Sure enough, the next second the lime and grey dragon darted down from one of the trees. Liam pulled off his coat and, as it flew in reach, he cast it over the dragon like a net. It dropped to the ground under its weight.
I heard Kat let out a little grunt of displeasure and mutter something under her breath about some people having no respect. Liam wrapped his arms around the bundle and lifted it up. It wriggled and squirmed.
‘Come on, this is our chance,’ I said.
‘Oi! Liam!’ Ted shouted.
Personally, I’d been thinking of being a bit less obvious. You know, element of surprise and all that. But Ted’s yell had shattered that. Liam spun round, saw us creeping up on him and immediately started running. We chased after him, yelling at him to stop. But, of course, he didn’t listen.
For a minute I thought we had him. We were that close. But then he ducked through a gap in the hedge and disappeared. We scrambled after him, crawling on hands and knees through the undergrowth.
‘Oi, get your bum off my face!’ Kat snapped at Kai after a few minutes. ‘Get your face off my bum,’ he answered. ‘I can’t go any further, so just stop pushing!’
I could see Liam through the tangle of branches, somewhere on the other side. He hadn’t run off. He was just standing there.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘How did he get out of here? We’ve been crawling for ages and there’s no sign of a way through yet.’
And then I noticed the creaking. The branches around us were moving, and a sprig of leaves burst out right in my face.
‘It’s his dragon,’ Kat cried. ‘He’s using it to make the hedge grow.’
Suddenly I had visions of us all trapped inside the hedge forever, woven into the foliage. Looking around, I realised I couldn’t see where we’d crawled in.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ I yelled, spitting out a mouthful of leaves. Everyone started bashing at the hedge. I think we were all starting to feel a bit panicky, knotted up in there. Our arms and legs were being scratched by twigs and we were covered in little bugs and beetles that seemed to be seeking safety in our hair.
‘Fancy that – a talking hedge,’ jeered Liam. ‘Next thing you know there’ll be magic dragons all over the place.’ He snorted with laughter and ran off, yelling, ‘Smell ya later, Whiffy Liffy.’
I groaned. I knew I’d never live down that episode with the dragon poo in the changing rooms. I’d have shouted something back, only I was afraid I’d swallow one of the wayward beetles if I opened my mouth.
So there we were, trapped in a hedge, and Liam was free to saunter away. And get himself to Grandad’s garden too. After all, what had he said about magic dragons all over the place? It was beginning to look like he really did have plans to get himself another dragon fruit.
I glimpsed Flicker through the prickly leaves. I called out to him and he darted down towards us. Motioning for the others to stay low, I gave him a nod and he unleashed a fiery breath at the hedge. Sunny and Dodger soon joined in and between them they burned a gap wide enough for us to crawl through. Looking back at the sizzling leaves I was afraid the whole hedge would go up like an inferno. But luckily Crystal froze the burning branches and stopped the fire in its tracks.
We stood there, nursing our scratches and picking the wildlife out of our hair and clothes.
Then we raced over to Nana and Grandad’s house. But there was no sign of Liam.
While I hung on to help Grandad pick Nana a barrow-load of vegetables, the others trooped off home. I looked over the fence at Grim’s enormous turnip and imagined Liam sneaking his way across to the dragon-fruit tree. I couldn’t believe he’d be stupid enough to try to hatch another dragon when he had his hands so completely full with his one. But then that was Liam for you.
There was something even more worrying to think about too. And that something was the dragon-fruit tree. Because it was looking worse than ever. It was pretty clear to us now that it was Liam’s dragon breathing on everything that was making Grim’s vegetables so enormous. But Grim no doubt thought it was all the chemicals he was using. With such good results he must have been chucking more and more onto his garden. Filling the soil with chemicals that were slowly but steadily killing the poor dragon-fruit tree.
So that’s how we found ourselves back camping in Grandad’s garden on Friday night. The day after we nearly got eaten by the hedge of doom, we’d all decided it was the best way to catch Grim in the act. And stop him before it was too late.
As I waited for the others to arrive, Grandad asked if he could have a ‘quiet word’.
‘Listen, Chipstick. Jim’s been having some trouble again. Things have been damaged, and he’s found footprints tramping all over his plot.’
I hadn’t been over onto Grim’s side of the garden since the night we’d gone looking for the dragons, but I still felt the colour rising in my cheeks. It was like I was getting so used to feeling guilty about keeping secrets from Grandad I immediately went bright red.
‘You’re not messing about in there, are you? It’s just that he’s pointing the finger at your lot again.’
‘I haven’t, Grandad. We haven’t. We … I …’ I shook my head. The truth was I knew exactly whose footprints they would be. The words were there, jiggling around on the tip of my tongue. I could just tell him right now. And he looked desperate to hear it. But I couldn’t just blurt it out.
‘Is there anything I should know, Chipstick? You know you can tell me anything.’
I shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot.
‘Apart from that Rocky Road is the best flavour ice cream – because we all know it’s Cherry Vanilla,’ he said with a wink. I tried to ignore the twinkle in his eye that made him look forever hopeful.
Before I had a chance to mutter any kind of response, the superhero squad skidded up to us on their bikes. I never thought I’d need to be saved from Grandad, but relief flooded through me at the distraction.
‘All right,’ I said to Ted, Kat and Kai, who were looking from me to Grandad and probably hoping he wouldn’t ask them anything either.
‘All right,’ Ted said.
‘All right,’ echoed Kat and Kai.
‘Talkative bunch, aren’t you?’ said Grandad.
We all laughed nervously.
‘Remembered your tent this time then?’ Grandad said, pointing to the bundle strapped to Ted’s back. ‘Well, you know where everything is.’
He waited a moment longer, looking like he was on the verge of saying something else.
‘See you in the morning, I expect,’ he said at last.
I was pretty sure that wasn’t what he’d been about to say. But he headed inside.
I told them about Grim having found footprints in his garden.
‘Looks like you were right about Liam,’ said Ted. ‘That sneak!’
‘Well, we can keep one eye out for him at the same time we’re keeping the other eye on Grim.’
Everyone nodded, and Kai went cross-eyed to prove it could be done.
We’d already sneaked out once while camping in Nana and Grandad’s garden. Doing it a second time didn’t feel any better. Especially after Nana made us all her special-occasion triple chocolate chunk cookies, some iced mini-donuts and gave us a bag of Grandad’s treacle toffee.
But we had to protect the tree. And if that meant sneaking back into Grim’s garden to prove he was using chemicals to cheat at the show, and killing the tree in the process – then we had no choice. And if we found that sneak Liam at the same time, so much the better.
This time we pitched the tent down among the apple trees. We’d be able to hear if Grim was up to anything and be close enough to catch him at it.
While we waited for it to get dark we tucked into Nana’s goodies and Kat and Kai told us how Crystal and Dodger had found my cat, Tomtom, creeping up on a baby bird and turned the tables by pouncing on him and then lifting him up in the air.
Ted laughed. ‘Fancy kidnapping Tomtom.’
I laughed too. ‘I wondered why he’d been keeping such a low profile lately. I thought it was because of those ferrets Mum’s looking after.’
As time ticked by we all started to yawn. One by one we took it in turns to lie with our head out of the tent, keeping watch for any signs of Grim.
‘I see something,’ hissed Kai, just as the rest of us were dozing off. ‘There’s a light flickering over there at the bottom of his garden.’
We all scrabbled forward to have a look, rubbing the sleep from our eyes.
‘Right, let’s get out of here,’ I said. ‘It’s time to catch that sneaky cheat red-handed.’
I winced and rubbed the back of my neck. Flicker’s tail had scratched me. I lifted him off my shoulder. ‘I thought you’d got the hang of that tail,’ I said. ‘Keep to the trees. I don’t want him seeing you.’ Flicker flew away from me and flared bright orange. He sent out a spray of sparks that crackled in the night air.
‘What’s got into him?’ Kat asked.
‘I don’t know, but it’ll have to wait. Come on.’
We crept out of the tent and edged our way down the garden.
I hoped the dragons would keep to the trees and out of sight. But, following Flicker, they all flew back and forth down the garden. Then one after another they kept flitting down to the dragon-fruit tree and zooming away again.
‘Maybe they know it’s in trouble,’ Kat whispered.
Seeing the dragons in such a frenzy made me even more determined.
‘Come on,’ I said, every inch of me prickling with the anticipation of catching Grim.
The light we’d seen had gone out, and Grim’s garden and shed were in darkness.
As we approached, I realised I could hear a low murmur.
‘Is that music?’ Ted whispered.
I nodded. ‘It’s coming from Grim’s shed. I’m going for a closer look.’
As quietly as we could, we clambered over the wire fence separating the gardens and tiptoed towards the shed. Apart from the music, I couldn’t hear any movement.
‘I don’t think Grim’s in there,’ I whispered.
‘What about the light we saw?’ Ted asked.
‘Maybe it was in the field – the farmer or something.’
I peered around the shed door, which was open. A drifting, beautiful sound lifted into the air. It was coming from an old computer.
As soon as the dragons heard the music, they stopped their frenzied flying. They seemed to be drawn to the haunting sound and began to rise up. The four of them were circling slowly, weaving and twisting, following each other in a spiralling dance.
We watched, spellbound, as the dragons soared up into the sky, mesmerised by the swirling sound of the violins and cellos filling the air.
‘Well, they obviously like it,’ Kat said, smiling.
‘Why’s he playing music?’ Kai asked. ‘He’s not even here.’
Kat stepped into the shed and shone her torch around as the rest of us followed her.
‘I think I know,’ she said. ‘Look at these.’
The glow of the light fell on a magazine that was lying open. Kat lifted it up. There was an article with a picture of a man cradling a tomato plant. He had a microphone in his hand and it looked like he was singing into it. The title said ‘Plants Love Music’.
‘It says here that singing and playing music to your plants helps them grow bigger and better.’
Ted snorted with laughter.
‘Yeah, I reckon it depends on your singing,’ said Kai. ‘The noises Kat makes would make most plants shrivel up.’ Kat shoved him and he stumbled back into a box of books.
The books had titles like How to Grow Organic Vegetables, A Guide to Gardening the Natural Way and Bee Green.
The music faded to silence. Kat looked at me and I started getting that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach again.
‘Hang on – if he’s all about growing things organically, why’s he using chemicals?’ Kai said.
‘I don’t think he is,’ Kat replied. She looked directly at me. ‘We just kind of assumed that, didn’t we?’
‘But then what’s killing the tree?’ I said. ‘Why isn’t the ash working? There must be some reason it’s suddenly shrivelling up.’ If I could have changed colour like Flicker I’d have been flaring bright orange, just like he did when Tomtom chased him and he was in panic mode. ‘It can’t just be my fault,’ I said.
I heard the last words squeak out of me and realised just how responsible I’d been feeling for the state of the tree. After all, it had been fine before I found it.
Kat squeezed my arm and Kai shuffled closer.
Ted said, ‘It’s not just you, Tomas. We’re in this together, remember?’
Suddenly a light flickered through the shed window. We all ducked down, Kat fumbling with the switch on her torch.
‘Grim!’ she hissed.
‘I don’t think it is,’ I whispered. ‘It’s coming from near the hedge, not the house.’
We looked at each other through the gloom, all thinking the same thing. It had to be Liam.
Keeping low, we peered around the door. The flickering light could be seen moving across the end of Grim’s garden and into Grandad’s.
‘Well, that’ll be the footprints Grim’s been blaming us for,’ Kai said.
We waited for the light to stop moving. We knew Liam was heading for the tree. As silently as possible we crept out and picked our way between Grim’s vegetables. The ones closest to the fence were looking abnormally large, just like the ones in the school garden. It was pretty clear that Liam’s dragon had breathed on them too at some point. Grim must have been over the moon to see the size of those onions!
As we got closer we saw Liam bending down by the dragon-fruit tree. He was carefully pulling the cactus leaves to one side, wincing from the sharp thorns. There had only been a couple of fruits on the tree earlier, and they were shrivelled up. So what on earth was he doing?
And then we saw him put his hands to his mouth and make that owl sound. From behind us swooped the grey shape of his dragon, flying so low over our heads we could see the lime green glowing under its wings. It settled next to Liam, and as he pulled the last cactus leaf aside I saw what was hidden deep within the tree. Standing back, Liam clicked his fingers and the dragon let out a green jet that lit up the whole dragon-fruit tree with an eerie light. He clicked his fingers again and the dragon breathed once more. And then again.
I remembered Flicker lighting up like a beacon that day with Grandad, and how the dragons had zoomed down to the tree earlier. They must have known what Liam was doing, what was hiding within the leaves. And what was going on with the tree. We just hadn’t listened. And I wished we had.
Because there deep inside the tree, so heavy that it was making the trunk of the poor tree bend under its weight, was a dragon fruit. Not a normal dragon fruit, one the size of a mango. But a vast, giant-sized dragon fruit – as big as a football.
Anger rose up in me and I stormed over the wire fence.
‘Get away from that tree,’ I shouted at Liam, who was still crouching beside it.
Surprised, he wobbled on his heels and toppled over on the muddy ground.
‘Ow,’ he yelled and pulled out a thistle the size of his arm from under his bum.
‘Serves you right,’ said Kai behind me.
‘Whatever you’re doing, stop it!’ Kat shouted. ‘You’re killing the tree!’
‘Rubbish,’ Liam said, scrabbling to his feet and looking round for his dragon. ‘I’m making things grow huge. Well, that thing is anyway.’
‘That THING?’ shrieked Kat.
Liam really had done it now.
‘You mean the awesome dragon you’ve been lucky enough to be looking after? Although looking after is hardly what I’d call what you’ve been doing. Besides,’ she added, ‘that dragon might be super-sizing the fruit and veg, but the plants are dying afterwards
. It’s draining all the goodness and life out of the soil and the plant. What’s the use of one gigantic fruit if the tree dies?’
Liam looked round at the garden and shrugged like he didn’t give one hoot about a bunch of stupid plants.
Kat launched herself at him, and for once I was the one holding her back.
‘Listen, Liam …’ I said. I took a deep breath and thought about Grandad.
Maybe I could employ a bit of his philosophy about seeing the good in everyone and appeal to Liam’s better side. I stepped in closer, keeping my voice as calm as possible. ‘The thing is, Liam, your dragon is causing chaos. And the more chaos it causes, the more likely it is someone’s going to notice. We have to protect the dragons. And that means keeping them secret.’
I waited, willing him to understand and to do the right thing. We all waited. Even the dragons seemed to stop flitting about above our heads.
But then he just narrowed his eyes and glared at us, taking his time to eye up each one of the superhero squad as we stood there together.
‘You wait till I get a super-size dragon. Then you’ll see some proper chaos.’ And he snorted out a maniacal laugh, reached forward and grabbed at the fruit, which had now swollen to the size of a beach ball.
Wrapping his arms around it, he heaved. But it was far too heavy for him to move. He obviously hadn’t thought this bit through. I almost wanted to laugh with relief. Except now the dragon fruit was pulsing a vivid green. The spiky skin started to ripple and I remembered the night Flicker had burst out of his fruit.
‘It looks like it’s going to erupt out of there,’ Kai said.
I nodded. ‘Get back, everyone!’
Liam stayed where he was, his eyes fixed on the fruit as it continued to swell. A grin spread across his face.
‘This dragon’s going to be epic!’ he shouted. ‘It’ll wipe the floor with your feeble squirt-sized dragons.’
He was acting like some kind of evil super-villain. I half expected him to rub his hands together, cackling gleefully.
The Boy Who Lived with Dragons Page 8