The Fire Within Read online

  And that was how Mr. Bacon found her — on guard, but off guard, so to speak.

  “Fleas?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Hhh!” cried Liz, with a hand to her chest. She groaned loudly when she saw who it was. Liz and Henry Bacon didn’t always get along. “Do you mind?” she said haughtily. “You made me jump.”

  “One of the signs,” Mr. Bacon said. He pursed his lips. His gray mustache twitched. “Tricky little pests, fleas. Jump up to forty times their own height, you know. Give your ankles some nasty bites. Red blotches everywhere. Itch terribly at night, they do.”

  Liz wriggled uncomfortably and scratched at her arms.

  “Creeping, are they?” Henry went on. “They’ll be heading for your neck. Up the sleeves and straight for the neck. Knew a man once who had one in his ear. If you want my advice, you’ll make that thing wear a collar in the future.”

  A dark cloud crossed Mrs. Pennykettle’s face. “What thing?”

  “That mangy old cat.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  David wandered out to the van at that moment. “What’s the matter?” he asked, spotting the flush on his landlady’s face.

  “Meet Mr. Bacon, our neighbor,” she said, ever so slightly grinding her teeth. David said hello. Mr. Bacon tipped his hat. “Mr. Bacon thinks Bonnington is riddled with fleas.” Liz tilted her head toward the van.

  David quickly put two and two together. “Don’t think so,” he hummed. “I haven’t seen him scratching. Mind you, he could have picked them up from that rat I just saw in next door’s garden.”

  “RAT?!” cried Mr. Bacon.

  “On which side of us do you live, Mr. Bacon?”

  Mr. Bacon didn’t answer. He was off as fast as his legs could carry him. He went so fast his hat flew off. David picked it up before Liz could flatten it.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “Did you really see a rat?”

  David put the hat on Mr. Bacon’s gatepost. “Have you ever seen a rat with a big fluffy tail?”

  Liz shook her head.

  “Me neither,” said the tenant. “What I saw was a squirrel.”

  DAVID UNPACKS

  You saw him!” cried Lucy, bursting into David’s room the moment she arrived home from school that day.

  David tottered slightly and looked over his shoulder. He was balancing on a stool, stacking books on a shelf. All around the room were half-opened boxes, packed with an assortment of dusty bits and pieces: magazines, CDs, posters, a radio, a plastic model of the space shuttle, a travel alarm clock, an expensive-looking camera, a personal computer, and a tiny mountain of books.

  “Saw who?” he asked.

  “Conker!” Lucy wriggled her backpack onto the floor and blew a loose strand of hair off her brow. She hurried to the window, raised herself on tiptoe, and peered intently into the garden. “Mom told me,” she continued, practically breathless. “You fibbed to Mr. Bacon. You said you saw a rat, but you really saw Conker.”

  David blew a cloud of dust off a book. “I saw a squirrel; I couldn’t swear it was Conker. He was pretty far off — near Mr. Bacon’s pond. Conker’s the squirrel with one eye, isn’t he?”

  Lucy leaned back, hands first, against the wall. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

  “I read minds,” said David in a spooky voice. He wiggled his outstretched fingers at her.

  Lucy wasn’t swayed. “Mom told you,” she sniffed. “That’s not fair. Conker’s my squirrel.”

  “Conker’s a wild animal,” said David. “He doesn’t belong to anyone, Lucy.” He stepped down off the stool and picked up another handful of books. “How come you have a name for him, anyway? I would have thought it’s practically impossible to tell one squirrel from another.”

  Lucy hurried across the room, pushed an old guitar into the middle of the bed, and plopped herself down. “It is, unless you look hard. I had names for five of them. Should I tell you?”

  “Well —”

  “OK. First there was Conker. I called him that because of the red tufts of fur around his feet. All the squirrels had those but his were sort of browner, like a chestnut.”

  “Very good,” said David. He picked his space shuttle out of a box and looked around for somewhere to land it.

  “Then there was Ringtail. He was easy to see: He had some whirly black fur on his tail. And Cherrylea, she was ever so pretty. I named her after a can of rice pudding.”

  “Rice pudding?”

  “I like it; we have it all the time.”

  “Great,” muttered David, who wasn’t particularly fond of it. He put his shuttle on the fireplace shelf, and for the first time noticed something was missing. “Oh, the dragon’s gone.” Lucy nodded, pulling up a sock. “Mom must have taken him back to the den.”

  “Why? I liked him.”

  Lucy turned and glanced at the open window. A warm breeze was rippling the curtains, making the wind chimes tinkle softly. “It’s probably because … I don’t know,” she said awkwardly. “How many names have I done?”

  “Conker, Ringtail, and Cherrylea,” muttered David, wondering why Lucy had looked at the window. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he shrugged and continued unpacking.

  “I forgot Shooter,” Lucy prattled on, prying the flaps on a box beside her. “He buried his acorns in Mr. Bacon’s lawn and Mr. Bacon didn’t like it, ’cause his lawn grew oak trees. What’s in here?”

  “A ferocious crocodile.”

  Lucy squealed and pulled away — then risked a peek. “It’s books,” she pouted.

  “Good job,” said David, tapping her nose, “or this might have been bitten right off.” He put some ring binders on the bed. “What was the fifth squirrel called?”

  Lucy almost leapt into the air as she said it: “Birchwood. He used to chase the others away. He had a big white tummy and his fur was sparkly, like the bark of a silver birch tree. I hope he went far away. He was always fighting.”

  David nodded, taking this in. “Maybe that’s how Conker’s eye got hurt — Birchwood, fighting?”

  Lucy thought for a moment, then shook her head. “He didn’t really fight; he just growled and spat and the others ran away. He was a bully. I didn’t like him much. Can I look at your teddy bear, please?” She pointed to a bear’s snout, just visible behind some rolled-up posters.

  David hauled a golden-haired teddy from a box.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Winston. Be careful, his left ear’s loose.”

  Lucy gave the bear a cuddle. “Does he sleep in your bed?”

  “Only if he promises not to snore. What about Bonnington? Didn’t he chase the squirrels?”

  Lucy swung her ponytail. “He used to sit on the fence and watch them sometimes, but he never pounced. He wouldn’t scratch eyes.”

  “Hmm,” went David, not entirely convinced. “How bad is Conker’s injury? Have you seen it? Up close?”

  Lucy sat forward with Winston on her knee. “He came to the bird feeder once and I sneaked up behind him to feed him some peanuts — and that’s how I saw it. It was closed — like this.” She shut one eye as tightly as she could. “I called his name and he jumped and got frightened. But instead of running away, he went around and around in circles on the grass. I kept turning to watch him — but I got dizzy and fell over. When I stood up again, he wasn’t there. He went around my legs three times — no, four. Are you going to help me rescue him?”

  “Rescue him? How do you mean?”

  “I want to take him where Ringtail and Cherrylea went.”

  The tenant spluttered with laughter. “Lucy, you can’t go catching wild squirrels.”

  “But he’s sick,” she pressed, flapping Winston’s paw for added effect. “He’s getting thinner. You can see his bones. And what if the thing that hurt him comes back? What if it gets his other eye? You said you liked squirrels. Oh, please help me save him.”

  David shook his head and turned back to his boxes. “It’s not right to interfere w
ith nature, Lucy. Besides, you don’t have any idea where Ringtail and the others have gone.”

  “Somewhere nice,” she muttered, more in hope than expectation. She lowered her head and swung a leg in defeat.

  “Look,” said David, bopping her knee with a rolled-up poster. “If I thought that Conker was really in danger — I mean really in danger — I’d do everything I could to help him, OK? But I think you’re fretting too much. Chances are he’s coping just fine. Come on, cheer up. Do you want to do me a favor?”

  “What?” said Lucy, sounding rather deflated.

  “Run and ask your mom if I can borrow a duster.” Lucy shook her head. “She shouldn’t be disturbed. She’s upstairs, making you a dragon.”

  “Not anymore, she isn’t,” said a voice. Liz came bumping through the door, carrying a tray of tea and cookies. She was wearing jeans and an artist’s smock. There were smudges of clay all over the material, but mostly the smock was daubed with paint. Bright green paint.

  The color of dragons.

  UNUSUAL THINGS

  I hope you’re not pestering him again,” said Liz, kneeling and setting the tray on the floor.

  “My fault,” said David, getting in first. “I was asking if she knew how Conker’s eye got hurt.”

  Liz hummed as if her point was proven anyway. She handed Lucy a glass of milk.

  David switched the subject away from squirrels. “I hear you’ve been making me a dragon?”

  “Just a little housewarming gift,” said Liz.

  “It’s a special one,” Lucy put in. “I’ve got two: Gawain and Gwendolen.” (She pronounced the second dragon’s name Gawendolen.)

  David, mystified as always when the talk turned to dragons, heaped a spoonful of sugar into his tea and said, “What do you mean, ‘special’?”

  Lucy looked up. “They’re —”

  “Little reflections of their owners,” said Liz. “Help yourself to a cookie, David.” She pushed the plate so close to his face he could almost eat a cookie without having to pick one up. He smiled and took a graham cracker. Lucy sank back looking miffed. She grabbed a cookie and chomped it hard.

  “When I make someone a special dragon,” Liz continued, “I try to bring out some … quality or interest of the person concerned. If you were fond of baseball, for instance, I might make one holding a bat.”

  “He likes books,” said Lucy, picking up a large, spiral-bound volume. It had a bleak gray mountain range on the cover. She turned a few pages and put it down, bored.

  “That’s a textbook — for college,” David said. “I do read other things: stories and stuff.”

  Lucy sat up smartly. “Would you read one to me?”

  “Lucy!” snapped her mother. “That’s very cheeky.”

  “I have a story every night,” Lucy went on regardless. “Mom tells me about the dragons.”

  David glanced at the ceiling as if it were a window to the den above. “I’m impressed: a storyteller and a potter?”

  “They’re hardly best-sellers,” Liz said modestly. She raised a hand before Lucy could speak. “Go upstairs, please, and change out of those clothes. And while you’re up there, check on David’s dragon.”

  Lucy sighed and wriggled off the bed. Her feet had barely touched the floor when there came a dreadful shrieking sound from the garden. Everyone turned to the open window, in time to see Bonnington come scrambling in. The big tabby cat had his ears laid back and his fur sticking out like the branches of a tree. He dropped to the floor, flattened his back, and quickly wriggled under the bed.

  “What is the matter with him?” said Liz.

  David walked to the window and opened it wide. Loud bird chatter filled the room.

  “Go and see!” hissed Lucy, tugging David’s sleeve. “Conker might be in danger!”

  David raised an eyebrow, and went to have a look.

  In the garden, all seemed peaceful enough. David walked one side of the long, narrow lawn, stopping here and there to sweep back leaves on the larger plants. He couldn’t find anything out of place, other than a broken plant pot. His heart did leap when he poked around in some overgrown grass and heard a momentary squishing noise. But that turned out to be a soggy old sponge. He checked the rock garden, the shed, the trash area, and an old pane of glass covered in algae. He even scrabbled up the paneled fence to have a quick look over into Mr. Bacon’s garden. There was no sign of squirrels, and nothing to suggest any inkling of danger.

  But on the way back to the house, he did make two important discoveries. Near the patio steps he crouched down and picked up a blue-black feather. It was long and sleek and felt cool against his skin. It belonged to a jay — or a crow, perhaps? Was it possible that Bonnington had clashed with a bird? David’s gaze panned the autumn skyline, taking in the spreading sycamore tree that stood in the gap between the Pennykettles’ house and Mr. Bacon’s away to the right. He couldn’t see a black-colored bird anywhere, but as his eyes drifted back toward the house he did see something that made him start. A light had just flickered in the Dragons’ Den. A few seconds passed, then it flickered again, flooding the window with a pale orange color. David cupped a hand above his eyes. It seemed too precise to be sunlight on glass, too irregular to be a candle glow. And a lightbulb, he decided, was really the wrong color. Which left just one explanation.

  “Fire …,” he breathed, and let the feather go.

  It had barely touched the ground by the time he burst, breathless, into his room.

  A VERY SPECIAL DRAGON

  What on earth?” said Liz as the door crashed open. She put her hand on the teapot to steady it.

  “Fire!” cried David. “Upstairs! Quickly! Dial 911! I’ll get water from the bathroom!”

  “Fire?” said Lucy, looking quizzically at her mom.

  “I saw it from the garden! Come on, Liz! Hurry!”

  “David, wait,” she cried, grabbing his arm. “Slow down. I think you’re mistaken.”

  Lucy, by now, was moving to the door. “I’ll go and have a look.”

  “What?!” screeched David. “She can’t go!”

  But Lucy was already climbing the stairs.

  “David, calm down,” Liz said, restraining him.

  “That’s my studio. There’s nothing that could cause a problem.”

  Seconds later, Lucy called down from the landing, “It’s all right, Mom. It’s only … y’know.”

  “What?” said David, looking baffled. “I saw a jet of flame. I’m sure I did.”

  Liz smoothed the creases she’d made in his sweatshirt. “Probably a dragon sneezing,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go and see how yours is, shall we?”

  To David’s astonishment, there really was no hint of a fire in the den.

  “It was probably this,” said Liz. She pointed to a round, stained-glass ornament, dangling off a piece of string in the window. She tilted it to catch the afternoon sun. Jeweled reflections bounced around the room. “Trick of the light,” she said.

  Suddenly, from behind them, Lucy piped up: “Mom, Gruffen’s in the wrong place — again.”

  David turned. Lucy was staring at a shelf full of dragons. A look of disapproval was etched on her face. “Who’s Gruffen?” he asked.

  Liz took him by the arm and twisted him around. “He’s a new dragon that sits by the door — usually. The resident dragons — the ones we don’t sell — all have their own places. Sometimes they get moved when a new batch goes out. Gruffen always seems to be flitting around. Leave him, Lucy, and come over here.”

  Lucy trudged over. “Do you like them?” she asked.

  In a slightly awed voice, the tenant confessed that he’d never seen anything quite like it before.

  All around the studio, arranged on tiers of wooden shelves, were dozens and dozens of handcrafted dragons. There were big dragons, little dragons, dragons curled up in peaceful slumber, baby dragons breaking out of their eggs, dragons in spectacles, dragons in pajamas, dragons doing ballet, dragons everywhere. Onl
y the window wall didn’t have a rack. Over there, instead, stood a large old bench. A lamp was angled over it. There were brushes and tools and jelly jars prepared, plus lumps of clay beside a potter’s wheel. The sweet smell of paint and methyl acetate hung in the air like a potpourri aroma. Now he came to think of it, David realized he’d been smelling the scent from the very first moment he’d entered the house.

  “Amazing,” he said, gliding over to the bench. “This is a good one, here.” He pointed to an eerie but elegant creature on a stand just behind the potter’s wheel. It had a wraparound tail and ears like a cat. Two large and exquisitely beautiful wings were rising from its back like sails on a ship. Its oval-shaped eyes were intriguingly closed; its stout front feet pressed firmly together.

  “That’s Guinevere,” said Lucy in a deferential whisper. “She’s sort of the queen. She’s Mom’s special dragon.”

  “Is she sleeping?”

  Lucy gave a shake of her head.

  “Praying?”

  “Not really.”

  “What is she doing, then?”

  Across the room, Liz coughed. “Lucy, why don’t you show David his dragon?”

  Lucy pointed to one on the potter’s wheel.

  David lifted it into his hands. The dragon — his dragon — had all the usual Pennykettle touches: spiky wings, big flat feet, tiled green scales with turquoise flashes. The characteristic oval-shaped eyes had a gentle, cheery, helpful look — but there was deep sensitivity in them, too, as if the creature could weep at the drop of a scale. David rested it in his palm. The dragon sat up on its thick, curved tail. Unlike Guinevere, it wasn’t praying or resting or whatever the queen dragon was supposed to be doing. Instead, it had a pencil wrapped in its claws and was biting the end of it, lost in thought.

  “Hope you like him,” said Liz. “He was … interesting to do.”

  “He’s wonderful,” said David. “Why does he have a pencil?”

  “And a pad?” said Lucy, pointing to a notepad in the dragon’s other paw.