by Shoo Rayner
The message slowly worked its way across the classroom. From Megan to Lexi to Ben to Rhys and finally to Ryan.
Ryan looked round and frowned. He unfolded it and read the message under his desk. His head jerked round. His and Harri’s eyes met. Ryan looked … scared? Guilty?
‘Would you like to share that with the class?’ said Mr Davies, who had quietly sneaked up on Ryan and whisked the message from his hand.
‘Let’s see, what does it say?’ Mr Davies read the message, then he repeated it out loud to the class. ‘I — know — your — dad — knows… Hmmm. That’s very interesting, Ryan. What exactly does your dad know?’
The rest of the class giggled. Ryan turned bright red. In his confusion he couldn’t think what to say.
‘Ryan’s dad knows everything!’ Ben said, cheekily.
The class erupted in laughter. Ryan was almost in tears.
Mr Davies looked uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant to humiliate Ryan.
‘Now now!’ he called the class to order and handed the message back. ‘Put it away now, Ryan. What have I said about passing messages in class?’
‘No passing messages in class, sir,’ the children chorused.
‘Exactly!’ Mr Davies turned back to the whiteboard to take the focus off Ryan. ‘Now who can tell me why the poet uses a semicolon in the third line down?’
After school, Harri waited for Ryan at the gate. The boys ambled down the street, side by side, until the pack of mums and dads and children had dispersed and they were alone.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ryan finally broke the silence. ‘He tricked me, see? You don’t know what my dad’s like. He knew about Tân already — he’d seen you feeding him worms on Saturday and worked it out.’
Harri knew Ryan’s dad too well. They had been battling each other for years, not one to one, but through Ryan. Through Ryan’s homework, and projects and all the other things that Ryan’s dad did to make sure Ryan came first or top of the class.
Ryan’s dad had always been really nice and friendly, helpful even. But then, he’d never lost before.
‘Dad’s gone a bit weird,’ Ryan said. ‘He spends all his time locked up in the garage. I don’t know what he’s doing in there. I wish Mam would get back from America. It feels like she’s been away for ever. She’d sort him out.’
Ryan stopped and stared at the ground. ‘I don’t think he’s going to be happy until he’s paid you back for shooting down his plane.’
Harri felt his stomach lurch. That wasn’t fair! He was just a boy. How could he defend himself against a grown man?
‘I hope we can still be friends?’ Harri said quietly.
Ryan looked up. A tiny smile of hope spread across his face.
Neither of them had to say a word. Neither of them knew what to say anyway. But something unspoken had created a new and stronger bond between them. Something deep and magical. Maybe it was something to do with being around dragons?
After all, Ryan had spent quite a lot of time with Tân. He must have been affected by dragons too.
Chapter Nineteen
‘What’s the matter with him? Is he going to be okay?’ Ryan fretted. He looked worried, his face was pale and drawn. ‘Dad kept calling your name, telling me to go and fetch you.’
Ryan’s dad tossed and turned in his bed. The bedclothes were soaked with sweat. Imelda felt his forehead. He was burning up. Dragon Fever! she thought.
‘Where’s your mam, Ryan?’
‘China!’ Ryan sighed. He could hardly remember when he’d last seen her, she was so busy running her IT business these days. The conference in Las Vegas had gone so well, she’d flown on to China to set up some new contracts.
‘Should I get the doctor or an ambulance?’ Ryan looked really worried.
‘There’s not much they can do.’ Imelda smiled to reassure the boy. ‘You were right to come and get me, Ryan. We’ll get your dad well again in no time. Have you got some ice in the fridge? We need to cool him down.’
‘The fridge has got an ice-maker in it,’ said Ryan. ‘I’ll go and get some.’
* * *
Two days later, Ryan’s dad opened his eyes. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’ he croaked.
Imelda held a glass of water to his lips.
‘You didn’t do as you were told,’ Imelda said, gruffly. ‘You didn’t take the medicine I gave you. It would have protected you from dragon fever. Goodness knows what it’s done to you.’
Ryan’s dad’s eyes widened, as he slowly remembered how he’d watched the egg hatch and how the tiny dragon had clung to his wrist, pricking his skin with its tiny claws. ‘Where is it? Is it okay?’
‘I’ve been looking after it,’ Imelda said. ‘It’s fine. It’s waiting for its master to recover.’
‘Ryan? What about Ryan?’
‘He’s at school. I’ve been staying in the spare bedroom and looking after him as well as you. He’s been really worried.’
‘Does he know?’ Ryan’s dad croaked.
Imelda shook her head. ‘No, and I’ve not told anyone.’
Ryan’s dad relaxed and fell back into the pillows.
‘You’ll be okay, now the fever has broken,’ Imelda explained. ‘I can leave you now. Keep taking this medicine.’ She pointed at the bottle of brown gloop. ‘And make sure you finish it all!’
Ryan’s dad scowled at her from under his eyebrows and grunted. She knew it was all the thanks she would get.
Chapter Twenty
It was a beautiful summer. It seemed that every day was filled with sunshine and bright blue skies.
Harri and Ryan spent the long, hot days wandering the hills above St Gertrude’s. When the the coast was clear and there was no one about, Harri would open his backpack and let Tân out to fly along with them.
When Tân wasn’t chasing rabbits, Harri was teaching him to follow commands and come back when he was called.
If they saw other walkers, Tân knew to drop down immediately, into the heather or a thick, prickly gorse bush, until they were out of sight.
‘How’s your dad?’ Harri asked.
They were sitting on a rock, eating their crisps and sandwiches. The town below them was like a toy model. It was market day and they could see people going about their business, bustling in the streets. In the distance, the sea sparkled and behind them, the mountains rose up to meet the scudding, pillowy clouds.
‘He’s okay,’ Ryan nodded. ‘But he’s changed since his illness. He’s quieter — he’s gone moody. He’s stopped doing stuff for me all the time, which is great. But sometimes, it’s like he can’t wait for me to come round to see you — like he wants to get me out of the house. Mam says he’ll be back to his old self soon.’
Harri pulled a bit of ham from his sandwich and offered it to Tân. Tân stood on top of the rock, his head held high, his wings half open, standing proud like … well, yes … just like the red dragon on the flag of Wales!
Sometimes, Tân would stare towards the mountains, almost in a trance. Harri would follow the little dragon’s gaze and wonder what it was that drew its attention.
Dinas Emrys was in that direction, the place where the mythical dragons of the Mabinogion were buried deep underground.
Was that it? Was Dinas Emrys calling him? It was calling Harri. Every day, Harri thought about the trip he and Mum had taken there last autumn. He felt he belonged there. He didn’t know how to put the feeling into words, so he kept quiet about it. But he knew it was important. Somehow his destiny was tied up with that place and the story of Merlin and the red and white dragons that were buried there.
There was only one dark cloud on the horizon: the Battle of St Gertrude’s.
All summer long, Harri’s promise to Mr Davies had weighed heavily upon him.
‘He’s going to notice that Tân has grown!’ Harri said for the umpteenth time.
‘We need to make a new box and we’ll have to make it look just like the old one,’ said Ryan. ‘Tân hardly fits in it any
more.’
‘It’s hard, keeping a dragon,’ Harri sighed. ‘Someone’s going to find out about Tân one day, then I don’t know what will happen.’
Ryan nodded, but he said nothing. His dad had found out. Why had he never mentioned it again? There must be a reason. He must be up to something!
Chapter Twenty-one
‘We need to learn more about dragons,’ Imelda told Harri one morning. ‘Not just to help with looking after Tân. We need to know more about dragons. I don’t know what is going on in Ryan’s dad’s mind.’
Harri and Imelda crossed the road to the library. He followed her up the stairs to the hushed sanctuary of the reference library. He’d never been up there before. Old books and boxes were piled on dark, carved wooden shelves. Large chests contained maps and documents. It smelled of old dust and wax polish.
The floor creaked loudly in the studious silence.
The mayor was sitting at a desk, surrounded by books and papers. He glanced up and smiled when he recognised Harri.
‘Hello!’ he whispered. ‘You’re the lad with the flying dragon, aren’t you?’
Did he know? Did he suspect?
‘Did you really make it all by yourself? You’re very clever, you know?’
Harri smiled and said nothing, in case he said something he shouldn’t.
‘Come and look at this,’ the mayor said, untying a green ribbon on some rolled-up parchment. ‘It’s very old. It’s part of the town archives but it’s written in a language I’ve never seen before.’
He spread out the document. ‘Here — you’ll like this little picture at the top.’
A boy and a woman stood in front of a castle holding hands. The woman held a jug from which water flowed into a stream. The boy’s hair shone with real gold leaf. A red dragon, with flaming nostrils, stood on the walls of the castle tower. All around the picture, strange, curling words were written in fading ink.
Harri reached out. As his fingers lightly touched the document, a spark, like an electric charge, shot up his arm, making him jump.
‘It’s Emrys!’ Harri whispered.
‘Emrys?’ the mayor sat up. ‘You mean, Merlin? What makes you say that?’
The mayor looked at Imelda. Her lips were moving as her eyes scanned the words of the document.
‘You can read it!’ he whispered.
Imelda held the mayor’s gaze a full ten seconds before she spoke. She decided she could trust him — they were going to need friends. The mayor was an honest historian, seeking truth in the past.
‘It’s written in the old language,’ she explained. ‘Harri’s right. That’s Emrys, or Merlin.’ She pointed at the boy in the painting. ‘And that is St Gertrude.’
‘Merlin and St Gertrude knew each other!’ The mayor gasped.
Harri could see it all in his head, like a movie playing before his eyes. He could feel the story reaching out across time, reaching out across hundreds of years … reaching out and claiming him!
‘When the Red Dragon killed the White Dragon,’ Harri began, ‘no one could control it, not even Emrys, for he was still a boy. The dragon went on the rampage, destroying everything in its path. Now it was free, it wanted to remain free. Eventually, the dragon came here, where St Gertrude met it and offered it a drink of water from her well. The mystical powers of the water tamed the dragon and Emrys gave it into her care.’
Imelda and the mayor listened to Harri, open-mouthed.
‘That’s exactly what’s written in the document.’ There was wonder in Imelda’s voice. ‘It also says that the king gave St Gertrude a special charter allowing her to keep a dragon in her tower.’
The mayor’s eyes were wide with excitement. ‘But that’s incredible!’ he gushed. ‘There are piles of old documents in the archives, imagine if we could prove the story was true!’ He winked at Harri. ‘Your mother would be pleased. I’m sure it would bring more tourists to the town and to her shop.’
Imelda smiled and brushed a golden curl from Harri’s eyes. Emrys has returned, she told herself for the second time.
Chapter Twenty-two
‘Here comes the dragon, lads!’ called Mr Davies. His hairy, bearded followers punched the air and cheered.
‘Thanks for coming, boys,’ Mr Davies smiled. ‘You’ve no idea how much it means to us to have a dragon flying as our mascot. We’re going to beat those Saxons good and proper!’
‘Yo!’ chorused the hairy, bearded warriors. ‘Death to the Saxons!’
The Ancient British Re-enactment Society had set up camp at one end of the park, under the shadow of the ruins of Castle Gertrude. The Ancient Saxon Re-enactment Society had set up their camp down by the bowling green. The Ancient Saxons were just as hairy and bearded as the Ancient Britons.
According to the posters that decorated all the lamp posts for miles around, the battle was due to begin at 2.30pm.
By 2.25pm, a huge crowd had assembled to watch the show. Music trilled from a little funfair down by the pond while an announcer explained what was going to happen on the loudspeaker system.
‘Welcome ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys. Welcome to the world of history, to a time when savage war was waged between the Ancient Britons and the bully-boy Saxons, invading from the East.’
The two armies lined up and raised their fists and shouted vile curses at each other. The crowd booed or cheered, depending on who they were supporting. The atmosphere was electric.
‘Ready, boys?’ Mr Davies puffed his chest out and pulled himself up to his full height.
Harri switched the light on his radio-controlled box and pointed it towards the new, much larger box. ‘Dragon … up!’ he ordered.
‘It’s bigger than I remember?’ Mr Davies sounded surprised.
‘I — I — err. I crashed the last one, Chief,’ Harri explained. ‘So I made a new one. A bigger one — a better one.’
‘Fabulous!’ Mr Davies grinned as Tân rose gracefully above them.
The hairy, bearded warriors cheered at the site of their emblem. ‘Long live the Red Dragons!’ they chanted.
The crowd cheered. They were really getting into the spirit of the occasion.
Then a murmur swept across the crowd. The murmur turned into an Oooh! and then an Aahh!
Harri couldn’t believe his eyes. The Saxon army lay a hundred metres from them. Now above their heads another dragon flew! A white dragon! If anyone in the world knew about dragons, Harri did. This wasn’t a radio-controlled model, this was a real dragon. Where on earth had the Saxons got a real dragon from?
The line of Saxons parted. A Saxon chief walked through the gap and stared directly at Harri! A sinister grin spread across his face.
‘Ryan! It’s your dad!’ Harri gasped.
‘What the…?!’ Ryan was lost for words.
Ryan’s dad held up a radio control unit. He too was pretending to be controlling a model dragon. ‘Behold, Draca, the White Dragon of the Saxons!’ he roared.
‘It’s 2.30!’ The announcer could barely contain his excitement. ‘Let battle commence!’
The two sides raised their swords and spears and shields and charged.
‘Long live Draca! Long live the White Dragons!’ yelled the Saxons, as they began their headlong stampede across the newly mown grass towards the Ancient Britons.
* * *
Harri kept one eye on Tân and one on the white dragon, which was circling, gaining height above the marauding Saxons.
‘Up, Tân!’ Harri ordered. ‘Get up high!’
It was too late. The white dragon tucked up its wings and fell from the sky like a rocket … like a rocket trailing smoke.
‘Oh no!’ Harri threw his fake control box on the ground. There was no point pretending anymore. He cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Tân! Watch out!’
It started as a trail of tiny, crackling sparks, then blazing, flaming jets of yellow fire shot out of Draca’s nostrils. The crowd cheered. What a fantastic show! They hadn’t expected dragons — t
hey looked so real!
Tân flipped and rolled as he felt the flames scorch the scaly tip of his tail. Where had that dragon come from? He didn’t look friendly, and he wasn’t playing a game. This was a real fight!
The white dragon came at him again, flames blazing. This meant war! Tân closed his wings and dropped like a brick. He opened them at the last moment, swooping over the heads of the crowd.
‘Oooooooh!’
The white dragon had anticipated Tân’s move. It circled and came in for another attack.
‘Aaaaaaah!’ The crowd were loving it … until they realised the white dragon was heading straight for them with both nostrils blazing with heat and fury.
The roar of the flames could be heard above the spectator’s screams as they ran in all directions.
‘Stop it, Harri! Stop it now!’ Mr Davies was shaking Harri’s shoulders.
‘I can’t, sir — I mean Chief!’ With all the tumult going on around him, Harri had remembered to call him Chief!
‘Switch him off!’ Mr Davies yelled.
‘I can’t!’
Mr Davis picked up the radio-control unit and flicked the switch on and off. As he did, the top came off the box and a pile of worms fell from inside it.
‘What the … urrgh!’ Mr Davies saw the fear on Harri’s face.
‘Oh my Lord!’ he gasped. ‘They’re real! The dragons are real!’
Ryan’s dad stood in the middle of it all, watching the mayhem, laughing like an evil genius from a bad cartoon movie.
Tân was not going to be beaten. Rage would not help him now, but anger would stoke the fires in his belly. He flew towards the sun, so the other dragon would be blinded if it tried to follow. He struggled to get higher … higher still, as the heat built inside him.
Feeling like his little heart was ready to burst, Tân turned and dived.
The white dragon was far below him. With the sun behind him, it couldn’t see Tân coming.
The first the white dragon knew of the attack was the sound of Tân’s fires igniting, the sputtering jets of flame building to full blast, then the pain as Tân burned a hole through the leathery fabric of its right wing.
