by Martha Faë
I loved his reaction, so I answered him in the same serious tone.
“Exactly. Proceed with maximum discretion.”
We shook hands to confirm our joint mission and he jumped inside my rucksack as I held it open. When he hit the bottom of it he cried out.
“Ow! Are you crazy? What’s this thing that’s so hard?” Gondra leaned out holding a tube as big as himself in his right hand.
“It’s a torch,” I replied, watching him touch the top of his head where he’d hurt himself as he landed.
“And this? This lethal weapon almost took my only eye out!”
“That’s not a lethal weapon.” It took me a lot of effort to keep from laughing at how serious Gondra was. “That’s a ruler. We’re going to use it to open the door at the hairdresser’s.”
Gondra looked at me with a stern face.
“Well I didn’t know you were going to jump head-first into the bag, I only said to get in.”
“OK,” he replied crossing his arms and retreating back down into the rucksack. “Let’s get going before I change my mind.”
We set off. I crossed the street, pulling the rucksack tight to my back and keeping my hand on the strap. When we got to Peter, Please! the street was deserted.
“Pass me the ruler,” I said quietly, looking back over my shoulder. “Gondra, the ruler,” I repeated.
“If you open the bag then maybe I can give it to you,” said a muffled voice.
“Of course! Sorry!”
I looked around me; we were still alone. I opened the rucksack and the top of my plastic ruler appeared straight away. Next, I tried over and over again to softly slide it along the inside edge of the door.
“What are you doing?” asked Gondra. “I’m freezing my tail off in this bag. I already can’t feel my feet. When are we going inside?”
“It looks a lot easier in films... You see, you have to get this to go into the gap. Well, in the films they use a credit card, but obviously I don’t have one of those.”
“Right... And how do you suppose this will work?”
“I think that as I slide it along this little gap something moves inside and the door opens.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to use it as a lever?”
“The ruler?” I asked.
“Of course. My motto is: if the technical approach doesn’t work, use force.”
“Do you think it would work?”
“I’m sure it would,” he replied.
He looked so convinced that I gave it a try and pushed the ruler in – or, rather, I pushed in the little bit of it that I could.
“What do I do now?” I asked.
“Now push on the other end of it,” said Gondra, poking his head over my shoulder. “But hard, eh? You need it to break open the door.”
“Break it open? Won’t the noise wake up the neighbours?”
“No,” Gondra said, convinced.
SNAP!
“Great!” I said, annoyed. “The ruler’s broken, and on top of that there’s a little piece of it stuck in the door,” I looked closely at the piece I had left in my hand. Oh no! The part that snapped off in the door was the part that had my name on it... “Have you got any other brilliant ideas?” I asked, furiously. Thanks to Gondra I might be accused of trying to break down the hairdresser’s door. I was sure my picture would be in all the newspapers the next morning. There was the proof – a piece of plastic with ‘Amaranta’ written on it. How many Amarantas are there in my neighbourhood? Only me! This was a huge problem. “Gondra. Gondra...”
The dragon didn’t respond. I looked over my shoulder but he wasn’t there.
“I don’t have any more ideas,” he said in a far away voice. “Think of something yourself. I can’t be seen outside the bag; if someone saw a toy dragon talking, we’d have problems...”
“Oh right, yes. Now that worries you. All of a sudden you’re the most careful dragon in the world.”
I took off the bag and looked inside. Gondra made silent signs to say he couldn’t speak.
“You know what? If you’re not going to help then I don’t feel like doing it anymore either. We were only doing this for you. Let’s go home,” Gondra smiled. “But me to my home and you to The Forest – this mission is over.”
“No!” shouted Gondra. Strangely, he didn’t seem worried anymore that someone might hear him. “I can’t go back to The Forest.”
I was very tired. I didn’t have enough energy to keep trying things that obviously weren’t going to work. So I crossed the street quickly and headed uphill towards San Andrés Street and home.
“Ow! Ooh! Ouch! Not so fast; you’re making the bag bounce around back here and the torch keeps hitting me on the head.”
When we got back to my room neither of us wanted to talk. Gondra sat down on my rug and I sat on the bed. The moon cast a silver window shape on the wooden floor.
“Please let me stay with you.”
“No.”
“But it would be so great to live here.”
“Here, in our apartment? Are you crazy? My parents would kill me. They won’t even let me have a dog, imagine what they’d think about a dragon.”
Gondra put on a sad face, but I wasn’t prepared to let him get me into more trouble. I decided that we would talk about his return to The Forest the next day, because at that moment all I could think about was going to sleep.
14
**
Violent Chapter – Only Suitable For Brave Readers
In the morning I heard Mum’s voice calling me, “Amaranta! Breakfast!”
I rolled over onto my tummy and looked underneath the bed, hoping that Gondra wouldn’t be there. But there he was, looking at me like a little lost and unloved dragon, trying to win me over.
“Please, let me live here.”
“It’s impossible and you know it.”
“Nothing is impossible if you really, really want it.”
“Maybe that’s the problem then,” I muttered. “Maybe I don’t want more trouble.”
“Amaranta, time to get up!” That was Dad calling me. I had to make sure they didn’t come into my room.
I got up. Gondra just saw my feet going into my slippers. After breakfast, all he could see were my slippers walking around the room and then being swapped for my outdoor shoes. Our things from the night before came out of my rucksack and were replaced by my books for school. I left without another word.
“Ah!” sighed Gondra. “Off she goes, just like that, without even leaving a little piece of chocolate for this poor little dragon who hasn’t had any breakfast.”
The hours passed slowly and sluggishly that morning for poor Gondra. His boredom grew. It piled up, layer on layer, like honey on bread, until he couldn’t take it anymore and he opened the door with his little forepaw to see what was in the hall....
“WHAT?!” I screamed when I got home and he told me everything that had happened. “You went into the hall and you met my Gran? She gave you breakfast and you told her everything? You told her all about The Forest, and the secret tunnel, and that you’re going to live here? I’m going to kill you! I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!”
Note: the following paragraph should be read in a loud voice in the style of a news reporter. It must be done without any embarrassment about upping the volume, elongating vowels, or over-pronouncing any consonant that takes your fancy. And try to read it as fast as you can. Ready?
Ladies and gentlemen, here begins the excitement, the emotion, the action. For everyone who loves and enjoys the adrenalin of high speed, we present to you live this thrilling race, startinnnnnnnng... now! Gondra is straight off the mark, followed closely by Amaranta running with a hand outstretched to try to catch her rival. Amaranta just brushes the back of her rival with her index finger as Gondra gives her the slip and hides under the rug. Amaranta lifts up the rug. Gondra’s mortified face is priceless – priceless, ladies and gents! Amaranta’s looks could kill, her face is as red as a tomato. We can’t decide wh
o seethes better, the girl or the dragon, the dragon or the girl. Both competitors stop face to face and completely still for a fraction of a second until suddenly Gondra tries to distract Amaranta with an intrepid boxing dance: a few steps to the right, a few to the left. Left, right, right, left – it’s all very exciting indeed! Now they begin a riotous race towards the far south of the room. Amaranta runs and throws out a fist – it looks like it might hit the dragon – yes, the excitement grows every second as Amaranta’s hand travels out in front of her aaaaaaannnnd BONK! Brilliant manoeuvre there by the dragon, who opens the wardrobe and leaps inside while Amaranta’s hand makes contact with the wood.
“Open up! Open the wardrobe!” are the shouts we can hear from Amaranta, who doesn’t seem to care anymore about her family finding out she has a dragon. “Open up. If I open it and pull you out of there it’ll be a lot worse for you.”
What fury! What rage! Ladies and gentlemen, this is movie-style action. The dragon holds the door closed from the inside, while the girl pulls with all her strength to try to open it. Suddenly all goes silent. It looks like Amaranta is backing off... Wait, yes, she’s backing off. It looks like she might be beaten. She turns her back on the wardrobe door and makes her way over to towards the bed... No, not to the bed, wait – it looks like she’s going to leave the room. Could this mean the dragon is our winner? The wardrobe door opens just a little bit. A moustache pokes out and twitches as if it were testing the water. The dragon smells danger. TREMENDOUS cloud of dust created by Amaranta with a sprint that’ll go down in history. Gondra easily climbs to the top of the wardrobe. Amaranta approaches the wardrobe holding a chair while Gondra sits biting his nails. Amaranta puts down the chair, she puts down the chair and, yes, climbs up onto it, she climbs up and..... The crowd holds its breath. Oooh! Amaranta clutches at thin air because just at the very moment she reaches out to catch Gondra, he leaps upwards with a triple flip. Let’s see that again in slow motion: A-ma-ran-ta put-ss do-wn the cha-air and cli-mbs up on-to it to ma-ke a gr-ab for the dra-gon. The dra-gon bite-ss his nai-ls li-ke so-me-one who kno-w-ss he-‘s do-ne for. A-ma-ran-ta’s han-dss go ou-t to-war-ds the dra-gon, who ste-ps ba-ck and ta-kes a lit-tle run (cue dramatic piano music to introduce the slow motion replay of the triple flip): Gon-dra st-ands on his ri-ght fo-ot, th-en the le-ft, th-en ri-ght ag-ain. His bel-ly bounc-es. His mous-tache fl-oat-s up-ward-s and back. He cl-os-es his ey-es aaaaannnnd jumps, jumps, jumps over Amaranta’s head. He executes a triple flip and corkscrew twist and lands on the bed. The crowd goes wild, the stadium roars with fans' applause as they start to chant Gon-dra! Gon-dra! Amaranta gets down off the chair, grabs a cushion, throws, aaaaaannnnd bullseye! What a shot, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, grandmas and granddads! That was an Olympic throw. Amaranta’s cushion lands directly on top of the dragon, knocking him to the floor, he lies there sprawled under it and kicking his legs. The little girl launches herself on top of the cushion and accidentally knocks the bedside table alarm clock off the table. The alarm clock lands on the floor and starts to go off. This is the bell that marks the end of the match!
Amaranta 1 – Gondra 0.
Now I don’t know if what happened next was an accident or if fate had planned it that way. What happened was that when I landed on the cushion I’d thrown at Gondra I heard a noise like a Pouf! At first I was terrified that I might have squashed and killed my dragon friend. Obviously, however angry I was with him, I hadn’t intended to do that. But then I realised that Gondra was hugging me tightly. We were both falling downwards with bumps and twists and turns – you know, the usual trip through the magic tunnel. Except on this occasion neither of us had hit the headboard to make the little door appear. We were both scared because we had no idea where we were going; this time neither of us had wished to go anywhere.
15
**
Drop-Dead Gorgeous
The chaos was spectacular. Our landing sent brushes, combs, and hairclips flying in all directions. Everything was so dark that it took a few moments for my two eyes and Gondra’s one eye to get used to the lack of light before we could make out shadows and outlines of things. We were no longer in my family’s loft apartment, and we were not in The Forest, so where were we? I needed a few seconds to make sure and then I exclaimed with absolute boundless joy:
“Peter!!!”
“Pardon?”
“Peter! Peter, Please!”
“But who’s Peter? I’m Gondra, life-long dragon. Amaranta,” he said, taking me by the shoulders to give me a little shake, “don’t go crazy on me now.”
“I’m fine,” I said, freeing myself. “Better than fine. We’re in Peter, Please!, the hairdresser’s we were trying to get into last night! This is brilliant.”
Gondra watched me in silence as I felt my way along one of the walls, looking for the light switch. When I turned on the light, Gondra was amazed; he was so surprised that his jaw dropped and he stood there open-mouthed. There were dozens of dragons exactly like him and all of them looking back at him intently. Whenever he moved, all the other dragons moved as well. They all only had one eye, just like his, and their wings were also too small to fly. Gondra was beside himself with excitement and let himself get carried away. He began to dance, watching how the other dragons danced with him. Each one copied his movements with incredible precision – everything from the hypnotic wiggle of his belly to the tropical swaying of his tail. They even managed to imitate his famous How you doin’? wink which made all the lady dragons weak at the knees in The Forest’s hottest nightspots.
“These dragons are absolute geniuses,” exclaimed Gondra. “They’re amazing. Magnificent. They’re absolutely legendary - legendary like me – oh yeah!” He put one hand on his hip and raised the other in the air, clicking his fingers in time to the music he heard in his head.
“OK,” I said, in an exaggerated patient tone. “Can we stop playing with the mirrors now?”
Immediately I felt bad about what I’d just said. Gondra’s expression made me realise that he’d never seen a mirror before in his entire life.
“You mean that’s...? That I’m...?” he said, leaving the question unfinished.
“Yes, all the dragons are your own reflection. Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that, there’s no need to feel ashamed. It’s not your fault there are no mirrors in The Forest!”
Gondra stood looking at his feet, his head hung low in embarrassment. He couldn’t help glancing at the other dragons every now and then, however. I saw him lift his little finger a little bit and smile when the all the other dragons copied him.
“Right,” I said, putting on a hairdresser’s apron with pockets filled with combs, brushes, and scissors. “You can come over to the sink now. This way, please. Sit yourself down here.”
Gondra hopped up onto the chair. His legs dangled over the edge of the seat. He wriggled with laughter as I applied a little bit of shampoo from the blue bottle, then a bit of shampoo from the red one.
“Wow. That’s a lot of grime for a tea towel dragon!” I said. “Don’t you ever have a bath?”
“Of course I do. I love going to the mud baths.”
“Well that explains it. Look, the water almost looks like chocolate with the amount of dirt coming out of you... Don’t move your head, silly, you’ll get shampoo in your eye.”
“Then don’t tell me to look. Why do you say ‘look’ if I can’t look?”
“Just believe me, dragon of little faith, the water is practically black. Wait, don’t move, I’ll put a bit of conditioner on your moustache.”
“Hahaha, hohohoho, hahahaha.... You’re tickling me!”
“I’m just combing it out. Done - now you can stand up.”
Gondra got down from the chair with his crest, moustache, and his little wings all dripping wet. Meanwhile, I went to plug in the biggest hairdryer I could find. I had never used a hairdryer and the truth was that I didn’t know how they worked. This one had numbers from one to four. The number one was
blue, the three was red, and the number four was a drawing of a skull and crossbones. I wanted to use logic. The blue looked nice, so setting number one had to be good. I also liked the look of the red. Without a doubt, however, the part that got my attention the most on the hairdryer was the picture of the skull. Who wouldn’t prefer a picture instead of a number?!
“Gondra, stretch your arms out as if you were going to fly.”
The dragon stood in front of me and opened his arms out wide. I held the hairdryer firmly, with both hands, as if it were a gun. I pointed it at Gondra and switched it straight to the skull setting and turned it on.
Fiuuuuuuuuuuuffff!
Gondra flew, literally. He shot backwards, crashing into the mirror at the back.
“Hmmmm, too much power, maybe. Let’s see, let me look at you... No, the power must be right because look, in one second your belly’s all dry. Now we just need to do the back. Only try to avoid flying off this time, OK?”
“Sounds like a good idea,” replied Gondra.
“Brace yourself with your paws on the mirror. Then you’ll be able to stand strong.”
“Right. Ready,” said the dragon.
“I’m ready, too. Although I think I’ll just go a little bit nearer than before so we can do the tail and crest more quickly.”
Fiuuuuuuuufff!
A huge cloud prevented us from seeing what had happened. The hairdryer motor stopped making any noise without me turning it off. After a while, when we managed to stop coughing, Gondra looked at me. His eye was very red and full of tears from the smoke.
“What happened?” he asked.
My eyes were full of smoke tears, too, but I could see clearly enough what had happened and I didn’t dare answer him.
“What happened?” asked Gondra a second time.
In silence, I walked to the other end of the room, where all the hairdryers were hanging from multicoloured hooks. I carefully rolled up the wire of the dryer I was holding, and then hung it on an empty hook. Then I disappeared down a passage leading to the back room of the salon. My feet made a dry sound as I walked. Gondra didn’t speak. As we were both so silent, the sound of the store room door opening and then closing seemed like the sound a big heavy gate might make. I returned with a brush and a dustpan.