The Bone Dragon (5 page)

‘Well, one thing we can do to make life easier is get you a better needle. I’ve got a nice, thick one that will go through that . . . er . . . fabric much more easily. Just be careful not to hurt yourself with it.’

The needle she hands me is short and squat with a vaguely rounded end: made more for piercing rubber than fabric. Not that the pencil-case material is fabric. I’m not sure what it is. It seemed like a good idea when I was in the shop.

‘But can we really make spaghetti over a camp stove? What would we use for a sauce?’ Phee is asking Lynne. Her own pencil case – a nice, plain sort of thing – is all but finished. Glitter and glue are drying on it while she doodles absently on her folder.

‘Do you really want to get one of those canned meat meals?’ Lynne says, eyes fixed on her sewing as she coaxes gold thread into a chain stitch.

‘How about SpaghettiOs? SpaghettiOs are OK.’

Lynne sighs. ‘Do you know how many calories . . . ?’

Phee groans. ‘So we’re going to try to make a gourmet meal over a camp stove? Why don’t we just take crisps and you can take some revolting low-fat bit of nastiness?’

‘We’ll be cold by the time we stop to camp. We’ll need something hot,’ she says, biting the words off to clamp the tip of her tongue between her teeth as the thread catches in the fabric.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea, all this D of E stuff? I don’t really like walking. And you’re going to hate camping. And we still need two more people since Evie can’t come.’

They both look up at me then with apologetic grimaces. They’ve been trying (and failing) not to talk about starting their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award all day. The first meeting did have to be this morning, didn’t it? They keep taking out their little record booklets and thumbing through the pages, sighing and rolling their eyes about how they’re going to fulfil the different requirements. The expedition bit is only a month away so I can’t go. And of course it makes sense that they haven’t invited me to their planning meeting: they’d think it was rubbing it in. And of course they need to invite the people they pick to team up with . . . But then they’ll all go off together and when they come back they’ll have two new friends to spend their time with, gossiping about their adventures.

Or perhaps they’ll both hate it so much that they’ll end up coming home early. It’s probably mean of me to think that would serve them right, but I can’t help it after my less than triumphant return to school this morning.

The bell rings then and, figuring I might as well have something to do while everyone else is running around having fun on the netball court during PE, I stab the needle into the rubber pencil case and put it in my bag. I doubt anyone else in the whole school is stupid enough to be making a rubber pencil case, so Mrs Poole isn’t likely to miss it.

Out in the corridor, Sonny Rawlins sees me and whispers something to Fred, though his eyes remain on me all the while, flicking down to my feet before lifting slowly up my body. A sneer twists his lips as his eyes lock with mine. I turn away, pulling my bag across my chest with one hand and tugging at the hem of my skirt with the other. Sonny Rawlins starts to laugh.

Phee rolls her eyes, while Lynne snorts. ‘It’s such a pity. If he wasn’t such a prat, he’d be really cute. What a waste.’

The wind is up tonight. Blowing hard across the fens, wailing through my dreams. I feel the moonlight dim then brighten on my face. And I can feel that someone is watching me.

I freeze, but I can’t hear the other person breathing. When I slit my eyes open, there’s no sign of light from the hall, so it’s not Amy or Paul, peeking in to check on me. And I know the window is shut because the curtains are not snapping in the wind. There’s no movement from anywhere in the room, just that feeling that someone is watching me, still and silent.

I look instinctively to the bedside table. And there is the dragon, crouched low over its front feet, like a cat hunkering down in the cold. Its eyes shine like haematite: silver over the darkest blue. It doesn’t blink as we stare at each other, but after a moment the tiniest wisp of smoke curls from its nostrils.

I want to ask if it is real or if I’m dreaming. I open my mouth . . . then shut it again.

Very wise
, says the Dragon.

Except that it doesn’t speak. At least, its mouth doesn’t move. But I know that that’s what it means to say. And, after all, anything’s possible in a dream. The odd thing is that I’ve always imagined that dragons would like basking in the sun like lizards. And it’s one thing not to be able to control every aspect of a dream, but I have a tingly, uncomfortable feeling that I’m dreaming
against
myself somehow. As if I’m not dreaming at all because I’d never, ever imagine a dragon that liked the darkness. I just wouldn’t.

I stare at the Dragon and then, without thinking, I blink. But the Dragon is still there: still there, watching me.

Do people blink in dreams?
I wonder and am about to squeeze my eyes shut to see if the Dragon is still there when I open them once more only . . . even if it isn’t at all what I thought a Dragon-dream would be there
is
still a Dragon. And it has sort of talked to me.

Then I blink again without meaning to. And again the Dragon doesn’t disappear, though I sense its impatience growing.

Slowly, slowly, I roll over on to my side so that our eyes are level. And then, finally, I squeeze my eyes closed, until blue and green explode behind my eyelids. When I open them, the Dragon’s expression speaks of disdain.

‘Are you nocturnal?’ I whisper, and my heart clenches with joy when I don’t jolt myself awake by speaking.

After a fashion
, the Dragon says.
Let us simply say that many things are easier at night
.

Then it slowly pushes up from its crouch, its shoulders rolling languorously backwards as it juts its breast out proudly. When it is sitting bolt upright, tail curled neatly over its feet, it opens its mouth and yawns hugely, just like a cat, showing long, razor-point teeth like stubby needles. Its tongue curls back and then arches out, flicking at the air as if tasting it.

We should go if we are to venture out tonight
.

‘Go where?’

The Dragon gives a tiny shake, like a shiver, and somehow I understand that this is a dragon’s way of shrugging
. You do not have your strength back yet so tonight we will not go far. Other things will have to wait
.

I half expect to wake myself by sitting up, but all that happens is that the Dragon tilts its head back to follow my movements.

‘Won’t we wake Amy and Paul going downstairs?’ I ask as I pull off my pyjamas, exchanging them for jeans, T-shirt and a hoodie.

We shall leave via the window, of course
, the Dragon says.

I pause in rummaging at the bottom of my closet for trainers. ‘Amy says that the garage roof isn’t very strong. She says I should only try to cross it if there’s a fire and I need to get out.’

The Dragon’s expression grows disdainful.
You are not heavy. It will serve
.

I’m about to object when I realise that, since it’s a dream, it doesn’t matter anyway. A dream with a Dragon in it can certainly boast a sturdy roof. In fact, I could just dream myself creeping downstairs and not waking Paul and Amy . . . only a Dragon-dream has to be more fun than that: if I can’t even climb down the garden wall, the rest is bound to be pretty disappointing.

I tug on socks and then my trainers. ‘Will you fly?’ I ask.

The Dragon yawns again.
For now I shall journey on your shoulder
.

Stepping back towards the bedside table, I extend my hand, palm up, terrified suddenly that the Dragon will vanish: that our touching will be like a bolt of electricity, jolting me awake. But there is a sharp, firm pressure on my fingertip as the Dragon steps on to my hand. It fits neatly on my palm, somewhat bigger than the carving, as if the bare bone has literally fleshed out with skin and muscle. I lift my hand to my shoulder and the Dragon climbs gracefully from my palm to my collarbone, curling against my neck.

Its tail twitches against my shoulder blade as I open the window slowly, slowly, trying not to make a sound because it’s more fun to pretend it’s all real: that I really am creeping out into the night with a dragon.

There is a flash of irritation that my ribs hurt even in dreams as I inch my hip on to the window ledge, bracing a hand against the pull of the wound so I can swivel, drawing my legs up and over the sill.

But then the night air rushes clean and cold into my mouth and my throat, swelling my chest with pain and delight.

The world is silver and blue, shifting and changing as the moon surfaces from the clouds then dives down into darkness again. The garage roof holds firm as I walk to the edge and then step down on to the garden wall, following it along the edge of the house until, stretching down, I can place my foot safely on the top of the wrought-iron garden table. From there I step down to a chair and then to the ground. I want to race across the grass, run out into the maelstrom of cloud shadows, the rushing patches of dark and light, but I know my ribs will not allow it.

I keep to the garden path as I walk silently to the woods at the bottom of the garden and into the darkness under the trees, emerging on to the unpaved towpath beyond.

I can’t help it. Even with my heart full of the joy of the Dragon, I find myself turning to stare down the towpath to my left. Seven miles. Only seven miles to the village where Fiona’s parents live. By car, it takes ages – long enough to feel safe – but by river or on a bike, riding along the canal . . .

‘To the right?’ I ask, despite the fact that I’m leaning, leaning forwards as if drawn, as if the house and the people in it are pulling me. I don’t know if the feeling this gives me is want or rage or fear or power that I could go there in the dark, ride up the towpath, and no one would ever know . . . But what sort of a victory would that be? To go and stand outside the house and hate.

I rock back on my heels, as if the thing that was drawing me forwards has suddenly released. I shiver, willing away the sense that my Dragon-dream is about to descend into nightmare.

When you are strong, we can do anything you wish
, the Dragon says softly: an answer to what is in my heart, not my question.

‘To the right,’ I say, stating it this time: resolving upon it.

The Dragon tightens its grip on my shoulder and I feel the steel-strength of its talons graze my skin.

Brackish water glints in the dyke between the fields as the world opens out around me. The Dragon’s breath comes in little drifts of warmth against the side of my neck.

Here
, the Dragon commands, and I turn off the path into the low scrub wood edging the fields.

The grass is long, but even the odd snatch and pull of a bramble cannot hold me back. Ahead, I can make out the outline of a wall and the ruin of a little building. Beyond it, catching the light in brief flashes between the clouds, there is a pool, still and dark. A single late-flowering evening primrose stem spears up from the reeds, bell-shaped flowers glowing a ghostly pale green.

I sink on to the moss-covered trunk of a fallen tree and watch the water, my eyes prickling with the threat of tears and that strange feeling that could be absolute happiness . . . or grief that you can never hold anything perfect still and safe.

The air is heavy with the sweet, viscous scent of fallen leaves mulching down into mud. The sharp smell of burning and the richness of charcoal. The acid tang of rotting reeds. And the thick copper and iron smell of slow water.

Something stirs in the pool. Ripples billow across the surface, fragmenting into waltzing shadows in the water. Above me, the bare tree branches spike upwards like long black thorns and the clouds rip and tear themselves ragged, raw edges weeping away into the light like blood fraying in water as they force themselves on: rank upon rank of tattered monsters, hunting each other across the sky. But as they cross in front of the moon they glow suddenly cream and gold, passing into greens and purples, making rainbows at the edge of darkness.

The Dragon and I don’t speak there in the clearing, or on the walk home, or as I climb carefully back up to my window and into my bedroom. I settle the Dragon back on the bedside table, then undress, tucking my damp trainers away in the back of the wardrobe before pulling on my pyjamas and climbing into bed. I curl on to my side despite the pull across my chest.

‘What should I call you?’ I ask, as I lie watching the intermittent drift of smoke from the Dragon’s nostrils.

Do I need a name?
the Dragon asks.
Is there another like me?

I smile, the question echoing after me as I drift into sleep.

When I wake, the Dragon is bare bone once more, solid and lifeless. I can’t bear to check whether the trainers in the back of my wardrobe are still damp.

‘You look like you slept well!’ Amy says when I pad into the kitchen.