Catnapped!

by Gareth P. Jones

  “I mean, every time that bell goes off, we ’ave to evacuate. It’s a bit odd, if you ask me,” Reg was saying.

  “No one would, or indeed should, ask you,” replied Arthur. “And I am certain that no one did. Now, I believe you mentioned tea.”

  Dirk could smell the other dragon’s sulphurous breath coming from above.

  The guttering had completely come away from the building now and, rather than holding on to it any more, Dirk was hovering mid-air, desperately trying to stop it from falling. But there was too much of it – it was going to fall. And when it did it would most definitely attract the attention of the two idiotic men. There was only one thing for it. He had to get back on the roof. Better to confront a dragon than be seen by humans.

  Here goes, he thought.

  One…

  Two…

  Three!

  In one swift movement he let go of the gutter, flipped up on to the roof and landed on his hind legs, claws drawn, ready to fight.

  But the Sea Dragon had gone. Dirk edged towards the skylight and looked down into the warehouse. Nothing. Just the five crates. The dragon was nowhere in sight.

  Behind him, the drainpipe clattered noisily to the ground and the two men re-emerged from the caravan.

  “What’s ’appenin’?” said Reg.

  “This place is falling apart,” replied Arthur. “Now where’s my tea?”

  Dirk was shaken. There was something very odd going on. And whatever it was, it was far bigger than one lost cat. That was for sure.

  Back in the safety of his office Dirk sat behind his desk, picked up a remote control and switched on the old television that sat on a filing cabinet on the other side of the room. Dirk loved his TV. It was from watching late-night movies that he had first got the idea of becoming a detective, although the reality had turned out to be different to the way the job was portrayed in films.

  He flicked through the channels. There was nothing on. A man on a shopping channel held up a revolutionary new duster. “Look around your room,” he demanded annoyingly. “Can you see the dust?”

  Dirk glanced at the piles of old newspapers and files from previous cases. “I can’t even see the floor,” he replied, switching it off.

  Cats, he thought. Why cats? Whatever they were doing with them, they certainly weren’t eating them. As everyone knew, dragons were vegetarians. Humans saw the big teeth, the sharp claws and the ability to breathe fire and assumed they were carnivores, but eating meat was agony to all of dragonkind. If a dragon ate enough meat, its blood would turn to gas and it would die. Dirk didn’t like the sound of that one little bit. He produced enough poisonous gas after a family pack of baked beans. If it was any worse than that it was to be avoided.

  This investigation was going to be far more involved than he had previously thought. He picked up the phone and dialled his client’s number. A clipped female voice answered the phone. “Theresa Bigsby, MP. Hello.”

  “Hi, can I speak to Holly?” asked Dirk.

  “Who?” responded the voice.

  There was a click as another phone was picked up and a girl’s voice said, “It’s for me.”

  “Oh, yes. That Holly. Right, sorry.”

  Another click indicated the first phone had been put down.

  “Is that Mr Dilly?” asked Holly.

  “Yes, look, your cat…”

  “Willow? Have you found her? Is she all right?”

  “Well, no…”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “No…”

  “So she’s all right?”

  “Look, if you’ll let me explain,” snapped Dirk down the receiver, fed up of being interrupted.

  Holly fell silent and Dirk realized that he had made the phone call without the faintest idea of what he was going to say. He could hardly tell her what had really happened. Look, kiddo, your cat has been stolen by a dragon and is being held in an abandoned warehouse. No, that wouldn’t do at all.

  “I… It’s just that…” he started. “It’s going to take longer than I thought to find your cat.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… Because it just is. I’ll call when I’ve got news, but don’t expect that to be too soon.”

  “What’s happened to her?” demanded Holly.

  “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

  Dirk slammed down the phone before she could ask any more questions. He turned to face the window, swivelled the blinds so that he could see the evening sky and contemplated the case. The cats, the dragons. The dragons, the cats. What was the link? What was the connection? There had to be a connection. Cats and dragons. Dragons and cats. After several hours of this sort of thinking and eight glasses of orange squash drunk neat, Dirk fell into an uneasy sleep.

  He was halfway through a dream involving an army of flying cats carpet-bombing London with exploding furballs when he was woken up by a terrible banging.

  “Take cover!” he exclaimed. “The cats are attacking!”

  “Cats are what, Mr Dilly?” It was Mrs Klingerflim. She knocked again.

  “The door’s open,” replied Dirk, rubbing his eyes and squinting in the early morning sunlight. He must have slept all night.

  The door edged open and Mrs Klingerflim’s owl-like face appeared around it. “Sorry to disturb you but your niece is here.”

  “My what?”

  “Come along, dear,” she said to someone in the corridor.

  “No!” yelled Dirk. “Don’t come in!”

  “What’s that?” The old lady pushed the door open wider.

  Dirk leaped off the seat and dived under the desk, squeezing his large body into the small space.

  “Thank you, Mrs Klingerflim,” replied a girl’s voice.

  “What a polite girl,” remarked Mrs Klingerflim. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Holly,” said the girl.

  Through a hole in the panelling of the desk Dirk saw her enter the room.

  “Uncle Dirk? Where are you?” called the girl.

  Dirk said nothing, frozen.

  “Well,” said Mrs Klingerflim. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. Don’t forget your rent is due next week, Mr Dilly.” The door closed.

  Dirk thought fast. What were his options? There was no way to escape without being seen. People tend to notice when a four-metre-long, red-backed, green-bellied, urban-based Mountain Dragon crawls out from under a desk and leaves the room. He would have to stay hidden and bluff his way out of this.

  “What a dump,” said Holly. “What are you doing under the desk?”

  “I dropped my pen,” said Dirk.

  “Has there been a fire?”

  “Yes, just a little one. I-I dropped a cigarette.”

  “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s very bad for you.”

  “I know, I’m trying to give up,” he replied frostily.

  “Dad’s wife uses an e-cigarette sometimes,” said Holly. “She’s always puffing away at that thing. It’s horrible. It smells like a fire in a cheap perfume factory. Not that Dad notices. He doesn’t really notice anything at all. They think I’m at school today.”

  “Shouldn’t you be at school?” Dirk said sharply.

  “This is far more important. I want to know what’s happened to my cat, Willow.”

  “How did you find me? I don’t advertize my address.” Dirk felt pins and needles crawl through his tail from being so cramped in the small space.

  “I had your phone number and I have a computer. It wasn’t hard.”

  The internet was another one of those human things that Dirk had never got to grips with. His clients were often surprised to hear that he didn’t even have a mobile phone. Dirk was old school.

  “Have you found your pen yet?” asked Holly.

  “There seem to be quite a lot down here. I may be some time. You might as well go away and I’ll call you later.”

  “Are you sure you’re not hiding?”

  “Of course not. Why do you say that?” />
  “I’ve just never known anyone to spend so much time under a desk. It’s a bit odd.”

  “What do you want?” Dirk asked impatiently.

  “I want to know what’s happened to my cat!”

  “It’s difficult to explain. Look, kiddo, you have to leave.”

  “I’ll leave when you come out from under that desk.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Then I’m not leaving.”

  “Look, you’re trespassing. You lied about who you were and illicitly gained access to my office. Get out!” demanded Dirk.

  “You call this tip an office?”

  Dirk was seriously annoyed. It was one thing to come barging in uninvited. It was another to impersonate a family member. But he wasn’t going to stand for – or in this case, hide under a desk for – a complete stranger calling his office a tip. Sure, it needed a bit of a tidy up. And perhaps he hadn’t taken out the rubbish for a couple of days or possibly weeks. But this was his home.

  Angrily Dirk said, “I’ll call your parents and tell them you’re not at school.”

  “Go on then,” challenged Holly. “The phone’s on the desk.”

  Dirk growled quietly to himself. “If you don’t go away I won’t tell you what happened to your cat,” he said.

  After a moment’s silence Holly sighed and said, “Fine! I’ll go… But I want to know what’s going on. So you’d better call me.”

  “It’s a deal,” said Dirk. He watched her shoes walk out of sight and heard the door close. She had gone. Breathing a sigh of relief, he edged his way backwards and climbed out from under the desk. He stretched himself out and cricked his back, standing up straight so that his head hit the ceiling. He extended his wings, knocking various things off various shelves. “Oh, that’s better,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his numb tail.

  “You’re a dragon!”

  Dirk looked down and saw the brown-haired, brown-eyed girl standing in the doorway, staring up at him.

  “Rats,” he said. “Big baskets of fat rats called Albert!”

  At least she’s not screaming, thought Dirk. Instead of screaming, Holly was standing frozen to the spot, eyes wide, mouth open, looking as though she had just seen the exact last thing she expected to see at that exact moment in time.

  “What are you staring at?” he demanded.

  “I mean, I just thought it was a cool name, the Dragon Detective Agency. I thought maybe you’d be Welsh or something. You know, they have a dragon on their flag, but I noticed you didn’t have a Welsh accent. So I thought maybe … I just thought it was a cool name. I never thought you actually were a dragon,” said Holly.

  “No kidding. That’s kind of the idea. Why aren’t you screaming?”

  “I considered it for a moment but decided that it wouldn’t help,” she replied simply.

  “I don’t think a scream would be out of place. Maybe a yelp. Even a whimper.”

  Holly ignored this. “It’s just brilliant! A dragon! Can you fly?” she enthused.

  “Of course I can fly. What do you think these are for?” he retorted, flapping his wings. “Air conditioning?”

  “And do you breathe fire?”

  Dirk picked up the top page of a newspaper from his desk and, showing off, rolled it up, pursed his lips and exhaled. A tiny line of fire darted out and set it alight.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Holly. “Cool.”

  In an instant the paper burned down to his paw. “Ow!” yelled Dirk, placing his claw in his mouth. The flaming paper floated down to the desk where it landed on the rest of the newspaper, setting the whole thing alight.

  “Rats!” he cried, trying to put the fire out with his tail. “Ow!” he said again, whipping it away. The fire meanwhile was growing and blackening the desk. “I’ll blow it out,” said Dirk, drawing in a deep breath and blowing.

  “No!” shouted Holly, but it was too late. Another line of fire burst from Dirk’s mouth, making matters worse.

  Dirk growled in frustration. “Stand back,” he said. He shut his eyes and threw himself over the fire. With a crash the desk collapsed beneath his weight. The fire, however, was finally out.

  “Super rats from Mars,” said Dirk, looking up to see Holly clutching her sides, bent over with laughter.

  “You’re funny,” she said.

  “Oh, I’m glad I amuse you,” said Dirk coldly. “That’s really what I was aiming for. Just think of me as part uncle, part dragon, part clown. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

  “Finding Willow?”

  “Your cat isn’t my only case,” lied Dirk.

  “But what about Willow?”

  “Listen. In the grand scheme of things one missing cat doesn’t add up to a hill of beans. It’s not exactly the crown jewels, is it?”

  “She’s more important to me.”

  “My heart is bleeding,” Dirk said sarcastically.

  “But you must know something otherwise you wouldn’t have phoned to say it was going to take longer than you thought,” reasoned Holly.

  “You don’t let up, do you?”

  “Anyway, what’s a dragon doing working as a detective?”

  “I’m so sorry you don’t approve of my career choice. I suppose you think I should have got a nice job in a bank.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  If there was one thing Dirk hated more than being laughed at, it was being called silly. Dirk was a lot of things but silly wasn’t one of them. This girl was starting to annoy him. “You have to go now. You shouldn’t have seen me but I’ll let you get away with it because you’re only a kid. Who’s going to believe you?”

  “No way,” asserted Holly. “I’m helping you find Willow.”

  “What do you know about being a detective?”

  “I found you, didn’t I?”

  This was true. Dirk didn’t exactly go out of his way to advertize his address. “You’re only eleven. You’re too young.”

  “Even though I’m young, I’m still smart.”

  “And modest, apparently.”

  “So how old are you?” she replied.

  “One thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven next July.”

  “Wow, that’s really old.”

  “Watch it. That’s quite young for a dragon and I think I’m in pretty good shape for my age, actually. I like to keep myself trim,” said Dirk, holding his stomach in.

  “I could be your sidekick. We’d be like Doctor Watson and Sherlock Holmes.”

  “I live alone and I work alone.” Dirk sat down behind his broken desk. “That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way I like it.”

  “Don’t you have any friends?” said Holly, pulling up a chair and sitting down opposite him.

  “Dragons aren’t that big on friends.”

  “What about your family?”

  “Let’s not get too personal now,” replied Dirk.

  “Well, I think it sounds very lonely.”

  “What about you?” said Dirk, turning on Holly. “Your mum didn’t even seem to have heard of you.”

  “Stepmum,” she replied. “She’s a junior minister.”

  “A politician?” said Dirk. “Ha. So you’re a spoiled little politician’s daughter.”

  “Stepdaughter. And I am not spoiled. I didn’t choose my life. I was lumped with it.”

  “Listen, as fascinating as this insight is, I have better things to do so if you could run off and play with your friends – or on your phone – or whatever you kids do these days, I need to get back to work.”

  “I don’t have any friends.” Holly’s voice wavered. “None except for Willow. She’s my best friend.”

  Dirk snorted. “She’s a cat,” he said dismissively.

  “She’s still my friend. I like animals. They’re more reliable than people.”

  “Don’t children normally have friends at school?”

  “I change schools a lot, so
I never make any new friends and if I do I just leave again and then they’re lost, so I don’t bother any more.”

  “That sounds very lonely,” Dirk said pointedly, but instantly regretted it as Holly’s brown eyes welled up with tears. If there was one thing he really couldn’t deal with it was a blubbing human. “Come on,” he said awkwardly. “It’s all right. Don’t cry.”

  “Will you let me help you find Willow?”

  “I can’t…”

  Holly’s head fell into her hands, her shoulders began to shake and the loud, piercing wail started. It was a horrible sound.

  “Anything the matter?” called Mrs Klingerflim’s voice from the hallway.

  “No, nothing, Mrs K,” replied Dirk. “All right. Stop. You can come along,” he said finally.

  “On … the … investigation?” Holly managed to ask in between sobs.

  “Yes, but only for today.”

  “What … are … you doing today?” she said tearfully.

  “Today is the stakeout.”

  The sobbing noise stopped instantly and Holly said, “Stakeout. Cool!”

  “But that’s it!” said Dirk, a tad dubious about Holly’s instant recovery. “Then you leave the detective work to the dragon, OK?”

  “Absolutely,” said Holly and, as if sensing his suspicion, she looked away and wiped a tear from her eye. “You won’t regret this, Mr Dilly,” she said.

  “I’ve got a feeling I might,” replied Dirk.

  Dirk was indeed regretting his decision, but he had said it now and if there was one thing all his years of being a detective had shown him, it was that if your word was no good, then nor were you. However, he was beginning to wish that, just this once, he had made an exception to the rule. Holly had an endless line of annoying questions: “What do you eat? Where were you born? How long have you lived in London? Has anyone ever seen you before?”

  He batted each one off with a noncommittal grunt. The less she knew the better. He hadn’t even told her about the dragon he had seen stealing the cats. He figured he could take her out today as he had promised and then she would leave him alone.

  “How do you avoid being seen? Can you turn invisible?” asked Holly, finding it difficult to mask her excitement.