After school we all followed Liam, keeping well back so he didn’t spot us. He wasn’t going his usual way home; instead he’d turned into the park and was scurrying along the outer fence where he was hidden by the trees.

‘Where’s he heading?’ Kai hissed.

There was nothing but fields down this side of the park, unless he was going all the way across, to the lane where Nana and Grandad lived. I suddenly pictured Grandad’s gargantuan beans and Grim’s humongous onions. And my stomach did a monumental backflip.

‘Oh no!’ I cried. ‘He’s been in Grandad’s garden. That’s why all the vegetables have grown huge – that dragon’s been breathing on them.’

‘What?’ said Ted. ‘Why?’

And then a truly terrible thought hit me.

‘What if Liam’s been sneaking in to try and steal another dragon fruit?’

Before Ted could answer that, Kat grabbed my arm.

‘I think he’s calling it,’ Kat said. ‘Look, he keeps blowing on his hands.’

Sure enough, the next second the lime and grey dragon darted down from one of the trees. Liam pulled off his coat and, as it flew in reach, he cast it over the dragon like a net. It dropped to the ground under its weight.

I heard Kat let out a little grunt of displeasure and mutter something under her breath about some people having no respect. Liam wrapped his arms around the bundle and lifted it up. It wriggled and squirmed.

‘Come on, this is our chance,’ I said.

‘Oi! Liam!’ Ted shouted.

Personally, I’d been thinking of being a bit less obvious. You know, element of surprise and all that. But Ted’s yell had shattered that. Liam spun round, saw us creeping up on him and immediately started running. We chased after him, yelling at him to stop. But, of course, he didn’t listen.

For a minute I thought we had him. We were that close. But then he ducked through a gap in the hedge and disappeared. We scrambled after him, crawling on hands and knees through the undergrowth.

‘Oi, get your bum off my face!’ Kat snapped at Kai after a few minutes. ‘Get your face off my bum,’ he answered. ‘I can’t go any further, so just stop pushing!’

I could see Liam through the tangle of branches, somewhere on the other side. He hadn’t run off. He was just standing there.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘How did he get out of here? We’ve been crawling for ages and there’s no sign of a way through yet.’

And then I noticed the creaking. The branches around us were moving, and a sprig of leaves burst out right in my face.

‘It’s his dragon,’ Kat cried. ‘He’s using it to make the hedge grow.’

Suddenly I had visions of us all trapped inside the hedge forever, woven into the foliage. Looking around, I realised I couldn’t see where we’d crawled in.

‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ I yelled, spitting out a mouthful of leaves. Everyone started bashing at the hedge. I think we were all starting to feel a bit panicky, knotted up in there. Our arms and legs were being scratched by twigs and we were covered in little bugs and beetles that seemed to be seeking safety in our hair.

‘Fancy that – a talking hedge,’ jeered Liam. ‘Next thing you know there’ll be magic dragons all over the place.’ He snorted with laughter and ran off, yelling, ‘Smell ya later, Whiffy Liffy.’

I groaned. I knew I’d never live down that episode with the dragon poo in the changing rooms. I’d have shouted something back, only I was afraid I’d swallow one of the wayward beetles if I opened my mouth.

So there we were, trapped in a hedge, and Liam was free to saunter away. And get himself to Grandad’s garden too. After all, what had he said about magic dragons all over the place? It was beginning to look like he really did have plans to get himself another dragon fruit.

I glimpsed Flicker through the prickly leaves. I called out to him and he darted down towards us. Motioning for the others to stay low, I gave him a nod and he unleashed a fiery breath at the hedge. Sunny and Dodger soon joined in and between them they burned a gap wide enough for us to crawl through. Looking back at the sizzling leaves I was afraid the whole hedge would go up like an inferno. But luckily Crystal froze the burning branches and stopped the fire in its tracks.

We stood there, nursing our scratches and picking the wildlife out of our hair and clothes.

Then we raced over to Nana and Grandad’s house. But there was no sign of Liam.

While I hung on to help Grandad pick Nana a barrow-load of vegetables, the others trooped off home. I looked over the fence at Grim’s enormous turnip and imagined Liam sneaking his way across to the dragon-fruit tree. I couldn’t believe he’d be stupid enough to try to hatch another dragon when he had his hands so completely full with his one. But then that was Liam for you.

There was something even more worrying to think about too. And that something was the dragon-fruit tree. Because it was looking worse than ever. It was pretty clear to us now that it was Liam’s dragon breathing on everything that was making Grim’s vegetables so enormous. But Grim no doubt thought it was all the chemicals he was using. With such good results he must have been chucking more and more onto his garden. Filling the soil with chemicals that were slowly but steadily killing the poor dragon-fruit tree.