gnome interrupted them frequently to complain about the fish not biting. Eventually Holly was forced to jam a chair under the door handle to stop him getting out of the bathroom. Mrs Beggs drifted in and out; alternately raving about the beauty of her garden fairyland and scattering rose petals about. Much to the girl’s disgust she decide to prepare a fairy feast and mixed honey with warm water which she fed to the fairies from Holly’s old dolls tea set. The pixies were by this time engaged in serious battle and at least two windows bore jagged cracks from the onslaught of stones.
‘Hurry, there must be something,’ Holly said frantically, as the gnome began pounding on the bathroom door in anger.
‘We could try washing it off,’ Caitlin said at last. ‘That works for quite a few spells.’
‘I’m willing to try anything,’ said Holly grimly, as her mother blew her a kiss before sinking to the ground and singing to her fairy companions.
‘Tra lal la la la,’ she trilled. ‘Little fairies flutter and fly, as the sun shines from the sky.’
‘Not for much longer, if I can help it,’ muttered Holly. She marched to the tap and turned it on full. Picking up the end of the hose, she began sprinkling water around the front yard.
‘It works,’ she yelled in delight, as she caught a gnome trundling a small wooden wheelbarrow full in the face with the water. The gnome immediately turned back to stone on the spot. ‘Grab the watering can and help,’ she called to Caitlin.
The next hour was chaotic as Holly and Caitlin attempted to wash the magic dust off all the stone ornaments. Holly’s mother cried in anguish and tried to shelter three of the prettiest fairies under her skirts, while the gnomes made a mad dash for freedom every time Holly turned her back on them. Caitlin was hot and bothered from running about rounding all the creatures up, and inevitably being squirted herself in the process. The pixies were the hardest to catch. They scrabbled under plant pots and scrambled up the clematis vine by the shed, throwing stones all the while. Caitlin prodded one as it turned back to plastic at her feet.
‘How many of them are there?’
‘No idea. I’ll soak everything to make sure we haven’t missed any.’ Holly squirted the hose in sweeping arcs. There was a thud as a small stone dragonfly toppled off a branch to fall on the garden beneath, narrowly missing her toes.
‘There’s still the gnome in the bathroom,’ Caitlin reminded her.
Holly grinned. ‘I’m going to enjoy pushing him into the bath,’ she said with relish. ‘Come and watch.’
Caitlin followed her into the house and they opened the bathroom door cautiously.
‘About time too,’ snarled the gnome. ‘It’s high time you were making me a cup of tea. Fishing is thirsty work. That is, unless you have any beer?’ He eyed Holly hopefully.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘We don’t drink beer. But how about a little swim instead?’ She shoved the gnome in the back and with a squawk of terror he fell into the bathtub. To the girl’s horror, he didn’t turn to stone at all. Instead he floundered around in the water, yelling for help. Mrs Beggs rushed in and pulled him out.
‘He’s all wet,’ she said reproachfully to her daughter as she reached for a towel. ‘Never mind, you’ll soon dry off,’ she told the gnome soothingly.
‘I thought it would stop the spell,’ said Holly stupidly. ‘It worked for everything else.’
‘Maybe he got more of the Magic mixture,’ suggested Caitlin.
‘Oh no,’ wailed Holly. ‘We’ll have to try something else.’
Holly was still complaining three days later. The gnome was still alive and well and demanding all manner of outrageous things.
‘Ignore him,’ advised Caitlin, as she listened patiently to Holly’s complaints.
‘I can’t. He pokes me with his fishing rod or puffs that awful pipe at me. He marches around the house as if he owns it and we are all expected to be his slaves.’
‘What about your sister Tamsin? Does she have any ideas?’
‘She’s gone away camping for the holidays so I can’t even phone her,’ groaned Holly. We’ll have to go back to The Rowans and see if Ms Borage will help us.’
‘She probably isn’t there in holidays,’ Caitlin pointed out.
‘No, but someone might be able to help. They must have someone there,’ Holly sighed. ‘They would never leave all that magic stuff unprotected.’
Caitlin thought that the local people would be too terrified of the results to even think about stealing anything from The Rowans, but she agreed to go back to the school with Holly and see if someone could help.
‘It’s such a long way to walk,’ complained Holly, as they trudged towards the school gate. ‘I wish I had my own broom.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ said Caitlin wryly. ‘They are really expensive and hardly anyone has their own one. Even the teachers share one between them.’
‘I know’ sighed Holly, ‘but it would make life easier.’ She opened the gate as she spoke and the girls went to the staff room and knocked on the door.
‘Can I help you,’ quavered a voice.
‘Oh no, it’s Wandering Willie,’ Holly said under her breath.
Caitlin groaned. Miss Wilhelmina Wilson was very sweet, but she was the worst witch in the school. Her spells never worked properly and she had been demoted to a few tidying and cleaning duties, as well as driving one of the brooms on the Broom Run.
‘Oh dear, I don’t think I can do anything about that,’ she said doubtfully, when Holly had explained the problem to her. ‘That was very clever of you, Caitlin, to combine those spells. Does washing help?’
‘We’ve tried that,’ Caitlin explained within a sigh. The holidays were not turning out to be much fun at all, with Holly having to baby-sit a bad tempered gnome.
‘I really don’t know what to do,’ quavered Miss Wilson. ‘Ms Borage has gone off to a seminar for Advanced Witchcraft and she won’t be back until the end of the holidays. You’ll have to wait until school starts again.’
The girls thanked her politely and began walking back to Holly’s house, with Holly grumbling at every step.
‘You’re as bad as the gnome,’ Caitlin told her after a while, which didn’t improve the tempers of either of them.
That afternoon, Caitlin opened her cupboard to look for her hockey stick so she could practise a few hits on ht back lawn with her brother Scott. To her surprise, the stone she had tossed in there was rocking from side to side.
‘Hey, maybe it worked after all,’ she said, picking it up. The stone rocked more violently and gave a sudden crack. A jagged split began along one end and within a few minutes had enlarged to form a hole.
‘It’s hatching,’ said Caitlin in excitement. ‘I wonder what will come out?’
She watched with interest as a small head pushed out, followed by a green scaly body. ‘It’s a dragon,’ cried Caitlin, as the small creature took a few wobbling steps across her palm. Cradling it carefully Caitlin rushed to show her brother, who expressed a satisfactory amazement at the sight.
‘I must show Holly!’ Caitlin tucked the dragon into a shoebox lined with a soft rag, and walked as fast as she could to Holly’s house. Mrs Beggs opened the door. There was a smudge of flour on her cheek and she looked harassed. ‘Holly’s in the garden with Mr Perkins,’ she said. ‘Mr Perkins is the gnome,’ she said in answer to Holly’s enquiring look. He wants a piece of garden dug.’
‘Why doesn't he dig it himself?’ Caitlin wondered, as she approached a perspiring Holly. The gnome was sitting on an upturned flowerpot giving her instructions.
‘Why are you doing the digging?’ she asked her friend.
‘Oh, it's easier to give in straight away,’ sighed Holly. ‘Otherwise he nags and nags and doesn’t let up until you end up doing it anyway. What’s in the box?’
‘A dragon,’ beamed Caitlin. It hatched out of the stone. Look.’
She lifted the lid and the little dragon fluttered its gauzy wings and gave a tiny mew.
; ‘It’s gorgeous,’ breathed Holly. ‘I don’t suppose you want to swap?’ She glanced at Mr Perkins who was pointedly looking at his watch and puffing out choking clouds of smoke.
‘No thanks,’ said Caitlin smugly. Her spell had worked brilliantly and while she was sorry for Holly, she was sure the dragon would be much more fun. ‘Come and play with it later,’ she suggested, and left Holly crossly arranging a row of stakes along the edges of the garden.
‘I’ll have to feed it. I wonder what dragons eat?’ Caitlin wondered as she arrived home.
‘Princesses,’ said Scott promptly. ‘But you could try it on cat food.’
‘It does sound a bit like a kitten,’ agreed Caitlin.
Cat food was evidently the right choice, as the dragon ate a whole bowl full greedily then begged for more. Caitlin looked at it dubiously as she opened another tin.
‘It’s so tiny, I don’t see how it can eat all this without popping.’
The dragon managed half the second tin before falling asleep in the shoebox, where it snored loudly.
The next twenty-four hours were hectic.
‘All babies need constant feeding,’ Mrs Ashby said soothingly, as Caitlin complained about the dragon.
‘But it’s hungry all the time,’ wailed Caitlin. ‘It only sleeps for an hour then I have to feed it again. I hardly got any sleep last night.’
‘Can’t you just leave a bowl for it,’ suggested Scott. ‘Then it can feed itself.’
‘I can try, I suppose,’ said Caitlin doubtfully. ‘It makes an awful mess, though.’
‘We’ll put
The Dragon Kepeer and Other Stories Page 6