John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

I looked to Brendan. ‘Where is he going?’

I didn’t wait for an answer, I was getting frantic. ‘RE-E-E-ED!’ Then I spun on Araf. ‘You were riding a green dragon – where is the green dragon? Where?’

Araf grabbed me by the shoulders, he was uncharacteristically smiling. I looked to Brendan and Tuan; despite the recent tragedies, they were smiling too.

‘I need dragon’s blood!’

‘Calm down, Conor,’ Araf said. ‘The green dragon is here.’

I spun around, searching the courtyard for any sign of a dragon. They were all still smiling like idiots. I was just about to slap them when Tuan placed his hands together into a two-handed fist, then crouched down like a man about to drop to his knees in prayer. When he began to straighten up he didn’t just stop at his own height. His clothes tore away as palm-sized green scales loudly clinked into place on his chest and back. He continued to grow as his face extended and spines grew out of his receding hair. As he reached full size he blocked the sun and extended his wings, sending a cloud of dust and leaves swirling around the courtyard, forcing us to shield our eyes.

‘ight="7%"›No,’ I said incredulously.

‘Oh yes,’ Brendan said, patting me on the back.

I stepped up to Dragon Tuan and he lowered his head. I looked into his eyes, thinking that I would recognise my old travelling companion but his eyes were green and yellow with slits for pupils.

‘Is that you in there, Councillor Tuan?’

He threw his head violently back and blew a massive plume of fire into the air. Brendan grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back. ‘Don’t make him laugh, he’s having trouble controlling the fire-breathing stuff.’

Tuan folded back his wings and lowered his body to the ground. Brendan took a running start and hopped on his back like a cowboy in a movie. Then he held out his hand and said, ‘You comin’?’

‘Where?’

‘To Castle Duir. Tuan wants to donate some blood.’

I took a running start. I was so excited that I almost sailed straight over the back of Tuan.

Then Nieve ran into the courtyard and shouted, ‘Brendan, you are alive.’

‘I am indeed, gorgeous,’ the cop replied from dragonback. ‘I’m off to Castle Duir to save your brother. Come with us.’

Honest to the gods she hopped up and down like a schoolgirl at a boy-band concert and ran two steps towards us before she stopped and dropped her head.

‘I cannot. I must tend the wounded.’

Brendan turned to me and said, ‘Can you give me a minute?’

I nodded and he slid off Tuan’s back and gave my aunt a right proper, back-dipping, snog.

Dahy approached me holding the knife. He looked shell-shocked. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked quietly. It was almost as if he was afraid to hear the answer.

‘It was thrown out of the window from the house of the Oracle, on Mount Cas. Araf was there, he can tell you all about it.’ He nodded thoughtfully and backed off as Brendan dramatically remounted.

Tuan extended his school-bus-sized wings and began to flap. The muscles in his back tightened and rocked me up and down as I searched for something to hold on to. I grabbed Brendan around the waist. He didn’t seem to mind.

Detective Fallon turned to me wearing a huge ear-to-ear grin. ‘Have you ever been on the rollercoaster at that amusement park in Elysburg, Pennsylvania?’

‘Yeah,’ I screamed back as the wind roared around us. ‘It was very scary.’

‘Well, hold on, O’Neil, ’cause this is a whole lot worse.’

As I held on for dear life, Brendan filled me in on what had happened.

‘That damn paralysing pin that the late Turlow stuck in Araf, Tuan and me was apparently placed high enough on our necks so that we couldn’t speak but our eyes and ears still worked. #82 managed to do that Pooka transforming thing with the unparalysed part of his head. The top of his head changed into like a dozen different animals. Every time he grew feathers or fur or even scales, he managed to push out the pin just a little bit further, until it popped out completely. He saved us.’ Tuan, who had been listening, shook his head up and down.

‘Nice one, Councillor,’ I shouted.

‘We were just outside the back door of The Digs,’ continued Brendan, ‘when the fireball hit. We dived into the swampy bit behind the house to protect ourselves from the heat and by the time we popped out again, you were already being carried off into the wild blue yonder. Tuan used hawk eyes and said he saw you fall into the ocean. How’d you survive that one?’

‘Mermaids,’ I shouted over the sound of the swirling wind and laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of it.

Brendan laughed with me. ‘A couple of months ago I’d have locked you up in the loony bin for saying stuff like that.’

‘And now?’

‘Now’ – the cop thought for a second – ‘now my response is – yeah, that sounds about right.’

‘So what happened when Red came back?’

‘Well, he was surprised to see us alive, ’cause Turlow had told him we were dead. Also he had a problem.’

‘What was that?’

‘You stuck your sword in him in a spot that he couldn’t reach and he was afraid to change back to Red with it sticking out of him. Oh, that reminds me, I’ve got your sword.’ He patted the sword hanging on his belt. I peeped down and instantly recognised the Lawnmower’s pommel.

‘I hope it hurt him like hell,’ I said.

‘I think it did. Tuan agreed to pull it out if he consented to listen to us before he tried to kill us again. It didn’t take us long to convince him that The Turlow had duped us all. He was livid and zoomed off to try to find him, but he came back a week later having had no success.

‘While he was gone we found his house – or I guess I should call it his lair – and waited for him there. Tuan discovered all of these manuscripts in Pooka lingo and sat in the corner and read them the whole time – he hardly talked to us. When Red returned, Tuan and Red got talking shop. I tried to get Red to give me some blood and a lift off the island, but they were so into talking about changeling stuff that they acted like Araf and I weren’t even there. When I got mad at them for ignoring us, Red switched to dragon, grabbed Tuan and flew away. The two of them disappeared for another week. When Red came back there was a green dragon with him.

‘Apparently in order to become a dragon you have to study how to change into every animal there is and Tuan had done that already. Oh, and that problem that he had about not being able to hold a form – well, that’s gone.’ Brendan patted the dragon’s neck and looked over the side. ‘I hope.’

I shivered in the cold air as the sun began to set in an explosion of reds and golds. ‘You know I had a dream about this. But I never…’ I chuckled to myself. ‘I never dreamt itould happen. I only hope we are in time.’

The guards on the ramparts of Castle Duir shot arrows at us as we approached so we had to fly away and land in the field in front of the castle. By the time a whole battalion of soldiers came at us on horseback, Tuan was Tuan again. The captain recognised me – and recognised Brendan as that madman from the Real World – and once we convinced them that there was no dragon attack, he gave us horses and we galloped to the main gates.

The three of us burst into Dad’s candlelit room. Mom and Fand and a handful of sorceresses were there. Dad, still encased in amber, looked like he was dead.

Mom flew into my arms and hugged her head to my chest.

‘Is he gone?’ I asked. ‘Am I too late?’

She held my face in her hands; her eyes were swimming in tears. ‘It’s not long now – I’m glad you are here.’