The Dragon Kepeer and Other Stories

her bag as she made for door. She headed for the university grounds with the intention of writing letters to her friends and feeding the ducks. By this time, Ellen decided she must have imagined the dragonkeeper. But as she started on her lunch, there was a rustle in the trees above her. Much to her astonishment, the strange pointed shoes dangled down, to be rapidly followed by a lanky pair of legs in green tights. With a crash the Dragonkeeper landed beside her on the grass. With a grin he reached over, plucked the apple from her unresisting fingers, and took a bite.

  ‘Greetings, fair lady.’ His eyes twinkled at her as he settled down with crossed legs to finish the apple.

  ‘Um, greetings to you,’ said Ellen, then with more courage, ‘my name is Ellen. What’s yours?’

  ‘Jake,’ he replied through a mouthful of apple. ‘This is good. Just what a man needs after a hard morning tending a dragon.’

  Ellen felt slightly lightheaded. This conversation was getting unreal again. She had to concentrate and figure out who this young man was, and if he was real. He certainly looked real enough as he sat beside her finishing the apple.

  ‘Is dragon tending dangerous?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Is it ever!’ came the reply. ‘Look at this.’ A brown arm was thrust in front of her showing a ragged sleeve marred by a large scorch mark.

  ‘What happened?’ breathed Ellen.

  ‘The bast, er, jolly brute burned me. Would have burnt me to a crisp if I hadn’t been quick. Base ingratitude too, after all I’ve done for it.’

  Ellen was stunned. It was real, it had to be. Somewhere there actually was a dragon and it was obviously capable of actual fire breathing.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she murmured inadequately. ‘Jake, what do you call your dragon?’

  ‘A lot of very rude names,’ came the reply. ‘Officially, of course, it has an enormous pedigree with a lot of fancy names, most of them including X’s and Z’s in places, very difficult to pronounce. Most people refer to him as Thing.’

  Ellen was amazed. This was something her daydreams could never have conceived. She was talking with a real live Dragonkeeper. After all, figments of the imagination didn’t eat your lunch apple then throw the core into the river. What’s more, if she played her cards right, she might get to see a real live dragon in whatever world it was that Jake came from.

  ‘Would I be able to meet the dragon?’ she asked, her big brown eyes fixed anxiously on Jake as he considered her request.

  ‘No show,’ said Jake cheerfully. ‘You know the old fairy tales? Well they might be wrong on some points about dragons, but they get one thing right. Dragons love young ladies. Preferably lightly toasted with a little parsley, but they’re not fussy. They’ll go without the parsley if necessary.’

  Ellen was taken aback. There was such assurance in the way Jake talked that she had to believe him. Gone were her dreams of drifting across a midnight sky on a dragon’s back. She wondered why the writer of the ‘DragonRyder’ books had not considered this fact. But even as she thought this she realized that even without the dragon, spending her holidays with a Dragonkeeper had to be an improvement on moping around with no friends.

  ‘What are your hobbies? I mean, what are you interested in apart from dragons, Jake?’ she asked at last. Jake smiled.

  ‘Well I’d hardly call dragons an interest, more of an occupational hazard,’ he replied, ‘but as for hobbies, well, I like fishing and flying kites.’

  ‘Kites,’ Ellen repeated stupidly.

  ‘Yes, kites,’ said Jake enthusiastically. ‘I made a really neat one a few months ago, and if the wind’s right I can get it to do all sorts of fancy loops and swirls in the air. Tell you what, how about the next windy day I meet you on top of the hill over there, and we’ll try some kite flying? I have to go now, time to feed the Thing.’ With a cheeky grin he leapt to his feet and ran off between the tees. Ellen jumped up but before she had gone more than a couple of paces she realized that he was out of sight.

  ‘Oh well,’ she sighed to herself. Life was certainly picking up, even though it was unpredictable.

  Ellen spent the rest of the day exploring the university grounds. There were still a lot of people around, even though it was holiday time. There were a few holiday courses for teachers, and the aerobics and karate clubs seemed to have quite a good following. She would have liked to see the new performing arts centre and explored the drama department, but it was out of bounds to the public because of extensive building work going on. The theatre itself was being used for rehearsals for a play of some sort.

  Ellen had a rather curious conversation with a Malaysian exchange student, where she wasn’t quite sure that either of them knew what the other was talking about. As she made her way home she still wasn’t sure whether he had been giving her a recipe or wanted to know the directions to a garage. ‘Most strange,’ she reflected, feeling that her day had been like that of Alice in Wonderland and deciding she wouldn’t be surprised if the Cheshire cat appeared before her.

  The rest of the day was depressingly normal. She arrived home to a family tea with the usual squabbles about whose turn it was to wash the dishes, and why she shouldn’t have to do it more often just because she was the oldest and a girl.

  The next day Ellen was full of joyful anticipation as she came to breakfast. There was a stiff wind blowing so perhaps her new friend would be on the hill with his kite. Her hopes were soon dashed when her father announced he was taking the day off and they would all be going to the beach. Any other time Ellen would have been delighted to spend a day at the beach, gathering shells, helping her brothers to build sandcastles, (even though she knew she was far too old for it, really) and checking out the lifeguards with their bronzed bodies. Despite her protests, they set off in the car. Ellen had to sit between the two boys to stop them fighting and she held a huge pile of towels, hats and sunscreen.

  ‘What a waste,’ she thought despairingly as she waded through the shallows, kicking up the water as she went. What if Jake came and she wasn’t there? Would he think she wasn’t interested and not come back again? What if she never saw him again?

  ‘I have to see him again,’ she muttered. ‘I’m determined to get a peek at his dragon.’

  On the journey home, her father made a bad day worse by announcing he had been talking to another lecturer whose son was a student at the local high school.

  ‘I told him you were missing all your friends, and he said he’d tell his son to look out for you and show you round. His name is Cedric and I’m sure you’ll like him, Ellen. His father is a decent sort.’

  Ellen was speechless. This was pre-historic. What was her father trying to do? Match her up with some weedy, booky little nerd, to take her by the hand and completely ruin any chance she had of meeting normal people.

  ‘What a lovely idea,’ her mother agreed. ‘So nice for Ellen to have a new friend.’

  ‘But,’ Ellen spluttered, ‘I can make friends all by myself.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t shown much sign of it yet, dear,’ said her mother. ‘After all, you can’t spend all your time wandering around the university and reading books. I’m sure that this Cedric will be such a nice boy, if he’s anything like his parents. We met Barbara and Ron Jacobson when we came up here for your father’s interview, and they were very friendly.’

  Wayne and Brady immediately started sniggering at the thought of Ellen with a boy. At this point Ellen hit them both and the resulting fight occupied the entire family all the way home.

  ‘Cedric,’ Ellen groaned to herself. What a terrible name. He just had to be appalling with a name like that. What could she do to avoid this human pimple blighting her life?

  To make matters worse there was no wind at all for the next two days. Even though Ellen slipped out of the house to her favourite spot under the trees at every opportunity, her new friend Jake didn’t appear. She had almost given up hope of ever seeing him again when one windy day she spotted a kite in the sky, looping and swirling. It was made like
an enormous colourful bird, with streaming tail and brightly coloured wings. Joyfully Ellen ran to the clearing at the top of the hill and there was Jake, still in the ragged tunic and tights, pulling the string to control the soaring bird.

  ‘Isn’t she grand?’ he called. His laughter was infectious and Ellen’s smile widened as she ran over to him. The next hour passed swiftly as he showed Ellen how to pull the string to manouvre the kite. There was a substantial gathering of interested onlookers, mostly small boys, before Jake regretfully brought the kite to land.

  With a murmur of, ‘Got to go, see you again soon,’ he waved to Ellen then ran off down the hill. As she tried to follow him, the Malaysian student came up to her and started a tangled conversation in which kites and combustion engines appeared to be the main features. Ellen tried to push past him but he frustrated all her attempts to follow Jake until it was too late for her to see where he had gone.

  The next day saw Ellen back by the river reading her ‘DragonRyder’ books, and the following day as well, but no Jake. Then just as she decided it must be her fate never to see him again, and she’d have to agree to meet the dreaded Cedric, there he was grinning at her and holding out a sticky bun.

  ‘Here. Have this. I ate your apple, so fair’s fair,’ he said, plonking himself down beside her. He picked up the ‘DragonRyder’