The Boy Who Grew Dragons

by Andy Shepherd

  If you think that four dragons and four people in a two-man tent would be a bit of a squash, you’d be right. It was a nightmare in fact. The dragons had been quite dozy at first so carrying them back up the moonlit garden was a piece of cake. But it wasn’t long before they started to wriggle and wanted to stretch their wings. Luckily I knew how to calm them down. Or I thought I did.

  I’d told the others to come prepared with a shoebox and some broccoli and, because of my status as chief dragon expert, they’d all actually followed orders. I felt as if I could get used to this – my new role as respected elder, the voice of experience and wisdom, leading my minions … Perhaps they should call me something like ‘Commander’ or ‘Captain’. Perhaps even ‘Grand High DragonMaster’. Yeah, that sounded good. I’d probably need a cloak, or a special hat maybe, and a logo, definitely a logo.

  ‘Oi, Earth to Planet Tomas,’ said Ted, poking me in the side.

  Shaken out of my daydream, I saw Ted pulling his daftest face at me.

  ‘Come on, Pongtastic, what do you think?’ he said.

  I waved goodbye to the vision of myself as Grand High DragonMaster. Who was I kidding? There was no way Ted was going to call me Grand High anything, except ‘PongMaster’ maybe.

  He was holding out his shoebox to me. And, I have to admit, the little imp called Envy started muttering away in my head when I saw it. He’d painted it in this really cool design, with bright shots of orange flame up the sides, and it was lined with a black silky cloth. Turning round, I saw Kat and Kai, cradling theirs. It looked as if everyone had gone to town on the decorating. Kat had a soft velvet scarf for her dragon to curl up in and the box itself was painted and covered in shiny sticky-back gems. A line of ‘rubies’ and ‘diamonds’ spelled out the words ‘Top Secret’. If that wasn’t guaranteed to make someone go in for a nose around, I don’t know what would! Kai, who tended to have a lot less patience for arty-crafty stuff, had just painted his a dark green, but even he had decked it out with some kind of fleecy material. They all looked way more inviting than Flicker’s shoebox.

  ‘Right, cool,’ I said, feeling pretty pleased that I’d managed to ignore my little envious imp, who had been all ready to stomp off in a huff at having been outdone. I was glad because everyone seemed really chuffed that I thought they were up to scratch. And then they started quizzing me on what we should do next. I guess I was still Grand High DragonMaster after all, even without a hat.

  ‘Food and sleep,’ I told them. ‘That’s what’s next. Get your box and your broccoli ready.’

  Flicker flew down and tried to pick the broccoli stalk I was holding out of my fingers.

  ‘Let’s see if we can entice them in. If they’re anything like Flicker, they must be hungry by now.’

  The dragons were hungry, but it was soon clear that Flicker was on his own when it came to loving all things green and sprouty.

  Ted’s dragon appeared to have a taste for, well, anything and everything. He’d already found and demolished a chocolate fudge bar that must have fallen out of Ted’s pocket, plus most of its shiny wrapper, an apple and some crisps, which Ted assured us he had been saving to share with us later. The dragon was now surrounded by what appeared to be the remains of several small insects and a hairy half-chewed marshmallow and was biting off and swallowing the buttons on Kat’s cardigan. With every bite he took, his belly pulsed with a fiery orange glow that rippled down through his tail, as though flames were sizzling through him.

  ‘Cheeky thing,’ Ted said. ‘He’s just munched all our provisions.’

  ‘You’re just mad because he got to them before you could,’ I said with a laugh.

  Kat leaned across, trying to reach her dragon, who had settled by the edge of her sleeping bag.

  ‘Hey, look at this,’ she said.

  We peered down to where she was now pointing on the groundsheet of the tent. All around the little purple dragon were patches of ice, the delicate crystals formed into amazing patterns, almost like the creature had been painting a picture in frost. The dragon stretched up, drew back her wings and let out another freezing breath, swinging her head from side to side to build up the icy markings.

  ‘She’s an artist like me,’ said Kat with obvious delight.

  Kai snorted, but before they could launch into a full-on argument, I noticed something.

  ‘Look what your one’s gone and done, Ted!’

  We all looked to the furthest corner, where there was a mound of what looked like cotton wool, but which we soon realised was the downy inside of Ted’s sleeping bag. It had been ripped open. The golden dragon was now happily shredding Grandad’s tent, its needle-sharp claws and teeth tearing into the material, and he had already made a fair-sized hole.

  ‘How are we going to explain that one?’ said Ted.

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Kai. ‘Where’s my dragon?’

  We all stared at the hole in the tent. The dragon-sized hole. Making sure Flicker and the other dragons were safely in their shoeboxes, we crawled out of the tent and started hunting. But it was properly dark now.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Kat, after several minutes. ‘We’ll have to wait till it’s light.’

  ‘He’ll have flown off by then,’ said Kai, in a full-on sulk. ‘Typical. Kat gets the artist and I get the escape artist.’

  We piled back in the tent, Kai still muttering unhappily. As we all squashed back inside Ted suddenly howled.

  ‘Ow! Stop it.’

  ‘Stop what? We haven’t touched you,’ I said.

  ‘Someone just pulled my hair.’

  ‘You must have caught it on something,’ said Kat.

  ‘Ow! Stop it. That hurts.’ Ted rubbed his head crossly and glared at each of us in turn.

  ‘Well, you can’t blame us,’ I piped up. ‘You can see we’re right here.’

  Ted looked about him, confused.

  ‘Keep very still,’ said Kai suddenly.

  Ted froze in horror, obviously wondering what nasty night-time creature Kai was about to save him from. He wasn’t the bravest when it came to bugs and beasties – which may have stemmed from the time Liam dropped tadpoles in his milk.

  We all sat there watching as Kai leaned forward and reached up above Ted’s head, to where the lantern was hanging.

  ‘Got you!’ he said with a laugh.

  And there in his hand was his dragon. Only he wasn’t greeny blue with peacock markings any more; he was the exact shade of red of the lantern.

  ‘Cool,’ said Kai, cradling the dragon with an expression of undisguised admiration. ‘Mine can go undercover, the ultimate in camouflage!’

  We learned an important lesson right there. All dragons are not the same. Not by a long shot.

  I wasn’t sure how any of us were going to sleep, but eventually the dragons curled up in their shoeboxes. As the others settled down I watched Flicker, his scales rippling through a kaleidoscope of colours. And then I must have dropped off as well, because the next thing I knew it was light and someone was yelling.

  ‘Is that your grandad?’ Kat asked me, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. ‘He sounds really mad.’

  I’d never heard Grandad raise his voice, let alone shriek like that.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so. Keep hold of the dragons,’ I hissed. ‘I’m taking a look.’

  I unzipped the tent and peered out. Grandad was standing on the front step, Lolli tucked behind his legs in the open doorway. And planted in front of him was the fuming inferno that was Grim.

  ‘… Whole place trashed, that blooming kid. I told you he was trouble,’ he bellowed.

  Honestly, that horrible man. How could he shout at Grandad like that?

  I pictured the swarm of dragons we had seen last night. And how they had shredded, uprooted and devoured whatever they could find before taking off and flying goodness knows where. Grim must have woken up and found the devastation and of course come straight here to blame me for everything.

  Without
stopping to think, I stormed out of the tent towards him.

  ‘Hey, it wasn’t us!’ I shouted.

  Lolli wriggled past Grandad and toddled towards me. She wrapped her arms round my legs and clung on tight. With me off camping, Mum and Dad had brought her for a sleepover too, taking the chance for a night out. But the rumpled frown on her face told me this angry shouting man wasn’t fitting in with her plans for the morning at all.

  ‘Guppie sad,’ she whispered, pointing her finger at Grandad. ‘Poor Guppie.’

  ‘Now then, let’s just calm ourselves down,’ came Grandad’s voice. ‘It’s probably foxes or badgers. Why not come in for a cuppa and we’ll see if we can get to the bottom of this, shall we?’

  How he kept so cool in the face of all that yelling I don’t know. He deserves a medal, my grandad.

  Grim was not so cool. He turned and pointed a finger at me as if he imagined lightning could fire from the tip of it. And I almost thought it would.

  ‘Foxes my foot! I’ve already caught him in my garden once. He’ll have been up there again, you can bet on that.’

  ‘What’s this, Tomas?’ Grandad asked.

  ‘Didn’t tell you about that, did he?’ said Grim. ‘I told you he was trouble.’

  Grandad looked over at me.

  ‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ I spluttered. ‘I thought I saw something attacking his vegetables, that’s all.’

  Grandad obviously didn’t know quite what to make of this new information. ‘Well, like he says, I’m sure he wasn’t up to anything,’ said Grandad, still keeping his voice nice and quiet. ‘And as for right now, Tomas has been camping in our garden with a few of his friends. They’ve been tucked up in their tent the whole time. Haven’t you, Chipstick?’

  Although I knew it wasn’t us that had caused all the mess, I couldn’t bear to look Grandad in the eye, not after we had sneaked out.

  Grim turned his laser vision on my mud-splattered boots and trousers and then fired his lightning finger at them: proof! A look of triumph lit up his face.

  Grandad’s eyes dropped and also took in the muddy evidence. And suddenly I saw his shoulders sag. Like he was one of those giant bobbing inflatable Santas at Christmas and someone had come up and let the air out of him, just enough so his head flopped and wobbled a bit.

  And to be honest, that felt even worse than if he’d yelled at me. Because you know that twinkle I told you about, the one that makes Grandad’s face light up? Well, it had gone.

  ‘Honestly, Grandad, it wasn’t us,’ I pleaded.

  Grim glared at me and set off across the grass towards the tent. ‘Are the rest of them in there?’ he growled.

  The noise had woken the dragons and I could hear Ted, Kat and Kai wrestling to keep them in.

  Before Grim could pull the flap open, one side of the tent began to bulge. And then another. And then something shot out of the hole Ted’s dragon had chewed. Followed by two more flitting shapes. Thankfully Grim was bending down, preparing to thrust his head in through the entrance, and Grandad had turned to scoop Lolli up, so no one apart from me noticed them.

  They did however notice what happened next. You couldn’t really miss that!

  Having eaten everything edible and inedible in sight, let’s just say the golden dragon had left a fair few dragon delights around the tent. And right then several of them started exploding. There was a shriek from Kat, and then Ted came stumbling out of the tent, closely followed by Kai, who crashed into Grim. Kat crawled out after them, covered in dragon poo.

  ‘That is truly disgusting,’ she spluttered.

  But before anyone else could say anything I heard a familiar little sneeze from inside the tent, followed by another one. Something had got up Flicker’s nose and I could tell he was revving up for a full-on sneezing fit. Only this time what came out wasn’t just a spark, it was an actual burst of flame. Talk about the worst possible time for that to happen!

  I leaped back and the flame rocketed past me and ignited several of Grandad’s cabbages piled up in a nearby wheelbarrow.

  ‘They’re playing with fire now, the little hooligans!’ cried Grim.

  I’d have denied it, except it was at this point that Ted’s dragon, who had taken up residence in the blackberry bush, did an enormous belch and burned the heads off a load of Nana’s roses.

  ‘Pyromaniacs!’ cried Grim. ‘They’ve got explosives in there.’

  Poor Grandad looked utterly stunned. And I couldn’t blame him.

  Ted scrambled towards the bush, but the purple dragon, who had been darting in and out of the lavender bushes, was peeing in panic, and since the pee froze on impact it had turned the garden path into an ice rink. Ted slipped and skidded his way straight into Grim, who’d only just recovered from being buffeted by Kai. Grim toppled backwards and landed on the handles of the wheelbarrow, catapulting flaming cabbages into the air.

  This was too much of a temptation for Kai’s dragon. Having turned a silvery grey to match the silver birch he started batting them left, right and centre with his tail. I watched in horror as the cabbages rocketed towards Grandad and Lolli, who were now both ducking for cover.

  Flicker flitted out of the tent and darted up into the leaves of a tree. He perched on the branch, eyes fixed on me. I didn’t know what to do. The dragons were on the loose and I had no idea how to stop them. Kat and Kai were running around frantically bashing flaming cabbages with a garden broom and trying to distract anyone who might turn their attention to the little shapes above. Unable to catch his dragon, Ted raced over to help them.

  But I just stood there, hopelessly looking from Flicker to the devastation unfolding around us.

  Suddenly Flicker launched into the air, zipped down towards Kat’s dragon and began flickering like a beacon. It caught the purple dragon’s attention, and with Flicker leading the way they zipped back into the tent. Thank goodness for Flicker!

  But there were still two more dragons causing chaos. Seeing Flicker reappear from the tent I nodded towards the golden dragon who was belching flames. Maybe if we worked together we could do this? I grabbed a marshmallow from my pocket and threw it into the air towards Flicker, gesturing at the golden dragon again. Quick as a flash Flicker caught it, and dangling it from his claws like bait he waved it in front of Ted’s dragon. It was tempting enough to persuade the dragon back into the tent.

  Now for Kai’s super-stealth dragon. It seemed like this one was even keener to stay hidden than the others. Maybe if I could force him out in the open where he would have nothing to hide against, he would take cover in the tent. I waggled a leafy branch up at the tree to where I could just make out the little dragon’s shape. I nudged him from his camouflage, and as he flew out Flicker released an arc of sparks, herding him towards the tent like a sheepdog with a sheep. I watched as the dragon turned the same dark blue as the tent and then finally zipped inside. We’d done it!

  But if I thought it was all over, I was wrong.

  As Grim struggled to get to his feet on the icy path, the tent began to rise up into the air. It swung from side to side like some kind of ghost. It was a very strange sight. And Grim obviously thought so too.

  ‘What the blazes?!’ he cried.

  Grim slid his way along the icy path towards the gate like a baby giraffe trying to skate. With his arms and legs windmilling in opposite directions, he fled from the flapping tent.

  But it billowed after him and chased him out of the garden. I saw a flash of gold as Ted’s dragon popped out and bit him on the bum, just for good measure. Grim howled, but didn’t dare slow down.

  As we watched the tent and Grim disappear down the lane, somebody else ran out from the cover of the hedge.

  ‘Hey, there’s that sneak Liam!’ Kai cried.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Kat asked.

  He was bent over, clutching his stomach with one hand and shielding his head from the aerial tent attack with the other.

  ‘What’s he up to now?’ Ted said.

 
; ‘I don’t know, but I’m glad he wasn’t sniffing around earlier,’ replied Kai.

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘But right now we have other things to worry about. Like flaming cabbages!’

  Then as if out of nowhere, black clouds appeared. An eerie light filled the sky. I remembered seeing something like it once before when we were on the ferry to France and a big storm blew up. Everything had turned a strange colour. I looked over to Flicker and he seemed to be glowing especially brightly in the stormy light. Suddenly big fat drops of rain started to fall. With a sigh of relief I saw the small fires around us fizzling out.

  ‘Badragon-badragon,’ Lolli gabbled, jabbing a chubby finger towards the disappearing Grim.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ Grandad asked, looking bewildered. He was still crouched over her, shielding both of them with his arms, unsure if the threat of flying fiery cabbages had truly passed. ‘Bad what?’

  ‘Er … Bad … ger,’ I stuttered. ‘Badger. She’s saying she saw a badger. Over there.’ I pointed away from the dragons. ‘You were right all along – it must have been badgers causing all that chaos in Grim’s garden.’

  Personally I think I deserve a medal for that level of quick thinking, under the circumstances!

  ‘Ouchy,’ Lolli said. She pointed to the mess of stuff left behind from the tent. Grandad’s lamp had smashed and glass lay across the scorched grass.

  ‘That blooming thing,’ said Grandad. ‘I’m sorry, Tomas, I shouldn’t have let you use it. Nana always said the old thing was a fire hazard.’

  I almost gasped with relief. Without knowing it, Lolli had given us the perfect excuse for the fires.

  ‘I should have listened to her,’ Grandad went on, ‘but don’t go telling her I said so, or she’ll never let me hear the last of it. Our little secret, hey?’ And he winked.