The Dragon's Egg

finishing up their work, they all heard a strange noise like the flapping of big leathery wings, and a strange whistling noise. Tara's father ran out of the house and looked up. He found all the Fairy Folk looking up as well.

  Suddenly a large shadow swooped down on them, and soon they saw wings, and short legs with long claws, and a long tail. The shadow tucked in its wings as it reached the edge of the garden, and sat there looking at them. Now they could all see it was a big, scaly green Dragon.

  The big scaly Dragon looked at Tara's father, and then at the gazebo. 'Is this where I can find the two Gazing Ball Dragons?'

  The Fairy Folk parted to let Tannihil and Ray Ann step forward.

  The new Dragon looked them over doubtfully. 'Hmmmm. Neither of you seem very big, and you are both rather odd colours.' He held up his claw as Tannihil looked a little irritated and began to breathe out fire and smoke. 'I'm not disapproving, mind you - there's nothing wrong with a Paisley Dragon and a Tartan Dragon. It's an interesting combination, takes away the monotony of all this green.' He looked down at his own scales. 'What are your names, Dragons?'

  Tannihil straightened up proudly. 'I be Tannihil McGregor. This wee lassie be Ray Ann.'

  The new arrival held out his claw. 'I am Rudi, messenger of Finn Breatha. He sent me to fetch you to Tir Nan Og.'

  Ray Ann looked back at the gazebo and began to weep steamy tears. 'We can't leave our egg.'

  Tannihil looked fierce. 'Who is Finn Breatha, and where is Tir Nan Og, and why do we have to go there?'

  Rudi smiled. 'Finn Breatha is the king of the Fairies. He rules over the land of Tir Nan Og, which is to the west. It is the Land of Fairies, and Fairies all belong there, even if they are like you, and made elsewhere. Finn wants to meet the two Dragons who were made from the Gazing Ball. Later, he'll send for the others in this garden, but for now, he wants you two.'

  Ray Ann wiped steam from her face. 'Oh, Mr. Rudi, sir. I can't leave my egg. It's just a little egg, and I don't want to leave it.'

  Rudi looked puzzled. 'You have an egg?'

  Ray Ann nodded.

  He smiled again, a big green Dragon smile. 'Well, that's wonderful. You can come with me, and then come back. Your egg will be just fine on its own. It will hatch out and when you get back you will have a nice baby dragon.'

  Tannihil was unconvinced, but Rudi lifted his claw to quieten him.

  'Dragon eggs take five months to hatch, Tannihil. I'll have you back long before then., and I can send another Dragon to look after it if you like.'

  Ray Ann jumped up and down with joy, because she had really been very worried.

  'Oh, Mr. Rudi, will you really do that? It take all the worry off my mind. Send back someone to help our friends with egg, and we go with you to Tir Nan Og. How long is the trip?'

  Rudi began to groom his scales. 'If we leave now, we can be there in one day. Your egg watcher will arrive the day after that, and your egg will stay warm inside it's shell until then.'

  Tannihil put his short tartan arm around Ray Ann's Paisley shoulders. 'We will go.'

  Rudi shook out his wings, getting ready to take off. 'Alright then, let's go. We need to be over the ocean before sun up, or else I may get chased by airliners again.'

  Ray Ann hugged Tara's father and Jennifer and Tara with her short little Dragon arms, and Tannihil shook claws with the humans and the other Fairy Folk. Tara hugged him so hard that his scales turned bright pink with embarrassment. Then, just when Rudi was getting anxious to leave, Ray Ann ran back in to kiss the egg one last time. She patted it on its striped shell with her claw and told it to be a good egg. Then she waddled out to the garden, joining Tannihil and Rudi as they flapped their wings and took off into the sky.

  Tara began to cry softly. 'Daddy, will they come back?'

  Tara's father smiled down at her. 'Of course they'll come back, Tara. They have to come back to their egg, and then we will be the only family in the whole wide world with two Dragons and a Dragon egg in their garden.'

  Tara considered the figures very carefully, and then shook her head. 'Daddy, I don't think they are gnomes.'

  Tara's father examined them again, and then placed them carefully back down on the ground. But he was not convinced. 'Well, sweetheart, I know they're smaller than Tanner, and they are wearing funny clothes, but I think they would make excellent helpers. Let's put the three of them in our trolley and go home. Remember what Tanner said about tonight a full moon. We won't be able to get our gazebo built in time for our friends to have a warm place if we miss tonight.'

  Tara sighed, because fathers can sometimes be very headstrong. 'Okay Daddy. Let's put them in the trolley.' She looked over the resin figures as she helped lift them. 'May I name them like I did the others, Daddy?'

  Her father placed the last of the three figures in the trolley and began to push it down the aisle towards the checkout. 'Have they already told you their names?' He remembered that Tanner, Tina and Bran had all managed to tell their names, even whilst they were still little resin statues.

  Tara nodded confidently. 'Yes, Daddy. But they have very odd names. Would you like to know what they said they are called?'

  Tara's father waited for her to speak. Tara seemed to be thinking hard, trying to get the names just right.

  Then she pointed to a little figure in a bright yellow jerkin. 'This one is Colby, Daddy.' She pointed at the second small statue, and then at the third. 'The one wearing white and blue and green is Stilton, and the one in orange is Cheddar. Aren't those odd names?'

  Her father agreed. 'They certainly are odd names, Tara. But perhaps they are quite normal names for gnomes.'

  Tara shook her head decisively. 'Oh, no Daddy. They said they are definitely not gnomes.'

  Her father looked surprised. 'Then what are they, if they are not gnomes? They're not brownies, are they?'

  Tara shook her head and pointed at the one dressed in yellow. 'Oh no Daddy. Colby said they are pixies.'

  Tara's father kept pushing his trolley. Pixies seemed pretty much the same as gnomes to him.

  Tara's fairy folk were all in their places as garden statues when they got home, because there some delivery men in the garden, delivering timber and other things for the gazebo. Tara's father paid the men, and Tara set about placing the pixies in the garden.

  She told her father she thought the pixies needed to be near Tanner and Ray Ann, because she thought the gnome and the dragon would better be able to keep them in order.

  Her father duly began to set the pixies in place. Sometimes he wondered how Tara knew so much about her fairy folk. But he also knew better than to ask questions. Tara seemed to have special way of communicating with them.

  Tara wanted Colby next to Tanner, and Stilton and Cheddar on either side of Ray Ann. The new arrivals made her garden look really very festive, with blue and green and orange around the little paisley dragon's pinks and reds and purples and blues, all gathered amongst a mass of yellow snapdragons. Colby's yellow suit and cap also complimented Tanner's green and brown very nicely, and Tara judged that the fairy folk's colours would look even better in amongst the orange Tiger Lilies, when they bloomed the following summer.

  The little fairy folk slept on until the moon came out, and Tara and her family were all fast asleep when the light of the full moon fell on her gazing ball. Rhiannon, Ray Ann and Tanner began to wake as the light fell first upon Colby, then on Stilton and Cheddar. One by one, the tiny pixies stretched and grunted, happy to get the stiffness out of their little arms.

  Colby looked around and squeaked excitedly. 'Coo, we be in a garden. And we can move. Wonder why?'

  The two other pixies gazed around in amazement. Ray Ann explained to them how Tara and her father had chosen them to help Tanner with his building work, and how the gazing ball had brought them to life.

  Colby looked about the garden, and then at his two friends, and did not look very pleased at what he heard. 'Do you mean that we got stuck in the darkest corner of a garden centre all sum
mer just so that some little girl could get her father to make us work?'

  Stilton and Cheddar squeaked in equal grumpiness, and Colby turned to Tina. 'Look, we are pixies. We dance. We play. Sometimes we get up to some kind of prank. But we don't work. Got it?'

  With that, the three pixies began to skip about the pond, admiring their reflections in the water. They danced and danced, until Stilton tripped on a frog and fell in. The water was not very deep, but Stilton still thrashed and splashed about, and screamed that he was drowning.

  Tanner muttered grumpily that the newcomers were dratted little beasties, and got ready to thump Stilton with a holly branch. Fortunately Ray Ann lifted the pixie clear out of the water just at that moment, and puffed a little flame near him to dry him off.

  Stilton was a pixie, and pixies are never grateful, so he just scowled at her as he squeezed a few remaining drops of water from his little pointy hat. Then he turned to the two other Pixies. 'Who ever heard of a paisley dragon, anyway?' With that he linked arms with Colby and Cheddar and the three pixies went off to dance on the grass, which a little damp, but not as wet as the pond.

  Tanner was not at all