Drake the Dragonboy

by Rebecca Schultz

  “It’s okay! We got them! What do you want me to do with them?” she asked punching her small fist into the air. Ronan stood next to her looking handsome and heroic.

  “Sit them down on the chairs over here,” said Donny. “Be gentle. They’re old … although they do deserve a bit of pay back for the bruises all over my body.”

  Hubert and Gerry sat obediently in the chairs. Hubert’s hands were shaking. Gerry had tears in his eyes.

  “We are so sorry, Donny. We didn’t know what else to do,” said Hubert with a tremor in his voice.

  “We are old fools,” added Gerry.

  “Drake, could you untie them?” asked Donny. “They’re not going anywhere.”

  “And if they try anything, I’ve got the door,” said feisty Daisy, showing them her fist.

  “Who is that girl?” asked Donny, looking Daisy up and down.

  “A friend,” said Drake. “We couldn’t have found you without her.”

  “Then I’m pleased to meet you, Daisy,” said Donny, smiling at her. She smiled back. “So why have you done this?”

  “We discovered that you’d travelled out of Dragonland and were about to ruin everything that we’d created to keep you safe,” said Hubert.

  “We did it out of love,” croaked Gerry.

  “Let me explain everything,” said Hubert.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Gerry.

  “I don’t think we have a choice now, Gerry. Get comfortable everyone. It’s a long story.

  “Seventy years ago, Dragonland was founded,” started Hubert.

  “But what about Gordon Starpower Dragonfolk?” asked Juniper, who was now sitting cross-legged on the bed with Daisy next to her and Ronan perched with one bottom cheek on the edge of the bed. Drake and Donny were on a couch opposite Gerry and Hubert.

  “The monument is a big fake. We created it to make you think that Dragonland had a long history and there was nothing outside Dragonland. Seventy years ago the dragonfolk lived among the ape people … well alongside. We had our own little city within the ape people city. Ape people came to visit, mostly for dinner and during our special celebrations. We went into their city … we had little enclaves within their suburbs where we lived … dragonfolk were part of the city but we also stuck together … but then an illness struck that seemed only to affect dragonfolk. Many millions of dragonfolk died. Yes, there were millions of us back then.

  “The sickness made dragonfolk aggressive so that they would breath fire out of control…” Juniper went red. “Affected folk would burn the skin off ape people for no reason before they went off by themselves and died painful deaths. Needless to say, the ape people became very suspicious of us and some even started to hunt us down and kill us. Something had to be done. So, with the help of the ape people leaders, dragonfolk created an isolated city and any folk who hadn’t been infected by the virus — you could do a blood test to see — were sent to Dragonland to build a new civilisation.”

  “What happened to the folk with the disease,” asked Juniper looking horrified, and letting out a tiny little fire burp as she spoke.

  “It was a very sad time for all of us. We all had family who were affected. Folk with the virus were taken to a government facility, which was very comfortable with lots of great food and television to watch, where they waited for their disease to come on. It happened very quickly …”

  Juniper, Drake and Ronan all looked sick. Donny’s expression didn’t change, as though he already knew this. Daisy smiled sweetly at them, with an ever so slight frown forming between her green eyes.

  “That’s why we wanted to protect you from this and Juniper you know your little Tourette issue is nothing to do with this,” interrupted Gerry, seeing their faces. Juniper looked slightly less sick. Hubert continued with the story.

  “So we created this city and everyone who lived there decided that they wanted to protect their children from the truth and create a kind of Utopia. We created the monument and wrote our own history books, with stories about the world being small and flat. Of course the world is round.”

  “Actually, it’s an oblate spheroid,” interrupted Gerry. Hubert shrugged and continued.

  “We closed ourselves off from the outside world. They didn’t want us, anyway. And they did the same thing. They wrote us out of their history books … as though we had never existed. For a long time, Dragonland was guarded by ape people. The Quintas were released to fly through the desert and keep people out. They were pretty effective. And then ten years ago we got Donny here to create a force field.”

  “But mostly we kept people away from the edges by telling stories … by making up stories about how dangerous it was,” added Gerry.

  “So you clipped our wings … you put blinkers on us,” Drake yelled angrily, standing up. “You treated us like mushrooms, put us in a dark room and fed us on …”

  “Drake!” interrupted Donny Dramco. Drake sat down again, pouting.

  “I know,” agreed Hubert. “We tried to preserve the dragonfolk and instead we pickled their brains. Folk like that moron Peter Roche are running the place. Idiots. Non-thinkers. The IQ of the entire dragonfolk civilisation has dropped by 10 per cent.”

  “So why did you kidnap me?” asked Donny.

  “We are old fools,” said Hubert. “We found out you’ve been travelling in and out of the city and panicked. We got your secretary to help drug you — we’ve done her a favour recently and she owed us. That coffee she made you had a little something special in it. Then she helped us to get you down to the car and we drove you to the city.”

  “Is this true, Dad?” asked Drake, bitterly. “If you knew there was a city beyond Dragonland, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I figured it out while I was working on the force field. I was still deciding what to do with the information,” said Donny with little emotion in his voice.

  Suddenly all the anger Drake had pushed away each time his dad had disappointed him came bubbling to the surface. He put his face up to his father’s, almost nose to nose.

  “You could at least sound sorry!” he yelled. “You lied to me. You put your work before me. Again and again and again and you made me feel as if I just wasn’t good enough. And I felt like I wasn’t good enough for anyone. If I wasn’t good enough for my dad to hang out with, then why would anyone want to hang out with me? It’s all your fault. It’s your fault I don’t have friends at school. It’s your fault I’m short too. Look at you!” Drake suddenly stopped in the middle of his ranting and stood silently, mouth open. He realised he sounded just like his mother and suddenly he understood her. He realised that he’d blamed her for the divorce when it was at least equally his father’s fault. He wasn’t ever there for either of them. Donny went pale and looked as though he wanted the earth to swallow him up.

  “What happens now?” asked Juniper, staring intently at the two old men, and taking the opportunity to distract Drake and Donny. Drake noticed Gerry give Hubert a little nod and show him a little device he was holding. Drake swallowed hard. He had figured out that they had activated a kind of security device. At the same moment as his realisation, the door swung open and two huge men stormed through the door. The man on the left had an enormous, long face and a very fat neck. With his neck the same width as his face, he looked like a giant sausage. Drake nicknamed him Sausage-head. The man on the right was covered in muscle and had a round red face with a squashed little mouth that was all wrinkled up like a monkey’s bottom. Drake nicknamed him Monkey-bottom-face. Sausage-head and Monkey-bottom-face looked menacing and when Sausage-head spoke it was a growl.

  “Youse better come with us without a struggle or we’ll squash you,” he growled.

  “Where are you taking us?” asked Donny.

  “Nowhere terrible,” he said, “if that’s what you’re thinking. We just need to keep you safe while the authorities decide how to deal with the situation.” None of them moved.

  “Look what happened last tim
e they decided to deal with the situation. They sent a whole lot of dragonfolk to a building to die,” whispered Juniper. Donny nodded in agreement. Somehow, they all seemed to be thinking the same thing. Drake noticed Ronan had twisted a sheet around his arm. “Now,” yelled Ronan as he ran towards the window and smashed it with his sheet-covered arm. The window shattered, leaving clear access to the sky above. Ronan grabbed Daisy around the middle and launched into the sky making a clean getaway. Juniper quickly shot through the window, darting around the now frantic Sausage-head as he tried to grab her. Drake grabbed Donny, wobbling with his weight as he tried to fly upwards. Donny’s weight made him slow and Monkey-bottom was only centimetres away. He flapped ferociously and made a little ground but Monkey-bottom leapt upwards, grabbing Donny’s leg and dragging them backwards. Drake saw Juniper dart beneath them. She let out a frightening roar and fire shot out, burning Monkey-bottom’s arms and causing him to fall to the ground in pain. Drake gathered up some momentum and flew with increasing speed up into the sky. They flew as quickly as they all could, staying close together, until they reached the edge of the desert and then Drake followed Ronan down to the ground. He landed with a thud and let Donny fall onto the ground. Donny clumsily landed on his bottom. Juniper landed lightly next to him.

  Standing at the edge of the desert, Donny put his arm around Drake.

  “You kids are amazing. I never imagined you’d be able to save me on your own. I thought you’d go straight to your mum or my work … but you’ve done all this yourself. And if you hadn’t, who knows what would have happened to me?” Drake smiled at Donny, feeling a bit uncomfortable at all the praise, and then looked in turn at Ronan, Juniper and Daisy.

  “What now, guys? I guess we get ourselves back to Dragonland,” said Drake.

  “I’m not going back with you. There’s nothing back in Dragonland for me. I like it here,” said Ronan. He put his arm around Daisy, who blushed.

  “I’d like you to change your mind, Ronan. Really. I know it has been safe for you but it won’t be now. People, scary people, now know that there have been dragonfolk in the city. The Quintas have come in with us and hurt lots of people. People will be scared and when people are scared … Please come back with us … I really don’t want to have to force you,” said Donny.

  It was pretty funny hearing Donny Dramco threatening Ronan like this. Parents just always thought they had all the control. Donny was barely over five foot, tubby and unfit. Ronan stood six foot tall, like a warrior. His huge black wings opened, with just a little arched majestically over his head. His once shaved head had grown back into soft, dark curls and when he smiled at Donny, he looked like a powerful angel and not necessarily a good angel. Ronan definitely had a darker side.

  “Mr Dramco, no disrespect but there’s nothing you can do. Bye guys. Hope you make it okay. Give the Quintas a smackin’ for me,” he said and hugged Juniper and Drake in turn.

  “Juniper,” he said to her hugging her, “I think of you like a sister.” Juniper’s mouth dropped from a smile to a fixed line. “And Drake, you know, you’ve become like a nerdy brother.” Drake wished he hadn’t added the word nerdy but smiled at him anyway and gave him a firm handshake.

  “Dais’, you coming?” An obviously love-struck Daisy hugged them all goodbye, including Donny. Drake looked at Daisy closely and then looked at Juniper standing next to her. Daisy’s large green eyes were very pretty but they didn’t have the depth of Juniper’s brown eyes. Juniper’s face had so much expression. From compassion to horror, she hid nothing. Daisy on the other hand hid behind a sweet smile and Drake had no idea what she was really thinking. Drake was okay about Ronan and Daisy getting together and this surprised him. Drake noticed Juniper looking back at him and he quickly looked away. Ronan swooped Daisy onto his back and launched himself into the air. Drake watched as Ronan and Daisy disappeared into the distance.

  They looked into the sky, already tinged with an evening shade of pink, to see a hoard of Quintas circling around, swirling angrily in figure eights. Recent events seemed to have riled them up.

  “Now, I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, but I’ve heard, and I saw it on a map when I was building the force field … there’s a cavernous section of the desert that continues right through to Dragonland. If we find it we can just walk through, sheltered by the walks of the rocky cavern. There’s no way the Quintas would be able to get into such a small space,” Donny said, rubbing his chin and nodding knowledgably.

  “I’ve heard about it in stories,” said Juniper, wide-eyed. “And I’ve heard that the pathway is guarded by witches.”

  “There’re no such things as witches, Juniper,” Donny jumped in before she had even finished the word. His tone was patronising. Men of science like him did not believe in witches. Drake hadn’t even been read fairytales as a child because as his father had explained to four-year-old Drake, a young child’s mind has no way to distinguish between fact and fantasy. Instead he read him stories about boys on adventures in the wilderness. Four-year-old Drake had pointed out to his father that young dragonfolk boys didn’t go on adventures in the wilderness either, so that was also fantasy. Donny didn’t have an answer to that.

  “Let’s go and see what we can find,” said Drake. “We’d better get moving before it gets dark.”

  They trudged through the dry red sand using Donny’s pocket compass to ensure that they were heading east and not going around in circles.

  Before long, in the distance they saw the jagged edges of the rocky cavern. The sight of rocks in the distance quickened their pace, putting a visible skip in Drake’s step, and they made it to the entrance in minutes.

  Rocks at the entrance to the pathway were piled upon each other so you could almost imagine the plates of land colliding together thousands of years ago. They were stacked tall with an opening so high up that Juniper had to stand on Donny’s shoulders to crawl through. Donny then beckoned Drake to do the same.

  “Dad, you’ll never be able to get up on your own. I can fly myself up and crawl through. You climb on my shoulders.”

  Donny shrugged in acceptance as Drake leaned against the rocks and Donny used his body as a stepladder. Drake grimaced as he felt his father’s full weight on his shoulders. It was the second time that day that he’d had to carry his father’s weight and his muscles ached. He was definitely going to do something to encourage his father to lose some lard once they got back to Dragonland. Donny shuffled into the hole and disappeared. Drake only used the smallest flutter of his wings to help lift him into the cavern. All the flying had really improved his upper body strength. He’d probably even be able to climb the ropes in gym now.

  Once all three were in the cavern, they looked at the path before them. It was evening so the light was dimming and the rocks blocked out more of the light, making it difficult to see. The pathway though was smooth and had been cleared of rocks. It was easy to follow.

  “Cleared by witches,” Juniper muttered so that only Drake could hear.

  They walked quickly and quietly, Juniper first, followed by Donny and Drake coming up last. They had achieved a steady rhythmic pace and made quite a distance when the air became thick with fog, causing them to slow down. The fog gave the air a chill and meant they could see little further than their feet in front of them. They continued without mentioning it as if there were no point. They couldn’t turn back.

  A sudden cackle cut through the stillness sending Donny flying into the air and Drake tumbling over him. When they both clambered back up, Juniper was standing in front of three women dressed all in black. Their black shrouds framed their lined faces, long noses and frizzy hair.

  “We are the witches of the wasteland,” cackled one witch, her face visibly more lined than the others.

  Donny was shaking like a leaf, while Drake was frozen in one spot, statuesque. Only Juniper seemed to be functioning.

  “We mean you no harm,” she said in a soft voice. “We just want to go home.” The witches’ fa
ces softened as she spoke and then grimaced back into their surly selves as she finished.

  “We’ll let you pass if you solve this riddle,” said the oldest witch.

  “And if we can’t solve it?” asked Donny, his voice wavering.

  “Then we’ll eat you for dinner,” cackled the shortest witch, standing up on her tiptoes to appear more menacing.

  “Not all of you,” added the third witch, her voice more singsong than cackle. “We’ll just eat your legs and send you home on broomsticks, legless, as a warning to others not to cross us.”

  “Yes, just your legs will do. I make a delicious sweet and sour dragonleg stew,” added the old witch. “If you’re polite we’ll ask you to join us.”

  “Join you in eating our own legs?” asked an incredulous Drake, his face screwed up.

  “Can you just give us the riddle now?” asked Donny. He was confident he’d be able to solve it.

  “Stand in a row, facing the back of each other, like this,” said the short witch, pushing them into place. Juniper stood at the front of the line. Donny stood behind her and Drake at the back. “Do not turn around. You can only look at the people in front of you. Now, kneel down.” They each knelt down and she put a hat on each of their heads. Drake standing at the back could see that Donny was wearing a white hat and Juniper was wearing a red hat.

  “If one of you can guess the colour of the hat on your head, we will let you go. But before you answer, you must keep standing in this line. You cannot turn around.”

  “We do have a hint for you,” said the sing song witch. “There are only red hats and white hats. At least one hat is red. At least one hat is white.”

  Drake silently looked at the hats in front of him. How could he possibly know the answer? If they had one of each colour, his could be either colour. He felt sick. They were too close to reaching home to be trapped by these witches. He wasn’t sure that they’d really eat his legs, but he didn’t want to test it. After a minute’s silence Donny spoke up.