The Boy Who Flew with Dragons

by Andy Shepherd

  And then it did something unexpected – something none of the other dragons had ever done. It opened its mouth and, instead of sparks, it started singing. I don’t mean singing with words. It was just making this sound. That I can’t even describe. Except that I got this jumble of pictures in my mind when I heard it.

  I saw the moon reflected in a rippling river. And those green lights you see over the North Pole. And the colour of the sky before there’s a storm. And it was like all those things made sounds and they’d swirled round together to make this one amazing sound. And this happy feeling spread through me like drinking hot chocolate on a cold day. It was sort of like that.

  Lolli looked as spellbound as I felt.

  One thing was for sure – I’d just won the prize for best birthday present ever.

  Lolli was having a party in the village hall with a bouncy castle. I have no clue why Mum had to invite the whole of Lolli’s nursery. I could have told her three three-year-olds was more than enough, let alone thirty-three. Add to that four excitable dragons and you can imagine how things went.

  It all started with Lolli’s grand entrance. Mum had decided it was going to be a Princesses and Knights party. So everything was covered in pictures of pink frilly princesses and cartoon knights.

  Most of the girls were wearing fancy dresses they kept tripping over. And the boys were covered in tin-foil armour. But some had decided they wanted the best of both worlds, so there were princesses with cardboard swords and several knights in tutus.

  And then there was Lolli. She had other ideas for her costume.

  And I bet you can guess what?

  With a lot of help from me and Nana, Lolli roared her way into the village hall as a fire-breathing dragon. Of course the silver paint hadn’t quite covered the cereal boxes, and several of the cardboard spines had already fallen off, but that didn’t stop Lolli. She burst into the crowd of startled princesses and knights, scattering them in all directions.

  Mum and Dad disappeared into the little kitchen, leaving me to ‘sort out some games’. The food was already laid out on tables at the end of the hall, so I’m pretty sure they were just hiding in there. Not that I could blame them. Luckily for me though, I wasn’t alone. There aren’t many best mates who would stick by you in the face of a three-year-old’s birthday party – but Ted, Kat and Kai had agreed to come and help and they didn’t let me down. It’s exactly that kind of thing that makes us the superhero squad.

  ‘I think this lot need entertaining,’ Kat shouted over the noise of yelling princesses. ‘What games have you got organised?’

  I shrugged. ‘I think Mum made a Pass the Parcel.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Kat shrieked. ‘You need more than that to keep this lot busy.’

  ‘I think she thought the bouncy castle would do the job,’ I said.

  We all turned and looked at the miniature wobbly castle. It was only big enough for about three kids and the tower part was already sagging. It had looked a lot bigger and a lot cooler in the picture.

  ‘You know what I think?’ Kat said. ‘I think this fairy-tale party needs some real live dragons!’

  We all looked at each other and grinned.

  Ted quickly set up camp at one end of the hall. He’d tucked Sunny into his jacket and pulled the collar right up. Cupping his hands round his mouth and shielding the little dragon’s head at the same time, he started breathing fire. Or that’s what it looked like to the little group of open-mouthed kids who soon gathered around him.

  Meanwhile, instead of balloon animals, Kat produced ice creatures made by Crystal, who was hiding underneath one of the tables. The children giggled delightedly as she reached under the flaps of the tablecloth and pulled out a tiny sparkly dog that looked just like Dexter, Kat and Kai’s terrier pup.

  ‘Come see MagiKai, the masterful magician,’ Kai hollered. ‘I shall make a dragon appear before your very eyes.’

  He held up a seemingly empty bag for them all to peer into. Muttering a few words he waved his arm across it and suddenly Dodger appeared. He’d been the same blue as the bag, in order to hide, then changed to a bright orange colour so he would stand out.

  There were gasps and squeals and then they all clapped and shouted for him to do it again.

  Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I decided to join in with Flicker. I’d seen how much Lolli loved chasing bubbles round the garden. So, hidden up my sleeve, his little head peeking out, Flicker started making smoke rings for the rest of the kids to chase. I have to admit we were doing a pretty good job. And no one was attacking each other any more.

  Then the door opened and a boy with a mop of black hair appeared with what looked like a giant frilly pom-pom stuck to his leg. Lolli squealed and raced over to the pom-pom, which unstuck itself from the boy. It turned out to be another princess, who had arrived fashionably late. This princess was related to our arch-nemesis, Liam Sawston.

  Liam’s got an older brother and a younger sister. His brother Jay is probably the coolest person you will ever meet. He oozes cool. He stood there with cool flicky hair, wearing a cool leather jacket, cool jeans, cool sunglasses and a cool T-shirt that had Darth Vader’s head on it. And he just said: ‘Hi.’

  See what I mean? Cool.

  Liam’s sister Bea is as cute as Jay is cool. She is one of those little kids that makes grown-ups stop what they’re doing and go, ‘Awwwwwwwwwwwww.’ And Lolli and Bea have been best buddies since they started nursery. The same nursery that Liam and me used to go to. And where, according to Mum, Liam and me were best of friends. Which of course is totally crazy.

  I can’t help wondering if Lolli and Bea will still be friends when they’re ten. Or if they’ll turn into deadliest enemies like Liam and me are now.

  ‘Look out, King of Trouble’s here,’ Kai said nodding towards a figure lurking behind Jay. And there he was. Liam. The one Sawston who was definitely not cool or cute.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Ted asked.

  ‘Looking for trouble, I bet,’ I said. Liam and his super-sizing dragon were the last thing we needed.

  But before we could do anything about him there came a scream of epic proportions.

  I spun round and saw Kai in a tug of war. A grubby knight had grabbed the bag with Dodger in and was shoving his arm in for a good rootle around.

  But that wasn’t the half of it. Sunny had got bored of being stuck in Ted’s jacket and had wriggled free and found the party food – and the chocolate fountain. He was utterly covered in the stuff and dripping it onto the heads below as he soared around the hall.

  Luckily, a dollop of chocolate unexpectedly splatted on the knight’s face and he yanked his hand out of the bag to wipe it away – just in time too, as a blast from Dodger set light to it.

  Without a backwards glance, the knight sped off to join the rest of the children as they chased around with open mouths, trying to catch mouthfuls of the sticky sweetness.

  But everyone started slipping on the melting ice animals and soon the hall was full of a crying tangle of frills and tin foil. Sunny veered round and flapped his way back to the table of food, ready to dive into the chocolate fountain once more.

  Unaware of his lucky escape earlier, the grubby chocolate-coated knight spotted Dodger taking refuge in the stack of Lolli’s presents piled up next to the table. He raced over and started ripping his way through them in a desperate search to find the dragon. Alarmed, Dodger shot out from behind one of the boxes. With a battle cry the knight dived at the little shape … and landed flailing and wailing with a crash on one end of the table of food. And as the other end tipped up, a chocolate-splattered Sunny launched from the fountain. But his wings were weighed down by the setting chocolate and he was sent spinning across the plates of food until he landed slap bang on Lolli’s birthday cake. The mermaid seal was squished under the dragon, and I turned just in time to see Lolli’s face crumple.

  She fled from the room as princesses, knights and dragons tore around in chaos.
/>   ‘What are we going to do?’ cried Kai.

  ‘If Mum and Dad come back in now we’re really in trouble,’ I yelled back.

  ‘You mean more trouble than a room full of three-year-olds covered in chocolate who’ve just seen flying dragons?’ Kat replied.

  Suddenly there was a high-pitched squeak, like someone was letting the air out of a balloon. The bouncy castle collapsed in on itself as Crystal landed on it and her claws sank into the saggy tower.

  ‘Kat, can you keep my mum and dad out of here?’ I cried. ‘Ted and Kai, I need you to try to calm things down a bit. Do a game of Sleeping Lions or something. Just stop –’ I waved my hand at the chaos – ‘this.’

  Leaving them to it, I hurried out of the hall. I had to find Lolli.

  She wasn’t in the corridor and I could see Kat hadn’t found her in the kitchen with Mum and Dad. I swung the door to the girls’ toilet open and called out. But no one answered. Pressing my nose against the glass of the double doors, I peered outside. And then scowled. Liam, bent over the bike rack, was spinning round and round on the bar in a whirl of somersaults. I was willing to bet he was just waiting to sneak in and cause even more trouble.

  Suddenly I heard a giggle. I pushed the door open and there, just outside, was a little heap of boxes.

  ‘Lolli,’ I whispered with relief.

  Liam stopped spinning and pulled himself upright. I glared at him.

  ‘Come on, Lolli,’ I said.

  Lolli shook her head. ‘Spindy spindy,’ she gabbled, pointing at Liam.

  ‘Come on,’ I cajoled. ‘Time to eat some of that lovely food. The cake still tastes good even if it’s a bit flat. Promise.’

  She held out a sticky hand towards Liam as if she was inviting him to come too.

  Liam looked awkward and I half expected him to laugh in her face. He didn’t though; he just looked at me for a second. I stared back. I don’t know what he was looking at me for. It wasn’t like I was about to invite him in. He turned to Lolli and shook his head. Thank goodness for that. Admittedly it looked as if he might have stopped Lolli wandering off, but let’s face it, the last thing this party needed was Liam ‘King of Trouble’ Sawston. Things were bad enough already.

  Lolli didn’t budge and kept her hand outstretched.

  ‘Go on,’ Liam muttered sulkily. ‘Or you’ll miss all the fun.’

  Lolli looked at me as if I could make a difference.

  I shrugged. ‘Another time,’ I lied.

  She wiped her hand across her nose, gave Liam a smile and skipped back inside. Only Lolli could want Liam Sawston at her birthday party.

  Judging by the screaming, crying, food throwing and fighting, Kai and Ted hadn’t been that successful at the whole calming-down thing. It was more like Screaming Lions than Sleeping Lions. I looked around for Flicker and saw him being chased by a parade of princesses.

  Lolli reached into the main box she was wearing as the dragon’s body. She pulled her hand out and I saw she was holding the tiny silver dragon. She lifted the dragon up to her face and stroked its head.

  ‘Tinkle, sing lullybies,’ she said.

  And suddenly the silver dragon began to sing. The strange sound filled the hall and it was like watching the Pied Piper of Hamelin in that old story. Children who had been running full pelt stopped on the spot, and the ones who were flinging cake let their arms drop. The dragons paused in their frenzied escape. Everyone just calmed down. Even I could feel my hammering heart start to slow.

  ‘Tinkle, Tinkle, ’ickle dar,’ Lolli sang happily.

  It looked like Tinkle, the singing silver dragon, had just saved Lolli’s party.

  It’s a good job no one really listens to three-year-olds. We watched all the mums and dads smiling and nodding and totally ignoring the clamour of thirty-three little children chattering on about all the dragons they’d seen zooming around the hall.

  It was like Grandad said. No one actually wanted to believe in dragons, so even if the grown-ups had seen Flicker or the others with their own eyes they’d have come up with some other explanation for it.

  Now, that’s not to say you shouldn’t do your best to keep your dragon secret. Don’t go getting all relaxed about it and thinking you don’t need to be careful. Because there’ll always be someone who’ll find out. Like Liam did, creeping around and spying on us. And believe me, you don’t want to be dealing with someone like him.

  When Liam first got his dragon, we’d all been worried that he would blab about it, unable to resist showing off. It was why we’d tried to catch his dragon so we could let it go before he gave the game away.

  But in the end he hadn’t told anyone. And actually he’d been keeping a low profile since hatching the ginormous dragon. Just as well too, since he’d scarpered and left us to sort out his mess, which we weren’t going to forget in a hurry! Seeing him at Lolli’s party though reminded us all that he was out there. Waiting.

  On the way home we spotted him again, hanging about by the swings and roundabout. I wondered if he’d been planning an ambush. But if that was it he’d picked the worst place to hide ever. We’d practically have to step over him to get by. And he was doing a rubbish job as lookout, hunkered down, stabbing at the ground with a stick.

  There was no sign of his dragon, or anyone else for that matter. No doubt he’d scared all the little kids away.

  We all eyed him warily as we passed, just in case he had some trick up his sleeve. But he barely glanced up.

  ‘You know I’m starting to wonder about his dragon,’ Kat whispered.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, at the start of the holidays we were always seeing giant flowers spilling out of window boxes and people disappearing into their huge garden hedges. But lately things have been pretty normal-sized. Don’t you think?’

  Now she mentioned it, I had to admit she was right. There was a time when just walking down a street you could end up fighting your way through a tangle of low-hanging branches from some tree Liam’s dragon had blasted, but that wasn’t happening now.

  ‘Maybe he’s found a way to keep it under control,’ Ted suggested.

  Kat didn’t look convinced. The way Liam acted around his dragon, I agreed with her. He’d been so busy figuring out how he could use the dragon to wreak havoc, I doubted he’d have much interest in learning about what it liked – or in training it.

  ‘Maybe he’s got it locked away somewhere so it doesn’t cause him any trouble,’ said Kai.

  Kat looked horrified. ‘Do you really think he’d do that?’ She looked from Kai to me. ‘What if he’s hurt it?’ she squeaked.

  I couldn’t believe even Liam would sink that low, but what if he had?

  ‘I think we should put the plan back into action,’ she said. ‘We need to find his dragon, make sure it’s OK and actually catch it this time. And then we have to let it go.’

  The others nodded fiercely.

  But I just sat there. I had started to feel sick. And it wasn’t the biscuits, cake, fizzy orange and handfuls of jellybeans I’d stuffed myself with. It was hearing those words: ‘let it go’.

  The party was over. Not just Lolli’s but the whole summer party we’d been having with the dragons.

  ‘What’s up with you, Tomas?’ Kai asked. ‘You’ve gone greener than Dodger hiding out in Dad’s lettuces.’

  I looked around at them. I couldn’t leave it any longer, however much I wanted to ignore it. It was time to tell them about the deal I’d made with Grandad.

  ‘YOU DID WHAT?’ yelled Kai. ‘I can’t believe you did that. You can’t do that. I’m not doing it. No way. Nope. Just no.’

  Ted had paused in the middle of feeding Sunny popcorn and was staring at me. Sunny bypassed Ted’s frozen hand and stuck his head straight into the open bag. But Ted didn’t seem to notice.

  Only Kat was looking at me without laser beams shooting out of her eyes. She turned to Crystal with a thoughtful look on her face.

  ‘You knew ab
out this all summer and didn’t say anything?’ Ted said at last.

  I nodded. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you,’ I said lamely. ‘I knew it would spoil the summer holidays. Look, I don’t want to let Flicker go either. That’s the last thing I want.’

  The laser beams dimmed a little.

  ‘So we’re not actually going to do it then?’ said Ted.

  I shrugged. ‘I’ve managed to persuade Grandad to let us keep them this long. But this time he’s not going to change his mind.’

  ‘Then we just won’t tell him,’ Kai said.

  I pictured Grandad the first time he’d seen the dragons. The wink he’d given me. And how good it felt not to lie to him any more. I hated the idea of going back to that squirmy uncomfortable feeling I got whenever I kept something from him. Like wriggly squiggly worms were holding the finals of the World Knot-Tying Championship in my tummy.

  But what could I do? I couldn’t let the superhero squad down and I definitely didn’t want to lose Flicker.

  I spent all that night worrying about what I would do when I next saw Grandad. I still needed to go over every day and sprinkle ash on the tree. It would feel horrible lying to him when he was poorly. But I couldn’t just avoid him. That would be even worse, especially when he was stuck in bed.

  And then something awful happened that meant I didn’t have to worry about lying to Grandad. But I did have a whole new thing to worry about.

  I knew something was wrong when Mum came into my bedroom and didn’t make any comments about the carpet of clothes, the empty packets from our super-snacktastic post-party picnic or the scorch mark I’d failed to hide under my desk. And when she held up the packet of chocolate biscuits I knew something was very, very wrong indeed.