Jake Cake: The School Dragon

by Michael Broad

  ‘Yes, Mrs Grump,’ I said, and shuffled back to my desk.

  I decided an hour of detention was worth it. Especially if it meant the dragon could stay in the basement with Mr Knight. Tinkerbell was obviously happy living under the school, firing up the furnace every day.

  After school I was sitting in detention with Mrs Grump in the nice warm classroom when Mr Knight suddenly poked his head around the door.

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Grump,’ said the caretaker, ‘Could I borrow one of your students? I have a particularly disgusting job that needs doing.’

  The last time Mr Knight borrowed a student from detention they spent the whole hour scraping chewing gum from underneath the desks! Mrs Grump immediately swung her periscope-head in my direction.

  ‘Jake Cake,’ she said cheerily. ‘Will you follow Mr Knight, please?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Grump,’ I mumbled.

  Outside the classroom Mr Knight was already striding down the corridor and I had to hurry to catch up with him. I was thinking it was typical – you do a favour for a grown-up and then they forget all about it!

  The caretaker stopped outside the basement.

  ‘Do I have to scrape chewing gum from underneath the desks?’ I groaned.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Mr Knight, scratching his chin. ‘I suppose you can if you want. But I was thinking a better punishment for what you’ve done might be a game of Dragon Football!’

  ‘Uh?’ I said.

  ‘Well, when I heard you were in detention I thought I’d better help you out,’ said the caretaker, making his way down the stone steps. ‘And I know Tinkerbell wanted to say thank you for letting her stay.’

  As I reached the bottom step the ground started shaking as the excited dragon came bounding up to me and licked my head with her big dragon tongue. Tinkerbell obviously wasn’t used to visitors – although she soon got used to seeing me whenever I got a chance to slip away from class.

  Dragon Football is the coolest game!

  The dragon is in goal and you have to boot paper balls into the net before the dragon can set fire to them! I wasn’t very good to begin with, but I still managed to get a few past Tinkerbell.

  It was the BEST detention EVER!

  A Troll

  ‘STOP RIGHT THERE, ANGEL CAKE!’

  I was halfway through the garden gate when Mum’s voice boomed from inside the house. I froze to the spot. My first thought was that I was in trouble, which seemed likely because I usually am in trouble, but then I realized Mum doesn’t call me Angel Cake when I’m in trouble so I decided not to leg it.

  Big mistake!

  Still clutching the gate, I turned round as Mum appeared at the window. But she didn’t appear at just any old window; it was my bedroom window, which could mean only one thing.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere until you’ve tidied up this pigsty!’ Mum said. ‘It looks as though a bomb went off in here and it whiffs of smelly socks!’

  Mum had been dragging rugs into the garden, pulling out furniture and emptying cupboards all morning.

  Usually when she does a spring clean I slope away early before she can rope me in, but this time I’d ignored all the signs and she’d caught me.

  There was no point in arguing, but I thought I’d give it a go anyway.

  ‘But…’ I said, while I tried to think up a believable excuse.

  ‘And no “buts” either,’ Mum snapped.

  I frowned and considered legging it, which would mean loads of trouble later, but Mum was already one step ahead of me. She rummaged around in the pocket of her cleaning apron and pulled out a roll of black plastic bags.

  ‘Of course if you’re too busy I could always clean your room,’ Mum suggested casually.

  Now you might think this was a good offer, Mum doing all the work and leaving me free to go out for the day.

  But it doesn’t work like that – as I found out the last time she offered to clean my room. I came home to find six black bags being carted off by the binmen and half of my stuff missing!

  Mum had won, so I sighed and slouched up to my room.

  ‘And I don’t want to see everything shoved under the bed!’ Mum said, handing me the black bags and a duster. ‘Not that there’s any room under there anyway.’

  Mum nodded in the direction of my bed and when I looked I noticed something very strange. There was so much stuff under my bed that the legs weren’t even touching the floor.

  I admit I’m not the tidiest person in the world, but I’ve never collected that much rubbish. And I was sure that my bed had all four legs on the floor when I got up that morning!

  Our cat Fatty was lying on top of the bed hissing at me.

  ‘Shoo!’ I said, shaking the duster at him.

  Fatty leapt on to the floor with a thud, swiped at my ankles with his claws and then sauntered out of the room. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fatty had made all the mess – he’d definitely enjoy getting me into trouble.

  ‘And I’ll be checking afterwards,’ Mum said, as she made her way downstairs. ‘So you might as well do it properly.’

  I was still looking at the bed and wondering how it had got so full under there when I heard a small groan and saw the whole thing move – which made me jump backwards.

  GULP!

  Someone or something was lurking under my bed.

  I suppose I could have called Mum back to investigate with me, but I didn’t want her thinking I was making a fuss about cleaning my room, because then she might send me out and do it herself.

  So I moved closer to the bed and poked it cautiously.

  The bed quivered and I heard a tiny whimper from whatever was hiding there. I decided a whimper was better than a growl or a roar, so I crouched down and peered underneath.

  All I could see was a pile of books and clothes and stuff, nothing capable of making a tiny whimper. Then I looked closer and saw two large eyes peering out at me from behind the pile.

  GULP!

  But this time it wasn’t me who made the ‘GULP!’.

  It came from the thing beneath the bed.

  ‘Hello?’ I said, thinking that the thing being afraid of me was much better than me being afraid of it . ‘My name’s Jake,’ I added. But it didn’t respond, so I leaned closer to get a better look.

  Suddenly the bed jerked backwards and the pile of stuff avalanched down to reveal a small and very frightened-looking troll with my bed still balanced on its head!

  I’ve dealt with trolls before and there are two kinds.

  There are dwarf-trolls who are small and particularly nasty (you don’t want

  to encounter a dwarf-troll if you can help it), and then there are bridge-trolls who are big and stupid. Bridge-trolls live under bridges (which is how they got their name), but apart from eating the odd goat, they’re pretty harmless.

  This troll was about the size of a dwarf-troll, but it was definitely a bridge-troll because it had horns, and a very stupid look on its face. Then I noticed it was clinging to one of my old stuffed toys and I realized it had to be a baby (because fully grown ones are massive).

  But how did a baby bridge-troll end up under my bed?

  By the way, this wasn’t the first time I’d found something strange under my bed. A crocodile once set up home there, and I only discovered it when I caught it sneaking out in the night to drink out of the toilet. The crocodile nearly wrecked the house when I chased it out, and I got into loads of trouble (but I’ll tell you about that another time).

  This time I wasn’t planning on getting into any trouble, so I backed slowly out of the room, closed the door, and went straight downstairs to get Mum. Because if Mum saw the troll for herself there was no way I could get the blame for whatever happened next.

  Although she didn’t take the news as well as I’d hoped.

  ‘A TROLL?’ Mum yelled, switching off the vacuum cleaner angrily.

  ‘Yes, honestly,’ I pleaded, tugging her arm to make her come and see for herself. ‘It’s under my bed right now,
in fact it’s wearing my bed for a hat!’

  ‘I’m far too busy today to listen to your stories,’ Mum protested as I led her reluctantly up the stairs and across the landing. ‘And if you think you can get out of cleaning your room by inventing monsters then you’ve got another think coming!’

  I opened the door to my bedroom and nudged Mum inside.

  ‘ARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!’ she screamed.

  I was feeling pretty pleased that I’d finally proved Mum wrong. But when I followed her in I noticed the troll wasn’t actually in the room any more, which meant she was screaming at something else.

  Mum was screaming at the state of my room. The bed had been tipped over and the avalanche of stuff had been scattered all over the place as though something big and stupid had charged through at high speed.

  ‘You’ve been up here for less than five minutes and you’ve already managed to make it worse!’ Mum screamed. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

  ‘But it wasn’t me, it must have been the tr–’

  ‘And if you say “a troll did it” you’ll be in very big trouble!’ Mum growled.

  There was nothing I could say to explain the blitzed bedroom that didn’t contain the word ‘troll’ so I just shrugged helplessly. Mum went back downstairs in a very bad mood and I was left with a room that looked like it had been turned upside down.

  So much for staying out of trouble!

  I checked under all the rubbish to make sure the troll had definitely gone when it occurred to me that it couldn’t have left the house without passing me on the stairs – which meant it was still hiding somewhere.

  I tried the bathroom first (just to make sure it wasn’t getting a drink out of the toilet), and when I found it empty I was immediately struck with a terrible thought. If the troll wasn’t in my room, and it wasn’t in the bathroom, that only left one place.

  Mum and Dad’s room!

  I opened the door carefully and peered inside.

  Mum and Dad’s bed was up in the air and there were two big troll feet sticking out of the bottom. Fatty was sitting on top of the bed again scowling at me, but I ignored him and leaned down to look underneath.

  From beneath the bed two familiar frightened eyes peered out at me.

  It was then that I realized the baby troll was probably looking for a bridge to hide under, because that’s what bridge- trolls do. And when it couldn’t find one I guessed it thought having a bed on its head was the next best thing.

  I reached under the bed carefully and patted the troll’s hand to reassure it, which was pretty scary because even though it was only a baby, it was still well big enough to squash me.

  The troll chuckled and started bouncing up and down, which made the floorboards creak and shake like an earthquake. I looked around the room at Mum’s perfume bottles and ornaments, holding my breath as they rocked backwards and forwards on the rattling dressing table.

  The baby troll was a mess-making time bomb waiting to go off!

  I had to get the troll out of Mum and Dad’s bedroom before it wrecked the place and, as the first perfume bottle toppled off the dressing table and smashed on the floor, I knew I had to do it fast.

  My eyes fell on my old stuffed toy in its hand.

  ‘Here goes nothing!’ I whispered to myself.

  Grabbing the toy, I legged it out of the room, on to the landing and down the stairs as fast as I could. I hadn’t gone far before I heard the smash of ornaments and perfume bottles, quickly followed by heavy footsteps charging across the landing and crashing down the stairs after me.

  ‘ARRRRRGGGGH!’ I yelled, because it was pretty scary.

  You might wonder why Mum didn’t come to find out what the racket was, but she was still busy vacuuming downstairs and couldn’t hear because she was making quite a racket herself.

  Without looking back I ran through the kitchen and out into the garden.

  My plan to get the troll out of the house hadn’t really gone further than that. So when I turned and saw the

  troll burst through the back door after me, I did the only thing that felt right.

  I kept on running! I ran across the garden, jumped over the fence and into the woods at the back of the house, and kept on running through the trees. I glanced back again to see the troll still behind me with its hands outstretched.

  I quickly lobbed the stuffed toy back over my head, hoping the big baby would stop chasing me, but the troll caught it and kept on running.

  Eventually the trees thinned out and I ran down the hill towards the river.

  I considered jumping in to get away, but then realized that if trolls live under bridges they’re probably used to water, and can most likely swim better than me. (I’d only just got my 100-metre badge – which wasn’t enough to race a bridge-troll!)

  Then it hit me.

  What does a baby bridge-troll want more than a stuffed toy, and more than the boy who ran off with the stuffed toy?

  A bridge!

  I ran along the riverbank until eventually I saw a bridge up ahead. I sprinted towards it, putting a bit of distance between me and the troll, and when I got there I stopped and tried to catch my breath.

  I was so busy keeping my eye on the baby troll charging towards me that I didn’t notice a huge dark figure climbing out from beneath the bridge.

  It was only when I saw a tall dark shadow stretched out before me that I turned and saw a fully grown adult troll looming over me, looking very, very angry.

  I already mentioned that bridge-trolls are stupid and harmless (unless you’re a goat). But then it occurred to me that some bridge-trolls could be so stupid,

  they wouldn’t know the difference between a goat and a person!

  I glanced back along the bank and saw the baby troll was almost on top of me. Literally almost on top of me, because when it was just a few metres away it leapt into the air and launched itself in my direction.

  I had nowhere to go, with one troll behind me and one almost on top of me. I covered my eyes and screamed at the top of my voice.

  But nothing happened. I didn’t get squashed or squidged or splattered! The troll jumped right over my head!

  After a few seconds I peeped out through one eye and saw the baby troll in the arms of the big troll. And looking closely I realized the big troll was female because she

  was wearing lipstick (usually it’s hard to tell with trolls because they all pretty much look the same).

  ‘THANK YOU MUCH!’ boomed the big troll. ‘YOU BRING BACK!’

  ‘Uh?’ I said, looking up helplessly and trying my best not to look like a goat.

  ‘BABA GOT LOST CHASING FLUFFY IN WOODS,’ she added.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, suddenly realizing I’d led the troll home to its mum. ‘What’s a fluffy?’ I asked, although I probably should have been running away while I had the chance.

  ‘FLUFFY MEOW!’ boomed the troll, pointing to the stuffed cat in the baby troll’s hand.

  Trolls have a very limited vocabulary, but now I knew exactly how the troll had ended up under my bed. Fatty had lured it there! Which definitely made me think he had probably lured the crocodile there too!

  That cat really doesn’t like me!

  The troll’s mum did look pleased to have her baby back, and as she made her way back under the bridge I remembered the chaos I’d left back home. I wondered what sort of welcome I’d get from my mum.

  GULP!

  I took my time going through the woods back towards the house, and as I climbed the fence back into the garden I caught an unmistakable whiff of bedroom. But it wasn’t the whiff of smelly socks from my room – it was the smell of smashed perfume bottles from Mum and Dad’s room.

  GULP!

  The smell grew stronger as I approached the house and I could already hear Mum yelling and making a fuss upstairs. But as I climbed the stairs and walked along the landing I heard another noise. A screeching, hissing, yowling noise, and it was coming from the bathroom.