‘I’m going to need a bigger jam tart to feed this lot,’ Nana chuckled.
Lolli suddenly squeaked and pointed up to the sky. Little shiny tears cascaded down her cheeks.
‘Tinkle!’ she cried. And she skipped with joy as the silver-blue dragon circled the garden and flew down to her. She rushed over and flung her arms around the dragon’s scaly neck. ‘Tinkle all better,’ she murmured. And Tinkle replied with a soft sonorous song that swept across the garden.
36
Is It a Cuttlefish?
Is It an Onion?
No, It’s a Dragon!
Over by the dragon-fruit tree Aura and her dad were peering at a fruit that had just burst and a tiny orange dragon with twisty horns and spiked tail still covered in seeds and sticky goo was peering back at them. Aura clapped her hands delightedly as the dragon hopped onto her dad’s outstretched hand. But when he held it up to show Rosa, it was obvious she couldn’t see what had made them both so excited. I watched Aura’s face crumple.
Zing, who had regained his zinginess and completed another spinning somersault above me, hovered in mid-air, his eyes fixed on Aura. He darted towards Rosa, looped around her head and then disappeared in a flash of brilliant white. He reappeared across the garden, right in front of the four-winged dragon.
Obviously startled, it shook its head wildly and unfurled its wings, as if preparing to take off. But then we saw something happen. Its wings, which had been pink, started to pulse different colours.
‘Hey!’ Ted cried. ‘Look at its wings – the way the colours are rippling! It’s just like that cuttlefish Mr Firth showed us.’
Suddenly, right then, I had one of those moments where if I had scales they’d have been flaring bright gold. And it was thanks to Zing.
‘That’s why Rosa can’t see the dragons!’ I cried.
‘What do you mean?’ Liam asked.
‘Remember Arturo’s letter? He said Rosa was playing in the garden. But not just playing – she was leaping out at the dragons.’
‘Er . . . yeah, so?’ Liam said.
Ted’s face had broken into a grin; he’d already worked it out.
‘Think about it – when animals get startled, they defend themselves,’ he explained. ‘Just like Mr Firth said. Some curl up in a ball, some attack, some change colour to blend in. We’ve seen dragons with all sorts of special abilities.’
I jumped in. ‘What if the dragon Rosa surprised had a very special way of defending itself,’ I said. ‘What if it could make you forget you’d seen it completely?’
‘A hypno-dragon!’ Liam cried.
‘And Mamma frightened the dragon, didn’t she?’ said Aura. ‘She was wearing a Halloween mask when she leaped out. So her dragon wouldn’t have recognised her.’
‘That’s right!’ I said. ‘The dragon must have reacted by instinct. It was only a young one. It probably hadn’t learned to control its powers yet, just like Zing when he started zapping.’
The dragon slowly moved towards Rosa. Folding back its wings, it stretched its neck out until its head was right in front of her. Then it stared at her. It looked sad and yet I could see it was as full of hope as we were. Clearly it hadn’t meant to hypnotise Rosa all those years ago. For a second we all waited, holding our breath. But Rosa was too busy looking in every other direction and chattering away about this and that and nothing in particular. The dragon gave a rumbling sigh and made to turn away.
But then Grandad stepped forward. He ran a hand over the dragon’s head.
‘You know, Rosa, we grow all sorts of things in this garden,’ he said. ‘Cucumbers, tomatoes, runner beans.’
‘How lovely,’ Rosa said. ‘My mamma would be delighted to know that you’ve kept the garden so well. Aura is very like her – she loves growing things.’
‘She certainly does,’ Grandad said, giving Aura a wink.
He reached down and picked out an onion from his wheelbarrow. Then held it up in front of Rosa. Opposite her, the dragon leaned in and sniffed it.
‘Sometimes we have to look a little bit harder,’ Grandad said. ‘Some people might just see a muddy onion. Someone else might see an interesting multi-layered vegetable that’s been around for more than seven thousand years.’
He dug his thumb in and peeled it apart. ‘But it has so many layers.’ He paused, giving Rosa time to take it in, while the dragon waited, its eyes still fixed on her.
‘For those one or two who really look, they might just see –’ and as he quickly pulled the onion away, he whispered – ‘a dragon!’
Suddenly Rosa’s eyes widened. She let out a squeak and stumbled backwards, landing on her bottom in the mud.
Aura rushed to help her up as Rosa stared straight ahead, her outstretched finger waggling at the dragon now craning its head down to her.
Onions make you cry when you cut them. Ted says it’s a really complicated chemical process that creates this gas with a very long name, but right then I didn’t think what was happening was the onion’s fault.
‘Do you remember?’ Aura urged.
And Rosa, tears shining on her cheeks, looked deep into her eyes and nodded, a smile lighting up her face.
37
All That Possibility
Just Waiting
Everything in Grandad’s garden was blooming. In fact, thanks to his and Jim’s efforts over the last few months – plus a little help from Rosebud! – the whole village was a blaze of colour. Bright yellows and pinks, reds and oranges tumbled from window boxes and hanging baskets everywhere, leading to the willow arch at the village centre. Here, flowers threaded their way through the branches, forming an intricate design, one that Grandad had definitely had a hand in. A poppy-and-cornflower dragon stretched its way up one side and, thanks to some sweet peas, it roared a rainbow of colour.
‘I’m not sure everyone quite gets what it is,’ Grandad had chuckled when he’d shown us.
‘I think you have to be looking at it in the right way,’ I replied. ‘We know it’s there.’
His eyes twinkled. ‘Those dragons of yours have certainly added a splash of colour to our little village, Tomas. In more ways than one.’
I’d been digging for hours in the garden when Grandad finally called me over, waving Nana’s tin of goodies.
‘She really wasn’t joking about making a jam tart big enough for a dragon,’ Grandad said. ‘And it looks like she couldn’t make up her mind about the flavour either.’
‘It’s a vast plate-sized jam tart,’ I said, remembering the day I’d first found the dragon-fruit tree. ‘With different-coloured sections like a multi-topping pizza. “Just think of the possibilities,” you said.’
He laughed.
‘Who’d have thought it, hey, Chipstick? All that possibility in our little garden.’
I looked over at Flicker stretched out under the apple trees, Zing happily perched in between his horns. And then at the dragon-fruit tree, and the vivid orange tendrils shooting out like bursts of flames. One night soon, there would be huge moon-white flowers. And then another crop of dragon fruit growing red and ripe. And bursting into life.
I grinned. Grandad licked the jam from his fingers.
‘Come on then, show us that photo of Aura.’
We sat on the bench outside his shed and I pulled out the photo I’d printed out. It was of Aura and her parents in Mexico, outside a house that was painted bright orange. Next to them stood an old man with a neatly cropped beard and moustache. His eyes were twinkling just like Grandad’s. They had found Arturo! And every time I looked at his broadly smiling face I felt my heart beat hard and strong, like the beat of Flicker’s wings.
‘He never gave up,’ I said. ‘Arturo spent all those years looking for the dragons, hoping he might find the missing seed.’
‘And now he’s finally going to grow dragons,’ Grandad said, leaning back.
‘He always told Elvi that he wanted her to have one of the seeds so there would be hope in two places,’ I added.
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‘And now you’re doing the same by sending him one of the new seedlings.’
I smiled as my gaze rested on Arturo’s open palm and the little pot sitting there, with its green shoot peeking out.
‘The dragons need us all,’ I said.
He rested a hand on my knee and smiled.
‘You know, everything in this garden’s growing so fast,’ he said. ‘Including you, Chipstick.’
We sat there for a few minutes, just us in our garden with one huge dragon and one tiny dragon. And a world of possibility, just waiting.
And then someone hollered and I looked up to see Ted and Liam racing down the path. And behind them came three more figures. In the middle was Lolli, skipping and giggling, and on either side were Kat and Kai, back for the holidays.
The superhero squad had grown too, and whether we were apart or close by we would always stick together, like the very best jam tarts, and we would always look after the dragons.
‘Come on,’ Kai called. ‘We just saw Crystal and Dodger flying over. The dragons are waiting for us in the Dragons’ Den.’
‘And we’ve got something we need to share,’ said Kat excitedly. And as she reached me she thrust a photograph into my hand, her eyes gleaming.
So it turns out we were wrong – ours wasn’t the only dragon-fruit tree growing dragons. And that means you should keep your eyes open and your oven gloves and water pistols handy. Because who knows, there could be dragons out there waiting for you too!
Acknowledgements
Luckily I’ve had five books to spread my thanks over. There have been a lot of people who have helped make this dream come true for me and it’s been great to have the chance to mention them along the way.
I’ll always be grateful to my lovely agent Jo Williamson and my fabulous editor Georgia Murray and the whole team at Piccadilly Press, for helping to bring my dragons into the world. And to Sara Ogilvie for creating artwork that is just so special and continually makes me smile. You’re a roarsome lot! Sorry, but I had to get one dragon pun in before the series ended.
For me these books have always been about family, friendship and finding a little bit of magic in the everyday.
I can’t thank my own family and friends enough for always cheering me on and providing such fertile soil to plunder. There’s so much of my own parents in Tomas’s nana and grandad. I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by kindness, teasing, comfort and love and I hope this has come through into the story and warms you as you read.
Thank you too to Isla and Esmé for inspiring so much of Lolli – you’re a joy and we love you lots! (And sending thanks to your lovely mum and dad, Jo and Simon, for letting us borrow from you!)
And now to you, my dragon desperados. The readers who, by sitting down and curling up with the story, ignite the magic. Thank you for taking the dragons into your hearts. You are the best superhero squad ever!
And finally to Ian, Ben and Jonas, none of this would have happened without you. You are my true magic in the everyday. With you, I soar.
Keep dreaming of dragons, keep believing.
Thank you for choosing a Piccadilly Press book.
If you would like to know more about our authors or our books, or if you’d just like to know what we’re up to, you can find us online.
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
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We hope to see you soon!
First published in Great Britain in 2021 by
PICCADILLY PRESS
80–81 Wimpole St, London W1G 9RE
Owned by Bonnier Books
Sveavägen 56, Stockholm, Sweden
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text copyright © Andy Shepherd, 2021
Illustrations copyright © Sara Ogilvie, 2021
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Andy Shepherd and Sara Ogilvie to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-84812-991-7
Also available as an ebook and in audio
Typeset by Sue Michniewicz
Piccadilly Press is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk
The Boy Who Sang with Dragons Page 11