The Fire Within (The Last Dragon Chro) (6 page)

T
O
C
ATCH A
S
QUIRREL

 

A
s she hurried downstairs to catch up with David, Lucy asked, “Do you think it was Conker who lived in our roof?”

David put the hutch on the kitchen table and swung it around so the cage front was facing him. “If he did, he doesn’t now. I’m worried that Conker can’t climb very well. If he runs in circles when he’s on the ground, imagine what it’s like for him trying to climb a tree.”

Lucy closed one eye and squinted at the ceiling. “But where does he go when he wants to sleep? Squirrels live up trees.”

David unclipped the cage front and pulled it away. Apart from a few old strands of straw, the box was clean and dry inside. “I’d guess he’s got a hiding place,
low to the ground. And the sooner we find it, the better.” He popped the cage front back, then raised the sliding plywood panel that formed the only door of the hutch. He let the panel go. It rattled shut. “Excellent. Did you bring that piece of clay I asked for?”

Lucy plopped a chunk on the table.

David rolled a small piece into a ball. From his pocket he produced a length of string and pressed one end firmly into the ball. He slid the door panel up and used the clay to wedge it open, then he handed Lucy the free end of string. “Pull.”

She gave it a tug. The clay came away and the door slid shut.

“Hey, presto,” said David, looking pleased. “Not quite as high-tech as Mr. Bacon’s, but it just might do the trick.”

Lucy still looked a little confused. “But who’ll pull the string when the box is in the garden? I have to be in bed by eight o’clock.”

“Conker will,” said David. “All we have to do is tie your end of the string to a treat and when he picks it
up and gives it a tug … click. With any luck, we’ll have him.”

Just then, Bonnington popped in through his cat door. He leapt onto a chair, twitched an inquisitive nose at the hutch, and rubbed his cheek along the mesh.

“Hmm,” went David, frowning a little. “That’s something I hadn’t considered: how to keep nosy-paws out?” He mentally measured the entrance to the hutch. The opening wasn’t overly big, but any self-respecting cat could easily wriggle in.

“I know!” Lucy said suddenly. She dived into the undersink cabinet and returned with a plastic squeeze bottle. “We can stop him with this.”

“CatOff?”

Lucy unscrewed the cap and squirted some orange-colored gel into her palm. She pushed it under Bonnington’s nose. Bonnington reeled back as if he’d been punched. With a hiss of indignation he jumped off the chair and dipped out through his cat door again.

“It smells like oranges,” Lucy explained. “He hates oranges. Mom puts this near the roses so Bonnington won’t poop there.”

David took the bottle and read the instructions. “Yeah, but if it works for Bonnington it might work for Conker. The last thing we want is
SquirrelOff
on the box. No, we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that Bonnington doesn’t go near it
and
that Conker comes our way — which he will, when he sees what I’ve got for him. Go and look in my coat pockets — and don’t spill anything.”

Lucy hurried away. She returned carrying a brown paper bag. “Acorns!” she gasped. “Where did you get them?”

“Never mind,” said David. “I feel weird enough about stealing them as it is. Come on, it’s time to lay the trail.”

After a brief debate, they decided to set the trap behind the rock garden. David scrabbled over the crumbling stones and carefully placed the box out of sight. Then
he took a handful of acorns and sowed them at intervals across the patch of ground between the rock garden and the brambles at the end of the garden. He saved most of the acorns for the box itself, tilting it slightly so the nuts rolled into the deepest corner. Finally, he took an unshelled peanut off the bird feeder and tied the string very tightly around it. “That’s his ‘treat,’ “ he told Lucy, leaving the bait just inside the hutch. He lifted the sliding door of the trap and wedged it open with the ball of clay. “That’s it, we’re ready.”

Lucy, perched like a pixie in front of the rock garden, could hardly speak. “What now?”

“Now it’s up to Conker,” said David, wiping his hands on the front of his sweatshirt. He flicked an acorn cup into the stones. “All we can do is wait.”

G
OTCHA!

 

L
ucy, being Lucy,
couldn’t
wait. She checked the trap at least half a dozen times before her mom came home that afternoon. On each occasion, nothing had changed. Every nut was exactly as David had left it. The only visitor to the trap was a tiny spider, who, according to Lucy, didn’t look strong enough to pull a cat hair, never mind a piece of string.

“You have to be patient,” David told her, as the day wore on and darkness fell. “It’s a trap, remember. He might be suspicious.”

Lucy stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets. She peered sadly through the kitchen window, her worry reflected in the rain-spattered glass.

Liz came in then, cuddling Bonnington. “Come on, Lucy. Time for bed.”

Lucy turned and walked out of the kitchen in silence.

“Oh dear,” said Liz, putting Bonnington down. “I take it you had no luck with Conker?”

David gave a doleful shrug.

Liz tiptoed to the door and pushed it shut. “Never mind. She’ll cheer up when she sees what I bought her this afternoon.” She opened a cabinet and took an old cake pan off the top shelf. Inside was a small brown box. She handed it to David. “It’s her birthday next week. Take a look.”

“Birthday?”

“Sssh,” Liz said nervously. “She’s got ears like an elephant.”

David flipped the box open. “Nice,” he smiled, sliding a camera out of the wrapping.

Liz put a finger against her lips. “Do you think it’s all right for an eleven-year-old? You know a little about cameras, don’t you?”

“Hmm,” went David, panning around the room. “This’ll be fine. All she has to do is point and —”

Snap!

“Oh, David. Don’t waste the film,” Liz chided. The camera lens was pointing straight at her.

“Never touched it. Honest.” He waggled a finger above the shutter.

Liz frowned and turned to the window. “Must have been something in the garden, then. I definitely heard a snapping sound.”

David swung to his feet. “A snap? Not a clank?”

“A snap,” said Liz. “Why, what’s the matter?”

David backed away down the hall. “Don’t say
a word
to Lucy. I think it’s Mr. Bacon’s trap.”

He ran next door and rang the bell.

As usual, Henry looked irked to see him. “What now, boy? I’m watching the news.”

“Your trap, Mr. Bacon. I think it worked!”

Henry nearly leapt out of his slippers. “Back gate,” he hissed and closed the door. David hurried down the
side of the house. Mr. Bacon unbolted the gate. David followed him into the garden. As they passed the kitchen Mr. Bacon reached in and threw a switch. A string of ornamental lamps came on, lighting up the lawn like an airport runway. At the end of the runway was the dreaded trap.

Its door was closed.

“Gotcha!” Henry hooted, doing a jig. He dropped to his knees, took a flashlight from his pocket and shone it fervently through the mesh.

David’s heart skipped a very large beat. He was wondering what sort of jail term he’d get if he knocked Henry out, stole the trap, and made off with Conker, when suddenly Mr. Bacon slapped a hand on the grass.

“Drat. False alarm. Caught a hog instead.”

David knelt down and took a quick look. To his relief, a young hedgehog was shuffling around in the box, nibbling away at the lump of cheese.

“Where’d that thing come from?” Henry grumbled.

“Probably lives here,” said David. “It is allowed.”

“Do you want it?” Henry snapped.

David gave him a withering look. “What am
I
going to do with a baby hedgehog? Come on, Henry, let it go.”

Muttering about his lame knee, Mr. Bacon lifted the trap and carried it to the end of the garden. There, under David’s watchful eye, he let the hedgehog roll to freedom.

“Have to place the trap higher,” he mumbled, looking around for a suitable spot as they filed back onto the lawn again.

“Hmm,” went David, miles away. But as the gist of Henry’s statement sank in, he quickly saw a chance to do Conker a favor. “Yes! That’s a GREAT idea!”

Henry bumped to a halt.

“Be a terrible nuisance if you had to keep resetting the trap, wouldn’t it? If you raised it off the ground, hedgehogs and … other things couldn’t get in. Rats could, though, because they like to climb.”

Henry tapped a foot. “Could put it above the flower pots, perhaps?” Near the kitchen window was a rack.
On the lowest shelf of three was a row of flower pots. The middle shelf was empty. It had to be a meter off the ground at least.

“Could dangle a rope bridge,” Henry mused, “so Ratty can scramble up and think he’s smart.”

Fine, thought David. Put an exercise wheel in the corner if you like.
Just get it off the ground so Conker can’t reach it.

“Do it tomorrow,” Mr. Bacon sniffed, dumping the trap on a pile of old junk near his garden shed.

“Great. I’ll go, then,” David said, backpedaling triumphantly toward the gate. He clenched a fist and turned away — just as something went
clank
behind him. He paused and looked back at the pile of junk. An old metal watering can had slipped sideways across a bag of compost, knocking its spout against a stack of roof tiles.

David shrugged and reached for the gate latch. But as he lifted it, Gadzooks popped into his mind. The image of the dragon was so clear and so sudden that David dropped the latch as if it were aflame. The
special dragon huffed what looked like a smoke ring. It seemed to contain a fragment of speech: …
hiding place, low to the ground …
David’s stomach tightened. He turned and peered at the pile of junk.

“Lost your bearings?” Henry barked. He nodded at the gate.

“Just going,” David muttered, deep in thought. He glanced again at the watering can. It was probably nothing. Wishful thinking. Hopeful imaginings.

Dragon dreaming.

He shut the gate behind himself and walked back home.

In the living room, Liz was watering plants. “So, any news?”

David kicked off his shoes and flopped out on the sofa. “Henry caught a hedgehog.”

“I hope he let it go.”

“ ’Course. I made him.”

“Hmm,” Liz grunted, looping her hair. She picked a dead leaf off a Christmas cactus. “So it works, the rodent remover?”

David squeezed a cushion against his stomach. “Yes, but Conker’s safe — for now. I tricked Henry into raising the trap off the ground. But if he changes his mind and puts it back …”

Liz topped up the yucca plant’s saucer and dabbed at a spill with a piece of tissue. “Talk to Gadzooks if you’re worried,” she said. “Special dragons can help at times like this.”

David rolled his eyes to the ceiling. Sometimes he had to wonder about Liz. She always seemed like such a practical person and yet… “Why do you talk about the dragons as if they were real?”

“They are real,” she said in a throwaway voice. “To me and Lucy, anyway.”

David let his shoulders sag. “I think I’d be better off chatting with Bonnington.”

“Oh, no,” said Liz with a serious frown. “He’s as dumb as a halibut is wide. Gadzooks can reach you on … a deeper level.”

David threw her a quizzical look.

“You said yourself, he suggested Snigger’s name. You asked him a question and he spoke to you, didn’t he?”

“That was different,” David muttered, looking away. Even so, he thought about the flash of Gadzooks in Henry’s garden. Had the dragon been trying to speak to him then? No, it was ridiculous. How could a pottery dragon have any idea where Conker might be hiding? “Anyway,” he said, “while we’re on the subject of peculiar things: I keep hearing a noise, in bed, at night.”

“Noise?” said Liz, tending the leaves of a spider plant.

David pointed upward. “From the Dragons’ Den. It sounds like a purr, but it’s not — it’s a
hurr.
”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Liz, touching the snout of the dragon by the yucca plant, “that’s just … the central heating. Feet off the sofa, please.” She whacked his ankles and swept out of the room.

David swung his feet to the floor. For a moment or
two he sat in silence, twiddling his thumbs, staring into space. Then a strange thought crept into his mind. He glanced at the dragon by the yucca plant, then at all the walls of the living room in turn. “Liz,” he called out, “there aren’t any radiators!”

You don’t
have
any central heating, he thought.

S
IGHTING

 

H
e decided it was one of Liz’s jokes. There was a gas fire on the chimney wall. As yet, he had never seen it working. What he was expected to believe, no doubt, was that fire-breathing dragons kept the house nice and toasty and were a cheaper alternative to electricity or gas.

Yes, Liz. Very funny. Ha, ha.

Dragons. The spiky little whatsits were popping up everywhere. David often saw Lucy carrying them around. She would leave one on the mantelpiece, or take one off the mantelpiece, or move them bafflingly around the living room. In the last few days, when the weather forecasts had hinted at frost, a couple had even appeared in the picture window near the top of
the stairs. To anyone outside the Pennykettle household it would have seemed … eccentric, to put it mildly. David had simply learned to live with it.

Still, whichever way the house was heated, the tenant was glad for the warmth the next day. It was Sunday and the heavens had opened. It rained so heavily that even Lucy was forced to admit that sensible squirrels would not venture out in such a downpour, much less investigate traps. She spent most of that day in the company of her mom, working on a drawing project for school. David, glad for the isolation, typed away at an essay for college. It was the quietest day he’d known since his arrival.

On Monday, however, everything changed. David woke to a blaze of sunlight streaming in through a chink in his curtains. He squinted at the clock. Quarter to eight. Pushing Bonnington onto the floor, he wandered, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen. Right away he caught sight of Lucy clambering into the back of the rock garden. He put an ear out for Liz but couldn’t hear her anywhere. He knocked quietly
but urgently on the kitchen window. Lucy turned so fast she lost her footing, causing a mini-avalanche of stones. She scowled at the tenant and formed the word, “What?” David beckoned her in.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking the trap.”

“I know
that.
Don’t you think your mom’ll be a tad suspicious if she sees you playing Queen of the Castle?”

“She’s in the shower,” said Lucy, looking David up and down. “Is that what you wear to bed?”

The tenant was dressed in fluffy blue socks, brown pajama bottoms, and a T-shirt with a picture of a large yellow duck. “What’s wrong with it?” he said.

The doorbell rang before Lucy could tell him. “I’ll go,” she said, swinging down the hall. “We don’t want to
scare
people away.”

“Charming,” David muttered, and rattled some cornflakes into a dish.

He was reaching for the milk when the front door opened and he heard Lucy say, “Oh, it’s you.”

“Haven’t got long,” Mr. Bacon boomed. “Step aside, child. Where’s the boy?”

David closed the fridge and went to investigate. “What’s up, Henry? I’m having my breakfast.”

Mr. Bacon held up a tuft of gray fur.

Lucy gasped and stumbled back against the stairs.

David felt his stomach sink into his socks. “W-where did you find that?”

“Snagged on a corner of my window box,” said Henry. “Think you need a good pair of goggles, boy. That rat you saw belongs up a tree.”

“You leave him alone!” Lucy cried, stomping forward.

David intercepted fast. “Calm down,” he hissed, pulling her aside. “He didn’t say he
caught
anything, did he?”

Lucy’s eyebrows knotted together. David turned to Mr. Bacon again. Choosing his words very carefully he asked, “Are you saying you’ve seen a
squirrel?”

“Couldn’t miss it,” Henry rapped. “Sitting on my windowsill, clear as a nut. Practically knocking on the
glass, it was. Nearly spilled my coffee down my pants with the shock.”

“You should have!” snapped Lucy.

David turned on her again. “Lucy, will you let
me
deal with this?”

Lucy folded her arms and huffed.

David floated a hand about chest height. “So, it was … well off the ground, you mean?”

Mr. Bacon’s mustache wiggled with impatience. “Should I draw you a diagram, boy?”

“I’m not sure,” said David, scratching his head.
How could Conker get onto a windowsill?
“This squirrel, how many eyes did it have?”

“Is this a joke?!” barked Henry. “Two, you fool.”

“Two?” gasped Lucy.

Mr. Bacon leaned down to her height. “One on either side of its ratty little nose.”

That was one gibe too many for Lucy. With a rush of vehemence she kicked the door hard, slamming it shut in Henry’s face.

David emitted a horrified squeak. “Lucy! What are
you doing?” He yanked the door open. Mr. Bacon was holding a hankie to his nose. “Sorry, Mr. Bacon. Wind blew it shut. Back door. Just a draft. Happens all the time.” He gave a jovial smile and stepped onto the porch, guiding Henry down the path. “So, it was a squirrel all along? Well, well. Easy mistake to make at a distance. Still, now that we know there isn’t a rat, you won’t need to bother with the trap — will you?”

Mr. Bacon stood to one side. “Squirrels are the scourge of the garden, boy. Sooner we snare the beast, the better.” And with that he turned crisply on his heels, marched across the drive, and got into his car.

David said a swear word under his breath. He turned back to the house. Lucy was tapping her foot against the step. “Let
me
deal with this,” she toadied, and slammed the door on David as well.

Sputtering furiously, he flipped the mail slot open. “Lucy, let me in. It’s freezing out here.”

“Don’t care. I wish you never came.”

“Right now, so do I. Open up, we’ve got to talk. That wasn’t Conker on the windowsill.”

“Yes, it was.”

“No, it wasn’t. A one-eyed squirrel couldn’t jump up there. There must be another squirrel in the garden.”

“It was Conker!”

David banged the mail slot shut. He opened it again with a fresh argument. “All right, if it
was
Conker, that means his injury must have healed. Now, let me in — or I’ll ring the bell until your mom comes down.”

“Don’t bother, she’s already here,” said a voice.

The door swung open. Liz was holding Lucy by the shoulders like a hostage. She looked as if she were about to explode. “What’s going on?”

David ran in, rubbing his arms. “Henry saw a squirrel.”

“It was Conker,” cried Lucy. “And Mr. Bacon’s going to try
extra
hard to catch him! And it’s all
his
fault!” She stabbed a toe at David’s shins.

“OK, I’ve had enough of this,” said Liz, pushing Lucy toward the stairs. “Bedroom, until it’s time for school. As for you …,” she said and turned on David, “… is that really what you wear to bed?”

David snorted in annoyance and retreated to his room.

“That’s it,” he said to Bonnington, lobbing the cat off the bed. “That trap has got to go. If she’s this bad when Henry doesn’t catch a squirrel, what’s she going to be like if he does?!”

M-yew,
went Bonnington, arching his back. He shook himself and padded across the room to the chair where David dumped his clothes overnight. A sweater had fallen on the floor. Bonnington took a few sniffs of the wool, pawed it, and pushed his nose under the hem.

“Gotta think of a way to get rid of it,” said David. “Something permanent, that even Liz will approve of.”

A muffled meow broke into his thoughts.

Bonnington had snuggled inside the sweater. The fabric bulged like soup on simmer as the cat decided to fight it for fun.

David groaned and scooped the bundle up into his arms. Bonnington’s head popped out of the neck. “What are you doing?” David asked him.

Meow?
went Bonnington.

“That’s my favorite sweater, cat. You’re going to pull the threads if you get yourself st —”

David sat back and blinked.

Meow?
went Bonnington again.

A sly smile crept across the tenant’s face. “Yes-ss, you’ll help me save Conker, won’t you?”

A-row?
went Bonnington as if he could look into the tenant’s mind and didn’t quite like the picture he was seeing.

“Trust me,” David whispered. “Won’t hurt a bit. By dinnertime tonight, you are going to be a real hero….”