Starting the Voyage Home
Amanda heard the noise before she saw anything. It was a particular noise, like the one large things try to make when they try not to make noises and fail. It was a huff with a puff and a bit of a sniff. Amanda tried not to shiver, but it wasn’t easy since she had lost her shoes. She felt Leon behind her. Truth be told, it was getting a bit uncomfortable on top of this cupboard.
Amanda held her cord steady, and waited.
Sure enough, the source of the noise appeared in the threshold. It was a large beast, larger than a horse, with willowy wings on its back. It had yellowy green scales. Or perhaps it was greeny yellow, Amanda thought: her mother always told her she had a dismal aptitude for colours. The beast also had horns, and spikes running down its spine that reached up to its tail.
Amanda had never seen one, but she was sure what it was: a dragon.
The dragon had closed its eyes, and was sniffing the air. Amanda held her cord tight, trying not to move the bone dangling at the end of it.
The dragon opened its eyes.
“O-hum, what is this?” it said. “What do we have here?”
Amanda was surprised. She didn’t know dragons could talk! Well, to be honest, until a few moments ago she was pretty sure dragons did not exist. But her education won over her surprise.
“Good morning,” she said. “My cat Leon and I are trying to catch a snark.”
“A cat?” the dragon said. To Amanda’s horror, the beast stood on its hind legs and leaned on their cupboard, threatening to topple it. It brought its muzzle up, and Leon calmly put his paw on it.
“Oh, I see. We do have cats here, though they’re not like you, Mr Leon,” the dragon said. “Not unless you know how to disappear.”
“Leon cannot do that, no,” Amanda said. “Not that I’m aware of, anyway.”
“That’s what I sniffed,” the dragon said. “Oh, but where are my manners? Aristide D. Scale, at your service,” and the dragon actually curtseyed.
“My name is Amanda,” she said. Her mother would faint at her not mentioning her family name, but Amanda preferred to err on the side of caution. She still wasn’t sure whether the dragon was a friend, and he might trace her family name and perhaps eat them all. “Are you going to eat us, Mr Scale?”
“Eat you? O-hum, good gracious, no! We dragons are vegetarian! That’s why we’re green, you see.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve read about dragons eating people,” Amanda said. “And goats and horses.”
Aristide scratched his ear with his hind leg.
“Well, there actually was cousin Colin, to be honest… But he never was in his right mind, I tell you. We dragons, eat meat? No, thanks.” And as if to reassure Amanda, it started munching some celery that she had not noticed on it before.
“O-hum, you see, Miss Amanda,” Aristide said, pointing at the dangling bone. “I don’t think that’s how you catch a snark. I’m prety sure it involves some kind of dance.”
“Oh,” Amanda said. “But we read it on a book. A book from a library.”
“The Library,” Aristide said, and Amanda was sure she had heard the capital “L”, “there’s only one here. Was it an old book?”
“Well, indeed it was,” Amanda said. “How do you know that?”
“Old books are prone to make mistakes, you see. It’s a pity, but their memories tend to fade. That’s what copiers ar for: a copier must make a copy of the book before it gets too old, or it will fill up with mistakes. I once read a book that was all gibberish, the poor soul. I told him he was fine out of pity.”
“Oh,” Amanda said. “What can we do then? The book said we needed to catch a snark in order to get back home. What’s going to happen to us now?” Amanda felt like sobbing, but she tried to be strong for Leon.
“O-hum, now, now, Miss Amanda,” the dragon said. “As my name is Aristide D. Scale, that I’ll rescue you. It’s widely known that a dragon will always rescue a damsel in distress. Well, we usually rescue them from the clutches of malevolent knights and princes, and cousin Stella has met her share of damsels who rescued themselves, come to think of it…”
Amanda looked at the dragon, who seemed lost in thought. He straightened, apparently having made his mind.
“O-hum, righty now. Not rescue, Miss Amanda, but if you accept it, I will give you… my help!”
Amanda smiled.
~~~~
There’s a change this week. This is not really my entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: June 6–12, 2016 on the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+, because since last week I am in charge of the prompts for the exercise.
It’s obviously not fair for me to keep taking part in the exercise, even though there’s really no prize, but at the same time I didn’t want to lose one of my two weekly writing prompts (the other one is Chuck Wendig’s). So I decided that I would also write one story corresponding to the prompt, but I’ll post it here directly, and once the exercise is over. At the same time, I’ll try to choose prompts that appeal not only to me.
This week I gave no special extra rules, and I chose an image I found some time ago. I went with a homage to Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland and Cat Valente’s Fairyland. I hope you like it.
