The Fire Within (The Last Dragon Chro) (2 page)

S
ETTLING
I
N

 

P
eas?” said Mrs. Pennykettle, cutting in again. “We’re having shepherd’s pie for dinner. Could you eat a few peas?”

“Erm, yes,” said the tenant, looking slightly confused.

Lucy squared up to her mother and hissed, “Mom, you know I wasn’t going to say
peas!”
She made a grumpy-sounding
hmph!
and turned on her heels. “I’m going out to look for Conker again.”

“I don’t think so,” said her mom, catching hold of her shoulders. “You’re going to help me peel potatoes.” She pushed Lucy to the door like a shopping cart. “We’ll leave you to settle in, David. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to call. Dinner in about an hour, OK?”

“Great,” he said, smiling politely, still wondering what Lucy had been intending to say. Instinct warned him not to ask. Instead, he pursued a more urgent matter: “Excuse me, where’s the bathroom?”

“Top of the stairs, turn left,” said Liz. “Remind me to find some towels for you later.”

David nodded. “I’ll be quick.” He glanced at Lucy as he stepped into the hall.

“It’s not fair,” she complained, folding her arms.

“Kitchen,” said her mom.

And that was that.

With a shake of his head, David started up the stairs. If first impressions were anything to go by, life with the Pennykettles promised to be an interesting, if slightly unusual, experience. Proud-eyed dragons. A dippy cat. Wind chimes at the window. Someone called Conker — whoever he was. And now this …

He slowed to a halt at the top of the stairs, his eye drawn to a sign on a door across the landing:

DRAGONS’ DEN

 

It was hand-painted, gold and green, with bright orange flames leaping up around the lettering. David drummed his fingers on the banister rail. The desire to have a peek inside was enormous. But the door to the studio was firmly closed, and if Liz came up and caught him sneaking, it would be good-bye Mr. Rain — and no shepherd’s pie, either. Casting temptation aside, he went into the bathroom and switched on the light.

There he met his second dragon.

It was sitting on the toilet tank. It was bluer in color than the dragon downstairs — to tone with the bathroom, he thought. It had smaller wings, a longer snout and a rather peculiar,
alert
expression. It wasn’t warm like the other but it did have a faintly
rosy
smell as if its glaze had been specially painted to carry some sort of freshening scent. David turned it to face the wall. No way was he going to unzip himself — not with that thing watching.

By dinnertime, Liz and Lucy had forgotten their tiff and David was made to feel fully at home. He had two
large helpings of shepherd’s pie, a slice of cheesecake, and a glass of ginger beer. The peas, he declared, were the best he’d ever tasted. Afterward, everyone moved into the living room. Bonnington, his best seat taken by the tenant, even curled up in David’s lap.

Lucy Pennykettle talked nonstop. She wanted to know
everything
about the tenant. More importantly, she wanted the tenant to know everything about
her.
David listened patiently. He learned all about Lucy’s progress at school, what her friends were going to think of her mom having a
tenant,
and what Lucy was going to be when she grew up.

“Less of a chatterbox than you are now, I hope,” her mother put in.

“I’m going to be an acrobat,” Lucy announced. “I’m going to wear a leotard and swing on a trapeze. Do you want to see my handstand?”

“Of course he doesn’t,” said her mom.

Lucy shrugged, undeterred, and said to David, “I’m going to save animals as well. Do you
like
animals?”

“I like cats,” he replied, even though Bonnington was giving him a cramp.

A sparkle entered Lucy’s eye. “Do you like squirrels?”

“Lucy, it’s past your bedtime,” said her mom.

Lucy frowned and glanced at the clock. “Do you?” she pressed, nudging David’s toe.

“Lucy,” said her mom, “you’ve talked him half to sleep as it is. He doesn’t want to be pestered about squirrels.”

Lucy said hotly, “I was only asking if he
liked
them, Mom.”

“The red ones are pretty,” David put in, trying to defuse the argument a little. By now he’d figured out that squirrels were “the other thing” Lucy had been wanting to ask about earlier.

Surprisingly, Lucy looked at him in shock. “Don’t you like the gray ones?”

“Lucy, if you want a story tonight you’d better get up those stairs right now.”

“Please say you like the gray ones,” Lucy whispered. Her bright green eyes were wide and pleading.

“I like the gray ones,” David obliged her. Then, lowering his voice a little he asked, “Is Conker a squirrel?”

“Yes!”

“Bed. Now.” Liz dropped her magazine and pushed up her sleeves.

Lucy seemed to take this as a final warning. She grabbed her sweater off the couch and hurried to the door. “Night, night,” she chirped, and pounded up the stairs.

As her footsteps faded into the distance, David glanced sheepishly at Liz and said, “Sorry, was I not supposed to mention … y’know?”

Liz smiled and shook her head, partly with amusement, part exasperation. “Lucy loves wildlife, particularly squirrels. This morning we agreed that if you took the room she wouldn’t pester you about them for at least a day. Her timing was a little off, as usual. I was trying to spare you, as it’s your first night.”

“I don’t mind,” said David. “She’s quite funny, really.”

“Hmm, you say that now,” said Liz. “I guarantee by
the end of the week you’ll be wishing that Noah had never let them on the ark.” She stood up and tugged the curtains shut, taking care not to topple a gruff-looking dragon that was standing on top of a small speaker.

David ran a knuckle down Bonnington’s back. “It’s very leafy around here. You must see lots of squirrels.”

To David’s surprise, Liz gave a shake of her head. “Not now. Not since the oak tree’s been gone.”

David lifted an eyebrow. “You had an oak? In the garden?”

“In the Crescent. Next door to Mr. Bacon’s. He’s our neighbor, on this side.” Liz pointed at the chimney wall. “It was cut down a few months ago. We got a note under the door, saying its roots were damaging the road. It didn’t look all that bad to me, but someone must have known what they were doing, I suppose. Lucy was devastated. Cried for days. When the tree went, the squirrels went, too. She’s been looking for them ever since.”

“Conker,” said David, latching on. “She was looking for him when I arrived.”

“Yes, he’s the only one she’s seen so far. I think they’ve scattered all over. There’s nothing in the Crescent for them now.”

David’s eyebrows narrowed a little. “So, why is Conker still around? If the rest have scuttled off, why hasn’t he?”

Liz stooped to gather Lucy’s shoes. “Lucy says he’s hurt and can’t get away.”

“Hurt?” David sat up a little straighter. Bonnington, wakened by the sudden movement, gave a fishy-smelling yawn and dropped to the floor.

Liz opened the door to let the cat out. “He’s only got one eye,” she said.

M
EET
M
R
. B
ACON

 

T
he following afternoon, the bulk of David’s things arrived. It all came in boxes — lots of boxes — delivered by a van marked
DONNELLY’S PEST CONTROL SERVICES.
Brian Donnelly was the father of one of David’s friends, though no one in Wayward Crescent knew that. There were some snooty looks from a few of the neighbors, who all seemed to be wondering why a pest control van had pulled up outside the Pennykettle house.

Elizabeth Pennykettle took no notice. She even stood guard beside the van while David and Mr. Donnelly carried the boxes inside.

And that was how Mr. Bacon found her — on guard, but off guard, so to speak.

“Fleas?” he whispered in her ear.

“Hhh!” cried Liz, with a hand to her chest. She groaned loudly when she saw who it was. Liz and Henry Bacon didn’t always get along. “Do you mind?” she said haughtily. “You made me jump.”

“One of the signs,” Mr. Bacon said. He pursed his lips. His gray mustache twitched. “Tricky little pests, fleas. Jump up to forty times their own height, you know. Give your ankles some nasty bites. Red blotches everywhere. Itch terribly at night, they do.”

Liz wriggled uncomfortably and scratched at her arms.

“Creeping, are they?” Henry went on. “They’ll be heading for your neck. Up the sleeves and straight for the neck. Knew a man once who had one in his ear. If you want my advice, you’ll make that thing wear a collar in the future.”

A dark cloud crossed Mrs. Pennykettle’s face. “What
thing?”

“That mangy old cat.”

“I beg your pardon!”

David wandered out to the van at that moment.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, spotting the flush on his landlady’s face.

“Meet Mr. Bacon, our neighbor,” she said, ever so slightly grinding her teeth. David said hello. Mr. Bacon tipped his hat. “Mr. Bacon thinks Bonnington is riddled with fleas.” Liz tilted her head toward the van.

David quickly put two and two together. “Don’t think so,” he hummed. “I haven’t seen him scratching. Mind you, he could have picked them up from that rat I just saw in next door’s garden.”

“RAT?!” cried Mr. Bacon.

“On which side of us do you live, Mr. Bacon?”

Mr. Bacon didn’t answer. He was off as fast as his legs could carry him. He went so fast his hat flew off. David picked it up before Liz could flatten it.

“Is it true?” she asked. “Did you really see a rat?”

David put the hat on Mr. Bacon’s gatepost. “Have you ever seen a rat with a big fluffy tail?”

Liz shook her head.

“Me neither,” said the tenant. “What I saw was a squirrel.”

D
AVID
U
NPACKS

 

Y
ou saw him!” cried Lucy, bursting into David’s room the moment she arrived home from school that day.

David tottered slightly and looked over his shoulder. He was balancing on a stool, stacking books on a shelf. All around the room were half-opened boxes, packed with an assortment of dusty bits and pieces: magazines, CDs, posters, a radio, a plastic model of the space shuttle, a travel alarm clock, an expensive-looking camera, a personal computer, and a tiny mountain of books.

“Saw who?” he asked.

“Conker!” Lucy wriggled her backpack onto the floor and blew a loose strand of hair off her brow. She hurried to the window, raised herself on tiptoe, and
peered intently into the garden. “Mom told me,” she continued, practically breathless. “You fibbed to Mr. Bacon. You said you saw a rat, but you really saw Conker.”

David blew a cloud of dust off a book. “I saw a squirrel; I couldn’t swear it was Conker. He was pretty far off — near Mr. Bacon’s pond. Conker’s the squirrel with one eye, isn’t he?”

Lucy leaned back, hands first, against the wall. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

“I read minds,” said David in a spooky voice. He wiggled his outstretched fingers at her.

Lucy wasn’t swayed. “Mom told you,” she sniffed. “That’s not fair. Conker’s
my
squirrel.”

“Conker’s a wild animal,” said David. “He doesn’t belong to anyone, Lucy.” He stepped down off the stool and picked up another handful of books. “How come you have a name for him, anyway? I would have thought it’s practically impossible to tell one squirrel from another.”

Lucy hurried across the room, pushed an old guitar
into the middle of the bed, and plopped herself down. “It is, unless you look hard. I had names for five of them. Should I tell you?”

“Well —”

“OK. First there was Conker. I called him that because of the red tufts of fur around his feet. All the squirrels had those but his were sort of
browner,
like a chestnut.”

“Very good,” said David. He picked his space shuttle out of a box and looked around for somewhere to land it.

“Then there was Ringtail. He was easy to see: He had some whirly black fur on his tail. And Cherrylea, she was ever so pretty. I named her after a can of rice pudding.”

“Rice
pudding?
”

“I like it; we have it all the time.”

“Great,” muttered David, who wasn’t particularly fond of it. He put his shuttle on the fireplace shelf, and for the first time noticed something was missing. “Oh, the dragon’s gone.”
Lucy nodded, pulling up a sock. “Mom must have taken him back to the den.”

“Why? I liked him.”

Lucy turned and glanced at the open window. A warm breeze was rippling the curtains, making the wind chimes tinkle softly. “It’s probably because … I don’t know,” she said awkwardly. “How many names have I done?”

“Conker, Ringtail, and Cherrylea,” muttered David, wondering why Lucy had looked at the window. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he shrugged and continued unpacking.

“I forgot Shooter,” Lucy prattled on, prying the flaps on a box beside her. “He buried his acorns in Mr. Bacon’s lawn and Mr. Bacon didn’t like it, ’cause his lawn grew oak trees. What’s in here?”

“A ferocious crocodile.”

Lucy squealed and pulled away — then risked a peek. “It’s books,” she pouted.

“Good job,” said David, tapping her nose, “or
this
might have been bitten right off.” He put some ring binders on the bed. “What was the fifth squirrel called?”

Lucy almost leapt into the air as she said it: “Birchwood. He used to chase the others away. He had a big white tummy and his fur was sparkly, like the bark of a silver birch tree. I hope he went far away. He was always fighting.”

David nodded, taking this in. “Maybe that’s how Conker’s eye got hurt — Birchwood, fighting?”

Lucy thought for a moment, then shook her head. “He didn’t really fight; he just growled and spat and the others ran away. He was a bully. I didn’t like him much. Can I look at your teddy bear, please?” She pointed to a bear’s snout, just visible behind some rolled-up posters.

David hauled a golden-haired teddy from a box.

“What’s his name?”

“Winston. Be careful, his left ear’s loose.”

Lucy gave the bear a cuddle. “Does he sleep in your bed?”

“Only if he promises not to snore. What about Bonnington? Didn’t
he
chase the squirrels?”

Lucy swung her ponytail. “He used to sit on the fence and watch them sometimes, but he never pounced. He wouldn’t scratch eyes.”

“Hmm,” went David, not entirely convinced. “How bad is Conker’s injury? Have you seen it? Up close?”

Lucy sat forward with Winston on her knee. “He came to the bird feeder once and I sneaked up behind him to feed him some peanuts — and that’s how I saw it. It was closed — like this.” She shut one eye as tightly as she could. “I called his name and he jumped and got frightened. But instead of running away, he went around and around in circles on the grass. I kept turning to watch him — but I got dizzy and fell over. When I stood up again, he wasn’t there. He went around my legs
three
times — no, four. Are you going to help me rescue him?”

“Rescue him? How do you mean?”

“I want to take him where Ringtail and Cherrylea went.”

The tenant spluttered with laughter. “Lucy, you can’t go catching wild squirrels.”

“But he’s sick,” she pressed, flapping Winston’s paw for added effect. “He’s getting thinner. You can see his bones. And what if the thing that hurt him comes back? What if it gets his
other
eye? You said you liked squirrels. Oh,
please
help me save him.”

David shook his head and turned back to his boxes. “It’s not right to interfere with nature, Lucy. Besides, you don’t have any idea where Ringtail and the others have gone.”

“Somewhere nice,” she muttered, more in hope than expectation. She lowered her head and swung a leg in defeat.

“Look,” said David, bopping her knee with a rolled-up poster. “If I thought that Conker was really in danger — I mean
really
in danger — I’d do everything I could to help him, OK? But I think you’re fretting too much. Chances are he’s coping just fine. Come on, cheer up. Do you want to do me a favor?”

“What?” said Lucy, sounding rather deflated.

“Run and ask your mom if I can borrow a duster.” Lucy shook her head. “She shouldn’t be disturbed. She’s upstairs, making you a dragon.”

“Not anymore, she isn’t,” said a voice. Liz came bumping through the door, carrying a tray of tea and cookies. She was wearing jeans and an artist’s smock. There were smudges of clay all over the material, but mostly the smock was daubed with paint. Bright green paint.

The color of dragons.