Chapter Six

Everyone pointed and marvelled at the dragon that swooped, soared and spiralled in the carnival atmosphere.

‘It looks so real!’ they shouted.

‘It’s amazingly lifelike!’ called others.

‘There’s no way Harri could build that on his own,’ muttered one person in the crowd.

Ryan’s dad pushed and squeezed through the throng of people that lined St Gertrude’s High Street. He narrowed his eyes, and watched the dragon, analysing every tiny movement that it made.

It was uncanny. Not only did the dragon look incredibly real but Harri was controlling it like a pro. It took real skill to fly a radio-controlled model like that.

Over the din of singing Britons and the brass bands that following behind in the parade, Ryan’s dad heard Harri shout an order.

‘Down!’ Harri pointed his aerial at the box that Ryan was carrying. The dragon descended elegantly and landed inside.

What followed next happened so quickly, you might not have noticed, but Ryan’s dad did. Looking the other way, trying not to draw attention to himself, Harri peeled open the top of his remote control unit, like it was a plastic sandwich box and took out a wriggly, stringy worm!

Something poked out of the flamed-painted box … a mouth?

The something took the worm between its teeth, tossed it into the air, caught it and snapped its teeth shut.

Ryan’s dad stood frozen to the spot, his mouth hanging open, gawping like a fish.

‘It’s real!’ he whispered to himself.

The light on Harri’s radio-control box flickered and switched off. Harri hadn’t noticed. He pointed the aerial towards the sky and called, ‘Up!’

The dragon flapped its wings and rose into the air again. The crowd cheered and jostled, but Ryan’s dad was lost, deep in thought, unaware of the noise around him.

‘It’s real!’ he whispered again. ‘It’s blooming well real!’

‘It certainly looks like it,’ said the man next to him, who was carrying a small child on his shoulders.

Ryan’s dad shook his head. The noise rushed in, filling his ears again as he came back to reality.

He noticed an old lady on the other side of the street. An old lady dressed up in a pointy hat and a green cloak. She was watching him.

Their eyes met and locked together.

No one else noticed the old lady in the pointy hat and the green cloak. She had a way of making herself invisible. Not invisible so that you could see right through her, just invisible so that you didn’t pay her any attention. It was even easier for her with everyone else being dressed up.

She was keeping an eye on Harri and Tân, making sure that Tân didn’t give himself away.

She felt responsible for the pair of them. Sometimes, she wished she had never made Tân. She’d so needed someone to believe in her magic powers and Harri was so willing to help her. Tân was just a small present she’d given him on the spur of the moment. She hadn’t really thought of the consequences of a young boy owning a dragon in the modern world.

But then her life had changed so much because of her gift. It was wonderful to have Harri and his mum in her life, to feel wanted and needed again.

Harri and Tân were inseparable. After Harri had caught dragon fever, a special bond had been created between the pair.

The crowd was caught up in the celebrations. No one was expecting a real dragon so nobody saw one, just a fabulous radio-controlled model. So she didn’t need to worry too much.

‘It’s amazing what they can do with technology these days, isn’t it?’ The lady behind her said to her partner.

But then Imelda sensed that someone was watching Harri. A man that didn’t fit in the crowd. He hadn’t come for a fun day out.

She saw it all. She saw Harri slip a worm to Tân who snapped it up in that playful way of his.

Then she felt the man’s eyes on her and she could see that he knew. She could tell that the knowledge would eat away at him, that he would have to find out more about Tân, that he wouldn’t let go until he did. She knew that she would see him again … very soon.

It was time to disappear — to really disappear, the full invisibility kind of disappear. She pulled her cloak around her and … she just melted away. The crowd flowed in to take up the space where she’d been standing.

‘What the…?’ Ryan’s dad shook his head and nearly swore.

The man next to him frowned.

Confused, perplexed, but excited that he knew something special that no one else knew, Ryan’s dad pushed his way out of the crowd and walked home briskly, thinking, planning.

‘That blooming dragon is real!’ he told himself for the umpteenth time, as he put the key in the front door.