Amaranta

by Martha Faë

  The dragon sat down on the floor and looked up at me with a sad little face. It was then I realised that it only had one eye. But its eye wasn’t narrow and reptilian, like a real dragon’s eye, and it wasn’t round like a little boy’s or girl’s. It wasn’t even big and pool-shaped like mine. The little fabric dragon had one eye and it was shaped like an X.

  The dragon’s silence gave me courage. I know, I shouldn’t have spoken to it the way I did.

  “I’m going to tell you something,” I began. “I am fed up. Fed up, fed up, fed up, fed up, fed up. Do you understand me?”

  It wasn’t very clear if it understood me or not, because it carried on looking at me without saying a word. When I was just about to open my mouth to go on complaining, it said:

  “Do you think I’m not fed up? As if I enjoy hearing you scream at me every night!”

  “How can I not scream? You hit me in the face and wake me up!”

  “How and where I land is out of my control,” said the dragon, crossing its arms. “I’m sorry. Besides, what about all the times you’ve hit me over the years, eh? A few times you’ve knocked me straight to the floor in just one swipe. Look! Look here!” it said, turning around to show me its back. “You’ve worn my material away on this side from knocking me on the floor so often.”

  “Well, excuse me, sir,” I said, indignant. “Next time I’ll ignore the huge fright it gives me and welcome you with a red carpet.”

  The dragon looked at me out of the corner of its eye. The big X began to quiver.

  “See this?” it said, indicating the part that was moving. “That’s called a tic – a nervous tic, to be more exact. The doctor told me it’s from stress. Stress that you cause me,” it said, pointing a finger at me.

  “Right. OK. If we’re going to talk about problems, here’s mine. Look at my curls – what do you think of my curls? Hmm? Go on, then, I’m ready. Go on, tell me what you think of these curls!”

  “What do I know about your curls?”

  “For your information, I had neat, straight hair before you appeared. Then, THANKS TO YOU, it all began to curl and frizz up. My dreams are all trapped in there because you don’t let me sleep. So now you know.”

  The dragon stuck its nose in the air defiantly.

  “OK then,” it said, looking the other way.

  “OK then,” I echoed, imitating its indignation.

  Neither of us was prepared to speak. A cat’s meow could be heard down in the street, followed by a chase ending with the sound of a crash against the big rubbish container. Then there was just silence. Silence, and a low rumble. I glanced sideways at the dragon. He wasn’t moving his mouth, but I heard the rumbling again.

  “Are you hungry, too?” I asked.

  The dragon nodded.

  “If you promise you’ll behave while I’m not here, I’ll bring you something from the kitchen.”

  “Chocolate?” it asked, excitedly.

  “Chocolate,” I said, holding out my hand to seal the deal. “Don’t burn anything, OK?”

  The dragon placed his right forepaw over his heart to show me he intended to behave.

  When I returned, I found him sitting very calmly on the carpet. A big smile spread across his face from ear to ear when he saw that I’d brought chocolate and cookies for two. I sat down and we began our midnight snack.

  “Wow,” I said between mouthfuls. “I never thought the situation could be as unpleasant for you as it was for me. But then... aren’t you the same dragon who was on trial in The Forest?”

  “Private Gondra, Third Overland Regiment, at your service,” he said, jumping to his feet.

  “But in The Forest you looked like a real dragon,” I said, perplexed. “With scales and everything. And here you’re made of fabric. Why?”

  “That’s because when I wished for another world, what I wanted was to be like a toy dragon so that someone would treat me nicely and let me live in their home. If wishes are well formed, you know, they’re very powerful.”

  “Don’t I know it!”

  “They really can come true,” continued Gondra, “but you have to get them right. As you can see, I’m a little bit hopeless at it. I forgot a few important details in my wish - like, for example, choosing what material I wanted to be, or making sure I’d have two eyes in this world. Surely you noticed in The Forest that I only have one eye.”

  “Now that you mention it, yes, I remember you wore a patch.”

  Gondra sat down again and looked downcast. Evidently his missing eye caused him great sorrow.

  “What I don’t understand,” I said, changing the subject, “is why, in all these years, no one else has slipped through the magic tunnel like you have. The princess, for example; why hasn’t she ever fallen into my room?”

  “That’s a good question,” replied Gondra, looking interested. “I have no idea why Princess Enedina has never fallen through.”

  “I suppose there must be something you and I have in common with each other but not with the princess,” I said with a shrug.

  “Yes, there must be...” replied the dragon.

  “Let’s see. You said before that you wished you were different. Maybe that’s what connects us!”

  “You want to be different, too?” asked Gondra, looking at me in suspiciously.

  “No, silly. What I mean is that I made a wish as well, and that’s how I ended up in The Forest.”

  “I made my wish on a day when I was really bored because it wouldn’t stop raining,” said the dragon.

  “Me too!” I said, enthusiastically.

  “I concentrated really hard and imagined I had another world to go to where I was a soft dragon and lived at home with someone who loved me very much. All I wanted was to be able to eat chocolate whenever I liked and not to have to go back to the army ever again. I also wanted someone fun to play with.”

  “That’s it!” I said in an excited whisper. Suddenly I understood it all. “There are magic doors in headboards, but they don’t open unless you wish to go to another world. That’s the key.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Of course!” I said, “It’s perfectly logical!”

  12

  **

  The Story Of The Beautiful Little Princess Who Lives Happily But Completely Bored In An Impressively Fortified Castle And The Poor Little Misunderstood Soldier, Etc. ... Anyway, That Story.

  We talked until the first rays of morning sunlight peeped in through the window. We said our goodbyes, but not before agreeing that we would meet again later that same night so that Gondra could finish telling me his sad and hopeless story.

  “I’ll do my best not to land so heavily,” he promised.

  “Great,” I said with a smile.

  That night, Gondra appeared right on time, although he couldn’t control the landing much. Even so, I was waiting for him with a nice piece of chocolate cake.

  “OK. Are you going to tell me now why they took you to court in The Forest?”

  “Well, you see,” he said, “it all began a while ago, after a day’s military training on a Sunday. I had to go through very difficult training to get into the Royal Squadron of Feared and Fearless Dragons. To tell the truth, joining the army was never my dream, but my family were very hopeful about it so I was prepared to give it a proper go. I haven’t always been so clumsy and awkward, you know. On the contrary! My family thought I could have a great career in the Fearless Dragons. And being in the Dragons wasn’t so horrible really; there were also some fun things in the exercises. Like knocking over piles of stone with tail swings,” Gondra did a quick demonstration of military tail swings, but had such bad luck that he broke the empty plate I’d left on the rug.

  “Gondra!” I scolded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said with such a sad face that it was impossible not to forgive him.

  “OK. Go on with the story.”

  “I always came home feeling really proud of myself, telling my family about how I’d destroyed dozens of
stone hills and burned metres and metres of grass with great bursts of fire. But one Sunday, after training, I decided to go to bathing in the mud pools. That was when my life changed. As I was relaxing there in the mud, I heard something I’d never heard before. It was a beautiful sound, more beautiful than anything you can imagine. I got out of the pool as if I were in a trance – all I could think about was following that sound. Eventually I came to a part of The Forest I’d never seen before. Soon I realised I was in a place that wasn’t supposed to exist officially - where people live... You know, like you.”

  “There are people in The Forest?” I asked, extremely intrigued.

  “Yes, but they live separate from everyone else.”

  “A squirrel I met told me that in your schools they teach you that children are mythological creatures.”

  “That’s right,” said Gondra. “The official version is that children are small, annoying, and naughty mythological creatures.”

  “But we’re not like that!”

  “Well of course not, I know that now. But getting back to my story. When this happened I was already in my final year of military training, and my superiors had already let me in on a top-secret secret. They had told me the truth about the existence of people. They also said that the duty of our dragon army was to keep Dragonia safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “From people.” Gondra looked sad as he was telling me these things. “According to my superiors, humans are our biggest menace and most feared enemy. They told me hundreds of stories about knights who hunted dragons with lances, just for pleasure. That’s why, in Dragonia, they train young dragons in the art of Knight Elimination. But it isn’t just that; it’s a dragon’s duty to destroy all human possessions. Everything, without question or exception. My superiors say it’s to safeguard peace.”

  “But that day, when I found the place where people live, I saw them up close and I was surprised how small they were. I didn’t understand how something so small could be a threat to a dragon. I stayed a good while there watching the people. I saw how they worked their fields full of golden corn which gleamed in the sunlight and swayed in the breeze. As they worked, some of them took off their hats every now and then and wiped their foreheads. On that lovely sunny day, instead of stretching out in the sun, they were looking after their corn. There was fruit on the trees – they weren’t broken or burnt like the trees in Dragonia. The more I watched the people, the less I understood why we thought of them as our enemies.”

  “Were there children?”

  “Yes, there were some smaller people... They were playing, running, and laughing.”

  “Was that the sound that had got your attention?”

  “No. Even though everything I could see was so lovely, I still couldn’t find where the melody was coming from that so enchanted my ears. So I carried on walking, and that’s how I got to the castle. The sound was coming from the little tower window.”

  “Princess Enedina!”

  Gondra nodded and some of his fabric turned a bit pink. I suspected that that was the day he’d fallen in love with the princess.

  “Is she pretty?” I asked.

  “Beautiful,” he replied with a sigh. From the way he looked it suddenly seemed almost as if he could float.

  “What’s she like?”

  “I’ve no idea...”

  “Pardon?” I asked, confused. “Didn’t you just say she was beautiful?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know what she looks like. I only heard her sing and saw a lock of her hair. She has lovely long hair as red as cherries.”

  “I can’t believe it!” I said, raising my hands to my head.

  “Honest. Like ripe cherries...”

  “No, what I can’t believe is that you’re in love with someone you’ve never seen.”

  “She has a beautiful voice,” said Gondra.

  “Right. Fine, but do you really think that’s enough? I don’t know, normally you would have to at least speak to her at least once, or something, don’t you think? You really are the strangest dragon I know!”

  “You don’t know any other dragons.”

  “True.” I admitted. “But how did you manage to fall in love just like that? You don’t even know her!”

  What can I say? The story left me what we call gobsmacked. At that time I didn’t understand all that much about love but, even still, Gondra’s story seemed unbelievable.

  13

  **

  Count Gondo To The Rescue

  Even though it might seem unbelievable to me that Gondra could fall in love with a princess he’d never seen, the fact of it unfortunately brought him a lot of trouble – for instance one of the reasons he’d been taken to court was for having been found so many times in front of the castle.

  “But you don’t know the worst part yet,” said Gondra, and his expression clouded over with sadness.

  “What’s the worst part?”

  “The sentence – the punishment they gave me.”

  It was true. My sneezing incident had prevented me from finding out what the sentence was.

  “They’ve condemned me to exile. Exile... It’s horrible. Now I can never meet Princess Enedina. I can never set foot in The Forest again.”

  “Well that definitely is a big problem,” I said, putting my arms around Gondra.

  I began to think. It was clear that my new friend was very sad about not being able to go home and, even worse, never going back to the castle again. I wished with all my heart to be able to help him.

  “I’ve got it!” I shouted joyfully and Gondra jumped so high he nearly hit the ceiling. “Sorry,” I said. “But I’ve just had a brilliant idea. Gondra can’t go back to The Forest, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Because if he goes back he’ll be chased over valleys, mountains, and rivers, forever and ever.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But nobody said anything about Count Gondo, did they?”

  “Who’s Count Gondo? And what’s he got to do with anything?”

  “That’s exactly the point,” I said. “Nobody knows him, so nobody has anything against him.”

  “But WHO is Count Gondo?” Gondra was very confused.

  “Why you are, my dear Count.”

  Gondra stared, his eye wide open.

  “If you go back to The Forest transformed into somebody else you won’t have any problem at all. That’s why you’re going to stop being Gondra and turn yourself into Gondo. But listen, because this next part is brilliant: if you’re a count as well as being Gondo, you’ll be able to ask for an audience with the princess, don’t you see?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t see it. I’m just Gondra, and I have been all my life. How will I fool everyone in The Forest?”

  “Easy: with a transformation, as they say on TV - a new look. You leave it to me, I know the perfect place for it and it’s very close by. You’ll see,” I said, lowering my voice to keep our plan secret. “We’ll go to Peter, Please! I’ve never been there to be transformed myself, but everyone says they work real magic there.”

  Gondra concentrated so hard on trying to understand the plan that his eye spun around clockwise and came to rest with the X in a horizontal position.

  “It’s a hairdresser’s, silly,” I said, carefully and gently straightening his eye. “You know what a hairdresser is, don’t you?”

  Gondra shook his head.

  “It’s a place where they change your hair and you come out looking different.”

  “But I don’t have any hair! Haven’t you noticed that tiny little detail? I HAVE NO HAIR!” he said, raising his voice a little in frustration.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I replied. “You just have to trust me. Tonight, when everyone’s asleep, we’ll go to Peter, Please! When I’m done with you, you’ll look drop-dead gorgeous. Level five stunner. No one will recognise you.”

  * * *

  Although Gondra didn’t seem very convinced, he decided to
put his faith in my plan, which I thought very sensible of him and exactly how it should be between good friends. So when everyone else was sleeping, I got up and put on my favourite dress – the one with the X. Then I quietly called to Gondra, who was sleeping like a log underneath my bed.

  “Gondra,” I said. “Gondra!” I repeated a second time, a little louder. “GONDRA!” I shouted, in one of those whispered shouts that are really hard to do – the kind of shout you use when you want to shout in secret, and you hope that no one can hear it except you and the person next to you... Nothing. Gondra went on snoring.

  It was obvious that secret shouting wasn’t going to work. I looked at the clock and the seconds were rushing by: tick, tock, tick, tock. Precious night time was slipping away from us. I had to take desperate measures. I put my hand over Gondra’s snout and covered his nostrils. He woke up instantly.

  “What? How? When? Where?” he asked, putting himself instantly on guard and jumping about as if he were ready for a fight. “Who said fear? There is no fear, there is no PAIN!” he exclaimed as he tail-swished one of the wooden legs at the foot of my bed.

  “Shush! You’ll wake everyone up.”

  “Ah yes. True. I’d forgotten the plan. Pardon my reaction, it’s just that we soldiers of the Royal Squadron of Feared and Fearless Dragons always sleep light like that, always on guard and ready to spring into combat at the slightest noise.”

  “Right... At the slightest noise,” I said. “Come on, let’s go. I have everything ready. Hop into my rucksack.”

  “Pardon?” exclaimed Gondra, indignant. “You want to carry me there like a piece of merchandise?”

  “Perhaps the dragon of the Feared and Fearless Squadron has a better idea.”

  “The Royal Squadron of Feared and Fearless Dragons,” corrected Gondra with an air of superiority. “Or the R.S.F.F.D., if you prefer.”

  “Oooooooh! Come on then, Mr Snootypants F.F.D, get into the bag. Hurry up, it’s getting late. Unless you think it’s a better idea for everyone to see a toy dragon walking down the street...”

  “No, of course not,” Gondra evidently understood the importance of the mission. “So we recommend proceeding with maximum discretion, Commander Amaranta?”