‘Skunks use their disgusting stink,’ Ted ventured.
‘And sea urchins are prickly,’ said Lila. ‘I know cos my little brother touched one last summer and he totally screamed forever about it. And then Dad said he couldn’t have an ice cream and he screamed even louder. Actually, maybe that was why he was screaming in the first place. Anyway it was really prickly and . . .’
Mr Firth blew out a sigh that rattled the window panes. ‘Yes, that’s enough, thank you, Lila. But you’re right that there are many sea creatures that defend themselves in a multitude of ways. Take the cuttlefish for example. They can produce bands of colour. It acts like a mesmerising light show that lulls its prey into a trance.’
Mr Firth tapped his laptop and a photo popped up on the whiteboard.
Ted was leaning forward in rapt attention – this sort of lesson was right up his street, and I could see he was bursting to tell Mr Firth one of his own amazing facts – but at that moment the door creaked open and Aura appeared, quickly apologising for being late. I’m surprised she didn’t crumple to the floor from the look Mr Firth gave her. He tutted loudly as she walked to her seat, leaving a trail of muddy footprints on the carpet.
‘You’ll be staying in at break to clear that up,’ he grumbled.
She slid into the chair next to me and I noticed her hands were covered in dirt like her shoes.
‘I forgot it’d take a bit longer to get to school from your grandparents’,’ she whispered.
I was taken aback. ‘You’ve been there this morning?’
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been helping your grandad clear up.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I was planning to go round after school to help.’
‘It’s not really your responsibility,’ she replied. ‘I should do it.’
I stared blankly at her. Not my responsibility? What did she mean? The angry wasp inside me woke up, gave a buzz and started knocking against the jam jar of my chest.
‘Then again, I can’t go back till tomorrow. I’ve got another eye test after school. They think I need glasses. So maybe it would be good if you do go.’
Before I could say anything more, I realised Mr Firth had stopped talking and was glowering at both of us, his finger pointing at Aura.
‘Late and now disruptive. I think perhaps you should stay in at lunch as well as break, Aura. Now be quiet and open your book.’
I stared down at the page in front of me, my mind so distracted that the words squatted sourly on the paper, refusing to leap up and be read.
Since when was Grandad’s garden Aura’s responsibility?
26
Stuck in the Mud
After a whole day with Mr Firth I felt limper than a soggy piece of lettuce. I hadn’t even had anyone to distract me at lunchtime, with Ted and Liam at football and Aura kept inside. Still, I wasn’t going to let any of that stop me helping Grandad. As I came down the garden after school I could see he and Aura had already made good progress. But there was still plenty to do.
‘Where’s the wheelbarrow?’ I asked as Grandad handed me a spade.
‘Just behind the dragon-fruit tree,’ he replied. ‘I think Aura was clearing a patch over there earlier. She did a great job this morning.’
I stared over at the tree, imagining Aura there, and suddenly felt as if some creepy-crawly with a million legs was scuttling down my back. I dug my spade into a patch of nettles that were in full flower, thanks to Rosebud’s breath, and spent the next half an hour digging, my thoughts churning as I churned the mud. With every thought the spade got heavier, until I was grunting in frustration.
Eventually Grandad, who’d been whistling one of his tunes that couldn’t quite make up its mind what to be, paused.
‘You OK, Chipstick? Trying to dig your way to Australia?’ He chuckled, but then turned serious when my shoulders sagged.
‘Anything you want to chat about?’ he asked gently.
I grunted something that turned out to be more huff than words.
‘Oh dear. One of those days, is it?’
I sighed and nodded.
‘Well, first off, how about you get yourself out of that there mud? Can’t think straight when you’re stuck in a muddy hole.’
I looked down at my wellies. The soles were heavy with clods of thick wet earth.
I let out a groan and tried to shake one clean. But it was sticky stuff and when I lifted the other one, my foot just sank even deeper.
‘You actually need to take a step out of it,’ Grandad said with an encouraging smile. ‘No good noticing what’s wrong and then carrying on stamping up and down in it.’
I took a stride towards him, feeling the cloggy weight of my boots.
‘There now, give them a bash and a scrape while you chew on one of these.’ And he popped a caramel toffee into my mouth. It interrupted my frown and I bit down, ready to taste the creamy toffee. But my taste buds did a little jump in surprise.
‘What flavour’s that?’ I asked through sticky teeth.
‘You tell me,’ he said.
I rolled the toffee around my mouth, trying to unravel the taste exploding on my tongue. It was sweet, but also a bit like . . .
‘It’s salty,’ I declared. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not. I chewed for a bit longer, trying to decide. A butterfly fluttered down and settled on the handle of Grandad’s spade.
He watched it, smiling.
‘Good job we took a breather,’ he said. ‘Else this little fella wouldn’t have had anywhere to rest up.’
Its wings were smoky blue bordered by white, and its antennae twitched as it looked around. I carried on chewing my toffee as I watched it, absent-mindedly stomping my feet.
‘Looks like you’re all unstuck,’ said Grandad.
And the twinkle in his eye made me think that it probably wasn’t just the mud he was talking about. I realised that my thoughts had finally stopped churning. Inside my head it felt like a fresh gentle breeze had started to blow, clearing the skies and letting me think clearly again.
‘Can I have another one of those toffees?’
‘Anytime you like,’ he said with a wink.
‘So how did Jim take the sudden growth spurt in his garden?’ I asked as I unwrapped the sweet. ‘He hasn’t tried to take over again, has he?’
Grandad held up a hand as he paused to wait for a sneeze. It tickled across his face until it erupted out in an explosive aatishoo! that rattled the bean poles.
‘No, course not. He’s only trying to help,’ he said. ‘Truth be told, I think he’s a bit worried we’ve taken on more than we could handle. He might be right too.’
He bent and picked up one of the tendrils that had bloomed thanks to Rosebud’s breath. Pink and yellow petals spilled over his arm.
‘You know Jim – he likes a good moan. But he came round soon enough. Especially once he saw some of these flowers. Thanks to that little dragon Jim now thinks I’ve got the greenest fingers around.’
He leaned towards me and rescued a beetle that had been crawling up my sleeve.
‘Don’t look so surprised,’ he added. ‘I know it wasn’t exactly what we asked for, but in among all that tangle of tendrils there are some really lovely flowers. Where is Aura anyway?’ he added, looking about in case she might suddenly appear from behind a bush.
When I didn’t reply, he stopped and peered at me as if my thoughts might helpfully be written in ink across my face.
‘You know she was just trying to help too, don’t you, Chipstick?’ he said at last.
I gave a little shrug. But I knew that wasn’t going to work with Grandad. He’d stand there and wait for as long as it took for me to spill the beans.
I swallowed the last mouthful of toffee and then said simply, ‘Aura is Elvi’s granddaughter.’
Grandad’s eyebrows leaped up his forehead like fuzzy caterpillars doing the high jump.
‘She was growing dragons before I even knew about the tree,’ I added.
The fuzzy caterpillars didn’t come down Grandad’s forehead until I’d finished telling him the whole story of how we’d found out who Aura was.
‘Well, that must have been a bit of a shock,’ he said.
‘Just a bit!’ I spluttered.
‘For both of you,’ he added. ‘Aura’s had a lot to take on all at once, what with starting a new school too. How did she take it?’
I was a bit surprised by his question. After all, I was the one that was having problems getting my head round this. ‘She’s fine,’ I said.
Grandad nodded but didn’t say anything.
‘Kat says Aura isn’t going to think the tree belongs to her,’ I said desperately. ‘But what if she does?’
Grandad sniffed in a deep breath of air and smiled. ‘Smart kid, that Kat. She’s right – the dragon-fruit tree is under our care, but it doesn’t belong to anyone. Aura knows that. She’s not trying to take over, Chipstick. She just feels bad for causing so much mess.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to me to read. It was a letter from Aura. An apology.
‘I told her she needn’t fret, but she said she was responsible and it was up to her to sort everything out.’
I bit the corner of my lip.
‘She told me that too,’ I said. ‘Only I thought she meant something different. I thought she meant that the dragons were her responsibility. And I wasn’t needed any more.’
Grandad gave a little chuckle. ‘I can see how that might have set off a few alarm bells in your head,’ he said, ruffling my hair.
I gave a sheepish smile. Was Grandad right? Had it all been in my head? Now I thought about it, I had to admit that Aura hadn’t done anything to make me think she had some master plan to take over the dragons. She was a bit loud and annoying sometimes, but she’d also looked after Lolli, giving her that picture when she heard she was hurt. And we’d always had fun with the dragons – together.
Grandad nodded at the garden. ‘Look around, Chipstick – all these flowers blooming.’
I took it all in. It really was a riot of colour in the garden right now.
‘It might be a bit of a mess, and more chaotic than you’d like it to be, but see all those new buds, all that possibility waiting to burst out. We wouldn’t have any of that without Aura.’
I watched as he lifted his arm and the breeze blew a handful of bright red petals into the air, scattering them in all directions.
He grinned at me and winked. ‘I reckon Aura’s a bit like these, don’t you? A bright, chaotic burst of new life in the garden. And that’s not so bad now, is it?’
I thought about it for a minute. ‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘I guess, it’s not.’
‘Don’t you forget,’ he added, ‘this garden – and those dragons – need the both of you. There’s no question about that.’
27
The Droopy Sunflower
Grandad was right, the dragons did need us. They needed us all, working together. I knew I had to patch things up with Aura, let her know the chaos in Grandad’s garden wasn’t her fault and that I wasn’t blaming her.
The seedlings needed us too. If Chouko wasn’t going to listen to me, we had to take matters into our own hands and get to them ourselves. We had to sprinkle them with cacao and keep them healthy. Until we figured out how to rescue them.
I met Liam outside Ted’s house, and when we got inside and hurried up to his room I saw Aura was already there. I tried to catch her eye to smile, but she was fiddling with the rucksack on her lap and didn’t look up.
Thanks to Grandad helping to clear my head of the tangle of worries, there was a lot more room for ideas. In fact, my brain was back to churning new ones out rather than just churning a few old ones round and round. Everything from finding another driller dragon to tunnel our way to the seedlings, to abseiling off the back of a dragon into the building.
‘Brilliant,’ said Liam. ‘And we could get Kai to send Dodger over,’ he went on. ‘With his cloaking skills, we could get really close and no one would even see us.’
‘That’s all well and good,’ Ted said, ‘but we have to find them first. They could be anywhere inside those laboratories. You said not even Chouko knows exactly where they are. We have to locate them and then check the plan will work. No point using a driller dragon if they’re up on the top floor!’
Ted was right. In my excitement at coming up with a grand plan I’d missed a critical step. Finding the seedlings. And if Chouko couldn’t get near them, what hope did we have?
‘We need brain food,’ Ted said. ‘Come on, Liam, let’s go for supplies.’
While Ted and Liam went downstairs to raid the kitchen, I looked over at Aura. She’d kept very quiet all through the wild planning stages. It felt like when Lolli’s quiet because she’s hurt, and I didn’t like it one bit.
I stuck out a hand for Rosebud to come and perch on. The little dragon flew over and then bobbed her head up and down, folding back her wings as she made herself comfy.
‘It’s good we have Rosebud,’ I said. ‘If anyone spots us, we can send her in to fart on them – they’ll be too busy giggling their way through her green gases to take any notice of us.’
Aura gave a feeble smile. She was sitting cross-legged by Ted’s bed, one hand clutching Elvi’s diary, the other still wrapped around her bag. She stared at Rosebud as she hopped across the carpet. With the others gone, I knew now was the time to try and fix things.
My worries about the garden belonging to her before had run wild lately and taken over completely. Looking at her now, with the tangle of those worries cleared away, I could see she looked like a sunflower that no one had watered. All droopy.
‘So what do you think?’ I said. ‘You’re always great at plans.’
‘I’m not,’ she said quickly. Then she muttered, ‘They always end up getting us in more trouble. You’re better off without my stupid ideas.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said – even though until my chat with Grandad I’d probably have agreed with her.
‘It is,’ she insisted miserably.
She hugged her bag closer to her chest, like I did with Pink Dog when I was worried.
‘Listen,’ I said seriously, ‘you know Grandad is fine about what happened with Rosebud in the garden, don’t you?’ I paused and then added, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
She looked up, and her eyes went a bit shiny. ‘Thanks, Tomas.’ Then she sniffed and said, ‘But I feel terrible. I was trying to help and I just made a huge mess. I couldn’t stop Rosebud.’
Her hand stroked the diary. ‘I’m supposed to know what I’m doing. Elvi was my amma and she knew everything about the dragons. I wanted to make her proud,’ she said at last. ‘You always seem to know what you’re doing – just like her.’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘I really don’t,’ I said. ‘And I’m not sure Elvi did all the time either.’
‘I bet she knew not to let a swarm of bee dragons imprint on her,’ Aura said fiercely.
28
Plan Bee
‘Hang on, what are you talking about?’ I asked.
I watched as Aura put her finger to her lips and carefully unzipped the bag a little. I leaned forward to peer inside.
It was full of the tiny multicoloured dragons that had flown out of the dragon-fruit tree earlier that week. I gazed in at the mass of bright colours and glittering orange wings.
‘The first dozen or so flew straight off. But these were the ones that landed on me, and they all stowed away in my bag. When Ted started talking about imprinting, I realised that’s what must have happened. You think one dragon makes a mess, you should try living with thirty-seven!’
Her voice must have startled the little dragons because the bag suddenly became a whirl of colour and wings. And then the dragons burst out, making us both jump back in surprise.
Aura looked at me nervously. ‘I didn’t know what to do, T
omas. It’s a good job Dad’s been so busy the last few days. At least Mum can’t see them.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said.
‘I thought you’d be cross,’ Aura replied. ‘That you’d think I’d hatched them on purpose because I wanted more dragons or something. I mean, it’s your tree after all.’
It suddenly made a lot more sense why Aura had been avoiding me lately. She hadn’t been plotting some big takeover at all.
I sank back against the bed and looked up at the dragons now whizzing round Ted’s room.
‘It’s not my tree,’ I said gently. ‘And the dragons certainly don’t belong to anyone. To be fair, any one of us would have struggled to live with thirty-seven of them.’
I ducked as a line of the bee dragons shot down towards my head.
‘How did you even get them in that bag?’ I asked.
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she said. ‘Honey.’ And she took a jar out from the bag, opened it and dribbled some of the golden honey onto the lid. Immediately the dragons flew down and clustered around it.
‘Looks like you know more than you think you do about dragons,’ I said, relieved that we weren’t going to have to catch the tiny creatures.
‘That was just luck,’ she said. ‘I was eating breakfast and they wouldn’t leave my toast alone.’
‘But that’s all we ever do,’ I said. ‘Figure things out as we go along. And make mistakes,’ I added.
‘Well, I make a lot of those,’ she said. And I noticed again how deflated she looked.
‘But you’re always so confident and . . . you know . . .’
‘Loud?’ she said, finishing the sentence for me.
I gave a small grin. ‘A bit, yeah. I mean you did sweep into school like a mini-tornado.’
‘You try joining a school halfway through Year Six,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Anyway, being loud doesn’t necessarily mean you feel confident.’
I thought about what Grandad had said, how Aura had had a lot to get used to. First, joining a new class and making new friends, and then immediately having to say goodbye to Kat, who she had got on so well with. And then finding out about the dragons, Elvi growing them, and the weirdness about her mum not seeing them. It really was a lot to take in.
The Boy Who Sang with Dragons Page 8