The Boy Who Sang with Dragons

by Andy Shepherd

  The flurry of little dragons joined together in a shimmering cloud of colour. We watched as they settled on the flowerpot and then laughed as it started lifting off the ground as they rose into the air. It swung there precariously until Liam and Ted appeared behind us to see what was going on and startled the dragons so that they shot off in all directions, sending the pot tumbling back down with a splash.

  I noticed several of the dragons taking a keen interest in the winter pansies, their long yellow tongues shooting out of their mouths as they hovered over them.

  ‘They’re like hummingbirds,’ Liam said.

  ‘Yeah, but they’re even smaller than bee hummingbirds,’ Ted said.

  ‘I didn’t even know that was a thing,’ I replied.

  ‘Sure is,’ Ted said, taking a breath as he revved up for a full-on fact frenzy. ‘Bee hummingbirds are the smallest bird in the world. They’re about six centimetres long, a bit rounder and plumper than these but they’re just as colourful. Found across the entire Cuban archipelago. Often mistaken for insects.’ He took another breath and then said with total glee, ‘Their heart rate can reach 1,260 beats per minute. And they can flap their wings at eighty beats per second! And this is the best bit – they can fly upside down and backwards!’

  We all turned and stared at the flitting dragons.

  ‘It looks like these guys can too,’ Liam cried, delighted.

  Sure enough a few of the dragons had started doing some pretty spectacular aerial acrobatics.

  ‘They’re like a display team, I said, laughing.

  When we went back to our tasks, the dragons flitted back and forth over Aura’s head. They followed her as she wheeled in another barrow of compost, little flecks of colour glimmering in the light of the late afternoon.

  ‘Better get that pond dug,’ Grandad said, looking up at the sky. ‘Reckon we’ll be getting another downpour tonight.’

  18

  The Answer Is Chocolate!

  Squashed in Grandad’s shed later, we sheltered from the rain. The wooden box we’d found buried under the compost heap sat on the table in front of us. We had each found something to read and no one was saying much, mainly because our mouths were too full of Nana’s jam tarts.

  I’d found another one of Arturo’s letters tucked into an envelope of photos. As my eyes flicked down the paper in my hand, I suddenly spluttered crumbs.

  ‘Listen to this,’ I said. ‘Arturo’s talking about Rosa not being able to see the dragons.’

  Everyone turned, eager to listen.

  I turned the page over, but it was blank. I riffled through the photos but there was no sign of another page of the letter.

  Aura’s shoulders sagged. ‘I really hoped he’d be able to tell us what had happened.’

  The door squeaked open and Grandad squeezed in carrying a tray full of pots. He put it on the counter, disturbing a layer of dust along with the uncomfortable silence that had settled over us.

  ‘Is it me or is this shed shrinking?’ he said. ‘I’m sure there used to be more room in here – even with you lot in it.’

  ‘I think we’ve just grown a bit,’ Ted said with a grin.

  ‘You have anyway,’ I said. Ted was about a foot taller than me and seemed to show no signs of slowing down. ‘I’m still waiting for my growth spurt,’ I added.

  Grandad winked at me. ‘It’ll come, Chipstick,’ he said. ‘Some things just take their time.’

  He glanced down at the box. ‘What’ve you got there then?’

  I explained about the letter and the other new treasure we’d found.

  Liam waved the shrivelled pod in the air. ‘Course, it’s not exactly buried gold.’ He laughed.

  ‘Next best thing, by the looks of it,’ Grandad chuckled. ‘Bet Lolli would think chocolate was treasure anyway.’

  I looked at him, confused.

  ‘That is a cocoa pod, isn’t it?’ Grandad said.

  And suddenly, like the counters in a game of Connect 4 dropping into place, an image of the letters from Arturo that I’d been reading last night flashed into my jam-tart-powered mind. I’d been carrying them around all day and now I grabbed them from my bag.

  While everyone looked on in confusion, I flicked through until I found the one I’d been looking for. The one where Arturo had drawn a tree interweaving his words. I held it out to everyone.

  ‘Look – it’s got pods on it, just like this. It must be the cacao tree he was talking about. Arturo DID tell me the answer!’ I cried.

  I rummaged in the box until I found the tin with the beans in, levered off the lid and thrust it under Grandad’s nose.

  ‘We thought these were coffee beans,’ I said excitedly. ‘But I don’t think they are. I think they’re cocoa beans, from the cocoa pod.’

  Everyone was still looking at me like I had lost the plot. So I slowed down. ‘I was telling Ted that in his letters Arturo wrote loads about cacao trees. He went on about how they grew alongside the dragon-fruit trees and they were really important to the people in the Hidden City. They had customs and rituals based around them and everything. But I totally missed why Arturo was so interested. What if he’d figured out that the thing dragon-fruit seedlings need to grow well is the cacao?’

  ‘You mean they like chocolate too?’ Liam said.

  ‘Well, if it’s good enough for Grandad’s garden,’ I said happily, remembering the cocoa mulch he’d been spreading.

  ‘That’s why it was important to the people of the Hidden City, and why Arturo was talking about it in the letters, and why Elvi had a tin of cocoa beans hidden away!’

  ‘Hang on,’ Aura suddenly said, examining Arturo’s drawing. ‘That tree looks like the one in the botanic garden, the one the seedlings were growing on.’

  I grabbed the letter and stared at it.

  ‘You’re right!’ I cried. ‘That’s why the seedlings were doing so well in there.’

  Ted grinned. ‘I told you the answer is always chocolate!’

  19

  A Sad Sing-Song

  ‘Nothing broken,’ Mum said as I clambered into the car later.

  She smiled and looked over at Lolli, who was clutching sticky Herbert and staring out the window at the sky.

  ‘That’s great news,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it, Lolli?’

  Lolli turned and gave me a little nodling. I wasn’t used to her being so quiet. Usually as soon as I stepped into the car she’d have been rattling off a huge list of everything that had happened at the hospital.

  She pulled back the blanket she’d laid over the sticky patients resting on the back seat between us and then looked at me expectantly. ‘So they can hear the singing that you sing,’ she said.

  It looked as if I was going to have to keep my promise and sing her a get-well song. I half hummed, half sang a few lines of ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ – it wasn’t exactly in Tinkle’s league, but it seemed to cheer her up a bit. And that made me feel better too.

  When we got home I left Mum and Dad to put Lolli to bed and headed to my room, where the little seedling was still sitting sadly in the pot of earth. Although I wasn’t exactly sure how the dragon-fruit and the cacao trees worked together, I figured I’d try crumbling the beans into the soil. I told the little plant the story of our chocolate discovery – if Chouko was right and stories really did help, then surely it’d love this one! I couldn’t help feeling excited – if I could figure out how to look after the seedlings, I really would have earned back the title of Grand High DragonMaster!

  ‘So, what is the problem, if it’s not broken?’ I asked Mum later when she and Dad came to say goodnight.

  ‘I expect she just bruised it,’ Mum said. ‘And it’ll be sore for a bit.’

  ‘But when she fell off that trampoline at Bea’s party and smashed her front tooth, there was blood everywhere. It must have been really sore for days with her lip cut like that; she cried for a bit when it happened, but then she didn’t seem to care.’ I paused. ‘So her arm must be pretty bad.’r />
  Mum leaned down and hugged me.

  ‘Let’s hope she feels better in the morning once she’s had a good sleep.’

  ‘How about I ask everyone to meet here tomorrow? Maybe she’ll perk up, with the superhero squad looking after her.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Mum said. ‘But let’s see how she is. She might just need a quiet day.’

  Dad bent down and did his best rock ’n’ roll tuck-in.

  ‘How did you get to be such a good big brother, hey, Tomas?’

  ‘By having such a good little sister,’ I whispered.

  I lay in bed and watched Zing fly to and fro. But I couldn’t sleep. I wriggled out and crept into Lolli’s room. She was tucked up in a Dad-made cocoon, but she was wide awake and she’d obviously been crying. She screwed up her face and started judder-crying when she saw me. I had a feeling this was going to get loud.

  I quickly started whisper-singing, hoping it would calm her down. It did, thank goodness, but she didn’t look very sleepy.

  ‘Want to hear a story all about chocolate?’ I said.

  She nodded and I grabbed one of the quilts from her nest and scooched in beside her, careful not to bump her sore arm.

  I think I’d reached the part where Arturo found the cacao trees when Lolli fell asleep.

  That night I had a dream.

  I was somewhere dark – and a bit smelly too. It smelled like the time Tomtom had batted a rotten egg and it had smashed and got all over his fur. I reached out my hand and touched rock.

  I don’t usually mind the dark, but this was different. It was so hot it was stifling, and when I tried to talk my words sounded all short and muffled like there was nowhere for them to go. I felt squashed.

  I didn’t like this dark.

  And then I heard a rumble and a long sonorous note that had all kinds of sad running through it.

  I stepped forward, but I banged my head and had to stoop, lower and lower until finally I was crawling on my belly with the sharp rock crushing me on all sides. I could feel something flapping wildly inside me, like a trapped bird. I wanted to open my mouth and let it out, but my lips were clamped shut. I started to hum, hoping it would calm me like it had calmed Lolli. The hum echoed around me.

  And suddenly Zing was there with me. He flared brightly, and I could see my way. I felt his little buzz and knew I wasn’t on my own. The flapping bird inside me settled. Slowly, inch by inch, I wriggled forward, until the rock above stopped clawing at my hair and I could lift my head, then finally crawl on my hands and knees.

  I could still hear the long sad note. It rang off the walls now as if it was searching for me. It was getting clearer. And clearer. And I hummed louder in response, until the two notes met and joined. All at once the tunnel widened and I saw daylight high above me. And there curled on the ground, caught in the beams of light, was the silvery blue shape of a dragon.

  Slowly the dragon lifted its head and stared sadly up towards the sky.

  20

  Dreaming with Dragons

  ‘I had this awful dream last night,’ I told everyone the next afternoon.

  ‘I used to have a really bad dream,’ Liam said, jumping in. ‘About a chicken. It wore a patch over its eye like a pirate and a sock on its head. And it was always chasing me. Like it wanted the other sock – only I didn’t have it.’

  I stared at Ted, who shrugged.

  ‘Dreams can be really weird,’ he said.

  ‘This felt different though,’ I insisted. ‘It was so bright and vivid, like when someone turns up the colours on the TV. And listen, Tinkle was in it. She was lying in this cave and I could see light and an opening high up above. She sounded so sad. And lost. I think she was hurt – one of her wings was lying awkwardly by her side.’

  ‘That really is an awful dream,’ Aura said, looking up from the pad of paper in front of her, her pencil poised over the dragon she was drawing.

  ‘But what if it was more than a dream?’ I insisted.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘There are times I’ve shared dreams with Flicker and he’s shown me things. You know, the forest and the volcano.’

  ‘But Flicker wasn’t there with you, was he?’ Aura said.

  I shook my head.

  ‘So it probably is just a dream,’ Liam said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’ He gave a slight shudder. ‘Like the chicken.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Ted said. ‘Did you say you had the dream while you were tucked up with Lolli?’

  I nodded. ‘She couldn’t sleep because of her arm, so I was telling her a story and we both fell asleep.’

  Ted looked thoughtful.

  ‘Perhaps you were sharing her dream? Do you remember what you told us your mum said about imprinting?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘What if that happens with dragons too? Most of the dragons hatch and fly off before we really get very close. It’s the ones we’ve hatched ourselves that have stuck around.’

  ‘I didn’t hatch Zing,’ I said, staring up at the little dragon who was perched on my bookshelf.

  ‘Not intentionally. But you did tread on his fruit and then he flew at your face,’ he said with a little chuckle and then added, ‘Yours was definitely the first face he connected with! It makes you think we should probably be a bit more careful not to get too close when they’re hatching.’

  There was a little squeak, which I realised had come from Aura.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly, motioning to the bag next to her. ‘Um . . . I caught my finger in the zip.’

  ‘But here’s the thing,’ Ted went on. ‘What if when they imprint on you, you imprint on them too. Let’s face it – we’re all pretty attached to our dragons, aren’t we? So what if Lolli is so attached to Tinkle, she’s feeling what Tinkle is feeling.’

  I thought of Lolli’s sore arm and then pictured Tinkle lying in the cave with her wing at that odd angle.

  ‘You could be right!’ I said jumping up. ‘And maybe that’s why Flicker seemed so sad when I saw him,’ I suggested. ‘Tinkle is hurt and he doesn’t know where she is. I have to let him know. So he can find her and help her. Then Lolli will get better too.’

  ‘But if it’s true and Tinkle’s really fallen and can’t fly back out, how is Flicker knowing where she is going to help them?’ Liam asked. ‘We need to figure out what to do about her wing first.’

  There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Let’s ask my mum,’ I said quickly. ‘I just need to think of a way to ask her without actually letting on what kind of animal we’re talking about.’

  21

  Mum to the Rescue

  Downstairs we found Mum getting things ready for another live recording of the TV show – this time, thankfully on location at a local animal sanctuary. Dad had decided to do battle with the garden and was outside wrestling with a reluctant and grumpy lawnmower, which had decided it had better things to do than cut grass.

  ‘Any time you lot fancy helping tame our jungle, just say the word,’ Mum said, nodding towards the open back door. ‘You probably all have bright green fingers from spending so much time in Grandad’s garden.’

  I must have grinaced, because she gave a little chuckle.

  ‘Something special about Grandad’s garden, hey?’ She paused. ‘Maybe it’s all those caramel toffees and Nana’s jam tarts.’

  We all smiled and nodded.

  ‘We were wondering if we could ask you something?’ I said.

  ‘Your professional opinion,’ added Ted seriously.

  ‘Of course,’ Mum replied. ‘Fire away. Oh dear, you haven’t got a problem with your guinea pig, have you, Ted?’

  ‘No, it’s not a guinea pig,’ I said.

  ‘More of a bird,’ Aura put in. ‘It belongs to a friend of Mamma’s,’ she added quickly.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘Well, what seems to be the problem?’

  ‘We think it’s hurt its wing,’ I said. ‘And we just wondered, if it was broken or something, is there anyth
ing we could do?’

  ‘Because it might be trapped,’ piped up Liam. ‘In a really deep hole.’

  I glared at him and shook my head. If Mum thought there was a creature in trouble she’d leap straight into animal-saviour mode. She’d be prepping ropes and insisting on abseiling in there to rescue it.

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘It’s not trapped,’ I said quickly. ‘Liam got that bit wrong. It’s just hurt its wing. And we thought you might know what we could do to help it get better quicker.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Mum said. ‘Wings are tricky. First of all, you should make sure the poor thing is somewhere warm and quiet and contained, so it feels safe and doesn’t flap about in distress and make any injury worse.’

  ‘Anything else?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, if the wing has been bashed but isn’t broken, it will just need some time to heal. Like Lolli,’ she said with a little smile. ‘Sometimes it can just be about waiting.’

  ‘So it could get better on its own?’

  ‘Without actually seeing it, it’s impossible to say. Why doesn’t she bring it round for me to have a proper look? Maybe I should phone your mum, Aura?’

  ‘No,’ I blurted too loudly, making Mum give me a weird look. ‘I mean, no, don’t worry about that. We’ll tell her. We don’t want to make you late for your filming.’

  Mum headed off, giving me her ‘there’s something funny going on here you’re not telling me’ look.

  Aura, who was still clutching her rucksack, hissed, ‘She might have been more help if she’d known exactly what we were talking about.’

  ‘Well, it’s not like she’s got a lot of experience of treating dragons,’ Liam said.

  ‘True,’ Ted said, ‘but at least she’d have more information, rather than trying to help us with a fictitious bird who may or may not be stuck in a hole.’

  That night I lay in bed determined to focus on what I’d seen in Lolli’s dream.