 
The Dragon Keeper and Other Stories

By Lynne Roberts

Published by Liberty Publications at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Lynne Roberts

ISBN 978-1-927241-18-9

Smashwords Edition, License Notes  
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author
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 her bag as she made for door. She headed for the university grounds with the intention of writing letters to her friends and feeding the ducks. By this time, Ellen decided she must have imagined the dragonkeeper. But as she started on her lunch, there was a rustle in the trees above her. Much to her astonishment, the strange pointed shoes dangled down, to be rapidly followed by a lanky pair of legs in green tights. With a crash the Dragonkeeper landed beside her on the grass. With a grin he reached over, plucked the apple from her unresisting fingers, and took a bite.

'Greetings, fair lady.' His eyes twinkled at her as he settled down with crossed legs to finish the apple.

'Um, greetings to you,' said Ellen, then with more courage, 'my name is Ellen. What's yours?'

'Jake,' he replied through a mouthful of apple. 'This is good. Just what a man needs after a hard morning tending a dragon.'

Ellen felt slightly lightheaded. This conversation was getting unreal again. She had to concentrate and figure out who this young man was, and if he was real. He certainly looked real enough as he sat beside her finishing the apple.

'Is dragon tending dangerous?' she asked tentatively.

'Is it ever!' came the reply. 'Look at this.' A brown arm was thrust in front of her showing a ragged sleeve marred by a large scorch mark.

'What happened?' breathed Ellen.

'The bast, er, jolly brute burned me. Would have burnt me to a crisp if I hadn't been quick. Base ingratitude too, after all I've done for it.'

Ellen was stunned. It was real, it had to be. Somewhere there actually was a dragon and it was obviously capable of actual fire breathing.

'Oh dear,' she murmured inadequately. 'Jake, what do you call your dragon?'

'A lot of very rude names,' came the reply. 'Officially, of course, it has an enormous pedigree with a lot of fancy names, most of them including X's and Z's in places, very difficult to pronounce. Most people refer to him as Thing.'

Ellen was amazed. This was something her daydreams could never have conceived. She was talking with a real live Dragonkeeper. After all, figments of the imagination didn't eat your lunch apple then throw the core into the river. What's more, if she played her cards right, she might get to see a real live dragon in whatever world it was that Jake came from.

'Would I be able to meet the dragon?' she asked, her big brown eyes fixed anxiously on Jake as he considered her request.

'No show,' said Jake cheerfully. 'You know the old fairy tales? Well they might be wrong on some points about dragons, but they get one thing right. Dragons love young ladies. Preferably lightly toasted with a little parsley, but they're not fussy. They'll go without the parsley if necessary.'

Ellen was taken aback. There was such assurance in the way Jake talked that she had to believe him. Gone were her dreams of drifting across a midnight sky on a dragon's back. She wondered why the writer of the 'DragonRyder' books had not considered this fact. But even as she thought this she realized that even without the dragon, spending her holidays with a Dragonkeeper had to be an improvement on moping around with no friends.

'What are your hobbies? I mean, what are you interested in apart from dragons, Jake?' she asked at last. Jake smiled.

'Well I'd hardly call dragons an interest, more of an occupational hazard,' he replied, 'but as for hobbies, well, I like fishing and flying kites.'

'Kites,' Ellen repeated stupidly.

'Yes, kites,' said Jake enthusiastically. 'I made a really neat one a few months ago, and if the wind's right I can get it to do all sorts of fancy loops and swirls in the air. Tell you what, how about the next windy day I meet you on top of the hill over there, and we'll try some kite flying? I have to go now, time to feed the Thing.' With a cheeky grin he leapt to his feet and ran off between the tees. Ellen jumped up but before she had gone more than a couple of paces she realized that he was out of sight.

'Oh well,' she sighed to herself. Life was certainly picking up, even though it was unpredictable.

Ellen spent the rest of the day exploring the university grounds. There were still a lot of people around, even though it was holiday time. There were a few holiday courses for teachers, and the aerobics and karate clubs seemed to have quite a good following. She would have liked to see the new performing arts centre and explored the drama department, but it was out of bounds to the public because of extensive building work going on. The theatre itself was being used for rehearsals for a play of some sort.

Ellen had a rather curious conversation with a Malaysian exchange student, where she wasn't quite sure that either of them knew what the other was talking about. As she made her way home she still wasn't sure whether he had been giving her a recipe or wanted to know the directions to a garage. 'Most strange,' she reflected, feeling that her day had been like that of Alice in Wonderland and deciding she wouldn't be surprised if the Cheshire cat appeared before her.

The rest of the day was depressingly normal. She arrived home to a family tea with the usual squabbles about whose turn it was to wash the dishes, and why she shouldn't have to do it more often just because she was the oldest and a girl.

The next day Ellen was full of joyful anticipation as she came to breakfast. There was a stiff wind blowing so perhaps her new friend would be on the hill with his kite. Her hopes were soon dashed when her father announced he was taking the day off and they would all be going to the beach. Any other time Ellen would have been delighted to spend a day at the beach, gathering shells, helping her brothers to build sandcastles, (even though she knew she was far too old for it, really) and checking out the lifeguards with their bronzed bodies. Despite her protests, they set off in the car. Ellen had to sit between the two boys to stop them fighting and she held a huge pile of towels, hats and sunscreen.

'What a waste,' she thought despairingly as she waded through the shallows, kicking up the water as she went. What if Jake came and she wasn't there? Would he think she wasn't interested and not come back again? What if she never saw him again?

'I have to see him again,' she muttered. 'I'm determined to get a peek at his dragon.'

On the journey home, her father made a bad day worse by announcing he had been talking to another lecturer whose son was a student at the local high school.

'I told him you were missing all your friends, and he said he'd tell his son to look out for you and show you round. His name is Cedric and I'm sure you'll like him, Ellen. His father is a decent sort.'

Ellen was speechless. This was pre-historic. What was her father trying to do? Match her up with some weedy, booky little nerd, to take her by the hand and completely ruin any chance she had of meeting normal people.

'What a lovely idea,' her mother agreed. 'So nice for Ellen to have a new friend.'

'But,' Ellen spluttered, 'I can make friends all by myself.'

'Well, you haven't shown much sign of it yet, dear,' said her mother. 'After all, you can't spend all your time wandering around the university and reading books. I'm sure that this Cedric will be such a nice boy, if he's anything like his parents. We met Barbara and Ron Jacobson when we came up here for your father's interview, and they were very friendly.'

Wayne and Brady immediately started sniggering at the thought of Ellen with a boy. At this point Ellen hit them both and the resulting fight occupied the entire family all the way home.

'Cedric,' Ellen groaned to herself. What a terrible name. He just had to be appalling with a name like that. What could she do to avoid this human pimple blighting her life?

To make matters worse there was no wind at all for the next two days. Even though Ellen slipped out of the house to her favourite spot under the trees at every opportunity, her new friend Jake didn't appear. She had almost given up hope of ever seeing him again when one windy day she spotted a kite in the sky, looping and swirling. It was made like an enormous colourful bird, with streaming tail and brightly coloured wings. Joyfully Ellen ran to the clearing at the top of the hill and there was Jake, still in the ragged tunic and tights, pulling the string to control the soaring bird.

'Isn't she grand?' he called. His laughter was infectious and Ellen's smile widened as she ran over to him. The next hour passed swiftly as he showed Ellen how to pull the string to manouvre the kite. There was a substantial gathering of interested onlookers, mostly small boys, before Jake regretfully brought the kite to land.

With a murmur of, 'Got to go, see you again soon,' he waved to Ellen then ran off down the hill. As she tried to follow him, the Malaysian student came up to her and started a tangled conversation in which kites and combustion engines appeared to be the main features. Ellen tried to push past him but he frustrated all her attempts to follow Jake until it was too late for her to see where he had gone.

The next day saw Ellen back by the river reading her 'DragonRyder' books, and the following day as well, but no Jake. Then just as she decided it must be her fate never to see him again, and she'd have to agree to meet the dreaded Cedric, there he was grinning at her and holding out a sticky bun.

'Here. Have this. I ate your apple, so fair's fair,' he said, plonking himself down beside her. He picked up the 'DragonRyder' book and read the page she was up to before shouting with laughter as he tossed it down.

'What rubbish,' he scoffed. 'You surely don't think that real life is like this.'

'Well, life can be pretty incredible,' mumbled Ellen through a mouthful of sticky bun.

'Yes, but what about this hero,' said Jake scornfully. He picked up the book again and read out;

' _Danyr caressed the proud head of the golden dragon. "It's going to be all right, my beauty, he murmured."_ I'd worry about a man who had that close a relationship with an animal. It's not normal and certainly not healthy. Probably needs a good cold bath and a decent bit of exercise instead of mooning around gazing into dragons eyes.'

Ellen was indignant. 'He's a caring person, that's all. He loves his dragon.'

'Yeah, it's a worry, isn't it?' said Jake, then ducked as she threw the book at him.

'Anyway,' said Ellen, 'you can't talk about being normal. You wear tights.'

There was a sudden silence and Jake blushed slightly.

'Yes, well, there's a reason for that,' he mumbled, 'but I can't tell you. You'll have to take me as you find me. And,' he went on more forcefully, 'there are much better things to think about than dragons, believe me!' Jake gave her a wry grin and plucked a flower from a nearby bush. 'To remember me by, fair lady,' he said with a mocking look as he strolled off through the trees.

Ellen spent the rest of the day finishing her DragonRyder book, but was brought down to earth with a shock that evening when the Vice-Chancellor's wife rang to say that her little Charles was over the chicken pox, and could Ellen start her babysitting job the next day please?

Charles turned out to be a very appealing three-year-old with an 'inquiring mind.' This was his fond mother's description of his constant cry of 'why?' Apart from his insatiable curiosity about the world around him, he was a very easy child to look after. Ellen found her day planned for her with strict times for meals, walks, rest times and play times. Plenty of money was provided for any necessities such as the taxi fare to the local parks or museum. When she first saw the weeks 'timetable', Ellen despaired of ever seeing her Dragonkeeper again, but by the end of the first week her employer was so pleased with her she allowed Ellen to make suggestions for the following week. Ellen planned a lunchtime picnic in the university grounds, an idea that found favour with young Charles, and Ellen crossed her fingers and hoped that Jake would be there.

Her relaxing spot under the trees was not as relaxing with Charles there. Ellen tried to keep him from throwing himself recklessly into the river and compromised by letting him have a paddle at the edge. After this he consented to sit under a tree to eat his lunch.

'Story now,' he announced.

'What would you like a story about?' asked Ellen.

'A long story,' said Charles as he carefully ate around the edge of his peanut butter sandwich.

'Okay then I'll tell you a story about a dinosaur.'

'What's a dinosaur?' asked Charles.

'A dinosaur, my lad, is a great, big, smelly animal with bad breath, who just loves eating little boys for dinner.' And there was Jake with a big grin as he calmly sat down beside Ellen, pulled Charles onto his lap and took a bite of the proffered remains of the peanut butter sandwich.

'How are you, Charlie boy?' he asked, tickling Charles in the middle of his tummy. Charles gave a squeal of laughter.

'Stop that, Jake.'

'Do you know Jake,' said Ellen incredulously.

'Sure. He's the Dragonkeeper,' answered Charles matter-of-factly, licking peanut butter from his fingers. Ellen felt her mouth hanging open and closed it with a snap. Things were getting that Alice in Wonderland feeling again. She supposed it was logical if you thought about it. Jake only seemed to appear in the university grounds, which was where Charles lived. Perhaps there was some kind of parallel universe that touched at this point, or some sort of vibrations from the past.

'Tell me a story,' insisted Charles and Jake added, 'Yes go on, Ellen, tell us a story.'

Ellen gathered her scattered wits and launched into a story about a dinosaur. It was loosely based on the story of the three little pigs with a bit of Goldilocks thrown in for good measure. Jake obligingly put in the actions at the appropriate places, and by the end of the story both Charles and Ellen were helpless with laughter.

That day set the pattern for the rest of the week, as Ellen and Charles took their picnic out to the riverbank each lunchtime. Jake joined them and they indulged in hilarious story telling sessions, where Ellen and Jake tried to outdo each other with more and more outrageous stories. The only cloud on Ellen's horizon during those happy days was the threat of Cedric hanging over her as her mother nagged her every night to set up a meeting with him. Ellen pleaded exhaustion after her day minding Charles, but worried about the holidays coming to an end. The time when she would have to meet this spotty nerd was not far off.

However that left two glorious weeks when the summer weather continued fine. Ellen made the most of it. She and Jake chattered together happily, while Charles was busy digging for treasure in the flower gardens, or building interesting structures with empty yoghurt pots and twigs.

The university grounds were not deserted for long as enrolment day approached. More and more students of all ages came to buy books or check on courses, and Ellen found she met quite a few girls her own age in her daily walks with Charles. The university was set in the middle of Herberton and a number of people walked or biked through it as a short cut each day. Several of the girls were working as lifeguards and swimming instructors at the local swimming pool and Ellen was pleased to find she would be in the same class at school when it began again for the year. Another girl, Sarah, was minding her little brother each day and she stopped to talk with Ellen while the two little boys played together.

Ellen realized one day with a slight shock, that she had hardly touched her 'DragonRyder' books. Somehow they had lost their magic, and the fantasy world they promised was seen to be just that, a fantasy. Real life was much more interesting. Even the pesky Malaysian student had stopped bothering her after she showed up at the library one day with Charles in tow.

'He probably thinks I'm a solo mother,' thought Ellen indignantly, when the student gasped in horror then promptly avoided her.

At last the end of the holidays came and Charles went happily off with his mother for a 'last day' treat before kindergarten started. Ellen was horrified to find that her mother had organised a date for her with the dreaded Cedric.

'I won't go,' she exploded.

'But it's only for a play, then supper afterwards with the performers,' her mother pleaded. 'You know you love the theatre and Cedric's mother told me he is really looking forward to seeing you there.'

Ellen muttered, yelled and sulked but all to no avail. That night she gloomily trudged along behind her parents and brothers.

'This is the worst moment of my life,' she thought. 'Not only do I get to have supper with the nerd of the century, but my little brothers and parents will be there. Now I know how the Christians felt when they were fed to the lions.'

Mutinously she slouched into the university theatre and scowled at the stage. The play started and she discovered it was a comedy set in medieval times, involving mischief and mishaps. Ellen found herself laughing at the antics of the characters and started to enjoy herself.

'Look Ellen, Act Two is set in a dragon's cave,' said Wayne, poking her in the ribs.

'Oh, I've outgrown dragons,' replied Ellen crossly, although she couldn't help feeling a tingle of excitement as the lights dimmed for the second act.

The curtains opened to show a craggy cave with the head of a magnificent scarlet and gold dragon filling the entrance. Roars of flame and puffs of smoke were met with gasps of delight and spontaneous applause from the audience. Ellen's heart nearly stopped in shock as the next actor came out and started saying his lines. It was Jake, her dragonkeeper, in tights and tunic. He leapt around the dragon's head and tried to persuade the rather dim princess that he wasn't the prince come to rescue her.

'So that's it,' thought Ellen. 'He is a real Dragonkeeper, but it's not a real dragon. He must have been rehearsing here at the university theatre, and visited me in his lunch breaks.' She watched him with pride. He was definitely the best actor there and by far the best looking. By the end of the play her applause was the loudest of anyone's, and she blushed when Jake looked in her direction to give her a cheeky grin and a wink.

'Now,' she thought firmly, 'I'll ditch this Cedric character and find Jake.' But her mother was making sure Ellen didn't slip off and firmly escorted her to the large room next to the theatre where the supper was being laid out.

'There are the Jacobsons by the table in the corner,' she said. 'Now come along and meet their son Cedric.'

With a despairing look, Ellen walked over and the young man standing beside the Jacobson's turned around.

'Hi Ellen. Want a sausage roll?' asked Jake.

'Jake!' gasped Ellen.

'This is our son Cedric,' gushed Mrs Jacobson, 'only he will insist on calling himself Jake.'

'Well, wouldn't you, with a name like mine?' said Jake comically with a twitch of his eyebrows. Ellen started laughing in relief. Together they made their way to the balcony with a plate of sausage rolls and the approval of both sets of parents.

'Why didn't you tell me who you really were?' asked Ellen.

'It was all quite true,' said Jake. 'I did have to work the dragon and get the blasted thing smoking properly – and hard work it was too. Our local Drama Society puts on a production here each year and I had heaps of lines to learn as well. Then I saw you reading those books and I couldn't resist teasing you. By the way, I used to read the 'DragonRyder' books a few years ago, and I thought they were pretty good too. Anyway, it all got to be such fun and I enjoyed it too much to spoil it by telling you who I really was. Are you mad at me now?'

'Not at all,' said Ellen with a giggle. 'You really brought magic into my life and I hope we can still see each other.'

'Definitely,' said Jake firmly. 'We have all year at school ahead of us and now that the play is finished I can see you every day. I'll even take off these awful tights and you'll see what a normal guy I am.'

'I still would have liked to see a real dragon though,' sighed Ellen.

'Tell you what,' suggested Jake, 'there's a kite making course at the Craft Centre on Saturday mornings starting in a few weeks time. If you come along to it I'll help you make the best dragon kite you've ever seen.'

'That will be awesome,' grinned Ellen.

And it was.
Spelling Lesson

'Ms Borage is so mean,' sighed Holly, as she walked to the school gate. 'I thought we would have two whole weeks holiday without even having to think about school, but then she goes and gives us this project.'

'Mm,' agreed Caitlin sympathetically. 'It's a really tough one, too. Animate an Inanimate Object. What a mouthful. She could have just said bring something to life.'

'We have to write about it as well,' Holly reminded her.

'I know. Perhaps we could keep a diary, like, Day one; nothing happened, Day two; even less happened, Day three; we died of boredom.'

Holly giggled. 'It's all right for you, you're good at magic. My last report said that my 'Spelling needed improvement,' and Mum's been nagging me about my homework ever since. She keeps wanting to help me but then things end up in even more of a mess.'

Caitlin grinned at her. 'I'll help you if you like,' she offered. 'If we both look at it together then maybe we can come up with a spell that works.'

'That would be great,' beamed Holly in relief. 'What shall we use for our inanimate objects?'

Caitlin thought for a moment. 'Oh, my brain is completely worn out with school. Why don't I come round to your place tomorrow and we'll find something then? Quick, here's the first broom.'

Miss Sedgely glided to a stop by the gate and the girls rushed to climb onto the broomstick.

'Stop pushing, girls,' said Miss Sedgely with a frown. 'Only thirteen at a time and please sit up straight.'

'Yes Miss Sedgely,' chorused the fortunate girls who had been at the front of the queue. Caitlin and Holly hopped on and waved to their friends as the broom glided up into the air in the direction of the town.

The next morning Caitlin walked down the street to Holly's house. This was the most colourful house in the street. The small front garden was cluttered with a variety of concrete animals and gnomes. A group of stone fairies clustered around a small wooden wishing well, and brightly coloured windchimes clanged and tinkled from every bush and tree. Carefully dodging a madly spinning star, and ducking under a large black cat weathervane on a post, Caitlin stepped onto the front porch. A row of dreamcatchers hung from the roof alongside several mobiles of stained glass unicorns.

'I saw you coming,' called Holly, as she opened the door.

Caitlin stared in fascination at a large angel painted on the wall beside the door.

'That's new,' she said.

'Yeah. Mum had a friend of hers do it last week. She's mad on anything to do with magic. That's why she sent me to The Rowans. I keep telling her that magic lessons are just like Home Ec. and all we do is follow recipes to make stuff, but she doesn't believe me. She still thinks it's mysterious and fantastic and that one day I'll grow wings and fly around.'

Caitlin snorted with laughter at the thought of plump freckle-faced Holly flitting around the garden on large shimmering wings.

'My parents simply want me to get a good job at the end of it all,' she said. 'Like a Weather Controller or a Fortuneteller. But I'd still rather be at The Rowan's than at St Josephine's.'

'Me too,' agreed Holly fervently. 'Now, what are we going to do about this project? We might as well get it over with so we can start enjoying our holiday.'

'Okay,' sighed Caitlin, flopping onto a garden seat decorated with toadstools and pixies. 'I've been thinking about it and I reckon the reason Ms Borage didn't give us the spell was because all we have to do is combine a few of the ones we already know.'

'I'd never have thought of that,' said Holly in admiration. 'I'd have used all the ingredients I could find and it would have been a total disaster.'

'Remember what Ms Borage always says? Keep the spells simple. I think we should try combining the one we use for raising bread with the one we use for lighting fires.'

'Sounds like a recipe for burnt toast,' laughed Holly.

'I know but it might just work. Making bread rise works by making the yeast grow, and making fire is bringing a flame to life.'

'It's worth a go but we'd better try it on something that won't matter if it gets burnt.' Holly looked around her. 'Let's use this, I've never liked it,' she offered, pulling a small concrete gnome closer to Caitlin's feet. The gnome was clothed in a bright red coat and blue trousers and held a wooden fishing rod over a small pond. A red pointed cap sat firmly on its bald head, and a flowing white beard stretched halfway down its fat little belly. Its wrinkled face had bright red cheeks and it smoked a stubby clay pipe at one corner of its mouth.

Caitlin smothered a giggle. 'Your Mum will be pleased if it works. That way she can have a real live gnome in her garden. They are supposed to be lucky.'

'What about you?'

'Oh, anything will do. It probably won't work anyway so I'll try it on this stone here.' Caitlin prodded a smooth round stone with her foot. 'As long as we write down what we've tried it won't matter if it doesn't actually work.'

'What do we need?'

'A stick for stirring and a candle.'

'Easy,' said Holly confidently. 'Give me a couple of minutes and I'll get them.'

She dashed into the house, setting a wind chime of moon and stars jingling madly as she brushed against them. She returned with a fat pink candle, while behind her followed Mrs Beggs carrying a long glittery wand with a star at the end.

'I thought I'd come and watch,' she explained, with a sideways glance at her daughter who was sighing loudly in exasperation.

Caitlin raised an eyebrow as she took the wand.

'I told Mum it was for a spell so she found the wand,' Holly muttered with a blush. 'I keep telling her proper magic doesn't need stuff like that but she insisted.'

'It's okay,' Caitlin reassured her. 'Anything will do.'

She took a small bag of powder from her pocket.

'What's that?' asked Mrs Beggs eagerly. 'What does it do?'

'This is Ms Borage's Magic Mixture Number Three. It's used to enhance spells and make them stronger. It's really useful, especially if you get the words a bit wrong, as it will over-ride them. We'll try a couple of pinches to begin with.'

Holly sprinkled the powder on the hat of the garden gnome.

'Please let me help,' begged her mother.

Holly scowled and handed the packet across. 'Put a pinch on that stone there,' she directed.

Mrs Beggs shook a generous pile of powder into her hand.

'Not so much,' cried Holly in anguish. 'And be careful of the wind.'

She was too late. As her mother placed a pile of power on the top of the round stone, a sudden gust of wind whirled around. It blew the remaining powder out of her hand and whisked it across the garden.

'Oh,' cried Mrs Beggs in surprise.

'Look out,' yelled Caitlin, as the packet of remaining powder spilled over the path at her feet.

'Sorry, dear,' said Mrs Beggs nervously. 'It won't hurt the spell will it?'

'I'm not sure,' Caitlin replied, feeling a little dismayed at the sight of the empty packet.

'Bother,' said Holly. 'You've really messed that up, Mum. Sorry, Caitlin. I'll give you some of mine to make up for it.'

'It doesn't matter,' Caitlin said quickly. 'I've got a whole jar of it at home. I'd better chant the words quickly.'

'Now do be quiet, Mum,' Holly said crossly. 'We don't want anything else to go wrong.'

Mrs Beggs looked annoyed but before she could say anything, Caitlin held up her hand for silence. They watched as Caitlin stirred the wand in circles in the air and chanted aloud.

'Stir and quicken by my hand

Staff of life rise up to stand

Glowing heart of warmth and light

Blossom into spirit bright.

Salamander Sol.'

As she said the last two words, Caitlin rapped the wand on the gnome and then the stone. Holly and her mother looked at them expectantly but they sat unmoving. Mrs Beggs gave a squeak of surprise as the candle flickered briefly with a pale flame before going out in a puff of smoke. She reached across and tapped the gnome hopefully with her fingers, but it stood unmoving and definitely still concrete.

'It didn't work,' she cried in disappointment.

'They don't always work,' Holly pointed out. 'This was only an experiment. Besides, you used far too much Magic Mixture so you probably ruined it.'

'I wasn't to know the wind was so strong,' her mother informed her with a frown.

Caitlin shrugged. 'It's not your fault, Mrs Beggs. It could be anything. The spells might have been the wrong combination for a start. It was worth a try. We'll have to think of something else.'

'Oh bother it,' Holly said crossly. 'We could try all sorts of things and still not get anywhere.'

'We can't do any more now,' her mother put in. 'I want to take Holly shopping for some new shoes.'

'Right now?' squealed Holly in annoyance.

'Yes, now. Otherwise you will go off with Caitlin, as you usually do, and the holidays will be over before we've had time to do anything. You need a haircut as well.'

Holly shot her mother a murderous look and Caitlin tried not to giggle.

'Never mind,' she reassured her friend. 'We can try something different tomorrow or the next day. I'm sure we'll come up with something in the next week or so.'

'What a waste of good holiday time,' muttered Holly darkly, as Caitlin handed back the wand and candle.

'I'll call as soon as I think of something else.'

Caitlin sighed as she turned to leave. 'It should have worked though,' she muttered to herself as she walked home. I wonder what I did wrong?'

The next morning Caitlin was shattered awake by the telephone. On and on it rang, shrill and persistent. Caitlin put her head under the pillow and tried to get back to sleep, but heard her mother calling.

'Caitlin, phone for you. It's Holly.'

'Why is she ringing me so early?' Caitlin grumbled as she reluctantly slid out of bed.

'You'll never guess what's happened,' Holly said excitedly.

'What is it?' yawned Caitlin.

'The spell worked. The gnome is alive.'

'Hey, that's great.'

'I don't know about great,' said Holly doubtfully. 'I was asleep when I felt this jab in my arm and there was the gnome poking me with a stick. He says he wants to go fishing.'

Caitlin giggled. 'What did you tell him?'

'I said we'd go after breakfast and he's standing here watching me now so you'd better come over and help.' She lowered her voice to a whisper. 'He's really horrible. It must be something to do with having been made out of concrete. I think it's warped his mind or something. He's unbelievably bossy. I really need you.'

'Okay,' agreed Caitlin. Hastily cramming a sandwich into her mouth, she dragged on her jeans and T-shirt. 'I'm off to Holly's place, Mum,' she called, as she ran out the door.

'The gnome is so cute,' gushed Holly's mother as Caitlin arrived breathlessly at the door. 'He wants to go fishing. Isn't that sweet?'

Caitlin followed the sound of splashing to the bathroom where Holly was filling the bath.

'Mum says I have to put the goldfish in here for him,' she said crossly. The pond outside isn't a real one. It's only a sheet of mirror with shells around the edges. He says he wants real water and real fish.'

'I want to fish properly,' said the gnome in a grating voice. He fixed Caitlin with a baleful stare. 'It's not too much to ask, is it? A chap like me has only a few simple pleasures in life.' He puffed out a cloud of evil smelling pipe smoke.

'Oh, er, of course,' stammered Caitlin, trying not to cough.

The gnome glowered at her then turned to Holly, tapping one foot impatiently on the floor. Holly turned off the tap then poured in the contents of her goldfish bowl. A few strands of waterweed floated on the surface while the two small goldfish darted for the cover of the soap dish. The gnome proceeded to climb a stool beside the bath to stand on the edge of the tub, where he dangled his wooden rod and line over the water.

'I need bait,' he told Holly gruffly.

'I could find some bread,' she began hesitantly.

'Worms,' said the gnome firmly. 'It has to be worms.'

'Oh gross,' spluttered Holly. 'You expect me to go out and dig actual worms for you? That's disgusting.'

The gnome glared at her and after a few minutes she wilted. 'Come on,' she groaned, and dragged a fascinated Caitlin with her outside to the garden. There they both stood with their mouths open in shock.

'The whole garden's alive,' gasped Caitlin. 'I didn't notice when I came in, but look!' She pointed to the wishing well where a group of fairies was whispering with heads together. They looked up as the girls came closer and started simpering.

'Look at me. I'm the most beautiful of all,' a golden haired fairy called, holding out her petalled skirt and skipping around a toadstool.

'This wind is absolutely ruining my hair,' pouted another, peering at her reflection in a puddle by the path.

'No, no. Look at me, look at me. I'm by far the best looking here,' lisped a cherub, with little wings fluttering.

'Oh my goodness,' gasped Holly. 'This is horrible.'

Caitlin began to laugh. 'It must have been the Magic Mixture. My spell was obviously stronger than I realised.' She leapt to one side to avoid a hedgehog, which was trotting down the path followed by three waddling goslings with blue ribbons bows flapping limply around their necks. A large wooden butterfly flapped past with a rush of air, and several small pixies began throwing coloured stones at each other across a garden bench.

'Thank goodness everything isn't alive,' Holly gasped as she sank thankfully onto the bench.

'Nothing seems to have happened to my rock,' said Caitlin in disappointment. She picked it up and studied it. It still looked like a dull piece of stone and with a sigh she slipped it into her pocket as Holly groaned and stood up again.

'I'll have to get the worms for that ghastly gnome,' she said, wrinkling her nose. 'Then I'll tell Mum about this lot. She thinks the gnome is cute, so goodness only knows what she'll make of all these creatures.'

'She's going to love it,' Caitlin told her.

She was right. Holly's mother went into raptures of delight over the garden. She rapidly lost interest in the gnome, who eagerly took the tin of worms that Holly had dug up, and impaled a long wriggling one onto the hook of his fishing line. He fiercely cast the worm into the bathtub. The goldfish were swimming madly in all directions and the gnome was determined to catch them.

'Mum's lost the plot completely,' Holly announced sadly, as she and Caitlin ventured onto the porch.

Mrs Beggs had changed into a long floating dress of multi-coloured shimmering fabric, and was skipping around the garden followed by a procession of fairies.

'I'm in fairyland,' she sang, as a group of pottery plant pots leered and grimaced at her with their gargoyle-like faces.

'Ow!' Caitlin rubbed her leg where a grinning pixie had lobbed a stone at it before legging it behind a small camellia bush. 'What are those creatures?'

'They're pixies,' Holly informed her gloomily. 'They are supposed to bring a touch of mischief to the garden. Mum ordered them from a mail order catalogue last winter.'

'Mischief is right. They're a menace,' exclaimed Caitlin, keeping a wary eye out for any more of them. A hail of stones rattled on the side of the garden shed and a couple of fairies shrieked and fluttered to the verandah roof in fright. A group of gnomes muttered together and shot the girls distinctly unfriendly looks from under their bushy white eyebrows. 'At least they don't want to go fishing as well,' she said in relief.

'They look as if they are plotting something, though,' whimpered Holly, cringing as an enormous red ladybird settled on the path beside her with a loud thump. One of the gnomes shook his fist at the girls and they jumped as a pink flamingo screeched and stalked jerkily past them, heading for the gate.

'Oh no, they're escaping! Do something!' hissed Holly. 'This is awful. We'll be a laughing stock if any of the neighbours sees this. They already think my mother is potty and this won't help at all.'

'I don't know what to do,' Caitlin said in dismay. 'I think it has to wear off naturally. It probably won't last more than a day or two.'

'A day or two,' screeched Holly in horror. 'An hour or two would be too long. There must be a way of ending the spell. Ouch.' She swiped unsuccessfully at a small pixie. It had dropped a stone on her foot and was now pulling faces at her from inside an ornamental stone lantern.

'We'd better go inside,' Caitlin said hastily. 'I can't think out here.'

Holly looked despairingly at her mother who was leading the fairies in song as she tinkled a little brass bell and swayed along the path.

'Yoo-hoo, Holly. Why don't you come and join us? We can all be fairies.' She beckoned encouragingly as the girls shuddered and ran for the porch.

'We have to find a way to stop all this,' moaned Holly, following Caitlin inside.

'I'll do my best,' Caitlin promised.

The girls spent the next couple of hours looking though all Holly's schoolbooks, trying to find a way to reverse the spell. This was not an easy task. The 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 newspaper down first,' her mother told her.

That night Caitlin slept soundly but was woken by the pitiful cries of a hungry dragon as dawn was breaking. The bowl had been licked clean and there was a row of grubby pawprints on the newspaper.

'Gosh you've grown,' Caitlin told the dragon, as it clawed at her leg.

Dragons weren't a very comfortable pet, she reflected as she opened another tin of cat food for it. Any attempts to cuddle the dragon had been met with suspicion and scratching and it was not showing any signs of wanting to learn any tricks or to obey any commands.

By the end of the holidays, the dragon was the size of a small cat and Holly and Caitlin were commiserating with each other on the results of the spell.

'I think it must be wearing off a bit,' Holly sniffed. Mr Perkins is getting stiffer and creaks a bit when he moves. He says it's arthritis and wants a warm bath every night but that's all so far. I can't wait to get rid of him.'

'The dragon's not much fun either,' agreed Caitlin. 'All it does it eat and sleep and it bit Dad's foot this morning. He's not very impressed. I'm going to take it to school tomorrow and ask Ms Borage to take the spell off it.'

'Good idea. I'm going to take Mr Perkins. He refuses to go anywhere unless it's his idea, so it won't be easy.'

The girls arrived at their classroom the next day, to find that others had used the same spell with similar results. Groups of girls held a variety of live objects, with teddy bears being the most common. A complacent Cherry had a soft white rabbit in her arms.

'It's one of my little sister's bunny slippers,' she said smugly.

Caitlin and Holly eyed her enviously.

'I wish we'd thought of that,' whispered Holly, trying to look unconcerned as a belligerent Mr Perkins bellowed in indignation from the shopping bag she had bundled him into. Caitlin nodded. She was holding the dragon in a cat travelling box and was intrigued to see her friend Emily with a dancing pencil.

'It even writes poetry by itself,' she told them. 'It's been cool fun.'

'Now girls, said Ms Borage. 'Let me see the results of your holiday assignment. I see that most of you managed to Animate an Inanimate Object.'

The class held up their live objects as Caitlin opened the lid of her cat box. That was a mistake. The dragon promptly leapt out with a snarl and advanced menacingly on the white rabbit, which froze in terror.

'Help,' shrieked Cherry. 'It's going to attack it.'

'I'll help,' yelled Mr Perkins, clambering out of the shopping bag and grabbing a plastic ruler from Holly's desk. The gnome waved the ruler threateningly at the dragon. The dragon roared and lashed its tail and Caitlin prudently stepped away from it, as the teddybears began to growl.

'That's enough,' snapped Ms Borage. She waved her hand in the air and muttered a few words. There was a sudden flash of light and a thud as the concrete gnome fell to the floor. The rabbit instantly became a limp and lifeless slipper and Emily's pencil collapsed in mid dance. All the teddybears stopped grumbling and sat in a heap with vacant glassy eyed stares. The dragon looked around with beady eyes then roared again.

Ms Borage gave a start of surprise and frowned. 'What spells did you use, Caitlin?' she asked.

'Um, raising bread and making fire,' Caitlin told her. 'Oh, and I added Magic Mixture Number Three. Quite a lot in fact.'

Ms Borage nodded and fetched a small business-like wooden wand from her desk drawer. She waved it in the air and muttered again before tapping the dragon sharply. The dragon turned to stone immediately.

'Put it away now,' said Ms Borage briskly. 'Well done girls.'

Caitlin prodded the dragon with the ruler, just to make sure, before putting it back into the cat box. 'Wow, it's heavy,' she complained.

'Next time have the sense to use something a little smaller,' said Ms Borage unsympathetically. 'Now take out your written work so I can collect it.'

'Has it put your mother off magic?' Caitlin whispered to Holly as they took their books out of their schoolbags.

'Not even slightly,' said Holly wryly. 'She thinks it was a great adventure and insists on telling everyone about it. Fortunately they all think she's crazy anyway so they don't believe her. She was really weird this morning, though. She kept saying she had a surprise for me, but she wouldn't tell me what it was.'

'Maybe she is having another angel painted on the house,' Caitlin suggested.

'I hope not, one is bad enough,' Holly shuddered.

'Now pay attention, class,' Ms Borage announced, as she collected the last exercise book. 'You have done very well with your holiday assignments, very well indeed. I intend to teach you a more advanced spell that you are sure to find useful. It is a spell to make things fly into the air.'

'Can we use it on people, Ms Borage?' Cherry asked eagerly.

'I don't see why not.' Ms Borage allowed herself a small wintry smile. 'You will have to take care with it, though.'

There was an excited murmur from all the girls except for Holly. She clasped her head in her hands and moaned.

'What is it?' Caitlin asked her.

'A flying spell,' gasped Holly. 'That's all I need. Mum's going to love this one!'

'Look on the bright side. At least you won't have wings,' Caitlin pointed out.

Ms Borage gave her a severe look. 'Not so much chattering please, Caitlin. And no, we don't do growing wings until next term.'

Caitlin spluttered with helpless laughter at the expression on Holly's face.

Ms Borage cleared her throat and the class fell silent. 'Before we begin, I have a new pupil to introduce to you. She is an adult student who will be joining the class so I expect you to behave to her with due respect.'

There was a knock on the door as she spoke, and a voice said hesitantly,

'Is this the beginner's class?'

'Come in,' said Ms Borage briskly.

'Oh no! I'd recognise that voice anywhere,' moaned Holly. 'It's Mum!'

Caitlin giggled as Mrs Beggs beamed at her from the doorway.

'Look on the bright side,' she whispered to Holly. 'Now your mother can learn to grow her own wings!'
Tall Tales

Well, not so much tales as tale. And not so much tall as above average. Well, would you believe, a bit shorter than that? Well, all right then, short in fact.

John was a peasant who lived in a small village. They called it a village but it was actually two cottages and a duck pond, but you could be sure that in hundreds of years it would be a village. That is, if the roof of the older cottage didn't fall in first. And that was fairly likely as cottage roofs were notorious for falling in when not well thatched, and John's father was not by nature an able man with his hands. In fact he was fairly useless at everything, which is why, when he failed to come home with the sheep one cold night, his wife merely shrugged her shoulders and gave John a double helping of porridge.

This upbringing made John a stocky chap who, as long as his bowl of porridge was forthcoming twice a day, stolidly did what he was told in minding the stock.

The stock consisted of six sheep, a ram for obvious reasons and a cow of uncertain age and very little brain, which made her excellent company for one as undemanding as John.

The other cottage was occupied by a wise woman and her cat. She also had some stock; a few hens, a beady-eyed rooster and three goats named Cyril, Cynthia and Rosemary. John's family had never bothered to name their sheep owing to the difficulty in telling them apart.

Now the wise woman had frequent conversations with John's mother, mainly at mid-morning when they both drank their tea. After this the wise woman would read their respective fortunes in the tea leaves left at the bottom of the cups. John's mother's fortune never varied much – it was of the 'one day you will meet a dark, handsome stranger and go on a long journey' variety – but she enjoyed the security of it all the same. John's father had not been dark or handsome but rather short with hair the colour of dirty string and copious freckles. John was a good likeness of his father.

The wise woman's fortune was much more exciting. It invariably involved fame, much money being heaped on her by grateful clients and a group of eager young women anxious to learn her craft. These young women would live with her and do all the housework and other boring everyday chores necessary to life. There never seemed to be any reason for this happening, but it was a comfortable future to look forward to. Particularly as the wise woman's bones were not getting any younger and were prone to making their presence felt on cold frosty mornings.

One fine day John was tending his sheep in the hills behind the cottage when he made an important discovery. Well, two discoveries to be exact. The first was that when he dropped stones of different sizes off the edge of the cliff they always landed at the same time. He decided this must be magic and promptly forgot it when he made the next discovery – that he had left his cheese sandwich behind. John had a cheese sandwich for lunch every day. He liked cheese sandwiches and this was the first time he had forgotten to bring one. So leaving his flock safely on the hillside he stolidly made his way back to the cottage. He arrived as his mother and the wise woman were halfway through their mid-morning cup of tea, so being a kind woman, his mother made John a cup too. John was delighted. This was a rare treat indeed. Now he would not only get a cup of tea but also he would hear the wise woman tell his mother's fortune. He knew all about this as his mother had been reciting it to him as a bedtime story ever since his father left.

Eagerly he drank his tea and listened with awe as the wise woman told first his mother's fortune and then her own. Finally she took hold of John's cup and shrieked. John and his mother looked at her in surprise, wondering if the cup had still been hot. The wise woman stood there shaking with excitement, pointing at the cup and spluttering. A few minutes passed. Then the wise woman drew herself up to her full height and in a voice throbbing with emotion she told John his fortune.

'You are going to be famous. Your name will be spoken by all in the kingdom. You will perform a task of great daring and bravery and be presented with a beautiful princess.'

John's mother gasped and went pink with pleasure at the treat in store for her son. John looked doubtfully at the clump of tea leaves in the bottom of the cup.

'Are you sure?' faltered John. He peered intently into the cup but all he could see was a clump of wet tea leaves.

'You have to know how to read them,' the wise woman said sternly. 'But that takes talent and training.' She picked up a knife as she spoke and neatly decapitated a mouse, which was climbing the pendulum of the chiming clock.

'What sort of daring and brave deed?' asked John in awe.

'Oh, probably slaying a dragon,' said the wise woman airily. 'That's usually what needs doing to win a princess.'

'Will the princess be rich?' asked John's mother in hushed tones.

'Very,' said the wise woman. 'Princesses always are, especially the beautiful ones.'

'I'd better pack you some sandwiches and you can start right away,' John's mother announced briskly. She fancied a life of idle luxury, and if this was to be her lot then the sooner John went off to do his deed of great daring and bravery the better.

John stood in bewilderment as his mother rushed around making him two cheese sandwiches and collecting his clean shirt. She wrapped these into a bundle and handed it to John.

'Go quickly,' she said. 'Be sure to send for me when your marriage is arranged.'

'What about the animals?' John asked.

The wise woman thought quickly.

'We'll keep the cow but as for the sheep, you may take them with you. You never know, they could come in very handy.'

John plodded up the hill to round up the sheep. The animals were delighted though puzzled at this change in routine and before too long they were following John along the road to town.

'If I'm going to be famous,' he reasoned, 'then I have to start somewhere, and the best place to start will be in the town.'

This reasoning was somewhat spoilt by the fact that there was only one road and it did, of course, lead to the town. Now if John had gone in the other direction his life would have been very different. He would have encountered an ancient enchanter who would set him a task, a variety of shapeshifters who would try to stop him completing the task, magic runes inscribed on amulets to aid him in his quest and a series of strange travelling companions. But he naturally did not know this so he trod the well-worn pathway with his sheep following behind him.

John hadn't gone far when he saw an old woman hobbling towards him.

'Good day,' he said politely.

'Good day to you, young man. Do you have any food to spare? I am very hungry.'

John's eyes lit up. He knew how to deal with this. Every story his mother had read him had involved young men going out into the world to seek their fortune. They invariably came across a powerful witch disguised as an old crone. If they gave her what she asked for there was bound to be three wishes or a magic talisman as a reward.

'Have these,' he said. He duly handed over his sandwiches to the old woman who ate them avidly.

'Thanks,' she cackled, as she finished the last crumb.

'Do you have anything for me in return?' John asked hopefully.

'No,' the old woman answered shortly.

John was taken aback. This wasn't the way it was supposed to work.

'Do you have any advice for me, then?' he persisted.

The old woman thought for a moment.

'I'll give you some advice,' she replied.

'What is it?' asked John in excitement.

'Don't put so much salt in the cheese next time,' the old woman said firmly, as clutching her cloak tightly around her she stumped away.

John stood with his mouth open, feeling rather foolish. At a nudge from the ram he closed his mouth and began walking towards the town again, trying to ignore his empty stomach.

By lunchtime the next day, John was extremely hungry. He had spent the night huddled under a tree with the sheep. They had all grazed on the grass and wild flowers that grew beside the road but there had been nothing John could eat. He thought regretfully about the cheese sandwiches but grew hopeful when he saw a plume of smoke rising from over a hilltop.

'A fire! There must be a cottage there,' he thought. 'Perhaps I could chop wood or do some work in exchange for a meal.'

The thought of food spurred him on as he trudged up the hill and down the other side. The smoke appeared to be coming from a small forest and John sighed as he walked between the two large pine trees that marked a narrow winding trail. The smell of smoke grew stronger as John followed the trail, and he felt his mouth watering at the thought of a hearty bowl of porridge. Finally the path opened out into a clearing which contained a pile of tumbled rocks. The smoke was coming from one side of the pile. John walked around the rocks and was dismayed to see the smoke issuing in regular bursts from two narrow tunnels. This was no cottage and there was certainly no sustaining porridge. John was now weak from hunger so he cast himself down despairingly onto the nearest rock. A loud rumbling filled the air, as John discovered to his horror that the rock was warm to the touch. Leaping to his feet he recoiled in shock as the rock pile shook itself and stood up to reveal itself as a large stone coloured dragon.

'What do I do now?' wondered John. There was no handy sword buried in a stone for him to pull out and no bag of magic dust for sprinkling to overpower the dragon. Here he was and there was the dragon, and he didn't even have as much as a magic ring or intrepid dwarfish companion to lend a hand.

'Er, sorry to disturb you,' John said politely.

The dragon glared. Its large golden eyes gleamed as it extended a long red tongue and licked its lips in anticipation. John took a step back and shut his eyes. He waited for the inevitable to happen and hoped that the dragon would kill him quickly. Instead there was a muffled bleat and John opened his eyes to see the back end of the ram disappearing down the dragon's cavernous mouth.

'Hey,' he said indignantly. 'You can't do that!'

The dragon swallowed the ram with a final gulp and turned his glowing eyes on John.

'You would prefer that I ate you?' he asked in a thin reedy voice.

'Er, no,' admitted John.

'Fine,' said the dragon. It belched a small cloud of black smoke and settled down to sleep again.

'You've just eaten one of my flock. Can't you do something for me in exchange?' begged John. 'I'm very hungry too, you know.'

'Why didn't you say so before,' said the dragon, sounding bored. It grabbed the nearest sheep and ripped the skin off its back with a long talon. At the same time it blasted a sheet of flame at the sheep, which grilled it nicely.

'Rare or well done?' the dragon inquired.

'Pardon?'

'Do you want your meat rare or well cooked?' snapped the dragon impatiently.

'Well done,' gasped John, as the dragon gave a final spurt of flame and laid a beautifully cooked sheep in front of him.

'I can't eat that,' he said in scandalized tones.

'Suit yourself,' shrugged the dragon. 'I prefer them raw myself.' It closed its eyes.

John looked around at the remaining sheep. They were grazing under the trees, totally unconcerned that two of their number were recently deceased. Eventually hunger got the better of John and he guiltily ate a goodly portion of hind leg, apologising to his former charge with every mouthful.

'Er, excuse me,' he ventured, when he had finished eating. The dragon opened one eye.

'What is it?'

'Um, I think I'm supposed to kill you,' said John despairingly.

'The dragon opened the other eye.

'What's all this nonsense?'

'It's what the wise woman said. She read my fortune in the tea leaves and said I had to do a deed of great daring and bravery then marry a princess. Killing you would certainly be daring and brave.'

The dragon snorted contemptuously. 'Old Wives Tales,' he muttered. 'What do you want with a princess anyway? I have always found them tedious. They do make such a fuss and they're very hard to peel. Most of them don't have nearly enough meat on their bones.'

'But that's my destiny,' said John stubbornly. 'I want a princess and the more I think about it the more certain I am that I have to kill you.'

The dragon sighed. 'It's really not necessary,' he pointed out. 'I'm due to shed my skin any day now and you may take the old one and display it. People will think you are very brave if you tell them you skinned me alive.'

John was horrified. 'But that would be cheating.'

The dragon shrugged. 'It's a good offer. But it's only fair to warn you that if you try to kill me I will fight back and I haven't lost a fight yet.'

'What happens after you shed your skin?'

'I generally fly to a warmer climate for a few hundred years. So you see, it's not as if I would still be around to arouse suspicion.'

John was silent while he thought about this. It was, as the dragon had said, a very good offer.

'When will you be shedding your skin?' he asked.

The dragon licked its lips hungrily. 'Oh, about five sheep should do it, I would think,' it smiled.

John looked around nervously but the remaining sheep were huddled contentedly in a patch of sunshine and showed no fear of the dreadful fate in store for them.

'I can't bear to watch,' thought John, and wandered through the forest until he thought he had given the dragon enough time to eat all the sheep. The forest was very dull. Apart from two small children asleep under a pile of leaves, and a golden haired child closely pursued by three bears, John saw no-one.

He returned to find the clearing empty of all except a very full dragon. It gently peeled a line of scales from its throat down to its tail. Twisting and wriggling, the dragon shrugged off its skin to reveal rippling scales of shimmering turquoise.

'That's much better,' it said in satisfaction, opening delicate silver wings and flapping them a few times. 'You can have the old skin in return for the sheep. The dragon gestured graciously. 'It's a fair trade.'

'Thanks,' mumbled John. He watched in awe as the dragon took to the skies. It circled the forest twice then flew off towards the east. The discarded skin lay on the ground. It still looked very life-like and smelt strongly of smoke. John stood there with one foot on its neck, wondering what to do next. The skin was far too heavy to lift and too tough to cut. As he stood there, a thunder of hoof beats echoed around the forest and a troop of soldiers in full armour galloped into the clearing.

The next few minutes were rather confused. The soldiers were expecting to have to rescue John from the dragon and did a lot of thrusting and parrying with their shining swords before they discovered the dragon was dead. Before John could explain what had happened, they swept him off to proclaim his bravery and present him to the king.

The king was playing chess, which he played very badly, against one of his advisors. They were both delighted at the interruption; the king, because he thought he was going to lose again and look foolish, and the advisor because he knew he was going to win and was worried about the king's reaction.

The king greeted the news of the dragon's death with Joy. She had been sitting quietly embroidering one of her husband's royal handkerchiefs, which he had a tendency to mislay.

'At last we are rid of that foul dragon,' cried the king. 'I suppose you have come to claim my daughter's hand in marriage?'

'Yes please,' beamed John. Things were looking up at last. Here was the promised fame and glory and any minute now he would get his princess.

'Call Arabella,' the king told his advisor, as the queen frowned and looked dubious.

The advisor rushed out the door and soon returned with a sulky raven-haired young woman of extraordinary beauty.

'Here is your future husband, my dear,' the king said grandly.

This was a mistake. The princess flew into a fury. She wept, she screamed and she stamped her feet in their glass slippers. She overturned the chess table and threw an ornate goblet at a marble statue. She bit the advisor's hand when he tried to calm her down and she glared at the king.

'I won't marry him,' she shouted. 'I don't like him.'

'But you don't even know the young man, dear,' the king said reasonably.

'I don't care. He's ugly and he smells of sheep. I'd rather sleep with a frog.'

The Princess Arabella ran shrieking back to her room with the queen hurrying after her to give comfort. The king looked apologetically at John.

'Sorry about that, but I can't force her, you know. Perhaps I could offer you some gold coins instead as way of compensation?'

'Fair enough,' agreed John.

By sunset he had left the palace with a sturdy bag of gold coins. He had been well fed and had agreed to leave the dragon skin to be mounted on the palace wall. He was musing on his experiences when he reached the forest. Walking along the winding path he stopped suddenly as a small flock of sheep blocked his way. Herding the sheep was a freckle faced young lady in sensible shoes and a plain red cape with a hood. Instantly John saw that here was the princess of his dreams. What the young lady thought of John was never known, but the gold coins almost certainly helped.

After a small but natural misunderstanding, involving a very large axe and an irate woodcutter, John and his dream girl were married.

So what happened then? Well, the wise woman became rich, as she had predicted, when John gratefully gave her a goodly portion of the gold coins.

'For if you hadn't told my fortune, none of this would have happened,' he said.

The wise woman was delighted with this and also with the group of keen students who arrived to live with her, anxious to learn the trade. John's mother fell unexpectedly in love with the dark-haired father of one of these students and went off to live with him in a far village. This enhanced the wise woman's credibility and she soon had even more students. They all drank an extraordinary lot of tea, both the normal variety and also a few herbal types which gave rise to some very peculiar predictions.

So they all lived reasonably happily ever after, and John was able to eat porridge twice a day for the rest of his life. Which wasn't very long as it happened, as the dragon flew back and ate him after a brief but futile struggle.

Which just goes to show that you can never trust a dragon.
Mrs Ainsworth Says

It was a warm spring day and the market was crowded. Claire was sick of traipsing around the stalls looking at things she could afford but didn't want, or things she would have loved to buy but couldn't afford. She had finally exchanged her pocket money for a bundle of second-hand books and, naturally, then discovered a stall with the sort of T-shirt she had always wanted.

'If I hadn't bought the books I could have got that,' she thought crossly. 'I know it's no use asking Mum to get it for me because she was going on about how many clothes I had only yesterday.'

Claire scowled and caught up with her mother beside a cosmetic stall, where an enthusiastic young man was trying to sell her some goat's milk soap. Her twin brother Marcus had spent his money in the first five minutes on a barbecued sausage and a bag of fudge, and was making it clear to his mother that he wanted to leave.

'I've had enough of this,' he muttered.

'But I'm not ready to go yet,' protested Mrs Pierce. 'Mrs Ainsworth says I should inspect all the stalls before I buy anything, Mrs Ainsworth says...' she faltered to a stop as her children groaned.

'I'm sick of hearing what Mrs Ainsworth says.'

'I'm sick of Mrs Ainsworth, full stop!'

'Now children, that's not very nice. You know she's been very kind to me since your father left. It's very good of her,' Mrs Pierce pointed out.

'I wish she'd do good somewhere else,' Claire sniffed.

Mrs Ainsworth was one of those people who always try to improve other people's lives, whether they wanted it or not. She had found a willing victim in Mrs Pierce. Shattered by a marriage break-up, she had eagerly followed her new friend's suggestions for improving her life. A collection of wobbly, odd shaped pots bore testament to a night class in pottery, while Marcus was still trying to live down her attempts to cut and style his hair. 'Mrs Ainsworth says it's much cheaper than going to a barber.'

Now Mrs Ainsworth had suggested that the children's mother take up gardening as a hobby.

'It is so therapeutic, dear,' she'd enthused.

This had led to a lecture on the best place to pick up plants, which was why they were all trailing around the market for the third time.

'Do hurry up, Mum,' nagged Claire. 'I'm supposed to be at Brianna's house for lunch.'

'Yeah. I'm with Claire on this one. I promised to meet Andy at the park later this morning.'

'There's plenty of time,' Mrs Pierce frowned.

'But we've been here for ages!' Claire sighed loudly.

'I thought you liked the market,' her mother said in hurt tones.

'Well yes, I do. But not if it means missing Brianna's party. I need time to get dressed.'

'You're already dressed,' Marcus pointed out.

Claire gave him a withering look. 'I'm not going to a party like this!' She turned imploring eyes on her mother. 'Please can we go now?' she wailed.

Mrs Pierce gave her children a resigned look. 'I'll only be a few more minutes. I am going to buy some plants for my new garden and some of Mrs Seddon's plum jam.'

'I'll get the plants for you while Marcus goes with you to get the jam and we'll meet back at the car. That will save time. What sort of plants do you want?'

'Oh dear. I'm not sure. I can't remember what Mrs Ainsworth said, now. Just get anything that will flower nicely,' Mrs Pierce said hurriedly, as she handed over a five dollar note and allowed herself to be hustled in the direction of the preserves stall.

Claire ran to the area where the plant stalls were. By this time most of the stallholders had packed up and gone and only one plant stall remained. Claire hopped impatiently from one foot to another. The stall was surrounded by keen gardeners, all of whom seemed determined to spend ages deciding what type of tomato plant they should have or asking a string of questions about the care of the many trays of seedlings.

'Don't push. Wait your turn.'

A grey haired gentleman frowned at Claire. She moaned to herself as she joined the back of the line. Three minutes later she'd had enough.

'Mum will have to go without her flowers,' she muttered, as she turned to make her way to the carpark.

Claire had to push her way through crowds of people. The Saturday morning market was very popular with both the townsfolk and visitors, many of whom carried large bags of bargains as they checked out each stall in turn. Claire threaded her way through a group of young children who were brandishing sticky toffee apples, and found her way blocked by a large clown.

'Would you like a balloon?' he boomed, thrusting a large and particularly revolting pink one in her face.

'No, I wouldn't.' Claire recoiled in revulsion and darted through a gap between two stalls, as the clown waved the balloon enticingly. It was much quieter on this side of the market. A small child dozed in a stroller guarded by a large shaggy dog, which lifted a lazy ear and yawned when it saw Claire. With a gasp of relief she spotted a plant stall that she hadn't noticed before. This was a very small stall, with a dingy grey table holding a few dark and straggly plants.

'Did you want something?' a voice piped up.

Claire looked more closely and saw a small plump woman sitting behind the stall, almost hidden beneath the shade of an enormous red and white striped umbrella.

'Um, I wanted some flowers,' she began doubtfully.

'No trouble at all,' said the woman pleasantly. She put down her knitting, which appeared to be a tangle of grey and brown wool that might have been a sock for a very large foot. 'I have some beauties here. What about this? It's only two dollars.' She picked up a spindly plant in a grubby plastic pot and proffered it for Claire's inspection.

Claire looked even more doubtful. The plant looked remarkably like a weed and didn't look as if it was even worth fifty cents.

'I need something flowering,' Claire mumbled, beginning to back away from the stall.

'I have just the thing,' cried the woman eagerly. She produced a packet from her pocket and flourished it in front of Claire with an air of triumph. 'Snapdragons. Guaranteed to please. Only a dollar a pack. What do you think about that?'

She seemed so enthusiastic that Claire couldn't bear the thought of turning her down.

'Oh, all right,' she said with a sigh, and handed across the five dollar note. She was appalled when the woman promptly handed her five packs of seeds before picking up her knitting and settling herself down again.

'I only wanted one packet,' Claire protested, thinking that her mother wasn't going to be too pleased to get seeds instead of the plants she was expecting.

'A bargain is a bargain,' the woman said firmly. 'No going back on it. See.' she pointed to a small notice at the back of the stall which was partly obscured by a large pot.

NO REFUNDS FOR ANY REASON

Claire read the notice and muttered to herself in disgust as she turned and made her way to the carpark.

'Come on, Claire. I thought you were the one in a hurry. We bought the jam ages ago,' Marcus called accusingly, as his sister climbed into the car.

'Where are my plants?' Mrs Pierce asked with astonishment.

'Um, er, well I didn't actually buy any plants,' Claire said carefully. 'Not as such. But I bought you some seeds instead.'

'Seeds!'

'They're guaranteed to grow. They're snapdragons,' Claire mumbled, not meeting her mother's eyes. 'They only cost a dollar a packet.' She thrust the packets into her mother's hand. 'There was too much of a wait at the big plant stall.'

'You spent all that money on seeds!' Mrs Pierce was horrified. 'Really Claire. I thought you would have had more sense at your age. Mrs Ainsworth specifically said to get plants.'

'Yeah, whatever,' Claire said uncomfortably.

'Are they magic beans?' Marcus grinned. 'Did you think we'd get a giant beanstalk?'

Claire kicked him and scowled.

'I suppose it can't be helped now. But you can be the one to plant them and look after them. It might teach you to be a bit more patient in future,' her mother said briskly, as she started the car. 'You can dig up the patch of grass beside the living room window. Mrs Ainsworth says that is a good place for a garden.'

'I'll do it tomorrow,' Claire said grudgingly. 'I'll be too busy today with the party.'

Claire hoped her mother would forget about the seeds, but the next morning she was handed a small spade, the packets of seeds and a container of fertilizer.

'Now make sure you do it properly,' Mrs Pierce instructed. 'Mrs Ainsworth says to dig in the fertilizer thoroughly and plants the seeds evenly. Mrs Ainsworth says to be sure and water them well.'

Claire rolled her eyes at this. 'Perhaps Mrs Ainsworth would like to do it herself if she's so fussy,' she snapped, as she pushed the seeds in savagely with her fingers and smoothed the earth on top of them. She was horrified to discover there were only three seeds in each packet, a fact that had been well disguised by the amount of packing paper wrapped around them. Guiltily she spread them around the freshly dug dirt, hoping that they would grow as well as the woman at the market had said.

Over the next few weeks, Claire watered the seeds whenever she remembered, and was relieved to see that there were at least no weeds coming up.

'I can't understand it,' her mother said in puzzlement. 'There are thistles all over the lawn but that patch you planted has none. Not even the seeds have sprouted yet.'

'Maybe the seeds are poisonous and they've killed the weeds,' Marcus suggested.

'Don't be silly,' scoffed his sister. 'Seeds wouldn't do that.' She sounded more confident than she felt. The seeds had certainly looked peculiar.

'Did you use the fertilizer I gave you?' her mother asked.

'Of course I used it,' Claire replied indignantly. 'I'm sure they'll grow soon.'

She went out and eyed the patch of garden moodily. 'Hurry up and grow,' she muttered, kicking a clump of dirt at the edge of the garden.

Claire was never sure if the seeds had heard her or not, but the next day she was relieved to see fifteen small green spikes poking through the earth. Over the next few days they grew taller and larger pale green leaves unfolded to wave limply in the breeze. Two weeks after that, the plants were as high as her waist, with tightly folded buds of shiny brown.

'Mrs Ainsworth says they don't look like snapdragons,' Mrs Pierce said doubtfully. 'Are you sure you heard the name right, Claire?'

'Yes, I'm sure,' sighed Claire. 'Maybe when the flowers open they will look better.'

The buds remained stubbornly closed until one hot Saturday. Marcus had gone off with his friends to play at the waterhole in the river and Claire and her friend Brianna had flopped on the rug on Claire's living room floor to do their school homework together.

'What's the square root of sixteen?' Brianna asked. 'Oh, look Claire. What weird flowers.'

'Where?' Claire looked up from her exercise book, where she was struggling with an essay on _What I want to be when I grow up._ '

'There. Outside the window. Aren't they strange?'

Claire looked out the window where Brianna was pointing, to see the snapdragon buds slowly opening to reveal flowers of a most peculiar appearance. They were all different colours; some mottled green and red, while others were deep purple with vivid gold stripes or slashes of white against them. The flowers were shaped like curved trumpets, with a wide opening at one end while the other end tapered to a narrow curve where it joined the stalk.

'They're snapdragons,' she told her friend.

'They look like dragons, all right,' agreed Brianna, studying one more closely.

Claire had to admit she had a point. The flowers did look very much like dragons' heads, and the way they moved in the wind made them look almost alive. A bee buzzed past outside the window and landed on the edge of one of the flowers. There was a sharp 'snap' and the flower closed around the bee. In the blink of an eye the bee was gone and flower moved lazily and innocently beneath Claire and Brianna's startled gaze.

'Did you see that?' they cried together.

'It ate the bee!' Brianna was incredulous.

'It can't have. Plants don't do that,' Claire protested.

'It did. I saw it,' Brianna insisted, jumping up to look more closely.

'Perhaps it was a co-incidence,' Claire ventured feebly, as she joined her.

The girls stood and watched the flowers intently, but no more insects flew near them. The flowers swayed slowly and turned their gaping mouths towards the girls.

'I'm going to finish my homework somewhere else,' said Claire hastily. 'Let's go to my bedroom.

'Good idea,' agreed Brianna with alacrity, trying not to look at the flowers which leaned menacingly towards her.

The girls collected their schoolbooks and retreated to the safety of the bedroom where they finished their homework in a rather subdued silence.

Claire took her mother to see the flowers when Brianna had gone.

'Oh, 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 Claire. 'I want to stay in bed.'

'Oh, if you must,' her mother sighed. 'But you really ought to be getting up. You need sunshine and exercise, not to be lazing around in bed all morning. At least open the window to let in a bit of fresh air.' She pulled back the curtains as she spoke and glanced out the window. 'Oh my goodness,' she gasped. 'There's a big hole underneath your window.'

'It's a surprise,' said Marcus, as he appeared in the doorway. He yawned and ran a hand though his tousled hair.

'We thought we'd make a fishpond,' said Claire in sudden inspiration.

'A fishpond! What a lovely idea,' said Mrs Pierce with pleasure, as Marcus gave Claire an admiring glance and a thumbs up sign for her quick thinking. 'We could plant a few flowers around the edge. I'm sure Mrs Ainsworth would say...'

'No. No flowers,' said Marcus firmly. 'Just rocks. They look so much better. Don't you agree, Claire?'

'Definitely,' nodded Claire. 'And they'll be a whole heap safer too,' she added under her breath, as she rolled over and went back to sleep.
The Breakfast Dragons

'Hey, look at this. There's a dragon in here!' Ethan reached into the cereal box and pulled out a small blue creature.

'Whatever will they think of next? I guess it's one more way to sell their products,' grumbled his father, who wasn't at his best first thing in the morning.

'It's not fair. How come Ethan gets the dragon?' Krista complained.

'I was first one to breakfast,' Ethan pointed out. 'If you hadn't spent so long getting dressed you would have got it.

'I had to brush my hair,' said Krista sulkily. 'Is there another box, Mum?'

Mrs Ambrose sighed. 'Please, Krista, no fights at the breakfast table. As a matter of fact there is another box but we are not opening it until this one is finished.'

'But we've only just started it,' protested Krista. 'And Ethan got the toy out of it first. It's not fair!'

'That will do,' growled her father, as Ethan shot Krista a triumphant look and put the dragon beside his plate.

'It's really lifelike,' he said annoyingly. 'It's got tiny wings and everything.'

'Can I have a look?'

Krista reached across the table as Ethan promptly put the dragon in his pocket. 'Later,' he said smugly. 'Now eat up your breakfast like a good girl.'

Krista gave him a look of loathing and began to eat her cereal. 'Actually, this is really nice,' she said in surprise.

'Probably full of sugar,' grunted Mr Ambrose. 'And don't talk with your mouth full.'

'They did say it was healthy,' his wife assured him. 'It's a new promotion and they were selling two for the price of one. Are you sure that's not a dinosaur, Ethan? The salesman said it would be very educational.'

'No, it's a dragon all right, not a dinosaur,' Ethan assured her.

' _Crunchy-Munchies,_ ' read Mr Ambrose. ' _A delightful breakfast cereal with added minerals and vitamins. Guaranteed to bring you pleasure_. Pleasure! How ridiculous. How can a breakfast cereal bring pleasure?'

'I'm fairly pleased already,' Ethan said, pouring himself another plateful of Crunchy-Munchies.

Mr Ambrose viewed his son's overflowing bowl with disgust. 'At this rate one box will only last a day.'

Krista cheered up at this and hurriedly filled her bowl as well before her mother put the nearly empty packet away in the pantry.

After breakfast Ethan finally relented and allowed Krista to hold the little dragon.

'Gosh, it does look real,' she exclaimed. 'It even fells real; sort of soft and scaly.'

'It's a new type of plastic,' explained her brother kindly, without any idea of whether this was true or not. 'Here, give it back. I'm taking it to school with me to show the guys.' For some reason he felt a fierce pride in his model and wanted to carry it with him. Krista handed it back reluctantly, smitten with a sudden longing to keep it.

Ethan's friends on the school bus duly admired the little dragon, and Krista lost no time in telling her friends about it.

'What's so special about a plastic dragon?' Emily wanted to know.

'I don't know, but once you see it you'll really want one for yourself. We've got another box and I'm having the next one.'

Model dragons became the overnight craze. The Herberton supermarket rapidly sold out of Crunchy-Munchies as the children bombarded their parents with requests or even used their own pocket money to buy a box for themselves. The dragons were all different, as Krista was pleased to discover when she ripped open the new box.

'Mine's a pink one,' she squeaked in excitement. 'Isn't it sweet? It's got little silver claws and a silver tip on its tail.

'I like mine best,' said Ethan, stroking his blue and gold dragon.

Mr Ambrose peered over his newspaper. 'What a lot of fuss about a plastic animal,' he snorted.

'Now Alan, that's hardly fair. We still have a box of plastic animals that you collected when you were a boy.'

'That was different.' Mr Ambrose went a little pink and hurriedly buried his face in the newspaper.

'Can I see your one?' Ethan stretched his hand out to pick up the pink dragon at the same time as Krista reached for it protectively. In the ensuing scuffle Krista's glass of milk fell over with a crash and soaked everything in front of her.

'You idiot! Why can't you be more careful? You've got my poor dragon all wet.'

'Never mind that,' said her mother briskly. 'There's milk all over the table. I'll get a cloth.' She sighed in resignation. Her children seemed to knock at least one thing over at every meal. 'At least it didn't go onto the floor this time,' she said thankfully.

'Sorry,' mumbled Ethan as he grabbed his schoolbag.

Krista wiped the dragon and wrapped it in a clean handkerchief. She quickly put it into her pocket as she ran after Ethan to catch the school bus.

Krista was quietly copying out the Maths problems from the board when she felt a sharp jab in her thigh.

'Ouch!' she said in surprise. The jab came again, making her jump.

Emily looked up from the next desk. 'What is it?' she whispered.

'Ow! There's something sticking into me,' Krista hissed back, then bent her head to her work as Ms Clarion the teacher looked in her direction.

The jabbing continued as Krista shifted uncomfortably.

'Maybe the dragon has fallen out of the handkerchief,' she thought. She put her hand into her pocket and felt something move. Krista went rigid with fright.

'Maybe it's a mouse, or a weta or a spider!' the thoughts flitted rapidly across her mind and she went pale.

'Are you all right, Krista?' Ms Clarion asked her.

'I need to get some fresh air,' Krista blurted out, and scrambled out of her chair.

She ran to the girls' washroom and quickly unzipped her pinafore. Holding it out over a washbasin she shook it vigorously. There was a clatter as the little dragon tumbled out. Krista kept shaking her pinafore.

'I felt something move. I know I did,' she whispered frantically.

There was a sudden scrabbling sound and Krista looked down in astonishment to see the model dragon was moving. She shook her head in disbelief as the little dragon tried to climb the steep slippery sides of the basin. Putting on her pinafore she gingerly reached into the basin and held out her hand. The dragon trustingly hopped onto it and curled into a ball on her palm where it appeared to fall asleep. Krista was amazed. She stroked it gently with the tip of her finger and felt the little dragon's sides moving in and out as it breathed.

'Wow! No one is going to believe this,' she gasped. She wrapped the dragon up in her handkerchief, careful to leave room for it to breathe as she put it back into her pocket.

Krista could hardly wait until lunchtime to show Emily her dragon. Emily was enchanted.

'It's so cute. Look, it's opening its eyes. Ooh, isn't it sweet?'

The little dragon fluttered long lashes over glinting violet eyes and rubbed her back lovingly against Krista's hand. Krista offered it a piece of her sandwich. It looked doubtfully at the bread but ate a tiny piece of salami with evident enjoyment.

'Why hasn't mine come alive,' Emily frowned, taking out her own pale yellow dragon. 'It's the same as yours, only a different colour. What did you do to your one?'

Krista thought back to the morning. 'It got wet all over with milk,' she said slowly.' Perhaps that was what did it.'

'Great. Let's find some milk,' said Amy determinedly. She spent the next ten minutes asking all the children she saw what they had in their drink bottles.

'It's hopeless. They've all got juice or water,' she said in disgust.

'Maybe water would work?'

'Let's try it.'

Emily eagerly poured the contents of her water bottle over her dragon then wiped it dry on a corner of her pinafore. The girls watched it intently but the yellow dragon lay still.

'It didn't work,' cried Emily in disappointment.

'I guess it needs milk after all. Or maybe it takes a while to work. Mine didn't come alive until nearly lunchtime.'

To Amy's delight, her dragon started moving in her pocket just as school finished for the day. 'Let's not tell anyone,' she whispered to Krista.' It can be our secret.'

Krista nodded. She had already planned to tidy up her old dollshouse for the dragon and had no intention of letting Ethan in on it.

Krista and Emily had three glorious days playing with their tiny dragons and were impatient for the weekend when they could devote more time to them.

'I've called mine Sylvia,' Krista said fondly, as she watched her dragon lolloping up the dollshouse stairs before it collapsed on a doll's bed.

'Mine's Lemon Drop,' beamed Emily, crumbling a biscuit for her greedy little dragon. 'Just think, tomorrow we can have all day with them. What do you reckon we take them out into the garden and see if we can teach them to fly.'

'Great idea,' enthused Krista. 'I can hardly wait.'

Their plans were doomed to disappointment, as Saturday was wet. It rained steadily and Ethan muttered to himself as he flopped onto the couch.

'You're surely not watching television again? Why don't you read a good book and improve your mind,' his father said with a frown.

'Don't want to read. There's nothing to do.'

'Krista doesn't have any problem finding something to do. She's playing quietly in her room,' his father said pointedly.

'Okay, okay, I get the hint.' Ethan sighed and stamped out of the living room. He burst into Krista's room where she and Emily were playing with the dragon on the floor.

'What are you doing?' Ethan stopped and watched in shock as the dragons chased their tails on the rug. 'Where, how...' he croaked.

'They come alive when they get wet,' Krista told him. 'Ours have been alive practically all week now.'

Ethan yelped and ran to his room. Grabbing his dragon from the chest of drawers he rushed to the bathroom and held it under the tap.

'How long will it take?' he asked Krista anxiously.

She shrugged. 'A couple of hours, I think. Isn't that right Emily?'

Her friend nodded in agreement.

'Wait until I tell the guys,' yelled Ethan, and ran for the phone.

As the children agreed later, the next three weeks were the most fun that any of them could remember. Nearly everyone in Herberton had at least one dragon and some families were lucky enough to have two. Not all the Crunchy-Munchies boxes had contained dragons. And some of the dragons refused to come alive. No amount of wetting them made any difference and they quickly lost any charm they might have had for their owners.

The little dragons really were enchanting. They obligingly slept in dollshouses, chocolate boxes, margarine containers and in the case of Murphy Brown, in an old bird's nest. There were dragon beauty competitions among the girls and dragon races among the boys. Some of the boys tried to make the dragons fight but this didn't work. The dragons merely yawned, covering their mouths politely with extended claws, and turned their backs on each other.

Three weeks passed quickly. The children had managed to keep the dragons secret from their parents, although this wasn't always easy as Krista and Ethan discovered. Mrs Ambrose complained about the obstacle course of blocks that covered most of Ethan's bedroom floor and which he assured her had to stay there.

'It's for an important experiment I'm doing. It's a project.'

His mother sighed and continued vacuuming, wondering why there seemed to be so many crumbs around the house.

But one morning the trouble started. It began with Krista's dragon. Krista had scooped it out of the dollshouse where it had fed contentedly on a slice of cheese, and bundled it into her pocket as she set off for school. Halfway through her science lesson there was a sudden burning smell and Emily gave a squawk of dismay.

'There's smoke coming from your pocket, Krista!'

'What's that?' Asked Ms Clarion. 'Krista Ambrose! What have you got in your pocket? Is it a cigarette?'

'No, Ms Clarion,' stammered Krista, quickly pulling out her dragon and stuffing it into her desk.

'Come here,' commanded Ms Clarion.

Viewing Krista's still smouldering pocket, she gave her a lecture on the dangers of cigarettes then sent her off to the headmaster's office in disgrace.

'Don't worry, I'll look after Sylvia,' Emily whispered, as Krista cast her a despairing look on her way out the door.

But worse was to come. A cloud of smoke from Krista's desk led to Ms Clarion evacuating the classroom.

'That silly girl must have had a box of matches. She'd dropped one in her desk and now it's on fire,' she told the caretaker crossly, as he answered her summons.

Emily stood guiltily with her dragon in one pocket and Krista's dragon in the other. She felt a sudden warmth and quickly pulled Krista's dragon out and dropped it into the bushes behind her. She beat at her own pocket, which was fortunately only slightly singed.

'Krista's dragon can breathe out fire!'

The message passed rapidly around the school and the students viewed their own dragons with a mixture of alarm in the girls and excited anticipation in the boys. By the end of the next week all the dragons were breathing fire and the children were panicking. A number of them had been severely told off by their parents for playing with matches and it was getting harder and harder to prevent the dragons from burning everything they touched.

The trouble finally came to a head with Chloe Wellington. Chloe had got one of the 'dud' dragons and had watched the others enviously as they played with their live ones. She had been prevented from telling on them by the girls taking turns to lend her their dragons but now suddenly she was deluged with them.

'I don't want them,' she wailed. 'They burn.'

'But they're really fun. All you need to do is keep them in a tin with holes in for the smoke to come out.'

'They're no fun anymore.' Chloe stuck out her bottom lip and refused all offers.

The other girls were getting harassed by this time. It was almost with relief that they heard the news that Chloe Wellington had 'told' on them. The parents were all horrified and disgusted. At least, the mothers were disgusted. The fathers used them for a while to light fires, but that novelty soon palled, as it became obvious that along with their fire raising talents, the dragons had grown aggressive. They snapped at unwary fingers and snarled at each other. Three of them made a concerted effort to hunt and kill Sam Harrison's pet guinea pig, which had been rather neglected since the onset of the dragons. It was generally agreed that the dragons would have to go.

There followed a sad time as sobbing children bid farewell to their former pets while their parents tried in vain to dispose of them.

They tried flushing them down the toilet, much like dead goldfish. The dragons held on grimly to the side of the toilet then climbed out enraged and looking for battle.

They tried drowning them in buckets but that only led to a lot of sliced and bleeding fingers and scalded hands in water that had suddenly soared to boiling point.

The parents had a meeting to discuss what to do,

'My Emily's one burned a hole in the living room carpet,' her mother complained.

'That's nothing. Our Rosie's dragon got out of its box in the shed and set fire to a sack. That spread to the lawnmower, which exploded, and darn near burnt down the entire place. If I hadn't been hosing the garden at the time, there would have been a catastrophe.'

'What happened to the dragon?'

'Oh it was fine,' Mr Plantain said bitterly. 'Showed up for its tea right on time, looking very chirpy.'

'I rang the manufacturers and asked them where the dragons came from,' Mr Matthews announced. 'Unfortunately they came from a factory somewhere in China. But there won't be any more because the factory burnt down.'

There was a brief silence at this.

'What are we going to do?'

'Drowning them doesn't work.'

'They're tough little beggars. I took to one with the back of the spade but it simply got up and walked away,' Mr Seddon put in. 'gave me a filthy look, too. I've bought two extra fire extinguishers, just in case!'

'I've got a suggestion,' Sally Baker's father put in. he had been sitting quietly listening to all the complaints and he decided he had found the solution. 'There's a small rocky island just out of the harbour where I go fishing from time to time. It's rather barren and nothing lives there but seabirds. How about if we take all the dragons and leave them on the island? It's too far for them to swim back from and they can't fly, thank goodness.'

The other parents were very enthusiastic about this idea and Mr Baker agreed to take the dragons in his boat.

'As long as at least three men come with me and the dragons are secured in a flameproof box.

'I'll go,' offered Mr Ambrose, who had always fancied a boat trip around the harbour.

Another two fathers also volunteered and the next day saw them roaring over the waves to come to rest beside a small rocky island. Mr Ambrose drew the short straw and was elected to let the dragons out of the box. Gingerly he opened the lid and stepped back rapidly as a cloud of angry dragons billowed out in a wreath of smoke.

'Oh no! They've learned to fly,' gasped Mr Seddon. 'Quick, get in the boat, Alan.

As Mr Ambrose scrambled back on board, the men were all thankful to see that the dragons' wings were too small to carry them any distance.

'What do you suppose they will eat?' Mr Plantain wondered.

Mr Seddon grinned. 'With a bit of luck, each other! Otherwise I guess there are a few birds' eggs around.'

'So that's that,' sighed Mr Baker in relief. 'Now maybe we will have some peace at last.'

Life returned to normal for the children of Herberton. For a while they exchanged stories of what their dragons had done or how clever they had been, but gradually the interest dropped away until few of the children thought of the dragons at all. But life is never peaceful for long and one summer morning Krista gave a yelp.

'Oh look!' she shrieked, as she opened the new packet of Wheatie-Sweeties and tipped it into her breakfast plate. 'There's a unicorn in my plate!'

'Here, pour some milk on it,' offered Ethan with a grin.

