, too.

  “Let’s follow it,” suggested Min. We dashed off down the corridor to our left, barging through a set of double doors, and immediately saw where the sniffing was coming from. A girl was sitting crying on a bench halfway along the corridor, clutching a fishing rod in her arms. She wore thick, round glasses and looked much younger than me – six or seven years old, maybe. Roger was there, too, his hand on her shoulder.

  “There, there, Emily,” he said in a comforting voice. “It’ll be all right.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “That awful Toby Bloom happened, that’s what,” said Roger. “He’s gone too far this time. No one makes my little sister cry.”

  The girl squinted at us through her tear-soaked glasses, trying to see our faces. Realizing it was no use, she took the glasses off and wiped them on the sleeve of her blazer before putting them back on.

  “Everything was going so well,” she sobbed. “I was telling everyone about how good my fishing rod is and all the different fish I’ve caught with it and then suddenly, Toby just stands up and starts shouting ‘BOOO-RING!’ at me. And then all his horrible friends joined in.”

  “He always ruins Show and Tell,” said Roger. “Always turns it into a contest.”

  “Toby told me that the whole school was like that,” I said.

  “No,” said the girl. “It’s just him and his friends. No one else really cares what other people bring, but he always has to have the best thing. And he always has to make everyone else feel bad about their stuff.”

  “Don’t any of the teachers tell him off?” asked Min.

  Roger and his sister started laughing. “Not likely,” said Roger. “Mr Farnswick runs Show and Tell. He’s horrible, and he lets Toby and his friends get away with murder. Honestly, you’ve never met such an awful teacher.”

  I was just about to tell him I might know someone worse, when there was a burst of static from my pocket.

  “Eric… ERIC!” shouted Pan.

  “Pan,” I said, turning away from Roger and Emily so they wouldn’t hear. “We’re in the building. We’re just trying to figure out how to get you out of there.”

  “Well, figure it out quickly,” said Pan. “Toby’s up soon. Mini-Dragons are excellent at remaining calm, but even we have our limits!”

  “OK, OK, hold tight,” I said. I turned to Roger and Emily. “Where’s Show and Tell happening?”

  They both pointed a little way further down the hall to a set of glass doors. We ran over and peered inside. It was a proper concert hall, with a balcony and everything, although there didn’t seem to be anyone up there at the moment. Hundreds of pupils were watching the stage, where a boy about my age was showing off a radio-controlled teddy bear to a chorus of loud boos.

  Toby sat at the back of the hall, a smug look on his face as he and a small group of boys heckled the boy onstage. My backpack lay on the seat next to him and I thought I could almost make out two black eyes peeking through a small unzipped gap.

  We couldn’t just barge in and grab the bag. Not with everyone there.

  Min’s face lit up.

  She walked back over to Emily, who was still sitting on the bench. “How good at fishing are you?”

  “She’s the best!” said Roger.

  Emily nodded. “I am pretty good.”

  “What would you say,” Min said, “if I told you there was a way you could get back at Toby, right now?”

  Emily’s tears dried up in an instant and an unmistakeable glint appeared in her eye. “I’d say, ‘what are we waiting for?’”

  “Left a bit … right a bit … right a bit more…”

  If you’ve ever played one of those games at the arcade where you try to pick up a stuffed toy with a tiny crane, then you’ll know what this was like. Except with a fishing rod instead of a crane and a Mini-Dragon as the prize.

  From the balcony, the three of us could only watch – and hope that Emily was as good at fishing as she claimed.

  With Toby’s bag – the one he swapped for mine – attached to the end of the line, she gently let out the reel, lowering the backpack slowly towards where Toby was sitting.

  “Can’t you go any faster?” asked Jayden.

  “If I go too fast the line could snap and the bag might drop on to Toby’s head,” said Emily.

  “I don’t see the problem with that,” said Jayden.

  “The problem is we won’t get Pan back,” I whispered.

  “And we’ll blow our cover,” said Min.

  “And it’ll ruin my fishing line,” said Emily.

  “All right, all right,” said Jayden. “I was just trying to defuse the tension a little.”

  Jayden was right. It was tense up there. We were lucky that Toby was sitting right at the back of the hall, so nobody could see the backpack slowly descending from the balcony. As long as no one looked up, the only person likely to catch us at that moment was the blond-haired boy standing onstage, clutching a large, cool-looking bone.

  “A bone?” heckled Toby. “Booo-ring!”

  “It’s f-f-from a T-t-tyrannosaurus rex,” stammered the boy. “My m-m-mum’s a paleontologist, she swiped it from her work just so I can show it to you. It’s m-m-millions of y-y-years old.”

  “Eurgh!” said Toby, holding his nose. “Gross! I wouldn’t feed that to my dog.” Laughter broke out among the kids sitting nearest Toby, who were treating him like he was the funniest person ever.

  “He doesn’t even have a dog,” I muttered. “He’s allergic to them.”

  It was clear Roger was right, despite what Toby had claimed – Show and Tell was cruel because of him, not everyone else.

  “Eric, what’s happening?” said Pan, the walkie-talkie in my hand crackling into life.

  I turned away from Emi
ly. “Pan, we’re almost there. We just need Roger to do his bit.”

  “Who’s Roger?” said Pan. “Never mind, just hurry. I’m not sure what’s worse – being stuck in this bag or having to listen to Toby all day. Actually, I am sure. It’s the second one.”

  “Who are you talking to?” asked Emily, squinting at me suspiciously through her glasses.

  “That’s Pan,” said Min, before I could reply. She took a deep breath then added, “He’s a miniature dragon from China whose parents shipped him off to live in Mexico with his aunt and uncle in a box of beansprouts, but who accidentally ended up at my parents’ restaurant and was then delivered in a takeaway carton by me to Eric who then befriended him, but Toby, who is Eric’s neighbour, thinks he’s a super-advanced toy and keeps trying to steal him.”

  As Min took a large gulp of air, Jayden and I looked at each other, then at Emily who was looking at Min.

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me then,” she said, before turning back to the fishing line. “Right, we’re there.”

  We watched as Roger, bang on cue, made his way along the row to where Toby’s bag dangled next to mine. In one deft motion, he switched the hook from one bag to the other and gave the fishing line a gentle tug to let his sister know that the deed was done.

  As Emily began to reel in my bag, I realized that the boy onstage, still being heckled for his awesome dinosaur bone, was watching us with a curious expression on his face. He couldn’t know what we were up to exactly, but he seemed to understand that it wasn’t going to be good for Toby. Smiling to himself, he walked offstage.

  A bored-looking man sitting in the front row stood up. He wore a black gown and one of those mortar-board hats from olden times.

  “Yes, thank you for that, Percival,” he said in a snooty voice. “Next time if you could at least try to bring in something interesting, it would be appreciated. On to our final presentation for today, which I have been assured is worth the wait. I can’t imagine it could be less interesting than the things we’ve seen so far, but with you lot involved, who knows? Anyway, without further ado, Toby Bloom.”