Over the next few days, any time we weren’t at school or sleeping, we met at the Dragons’ Den.
‘We’re going to need our own recipe book at this rate,’ Kai said, when I crawled through the gap to find the others one afternoon. He was sitting surrounded by all sorts of packets of biscuits and marshmallows, ranging from the tiny ones you stick in your hot chocolate to giant fist-sized ones. Plus a mixture of sweets – and sweet wrappers, thanks to Ted and Kat happily chewing their way through handfuls of them. ‘We can call it S’mores Galore!’ he added.
It was true that we’d come up with some pretty awesome customised s’mores. My personal favourite was a ginger biscuit and chocolate wafer combo with jellybeans sandwiched into the centre of the marshmallow.
‘Anyone for another slushy to wash it down?’ Kat asked, waving a beaker at me.
‘Thanks,’ I said, taking an enormous slurp. ‘Hide and seek?’ I asked, turning to the others.
They groaned. ‘You mean so you can beat us again and smash your record to find us all in under ten seconds?’ Ted asked.
I grinned. It was true that currently the score was twenty-six finds to me, zero to anyone else. Flicker might not have the skills of the other dragons when it came to freezing, toasting and camouflage, but he was the best seeker ever. With him on my side I couldn’t lose. Every time his diamond eyes spotted one of the others, he hovered next to their hiding place and flickered like a beacon, leading me right to them.
Just as Ted shoved another s’more into his mouth, Kat grabbed my arm and put her finger to her lips. We all sat as still and silent as we could, Ted doing a brilliant impression of Horatio the Hamster, Mr Firth’s class pet – an animal who believed there was no limit to what he could cram into his cheeks.
Kat edged closer to the gap in the hedge, peered through and then quickly pulled across the branches we used to cover the entrance.
‘It’s Liam,’ she hissed. ‘He’s coming this way.’
I looked around at the dragons perched on the branches above us and kicked myself for not being more careful. What if he’d seen us disappearing into the hedge and was out to discover our den? What if he’d seen the dragons?
None of us dared breathe. In fact, I was starting to wonder if Ted actually could breathe with his mouth so full. His eyes were beginning to bulge. I could hear Liam’s footsteps getting closer and it sounded as if he was muttering to himself. He was only metres away now. Branches started shaking. He was kicking the hedge or bashing it with a stick. I had images of a sharp spear jabbing into our den and poking us till we squealed. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could hear my heart, thumping away like a drum signalling our position.
Flicker flitted down and settled on my shoulder. His tail batted to and fro and I could feel the heat from his little body. He was getting hotter and hotter. Either he was as agitated as I was or he was about to unleash a fiery sneeze.
But then suddenly, instead of edging closer to where we were all crouched and carrying on his investigation, Liam yelped like he’d been stung and we heard his footsteps crashing away in the other direction. I let out my breath in a relieved whimper and sank back onto the ground. Flicker nibbled my ear and wrapped his tail around my neck, as his scales, which had flared orange, returned to their familiar red.
‘Ha! Serves him right,’ Kat said. ‘Bet those nasty stinging nettles zapped him.’
Ted’s cheeks deflated as a barrage of s’more splattered out of his mouth. ‘That was too close,’ he wheezed.
I nodded. If Liam ‘King of Trouble’ ever found out about the dragons – well, I didn’t want to think about what might happen.
‘You know, maybe we shouldn’t take the dragons into school tomorrow?’ I said.
It was something we’d been talking about for the past couple of days. Flicker had always been quite happy to curl up in my room and wait for me to come home. I missed him of course, and there was always a certain amount of damage to clear up, but with Liam’s beady eyes locked on me it had felt like the safest option. The others wanted to keep their dragons with them all the time though. And I didn’t like the idea of being the only one of us without my dragon. But seeing Liam again made me wonder if we should risk it.
‘I think we’re better off keeping them with us,’ Ted said.
‘Yeah, come on, Tomas, they’ll be fine,’ Kai said. ‘I’m not letting Liam spoil things. What could go wrong?’
As it turned out – quite a lot.