The Dragon Kepeer and Other Stories

by Lynne Roberts

they’re simply amazing,’ her mother breathed. ‘Such striking colours. I've never seen anything like them before. I must say Claire, that you have done very well after all. I’m going to pick one and take it round to show Mrs Ainsworth.’

  She reached out to grasp the stalk of a large purple flower but suddenly cried out and sucked her finger.

  ‘Ouch! There’ve got thorns. I didn’t notice it before.’

  Claire looked at the plants and sure enough, each one had sprouted small curving thorns that bristled on the underside of each leaf and clustered in shiny rows on the stalks.

  ‘It’s probably not a good idea to touch them, Mum,’ she said anxiously.

  ‘Not without gloves, certainly,’ agreed her mother as she turned to walk back to the house. A slow hiss came from the flowers. Claire watched with dismay as a passing dragonfly was gobbled up by a sickly yellow flower, while a deep crimson spotted flower lunged at a large spider nearby.

  ‘I think the flowers are alive,’ she told Marcus that afternoon.

  ‘Er, duh! Of course flowers are alive,’ he said scathingly.

  ‘No, I mean really alive. I’ve seen them eat insects,’ Claire explained.

  ‘Cool. I want to see.’

  Marcus rushed outside with Claire following reluctantly behind. For some reason she couldn’t explain, she found the snapdragons very menacing.

  ‘They look perfectly normal to me,’ Marcus pointed out, as he regarded the flowers. ‘They're just sitting there like flowers do.’

  ‘They eat insects,’ Claire insisted. ‘Brianna and I both saw them.’

  Marcus gave her a disbelieving look and reached down by his feet. To Claire’s disgust he unearthed a large wriggling worm, which he dangled enticingly over the nearest snapdragon. He gave a sudden yell of fright, as the flower appeared to leap at his fingers. The worm disappeared rapidly and the other snapdragons waved their leaves in agitation.

  ‘Hey, you were right. I wonder what else they eat?’

  Claire watched in fascination as Marcus assembled a collection of insects, pieces of meat and the remains of his peanut butter sandwich. He proceeded to feed these to the ravenous flowers. A low hum of contentment rumbled from the garden as Marcus lowered the last crust into a gaping mouth.

  ‘Excellent,’ he beamed. ‘Wait till I tell the guys about this. They’ll love them.’

  Mrs Pierce was surprised at the sudden interest her children took in the garden. Marcus invited a series of friends around to feed the snapdragons, while even Claire’s friends were fascinated to watch them. These feeding sessions were not without incident. Andy was teasing a green and gold striped flower by dangling a bacon rind just out of reach when he found his wrist grasped by a long thorny tendril. Gasping in shock, he dropped the bacon rind, then retreated to mop up the scratches on his hand with a rather grubby handkerchief.

  ‘Man! Those things are vicious,’ he informed Marcus, who promptly decided to use the barbecue tongs to feed the snapdragons after that.

  Mrs Pierce was unaware of the plants' appetite for food, but remained puzzled as to what variety they could be. She made one more attempt to pick a flower, so she could take it to the local garden centre for identification. After sustaining several nasty scratches, despite wearing gloves, she decided to leave them where they were.

  Inevitably, after a few weeks, the novelty of feeding the snapdragons had worn off. Claire managed not to think about them for nearly a week until she was woken early one morning by the sound of tapping close by. She opened her curtains and screamed. The snapdragons had pulled up their roots and marched across the side of the house, where they were now beating an angry tattoo on her bedroom window. Their petals opened hungrily towards her as she belted into her brother’s room.

  ‘Help, Marcus,’ Claire wailed. ‘The snapdragons are trying to get me.’

  ‘Go away. It’s far too early in the morning for games,’ Marcus complained grumpily, giving her an annoyed look as he pulled the sheet around him.’

  Claire tugged his duvet off. ‘It’s not a game,’ she hissed. ‘They’ve walked around the house. What are we going to do?’ She opened Marcus’ curtains a crack and peered out. ‘Oh no. They’re outside your window now, as well,’ she moaned.

  Marcus leapt out of bed and dragged back the curtain. ‘Oh heck. You’re right. This is seriously scary. Maybe they are some sort of alien creature and they’re going on the attack.’

  Claire whimpered in fear as the snapdragons glared at the children through the glass.

  ‘We have to do something,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not going to risk going outside with them there. They look as if they want to eat me.’

  Marcus thought for a few minutes. ‘Weedkiller!’ he said at last. ‘There’s a spray can in the shed. I saw it when I was looking for my cricket bat the other day. All we have to do is spray them with weedkiller and they’ll die. I hope.’

  ‘But we don’t have any weedkiller,’ Claire pointed out. ‘You know Mum doesn’t believe in that sort of thing.’

  ‘We’ll make some,’ said Marcus with relish. ‘We’ll start with some of that air freshener stuff from the bathroom. That smells strong enough to kill anything. We’ll add disinfectant as well.’

  ‘Vinegar is really strong,’ Claire offered, entering into the spirit of this.‘ Oh, and that bleach stuff that Mum uses to clean the toilet.’

  ‘I’ve got half a tube of glue left from my model aeroplanes. That’s supposed to be really bad for people so it’s bound to be bad for plants.’

  ‘Yes, and some of Mum’s hair dye that she won’t let us touch.’

  ‘Curry powder!’

  ‘And pepper. There’s a whole new packet of that.’

  ‘Let’s go and get everything and mix it up. You’d better throw some food to the snapdragons before they wake Mum up. They are really hitting that window hard. Here, give them this.’

  Marcus tossed a half-eaten packet of potato crisps at Claire. She hurriedly opened the window and tipped it out, before shutting it again hastily. The snapdragons devoured the crisps with a nasty crunching sound, then began tapping on the window again. Claire shuddered and joined her brother in the kitchen.

  ‘This smells horrible,’ Marcus grinned, as he stirred an evil looking concoction in an old saucepan. The children had added everything they could find that they didn’t like, and the resulting liquid was a sludgy dark brown and extremely unpleasant.

  ‘Now I’ll take it to the shed and fill up the sprayer,’ Marcus announced, carrying the saucepan to the back door.

  ‘How will you get to the shed?’ cried Claire in anguish. ‘The snapdragons look really angry. They might attack you. Shall I ask Mum and see what she thinks?’

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ said Marcus hurriedly. ‘She’ll only panic worse than you. Tell you what, you grab some bread or something and feed them out your window while I sneak behind them to the shed. Then I’ll blast them from behind while they’re not looking.’

  Claire agreed to this rather doubtfully, and came back from the kitchen with half a loaf of bread, a packet of sliced luncheon sausage and several rather squishy tomatoes. Opening her bedroom window a crack, she gingerly dropped a couple of pieces of bread down as she heard the back door bang shut. The snapdragons lunged for the bread then began on the luncheon sausage. They really loved this. They pushed and scuffled among themselves and jostled to get closer to the window. Finally Claire was down to the tomatoes. These were not a success. They fell with a plop and a splatter as the flowers hissed angrily and waved their leaves and tendrils at her. Claire was about to bolt for the kitchen to see what else she could find, when she saw Marcus appear around the corner of the house. He was carrying a small plastic spray container with a metal handpiece. Turning the knob on the handpiece, he directed it at the flowers and an arc of fine spray drifted across them. The snapdragons jerked in dismay and began to writhe in agony before falling to the ground in a withered heap. A couple made for Marcus at a jerking run but
he was too quick for them, and doused them with weedkiller. When all the plants were reduced to a heap of brown leaves, he turned off the sprayer and gave Claire a grin.

  ‘Told you it would work,’ he said proudly.

  Claire threw open the window then immediately wished she hadn’t. The smell made her gag. ‘We’ll have to get rid of this mess before Mum sees it,’ she gasped.

  The next hour was one of the hardest of Claire’s life, as she and Marcus raked away the debris of the snapdragons. Marcus brought out a bundle of plastic rubbish bags and they threw in the remains of the plants, which were steaming gently and unpleasantly in the morning sun. As Marcus tied the bags securely and dragged them to the gate, Claire dug over the strip of ground by the house to disguise the mess the weedkiller had made. This was no easy task. The weedkiller had settled into large sticky clumps and Claire ended up shoveling quite a lot of it into more of the rubbish bags.

  ‘At least it’s collection day,’ she said thankfully, as Marcus carted the last bag away to join the pile by the kerb. ‘It’s left a huge hole, though.’

  ‘We’ll worry about it later. I’m going back to bed. I feel as if I’ve been up half the night.’

  Marcus and Claire quickly washed down the tools and went back into the house, where they flopped into bed in exhaustion.

  A few minutes later, Mrs Pierce knocked on Claire’s door.

  ‘Time to get up,’ she called.

  ‘No,’ groaned