Gruffen

by Chris D'Lacey

  Lucy, who was coming downstairs at the time, dryly announced, “Mum, Gruffen’s killed a letter.”

  Liz forgave the young dragon, of course. She said the hole he’d made in the electricity bill was not important. He was just learning.

  She said the same when the telephone rang and Gruffen pounced on the receiver and tried to fly away with it. (He ended up dropping it into a plant pot.)

  Then at teatime there was a most dramatic incident when Liz spilt her cup of tea and scalded her fingers. Gruffen flew to the rescue. He roared at the tea and turned it into steam. The kitchen filled with brown-coloured mist and the smoke alarms went off.

  “All part of his learning, I suppose,” Lucy grumbled – once her ears had stopped ringing and she could see through the clouds.

  For a while after that things were calm. But as the day wore on and it eventually became time for Lucy to go to bed, Gruffen began to tense his claws in readiness for his most important duty: protecting Lucy overnight.

  Liz helped her into her pyjamas and told her a bedtime story. Gruffen enjoyed that. It was about a woman called Gwendolen who had lived among some creatures called polar bears. Surprisingly, Gruffen found an entry for them in his book. Bears, polar. Large, furry and white. Guardians of the north. Friends of dragons. Wise to be polite to them at all times. Gruffen decided he liked polar bears. Anything that did a bit of guarding was all right by him.

  When the story came to an end, Liz brushed aside Lucy’s fringe and said, “All right, time to sleep now. Gruffen will look after you.”

  Lucy looked doubtful. “Are you sure?”

  “Oh, yes,” said her mum. And with a brief hurr of dragontongue, she told Gruffen about the “monster” in the shadows.

  Gruffen put on his fiercest frown and flew to the post at the end of Lucy’s bed. Balancing carefully, he fixed his gaze on the corner of the room. Outside, the street lamp was already glowing. Liz said goodnight to them both and switched off the bedroom light. Immediately, a cluster of shadows touched the wall. Gruffen gave a start, then settled down into a crouch to watch them.

  It was not a windy night, which was good in some ways, but not so good in others. Good because the shadows hardly moved at all, so Lucy wasn’t frightened and fell asleep easily within ten minutes. But bad because Gruffen fell asleep as well. It was hopeless. The harder he stared at the motionless shadows, the drowsier he became. Before long, his eyelids had closed and his head had fallen forwards. Gentle hurring, snoring noises came tumbling out of his nose. His tail twitched gently as he dreamt of polar bears, and ice-white dragons, and—

  “Arrgh!”

  Lucy’s squeal of terror woke him in an instant. He was so shocked, he toppled sideways off the bedpost. Two flaps of his quick wings righted him again. Outside, in the street, something was beeping. He had no idea what it was, but it was loud enough to wake an nine-year-old girl. It appeared to have woken the monster too, for Lucy was shouting, “Gruffen, it’s here! Do something!”

  Gruffen snapped to attention. On the wall, one shadow was zigging and zagging at tremendous speed. Gruffen tried to follow it with his eyes, but there was no clear pattern to its flight and the sudden jerking movements made his neck scales rattle. He looked at Lucy. She was safe beneath her duvet. As far as Gruffen could tell, the shadow monster wasn’t trying to attack her. It just seemed to be content to show off its flying skills. Hrrr! he went, challenging the thing to slow down and show itself. To his surprise (and slight worry) it did! Suddenly, the shadow grew large and wide and the monster spread a pair of spiky wings. It had a head that seemed too tiny for its body and ears that seemed too big for its head! Gruffen dived forward bravely, releasing a jet of fire from his throat. There was a crackling noise and a smell of burning! A long scorch mark appeared in Lucy’s wallpaper.

  But still the monster continued to dart.

  Gruffen went after it. Although he was young and had much to learn, he had the auma of the other dragons to help him. Flying came naturally. Without thinking, he was able to alter his wing shape, twist his body, balance it with his tail and find speed in the muscles which flapped his wings. Soon he was flying as fast as the monster, copying its movements as though he was a mirror. Lucy said later that when he smelled the charred paper, she had peeked out from under her duvet to watch. Gruffen was zipping about like a firework, she said – right up until the accident happened.

  Oh yes, there was an accident, sadly.

  Fast as he was, agile as he was, Gruffen was no match for solid objects – like wardrobes. He was just about to roll his body and release his second jet of flame when he thudded into a corner of one. Everything went black and he fell to the floor. The last thing he remembered before the dizziness overcame him was what he thought might be the smell of the monster. It turned out to be the smell of Lucy’s socks.

  He had landed inside her slipper.

  Chapter Five

  “No damage, only bruises,” Gruffen heard Liz saying. He opened his eyes. The kitchen ceiling swam into view. It was daytime. He was lying on his back in Liz’s hands. The last thing he remembered was chasing a monster. The monster! Where was it? With a shake of his head he jumped to his feet.

  “Hey, hey, slow down,” Liz said, catching him. She helped him up onto the kitchen table where he tottered for a second and had to hold a banana in the fruit bowl for balance. He felt between his ears where there seemed to be an extra bit of clay he didn’t know about. It was shaped like an egg.

  “You’ve had a bump,” said Liz. “You’ve been asleep for quite a while.”

  Hrrr, went Gruffen, looking around. Lucy was sitting at the end of the table with her chin propped up in the cup of her hands. “Thanks to you, we’ll have to redecorate,” she said.

  “Nonsense,” said Liz. “It’s only a small scorch mark. We can move the wardrobe in front of it.”

  Lucy went hmph. She flicked her gaze at Gruffen. The little dragon seemed slightly perplexed. “You burned my wallpaper,” she told him.

  “Not intentionally,” said Liz. “He was doing what he thought was right.” She tapped Gruffen on the shoulder. “Can you remember what you saw, Gruffen? Can you describe what this monster looked like?”

  Gruffen sat on his haunches and blew a deep sigh. It was all coming back now. The zigging. The zagging. The sudden crash. Apart from that moment where he’d tried to fight it, the monster had had no shape at all. He remembered the wings and the tiny head, though. Perhaps he could show Liz and Lucy that?

  “It was like this,” he hurred. Softening his scales, he stretched his wings until they resembled two flowing capes. Then he squeezed his head down into his shoulders and somehow produced two pointy ears as well.

  Lucy gave a gasp. “Huh! He’s turned into it!”

  “So he has,” said Liz, clapping his cleverness. “Now the mystery is solved. I know what it is. That’s no monster. That’s a—”

  The doorbell rang before she could finish.

  “A what?” demanded Lucy.

  “In a moment. Let me answer the door,” said her mum. “Now, Gruffen. You know what to do if visitors come into the house, don’t you?”

  To be on the safe side, Gruffen looked up “Visitors” in his book of procedures. It said, Visitors are welcome, but can become suspicious. Always be on guard. Act solid at all times or move quickly enough not to be seen by them. He glanced at the listener on top of the fridge. It had already hardened its scales. Gruffen put his book away, flew onto a wall shelf and did the same.

  “Good boy,” said Liz and went to the door.

  Moments later, a tall, elderly gentleman came striding into the kitchen.

  “This is Mr Bacon,” Lucy said to Gruffen. “He lives next door.” She had not forgotten the rules. She just liked to tease Mr Bacon now and then.

  He twizzled his moustache and looked at her sourly. “Of course it’s me. Who on earth were you talking to, child?”

  “My guard dragon,” said Lucy.

  Her mother f
rowned darkly.

  Mr Bacon cast a quick glance at Gruffen. On the whole, he didn’t think much of the dragons or Lucy’s love for them. “Strange girl,” he muttered.

  Lucy stuck out her tongue.

  “Henry, why are you here?” asked Liz, steering Mr Bacon round to face her.

  “Bats,” he boomed. “In the attic, Mrs P.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Liz, in reply to his statement. “There’s been one flying around outside Lucy’s bedroom window.”

  “Has there?” gasped Lucy. Her mouth fell open in astonishment.

  On the shelf, Gruffen raised an eye ridge. He drummed his claws quietly against his book. Bat. Now he had a name for the monster. He needed to look that up. But how could he, with Mr Bacon standing right beside him?

  “Need to speak to someone at the Council,” said Henry. “Have them removed, before they breed.”

  “Breed?” asked Liz, glancing at Gruffen. The young dragon was hiding by an ornamental jug where he was quietly flicking through his book.

  “Like rabbits,” said Henry. “Hundreds in the rafters before you know it.”

  “Mum, they might bite me and suck my blood and turn me into a vampire!” cried Lucy, who knew a thing or two about someone called Count Dracula, who regularly turned into a giant bat.

  “I don’t think so,” said Liz, wondering which was worse: Lucy’s imagination or Henry Bacon’s.

  “Of course, we could just smoke them out,” Henry said.

  Which seemed to be a cue for Gruffen to snort a small puff of smoke into Henry’s left ear. He had just found an entry for “Bats” in his book: small, harmless, nocturnal creatures. Many species are protected, it said. Protected!

  “What the…?” Henry turned round sharply to look at the dragon with the guilty expression and the open book. For a nanosecond of puzzled time he did ask himself if the model could have been a different shape the first time he’d seen it, but what was of far more importance was the strange sensation that the hairs in his ears had somehow been singed.

  Liz moved quickly to right the situation. She picked up a tea cosy and dropped it over Gruffen and the jug.

  Henry threw her a quizzical look.

  “Too distracting while we’re chatting,” she said. She put her hand on Henry’s shoulder and guided him down the hall. “Thank you for telling us about the bat, but I really don’t think we need to do anything too drastic. As it happens, I know an expert in bat…technology. He’ll sort it out in a jiffy, you’ll see.”

  “Expert?” asked Henry, poking his ear. Why was there ash on his fingertip, he wondered?

  “Oh, he’s the best there is,” said Liz. And she pushed Henry out and came back into the kitchen.

  Straightaway, Lucy echoed Mr Bacon’s confusion. “Expert?” she said, with a twitch of her nose.

  Liz lifted the cosy off Gruffen and the jug. The young dragon was blushing a deep shade of green. He blurted out what he’d found out about bats in his book.

  “Exactly,” said Liz. “It needs to be protected. And what better champion could it have than a guard dragon going by the name of Gruffen…?”

  Chapter Six

  That evening, Gruffen abandoned Lucy’s bedpost and sat on her windowsill instead. By now, Lucy was not afraid. All afternoon she’d been poring through her wildlife books, reading up on anything she could about bats. She had discovered, for instance, that bats were mammals, just like people, and gorillas – and whales! They lived all over the world, she read, in caves and trees and even under bridges. There were mentions of barns and farm buildings too, but nothing about house roofs with loft insulation. For food, they caught insects, moths and the like. And – but this was something she knew now, anyway – they were fantastic at flying. Indeed, she stressed to Gruffen, bats were the only mammals that could fly.

  At bedtime, she reminded Gruffen of these facts again. Being a patient, sensitive dragon he had found it interesting – the first time he’d heard it. By the tenth time he was beginning to wish that Liz would make a special lullaby dragon that could send Lucy off into a deep, deep sleep. But her mother soon did what mother’s always do when children go to bed and stay awake too long: she came into the bedroom, took the book out of her daughter’s hands, put it on the bedside table and said, “Head on the pillow now, please.” Then she turned out the light. And that was that.

  The moon rose over Wayward Crescent. From his windowside perch, Gruffen watched eagerly, missing not a rustle in the branches of the trees. Stars winked. Clouds and hours went drifting by. The night fell into silence, barring the distant hoot of an owl.

  Then out of the black sky came a small shape. The bat! To Gruffen’s delight it darted twice around the globe of the street lamp then zipped back and forth in front of the window without ever once looking like it might crash into it. It was moving so swiftly that to anyone on the ground, it must have looked just like a flying rubber ball. But Gruffen was able to quicken his vision and see that the bat had wonderful if really quite delicate wings. To you or I they would have looked like a kite stretched over thin wooden poles, but Gruffen could see that the bat had arms and fingers like a human. Like a mammal, in fact! When Lucy woke up, he would tell her that.

  But for now, his mission was to find out more. He needed to know what the bat was doing here. He felt it was his duty, as a good guard dragon, to warn it not to stray too close to Henry Bacon’s house. So he flew upwards to the open part of the window and launched himself into the night.

  Almost immediately the bat came to join him. It whipped around his head so many times that Gruffen felt quite dizzy at first. The bat was also trying to speak to him. It had a high-pitched squeaky voice, far above the husky tones of dragontongue. Every shrill little peep made Gruffen’s ear scales sing. He tried to speak back, but the bat chittered in fear and flew further away, perhaps a little wary of the throaty growls. Gruffen adjusted his voice scales a little, until out of his mouth came a thin little Hrrr that the bat did seem to understand.

  “What are you?” it asked, flying closer again.

  “A dragon,” hurred Gruffen.

  “A driggon?” said the bat, whizzing past. “I don’t think I’ve met one of those before.”

  Gruffen cast his voice higher and repeated his words. It wasn’t easy. The effort was making his tail point shake.

  “Oh, a dragon!” said the bat. “I’ve heard of them! My name’s Hattie. What’s yours?”

  Gruffen said his name and blew a quick smoke ring for her.

  Hattie whizzed through it. “You can fly,” she said, which seemed a bit obvious as Gruffen was as high as the gutters of the roofs. But he hurred and gyrated his wings a little, just to show that he wasn’t held up by strings.

  Hattie seemed pleased. “I like flying,” she said. “Can you do this?” She dived towards the tree and performed a spectacular loop around a branch.

  “I don’t think so,” Gruffen said warily, thinking back to his crash with the wardrobe. Trees, he was sure, would be equally as hard.

  Hattie zoomed overhead and did an aeroplane dive. “I can teach you,” she said, “if you know how to echo.”

  Hrrr? went Gruffen. He didn’t understand.

  “Echo,” she said. “I go ‘ping’ at things and they ping back. I listen to the pings and they tell me where I should and shouldn’t fly. Do you want to try it?”

  Gruffen shook his head. “In my opinion,” he said, “pinging would be better suited to a listening dragon” – of which he wasn’t one. He flapped his wings and tilted back. “Why are you here? Are you lost?” he asked.

  “No,” said Hattie. “I’m just waiting to get in.”

  “In where?” asked Gruffen.

  “To my roost,” she said. “Do you have a roost?”

  Gruffen thought about this. “I’ve got a window,” he said. “I can get into that.”

  “Umm, that doesn’t sound right,” said Hattie. “Shall I show you my roost? It’s just along here.” And without another pi
ng, she fluttered off up the Crescent, with Gruffen close behind.

  Very soon, they came to a house with a framework of scaffolding poles outside. The top poles were reaching as high as the roof. It was on one of these that Hattie set down. Gruffen landed with an untidy wobble. The pole was slightly rusted, which made gripping its rounded surface easier. And this turned out to be very important, for no sooner had Hattie put her feet on the pole than she fell back, hanging from it upside-down!

  Gruffen gulped, held tight, and did the same. Surprisingly, it was quite a pleasant experience – once he’d got over the feeling that all his clay was rushing to his head.

  “That’s where I go in,” said Hattie. “Under there.” She pointed a wing at the eaves, the place where the roof slates ended.

  Gruffen looked across. He couldn’t see an entrance, but Hattie was very small and could squeeze into most places easily, he thought. Which made him wonder why she was stuck outside at all. What was stopping her from going in? “How long do you have to wait?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Hattie. She pointed to a long white strip of plastic which ran all the way across the front of the house just behind the gutter. “I can’t get in, because the people who mended the hole in the roof put that there. I’ve been waiting out here for days.”

  Gruffen raised an eye ridge, which made him sway gently. (He tightened his grip and gave his wings a quick flap.) He looked closely at the plastic. It seemed quite fixed, which meant that Hattie might never get in. “Shall I try to burn a hole in it for you?” he asked.