The Dragon Kepeer and Other Stories

by Lynne Roberts

The Dragon Keeper and Other Stories

  By Lynne Roberts

  Copyright 2014 Lynne Roberts

  ISBN 978-1-927241-18-9

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  Contents

  The Dragon Keeper

  Spelling Lesson

  Tall Tales

  Mrs Ainsworth Says

  The Breakfast Dragons

  The Dragon Keeper

  The moonlight slanted down, silvering the rock formations on the crest of the mountain. Slowly the proud, golden dragon paced forward, bowing before the young dragonmaster and his bride. Hand in hand they climbed astride its back, the glittering scales a perfect setting for the couple, as Aleysha’s flowing, white-blonde hair mingled with Danyr’s dark locks. One last, lingering, sweet kiss, and with a brief burst of flame the dragon rose into the air and soared away.

  Ellen sighed as she put the book down. Her eyes closed and she imagined what it would be like to be adored by a dragon rider. What would it be like to have long blonde hair cascading in ringlets? She sighed as she tossed back her own brown hair, which she was sure would certainly never inspire poetry, and tried to picture herself with full pouting lips.

  ‘Oh, bother it all,’ she muttered. ‘Nothing about me is right for a heroine. I’m not fashionably thin or voluptuously curved. My nose is a blob and I even have freckles. What hope do I have?’

  The book dropped from her hands as she leaned back against the tree deeper in the shade. Scenes from the book played out in her head as she tried to see herself in the role of the heroine. A shaft of sunlight through the trees caught her face and brought her back to reality with a start.

  ‘But I do wish I owned a dragon,’ she said aloud.

  ‘You don’t really mean that,’ a voice in her ear said. With a jump Ellen turned to see a young man sitting cross-legged beside her on the riverbank. He had a cheerful smiling face, topped with an unruly mop of dark hair.

  ‘What?’ said Ellen, flustered.

  ‘You wouldn’t really want a dragon. Terrible things they are. All that feeding! They’re never satisfied. Dragons eat whenever they feel like it, and that’s most of the time. And they’re not fussy. Sheep, people, anything with a bit of flavour, and if it puts up a fight so much the better.’

  Ellen’s mouth hung open. Was she dreaming? Where could this boy have come from?

  ‘Um,’ she stammered, ‘but wouldn’t a dragon be good for transport? I mean, just imagine being able to hop on its back and ask it to take you wherever you like.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ A pair of dark eyebrows raised up as with a comical grimace the young man said, ‘You obviously haven’t had much experience. What do you think this dragon of yours is going to do when you finish your little flight? They don’t sit happily around waiting for your next command, you know. They have minds of their own and you’re the one responsible for them. Were you planning on leaving it for the day in a place like this?’ He gestured at the trees around them and the grass stretching down to the riverbank broken by beds of colourful flowers.

  ‘You can say goodbye to those flowers for a start,’ the young man went on. ‘They’d be the first course before the beast went on to terrify a few innocent sheep. And as for the river… ’ a contemptuous finger pointed to the sparkling water trickling merrily below them, ‘that would soon be a muddy hole by the time the wretched thing had been for its daily wallow. No,’ he said firmly, ‘you have no idea what life with a dragon would be like. Be thankful you don’t have to have anything to do with them. I only wish I was so lucky,’ he added.

  Ellen had listened to all this in amazement, her face reflecting the conflict of emotions she was experiencing, bewilderment being the main one. Who was this? Was he for real? She pinched herself hard. It hurt, so no, she was definitely not dreaming.

  ‘Er, have you actually seen a dragon?’ she asked hesitantly.

  ‘Seen one! I have to look after one of the jolly things,’ came the reply. ‘Every day, not even the weekend off, it’s ‘keep the wretched beast happy’ and ‘see that it doesn’t set fire to the furniture.’ Oh, I’ve certainly seen one,’ he said bitterly. ‘That’s my job. Number one Dragonkeeper, that’s me. Hours of work every day and ‘make sure the water buckets are always full.’ I don’t get any time off unless it’s sleeping, and it’s due to wake up any minute now, so I’ll have to go.’

  A rustle of leaves, and a last flashing smile showing even white teeth, and the young man vanished. Ellen gulped and looked around. It wasn’t a dream, but how could the young man be a Dragonkeeper? What was happening? Was she in some sort of weird time warp or had she been in the sun too long. She leaned back against the tree again and decided to think logically. She was Ellen, thirteen years old, and she was sitting in the grounds of the Herberton university during the summer vacation. Her father had been appointed as Senior lecturer in mathematics, a big career jump from his previous college position, and they had moved to the university town three weeks earlier.

  Ellen hadn’t wanted to move to a new place and leave all her friends. To make things worse, she had no friends yet in this new town. Her two younger brothers were happy to play together and had already joined up with a pack of similar aged small boys. They spent their time cycling or skateboarding around to each other’s houses and swapping numerous computer games. Ellen had hoped that she could salvage some of the holiday by working somewhere interesting and meeting people as well as making some spending money for herself. No such luck. She found it rather depressing that every job available to someone her age had been filled already by the time they moved here, and the only thing offered was childminding. That was a real last resort, but she decided that being paid to look after children couldn’t be worse than hanging around home all holidays. There, she would be expected to do it for nothing while her mother fanatically sewed drapes for all the windows in the new house.

  But even the childminding job had backfired, Ellen reflected gloomily. The small boy, the son and heir of the University Vice-Chancellor, had come down with chicken pox which he’d apparently caught from a cousin who’d come to stay for the holidays. So there would be no child minding for another few weeks at least, which meant no money to spend. This meant that trips to the shops, which beckoned seductively with promises of great bargains, had to be strong-mindedly rejected. Which was why Ellen had decided to spend her days in the university grounds, close to their new house. She told her mother she was exploring the area, which was almost true, but had sneaked away a few of her favourite ‘DragonRyder’ books to cheer herself up.

  But who was this boy, or rather young man, Ellen wondered? His clothes had been a bit strange. He had worn some sort of rust coloured tunic over dark green, well, tights, and soft leather slippers with long pointed toes. Perhaps his ears were pointed too? It was hard to tell with the mop of hair he had. His eyes were very blue and sparkling. She sighed.

  ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ Ellen said aloud. If he was for real, then this was the most exciting thing that could ever happen to her, and here she was trying to remember his ears, for goodness sake.

  Ellen glanced at her watch and gathered up her books. Time to go. She had promised to give her mother a hand to hang the curtains in her bedroom. Perhaps if she came here tomorrow at the same time, the dragon would be
sleeping again and the Dragonkeeper would come back. With this thought to cheer her she made her way home in a happier state of mind.

  As if to purposefully thwart Ellen’s plans, it rained for the next three days. Not a good satisfying rain, the sort that made you curl up with a good book and watch the puddles fill, but a horrible, drizzly, on-again, off-again rain that made everything wet and muddy and steaming in the heat. It also made Wayne and Brady, Ellen’s brothers, fight over their computer games, whine for videos, and generally drive their mother and sister distracted. Her father was no help at all, Ellen thought crossly. He was busy getting the academic year organized. He spent most of his time in meetings or else wandered around with lists of obscure figures, muttering formulas and equations that no one understood. Ellen’s mother finished hanging drapes at the windows and had now launched into an orgy of cushion making. Ellen kept out of the fights as best she could, helped pin and cut cushions, and ironed her father’s shirts for him.

  The fourth day was fine again. The boys took off on their bikes with whoops of delight and her mother decided to have a shopping day for more fabric, so Ellen was free. She hastily grabbed some cheese and salami from the fridge and stuffed two apples in