The Boy Who Flew with Dragons

by Andy Shepherd

  I carried on and came to a spiralling iron staircase with a lopsided sign reading ‘Private’. It was draped with frilly tendrils and disappeared among the vegetation above. But looking up I could see a balcony running around the top of the glasshouse walls.

  It was getting harder to breathe in the stuffy tropical air, although that didn’t seem to bother Flicker and Tinkle, who left my shoulders and flitted between the red pompom flowers of a low-hanging tree.

  Finally the air changed a little and so did the plants. Ahead of me I heard Liam yelp and wondered if he had caught himself on one of the many vicious thorns I was starting to pick my way past.

  Then I heard his footsteps stop. Ducking out of sight behind a plant with huge fern-like leaves, I sneaked a look.

  He was kneeling on the ground in front of a tree. Not just any tree. A tree with a knobbly, hairy trunk. With long spiky green leaves that hung down in a familiar sprouty mop-top. And vivid tendrils like bursts of flame.

  I watched, open-mouthed, as he reached up to touch a spiky dragon fruit nestled on one of the tendrils.

  Carefully he opened his bag and lifted out the grey dragon. He held it under one arm and then cupped the dragon fruit in the other hand.

  The dragon let out a green blast. And then another. And another. Until the dragon fruit began to glow.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the glowing dragon fruit. I stepped closer but felt my foot slip in something mushy, I looked down and saw the pulpy remains of a dragon fruit. And then a smell of fish and burnt toast wafted towards me.

  Suddenly a shape zipped down from above. I ducked as a blue and yellow dragon with orange spikes flew straight at me. It let out a smoky belch and dropped another rank-smelling poo. I stumbled out of its path, tripped on a root and launched forward. Liam spun round with the dragon fruit now loose in his hand, as I fell sprawling at his feet.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I cried, no longer caring that my great attempt at sneaking up on him had failed. I scrambled to my feet and glared at him.

  He looked too stunned to speak. I’d obviously been pretty good at the whole undercover thing after all.

  ‘Well?’ I snapped.

  Before he could answer, the fruit he was holding glowed brighter and the next second it burst. Liam lunged to catch the little dragon before it fell to the ground. He cradled it in his hands, staring at the turquoise dragon with its two-pronged tail that flicked in opposing directions. I was still glaring at him.

  ‘They’re all so different,’ he said quietly.

  This wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I had been preparing myself for a shove or a shout or the old faithful, ‘Bog off, Whiffy.’ So for a second I was a bit taken aback.

  I gathered my thoughts. ‘You have no idea what you’re doing,’ I said. ‘You have to stop this.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ said Liam simply. ‘Maxi has.’

  ‘Maxi?’

  ‘My dragon. Maximus Gigantimus,’ Liam said. Then he shrugged. ‘But he’s just Maxi really.’

  I looked at the grey dragon, who had curled himself around Liam’s foot. Liam wiped his hands on his trousers, trying to remove the sticky pulp from the burst fruit.

  ‘I heard you outside class,’ he said.

  I must have sneered, because he jumped in with a feeble defence.

  ‘Look, you were the ones blabbing about stuff. I couldn’t help being there. I wasn’t spying on you.’

  ‘For once,’ I muttered. But he gave me a look, as if to say ‘And who’s just been spying on me?’

  ‘So?’ I grumbled.

  ‘So you were talking about that woman, Elvi, and the tree. Kat said maybe the legend you’d read was wrong and that dragons breathed on the fruit. And that’s how a dragon-fruit tree became active. But you said it yourself, maybe it took a special dragon.’

  We both looked down at the dragon at Liam’s feet, who was now glowing a bright green. Liam gave a little cough like he was clearing the words out of his throat.

  ‘I think Maxi’s pretty special,’ he said.

  Part of me was glad that Liam seemed to have finally got that. At least Kat could stop worrying about him not treating his dragon with due care and respect and all that. But he had more to say.

  ‘After I heard what you said I went looking for one of the fruits. I thought I could get Maxi to grow a tree fast and then breathe on it. I wanted to see if I was right. I mean, his breath makes stuff grow super-big and super-fast. You’ve seen that too. But maybe it would do more than that. But it turns out dragon fruits aren’t easy to find. No one even seemed to know what they were. But then I found out there was a tree here in the botanic garden. I didn’t need to grow one. I figured it was worth a shot. I wanted to find out exactly what Maxi could do.’

  I snorted. Liam had no idea what Maxi was capable of – but I was about to fill him in on that.

  ‘This is serious, Liam. Maxi is special, you’re right. He’s an “activator” dragon and they are rare. Really rare. But they’re also dangerous if they’re kept too long. It’s happened before. Some power-crazy muppet thought he could use a dragon like Maxi to become the next emperor of the Hidden City – and instead he ended up destroying everything.’

  Liam didn’t even look like he was listening; he was looking around the glasshouse, scanning the vines and leaves. I wanted to reach out, grab him and shake some sense into him.

  Suddenly there was a flash of scarlet and then silver. And two dragons darted out from behind the foliage. They circled us for a moment and then flew up towards the roof.

  ‘Liam …’ I said warily, ‘how many dragons have you grown?’

  ‘Enough,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Enough to do what exactly?’

  Before he could answer, six … seven … no, at least ten dragons burst out of the tangle of plants and started flitting around us. And then more and more and more. There must have been forty dragons circling the glasshouse.

  ‘What have you done?’ I yelled. ‘They’re going to destroy this place.’

  I was surprised the whole glasshouse hadn’t exploded from the amount of poo this lot must have produced. But then I realised that maybe this was the one place it would be OK. It was so humid that the poo probably never dried out enough to detonate. That was one good thing anyway. But, let’s face it, dealing with forty-plus dragons was not exactly going to be a walk in the park.

  ‘We’ve got to get them out of here,’ I said. ‘Before they go and set fire to everything.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Liam said matter-of-factly.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Well, they haven’t so far. And it’s their home – why would they destroy it?’

  ‘This isn’t their home,’ I shouted. ‘This is a greenhouse.’

  Frustration got the better of me and I snapped. ‘Why are you doing this? You can’t keep this secret. What’ll happen when people find out? Or maybe that’s what you want. It is, isn’t it? You just want to tell everyone, “Hey, I’m Liam. I’m the King of Dragons.” Just like the show-off you are.’

  Liam frowned and I stepped back, braced for the shove I was sure was coming this time.

  ‘Shut up,’ he shouted. ‘That’s not it.’

  ‘Well, why have you done it?’

  He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. His lips went really thin like he was pinching back the words.

  ‘Well?’ I snarled.

  ‘Maxi’s my friend,’ Liam muttered at last. And then added, ‘He’s the only one who’s ever stuck around.’

  He stared right at me and I remembered my mum telling me how we had once been friends. Until we’d gone to school, that was. And I’d had Ted there. Ted, who I’d known all my life. And who found it easy to go over to people like Kat and Kai, making friends for us both. Making us a little band of four.

  ‘It’s all right for you and the rest of your little gang. “Hey, look at us – we’re the superhero squad.” I know I’m not c
ool like Jay or cute like Bea,’ Liam said. ‘I didn’t do this to show off. I did it because …’

  Maxi raised his head and started nibbling on Liam’s trouser leg. Liam reached down to touch the dragon’s head.

  ‘Because I wanted some more,’ he growled.

  ‘More what?’ I cried.

  For a second we both just looked at each other, and then he gave a little sigh.

  ‘Friends,’ Liam said simply. ‘I wanted some more friends, all right? Happy now?’

  I felt myself shrinking down to ant-size.

  And not because Liam was being mean.

  But because I suddenly knew exactly how he felt. Ever since I’d lied to Ted, Kat and Kai, I’d been on my own. And it didn’t feel nice. Not nice at all.

  ‘But you can’t keep them,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Why not?’ Liam replied, full of bluster now. ‘I’m not hurting them and they aren’t hurting me.’ He straightened and squared up to me and I remembered his ability to go properly Hulk. ‘So you can shove off and leave us alone.’

  ‘But that’s just it – you are,’ I said, standing my ground. ‘Just keeping them like this is hurting them.’ And I thought again of Flicker’s dull scales. I reached down towards his dragon, realising this might be my one and only chance to snatch him away.

  ‘No!’ Liam spat, grabbing Maxi before I could get to him. Convinced he was going to hurt me this time for sure, I backed away and fell, scraping my hands on the rocky ground. Ahead, something large and green burst through the foliage towards us.

  ‘Step away from the dragon!’ it yelled.

  Kat launched herself at Liam and he too stumbled back. Behind her came Kai, breathless and holding his side. Ted followed, looking red-faced.

  ‘Since when did you get so fast?’ he groaned. ‘You were meant to wait for us, you know.’

  I looked at the three of them. It was so good to see them that I just couldn’t help grinning. I wasn’t going to have to handle Liam and a room full of dragons by myself after all. Ted grinned back.

  ‘You didn’t think we’d let you face the King of Trouble all on your own, did you?’ he said.

  ‘How did you even know I was here?’ I asked.

  ‘Give us some credit,’ Kai said.

  ‘You mean, give me some credit,’ Kat said. ‘Since I was the one who figured out where Liam was heading every day. It was in Elvi’s diary. She gave the second tree to the head gardener here. She seemed to think it was the best place, until she could work out why it never grew dragons. I thought Liam must have found out there was one here.’

  ‘But it was me who saw you jump on that bus,’ Kai said, ‘and went back for the others. It looked like you were trying to lasso it with your scarf!’

  Kat was pulling Liam roughly to his feet and looked ready to throttle him. But she didn’t get a chance because Maxi, alarmed at this attack, let out a fiery jet of green. The prickly-edged leaves next to Kat ballooned in size. She staggered out of the way, dropping Liam’s arm.

  ‘Hey,’ she shouted, rubbing her leg where the prickles had speared her. ‘That hurt.’

  But the dragon was in no mood to let her off so lightly. It sent more jets into the foliage. Immediately plants started super-sizing every which way. The vines thickened like enormous snakes, and leaves that were already big swelled to the size of umbrellas. We pushed our way out on to the path away from the creaking groans of the growing jungle. And then shrieked as we saw the now gigantinormous jaws of a Venus flytrap. It could have swallowed all four of us and still had room for dessert.

  All the commotion was getting the other dragons nosy. Suddenly five or six zipped down to join in.

  ‘Flaming fiery fiasco,’ Kat yelled. ‘Liam’s got himself a dragon army!’

  ‘I knew he was up to no good,’ Kai growled.

  ‘Not again,’ moaned Ted, desperately wiping runny dragon poo off his arm. ‘It better not explode. This jacket’s brand new. Mum’ll go Vesuvius on me.’

  Shielding themselves from the dragons, who had started sending sparks and, in some cases, fiery blasts in their direction, Kat and Kai grabbed Liam.

  ‘What have you done?’ they bellowed at him. Kat looked ready to wrestle him to the ground.

  ‘Stop,’ I said.

  They looked at me like I’d gone mad. And I couldn’t blame them. I’d been on the end of Liam’s mean comments enough times to know how back to front me sticking up for him sounded. But I’d learned something else now. Grandad was right – you don’t always know what’s going on with people. Liam hadn’t sat on a bumble bee, and everyone hadn’t forgotten his birthday, as far as I knew, but he had felt left out from the moment he’d got to school. And if I was being honest, that was partly our fault. Even recently when he’d tried to talk to me, like at Lolli’s party, it’d been me who had slammed the door – quite literally – in his face.

  ‘That’s not what he was doing,’ I said.

  Liam flushed red and glared at me. I wondered if he was regretting being quite so honest. After all, I had the power here to shrink him down to amoeba-size, let alone ant-size. All I had to do was christen him Liam ‘No Mates’ Sawston. I tried to give him my most reassuring look.

  ‘Trust me,’ I said, my words meant for him as much as the others, ‘he’s looking after them.’

  I could tell they still weren’t convinced. It looked like Liam wasn’t the only one not sure whether to trust me. I hadn’t exactly earned the superhero squad’s trust back yet. I’d have to hope the practicalities would win out.

  ‘We need his help to let them go. He’s the only one Maxi will listen to.’

  ‘Who on earth is Maxi?’ Kai said.

  ‘His dragon. The one who could turn our whole village into the rainforest if he carries on super-sizing everything in here.’

  Kat’s expression changed; the laser beams were retracting. I wondered if the fact that Liam had given his dragon a name had worked in his favour.

  ‘He’s not going to let them go,’ said Ted. ‘We heard him say as much.’

  ‘Yes, he is,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you, Liam?’ I looked him straight in the eye. I needed to make him understand.

  ‘I know how cool it is to have a dragon,’ I continued. ‘I got there first, remember? But we’re going to let them go. OK? They all need to go home. And that includes Maxi. He’s special. He’s an activator dragon, and we need to keep him safe. Elvi hatched dragons for years without finding one of those. Who knows when another one will come along. The dragons need him. Without him, they might not have a future. I was wrong to keep Flicker.’

  I kept his gaze.

  ‘I was wrong about a lot of stuff.’

  Everything was riding on Liam believing me and agreeing. If he didn’t join us, then we had no chance against Maxi’s super-sizing jets.

  Liam dipped his head in a tiny, barely noticeable nod. Hardly even a nodling. But I’d seen it, and a sigh of relief burst out of me. I grinned like a lunatic as Liam lifted his hands to his mouth. Cupping them in front of his lips, he made a hooting noise. Maxi stopped in mid-blast and flew down towards us.

  ‘Right, let’s send this lot home,’ I said.

  Letting the dragons go wasn’t going to be easy. The excitement of the super-sizing had sent them into a frenzy. In the jungle of the greenhouse we could hardly keep them in sight, let alone catch them. They darted around us, sending out sparks that scorched leaves and frazzled flowers. I just hoped Liam was right and everything didn’t actually go up in flames.

  I noticed that Kat had spotted Tinkle and Flicker though. She smiled as the little silver dragon fluttered down and settled on her hand while Flicker circled her head. I hoped seeing them wouldn’t remind her how mad she’d been at me for lying.

  But she turned the smile towards me.

  ‘We can do what we did last time,’ she said. ‘They’ll follow her song.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, feeling relief swirl around my chest like Lolli’s multi-coloured windmill fro
m the garden twirling in the breeze. ‘That’s a great idea.’

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

  ‘We need to open one of the skylights,’ I said. ‘That way they can just fly up and out and we won’t risk losing any on the way through the rest of the glasshouse.’

  ‘How are we meant to do that?’ Ted asked. ‘We can’t get up that high.’

  ‘We don’t need to,’ I said. ‘There was a handle back there. You wind it and the skylight opens.’

  I raced towards the handle, followed by everyone else. I started winding it madly, eyes fixed on the roof. One of the panes opened a tiny crack and there was a cheer from Kai and Ted.

  ‘Keep going,’ Kat said, still cradling Tinkle.

  But suddenly there was a juddering crunch and the handle came off in my hand. I held it up to show the others.

  ‘What now?’ I groaned.

  ‘I know they’re small, but I don’t think even the newly hatched ones will get through that gap,’ Kat said.

  ‘Come on,’ said Liam, pulling at my arm.

  He dragged me away from the others towards the half-hidden spiral staircase. The next second he had leaped over the sign saying ‘Private’ and was legging it up towards the balcony. I followed as the others watched nervously.

  It was high up there. Really high. We were face to face with the tops of the broad-leaved trees, moving through the canopy. The floor of the balcony was like a grid so water from the humid air didn’t pool. But it meant we could see right down through the gaps in the foliage to the ground. My heart trampolined up into my mouth every time I shot a glance downwards. I gripped the railings. But Liam hurried on.

  When I caught up with him, he was staring up at the jammed skylight.