The Last Dragon Chronicles: Dark Fire (16 page)

The door to the lodger’s room slammedshut.

“Behold,   TLC   in   action,”   Lucy

muttered.

Moments later, alone in the kitchen with Lucy, David slipped into a chair and saidto the girl, “So, what did you decide about Scuffenbury?”

Lucy sat down uneasily beside him. “How come you’re friends with Tam?”

“I told you, he owes me a favour.”

She tilted her head, expecting more.

He took a banana out of the fruit bowl,

studying its symmetry as he unzipped it. “I

rescued him from the Ix.”

Them again. Lucy funnelled a sigh. “Zanna hates him,” she said, musing toherself. “Not long ago he tried to use herto get some information on you. Hewanted to write in his magazine about you. He thought you weren’t real and yourbooks were written by someone else. Zanna went crazy when she found out. Shebranded her sibyl mark across his heart. She’s scary sometimes. Madder than Gwilanna. Is Tam a male sibyl now orsomething? Is that why the birds weren’tscared of him?”

David placed a foot on the bar of herchair. “He’s just a friend. Someone you’dwant near you in times of trouble.

Anyway,   you  haven’t  answered  myquestion. Would you be happy travellingto Scuffenbury with him?”

Happy
, thought Lucy,
 
was hardly theword. Scared. Gobsmacked. Ecstatic. Anyof those might have fitted
. “Will we becamping? I was trying to remember wheremy tent was yesterday.”

“The attic?” he suggested. “It was therethe last time I looked.”

“That was a long time ago,” she said, tying her fingers into knots. He’d gone up there in search of her old rabbit  hutch, to make a trap to catch the one-eyed squirrel, Conker, whom he’d later immortalised in print. Everything had been so wonderful then. Conker. Mr Bacon being grumpy. Gadzooks on David’s windowsill. The

birthday gift of
 
Snigger and the Nutbeast
. The library gardens. Sophie.

“Hhh!” Lucy popped upright in her chair.

“Anyway, you won’t need your tent,” he said. “Tam will organise a B&B or something.”

“No, it’s not that. I had an email for you – from Sophie.”

He took his foot off the chair. “From

Africa?”

“I guess.”

“Saying?”

“She tried your mobile but got nothing. So she found the website I did for your books and mailed me through that.”

“Clever girl. What did she
 
say
?”

“Hi to all of us, some stuff about the

wildlife hospital she works at, and… she wants to talk to you. It sounded a bit… important.”

Hrrr
 
went a voice behind Lucy’s ear. Gwendolen, sitting on the rim of a plant pot.

“Oh, yeah. She wrote that she thinks Grace’s ears keep moving.”

David looked at her hard for a moment.

He put the banana aside and shot a glanceat the listening dragon. “Has Grace madecontact?”

The listener shook its head.

“When did this email arrive, Lucy?”

She chewed her lip again. “Erm, a few hours ago. But I didn’t check my mail until… ”

He stood up quickly, just as Zanna

emerged from her room looking flustered.

“Don’t be mad,” Lucy begged, sensing that he might be. “I was going to tell you as soon as you came in. And I did. Almost. Didn’t I? David?”

But by then he was heading for thehallway, with the narwhal tusk in his hand

once more.

“Don’t disappear, I need to talk to

you,” said Zanna.

“Not now.”

“This is about Alexa. The rest of the

world can wait.”

“No, it can’t,” he said, and bundled past.

“What’s more important than your daughter, David?!”

“Right now, Sophie Prentice… ” he

said.

An old friend

Eyes.   They’re   like…the   weirdestthing. How can two balls of colouredjelly make you feel so wanted or so…deserted? I can do green. I can doviolet. It’s the dragon inside me,according to Mum. It began to showproperly after the age of eleven, whenmy hair turned red as well. Green: I’mjust gorgeous. Violet: deadly. Maybe Ishould have turned the violet on him?

That look in the hall. What did it

mean? Why didn’t he speak? Why didn’t he acknowledge me? It only takes a second to say ‘How are you?’, doesn’t it? All he had to do was part

his lips. Maybe he’s not the Tam I knew? He’s different. His eyes. So brown. Like a bear’s. Or maybe he’s still got a thing for Zanna. Even after what she did to him. Why does everything whirl around ZANNA? Why couldn’t   David   have   stayed  with Sophie, instead of letting MORTICIA dig her purple nails into–

Normally, when the phone rang, Lucyignored it, especially when she wasimmersed in her journal. She hatedlandlines. What was the point of them inthis age of mobiles? But with her motherand Arthur  still not home and Zanna taking Alexa next door and a convenient break in

the track list on her iPod, she felt she had

no choice but to answer the thing. With a huff, she pushed her keyboard aside, took out her earphones and went into her mum’s room to pick up the call.

“Yes?”   she   drawled,   with   her characteristic lack of social grace.

“Is that Lucy?” A girl’s voice. Breathy. Teen.

“Yep.”

“Omigosh!”

“Who’s this?” asked Lucy, puzzled by

the burst of enthusiasm. No one she knew

ever talked to her like that.

“Don’t you know?”

Lucy tried not to tut. “If I did, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

“Dragons… ?” said the girl, letting the question hang. “We used to talk about

them for HOURS on our sleepovers –

when I lived in Orchid Close.”

Orchid Close, just around the corner

from the end of the Crescent.

“Melanie? Melanie Cartwright?!”

“Lucy Pennykettle,” the other girl said, as cheery as a chipmunk. “Long time no hurr, he he? Mum rustled up  your number from the back of some old notebook. They come in useful, don’t they, mums?”

Lucy flopped down on her own mother’s bed, her stunned reflection looking back from the dressing table mirror. Around her knees, the dangling earphones began to throw out a loud, tinny beat. She switched off her iPod and said, “Where are you?”

“Erm, on the other end of the phone?”

“Yeah, I know
 
that
. Have you moved

back to Scrubbley?”

“No. Me and Mum are still in

Plymouth. It’s not the best. And school islike, the pits. But it’s good for Dad. Heworks on ships, remember? Captain Cartwright, yo ho ho. By the way, mygrandad died.”

“Oh, sorry,” Lucy murmured. When sheand Melanie had been friends as younggirls, ‘Pop’, Melanie’s grandfather, hadbeen a poorly but lively old man.

“It’s OK,” Melanie said. “It was agesago, just after we moved. I was going towrite to you, but, you know… ”

Lucy grunted, thinking of Mr Bacon. Melanie had known him slightly. Notenough to mention his passing. “So why

are you ringing? I mean, it’s cool and everything, but… ”

There was a pause while Melanie gathered her thoughts. “It’s about Glade.”

Lucy felt her stomach curdle. Many years ago, her mother had made a string of special dragons that went to live with people who’d bought them from the Pennykettles’   market   stall   or   that sometimes had just been gifted by Liz. Glade was one such example. She was a mood dragon, who carried a scarf of ivy leaves around her neck which changed colour depending on how she, or those around her, was feeling. The practice of giving special dragons away had ended with the creation of Gadzooks. This had

come as some relief to Lucy, who had

always thought it dangerous. For though it was difficult for normal people to see the dragons moving, they were nevertheless capable of getting up to mischief or even being broken while in their solid state. It was this more than anything that Lucy feared as she asked, “What about Glade?”

“Well, it’s not about
 
her
, really—”

“Is she OK? What colour’s her ivy?”

“Green. She hasn’t changed today. She’s sitting on my desk. Hey, you know what’s weird about her?”

Lucy held her breath.

“She never gets dusty. Anyway, like Isaid, it’s not really about her, it’s aboutthe one that’s been on TV. Is it one of yourmum’s?”

“TV?” said Lucy. “What are you

talking about?”

Melanie almost choked with disbelief.

“What am I talking about? What the whole world’s talking about. What planet have

you
 
been on?”

“I don’t watch much TV,” Lucy replied. That was a lie. She did. But not lately. Not since Henry and Apak and everything.

“Then get on the net like…
 
now
, ’cos this is mega.”

Chained by wire to a box on the wall, Lucy opted to go with conversation. “Can’t you just tell me?”

“OK!” Melanie said. “Well, you
 
must
 
have heard about this mist in the Arctic

and how everyone is saying there are

dragons hiding under it?”

“Are they?”

“Lu-cy?! Where have you
 
been
? The world’s on the
 
edge
 
. There’s like, the Spanish Armada cruising round the Arctic waiting to blam whatever comes out of the fog.”

“
The Spanish Armada?
 
”

“Warships. Big ones. Kinda scary, don’t you think? Oh, and no one’s seen a polar bear for, like, two months and there’s this theory, right, that the dragons are actually
feeding
 
on them.”

“That’s gross,” said Lucy. “Dragons wouldn’t do that. They… ” But how could she tell Melanie in the space of a phone call the history of the Arctic, Gawain, Thoran?  No way would dragons attack the bears. But it was something to ask David

about when she saw him next.

“Anyway,”   Melanie   rattled   on regardless, “people are reporting sightings of scaly beasties everywhere. There was a photo on the news of one that was snapped in the sky over Scotland. People are calling it the Loch Ness Dragon ’cos you can’t really tell if it’s a giant kite or a blow-up of a bird. But it looks totally real. Bit pterodactyl. Horns. Spiky tale. Claws. The lot. And everyone, I mean

everyone
 
is talking about it. You know when someone sees a UFO whizzing about and then zillions of others say they saw one too?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s what it’s like. Except there’s

been no real proof – until now.”

“So… what’s happened?”

“Well, this is where you come in.”

“
I
 
haven’t done anything!”

“No, but…  Oh, just… shut up and let me spill, OK?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. Ten minutes ago would have been good. If blabbing was an Olympic sport, Melanie would have been in the medals every time.

“There’s this place in Canada, some sort of big meditation stroke healing centre. A bit ‘out there’, you know? Anyway, they were having this kind of conference about peace and love and healing, whatever, and it was being filmed by one of the networks. So it gets to this bit where some guy in a none-too-fetching white robe is about to bless this lady in a

wheelchair and there’s a gasp from the crowd and a dragon materialises on the lectern thingy.”

“
 
What?
 
”

“I know. Awesome, isn’t it? It was just sitting there, like a bird.”

“What colour was it?” Lucy asked, thinking   of  the   ravens   Zanna   had described.

“Green, you twonk. It looked like Glade. That’s the point. Well, not
 
exactly
 
like Glade. But like one of your mum’s. But it was
 
living
, ’cos they filmed it before it flew off. When I showed Glade

the reruns her ivy went mental. Rainbows. All the colours you could think of. Weird.”

Lucy slid the phone from her ear to her

shoulder, but when Melanie’s vibrating, squeaking voice was in danger of burning holes in her flesh she raised it again and asked, “Did it do anything? The dragon on the telly?”

Melanie blew an exaggerated sigh. “Well, people are saying it was a trick – but if it was it was a really,
 
really
 
neat one. It grabbed a light pen they use for showing messages on a screen and it drew something. Well, it  made squiggles. Some people think it’s a word in an ancient language. Go on the ’net. You can see it everywhere. It’s the biggest thing since Harry. Bigger!”