“I better go ahead
and have a look,” says Theo. “No one can see me.” Jack you bring the surfboard
down into the water. I may need it” And Theo shook the sand out of his wings
and was away.
Mr Thoroughgood
was in the water. He had been in the middle of photographing some crabs when he
had stepped backwards into air, and splash! – down into the sea.
He was holding
on to a rock, but it was slippery and he kept sinking and swallowing water.
“Help,” he had called again and again. But with the noise of the seagulls and
the crash of the waves against the rocks no one could hear him. He could not hold
on much longer. He was losing consciousness, and was thinking of all the things
he would miss if he was dead.
And in this
semi-dream state he sees a, a what? A red dragon hovering over him. “I must
already be dead,” he says aloud. “Hello angel, I did not know angels looked
like red dragons”
Theo hearing
him talk, knows he is not too late. “Hold that rock for just a moment longer,
headmaster,” calls Theo. And quick as a flash Theo is back with the surfboard.
“Here let me pull you up onto the surfboard and I’ll tow it to shore.”
By this time
the teachers and parents were on the rocks looking for a way to get to Mr
Thoroughgood. “I have found his camera.” someone calls. “I can see the
headmaster,” someone else calls. And there is their headmaster half lying on a
surfboard, and there is spray flying up everywhere as it speeds to the shore.
“Look, there is
Theo pulling the surfboard by a rope!” Marie points, forgetting at that moment
that Theo is Room Nine’s secret. But everyone is so busy being worried and talking
to each other only Room Nine understands what she is saying and starts cheering
– “Go Mr Thoroughgood!” Soon everyone is cheering, “Go Mr Thoroughgood!” and
they start scrambling over the rocks back to the beach to meet him.
Some teachers
rush into the water and pull the surfboard onto the beach. Then they drag the
headmaster up the sand a little way and are pressing the water out of his
lungs. Suddenly the headmaster is coughing and out comes lots and lots of
water. Mr Thoroughgood opens his eyes and looks around. “How did I get here?”
he asks.
Everyone looks
at each other and realise that they are not quite sure. Some think they saw him
grab a surfboard that just happened to be floating by. Some thought they saw
him paddling very fast. Some were so busy watching their feet as they went over
the rocks they only saw him as he arrived on the beach. Some though, knew that
Theo had saved their headmaster.
Mr Thoroughgood
is not sure what he knows. One minute he was drowning, thinking his life was
over, and then next, a red dragon, just like the one in the painting on the
school hall wall, is talking to him. Is in the water beside him. Is pulling at
him. Is making sure he is hanging on tightly to a surfboard. Is flying ahead, pulling
the surfboard to the shore.
Mr Thoroughgood
felt much better after someone gave him a hot coffee with lots of sugar in it.
Then he changed out of his wet headmaster-clothes and into a parent’s spare
bathing suit and with a towel around his shoulders sat in the sun to warm up and
ate his lunch. Everyone was very glad he was safe. He was very glad he was safe
too and that he had not lost his camera.
*
On Mr
Thoroughgood’s office wall there is a photograph of the whole school taken on
the beach. In the front is the surfboard that rescued him. But he is a little
puzzled. There are those 6 children from Room Nine being strange again. They
have their arms out as if they are hugging a large someone, but there is no one
there, just an empty space.
Next to this
photograph is another photograph. One of the red dragon painting that appeared
mysteriously one day on the outside of the school hall. Mr Thoroughgood thinks
he is the only one who knows why the photograph is there. But Room Nine and
Miss Grey know.
Last Day of
the School Year
On Friday Miss
Grey arrived early. It was the last day of the school year. This afternoon was the
Prize Giving, but there was a lot to do before then. She already had written
all the pupil‘s school reports and put them in their envelopes to be given to
the parents
.
The lessons,
pictures and stories had been taken down off the walls. She had checked that
all the library books had been returned. But there were still the cloakroom and
storeroom to be tidied and the class needed to empty their desks and stack
them. She had made three different coloured jellies and had two big tubs of
strawberry icecream in a chilly bin for the class ‘end of year party.’
But before the
class arrives, Theo is there. He is highly excited. He tries to get out of his
mouth all his words at once.
“Just stop a
moment, Theo. Right, now take a big breath and start again. Slowly” says Miss
Grey.
It seems that
his Mum, being proud of how well her son was doing at school and then his
rescue of the headmaster, had finally told the other dragons where her son had
been disappearing to in the past months. Also she mentioned how he originally
got there. Why even she and the baby had gone ‘pop’ and arrived at the school one day where
she had met his teacher and all the children.
But as the
dragons all discussed this wonder, the thought suddenly came to them: if the
class could have a dragon friend because they wished so hard for him to be
there, then….then. Could they wish for the King so hard to be with them he
would ‘pop’ and escape the vault he was locked in at the London
But maybe just
their wishing would not do it; but combined with the class, who they already
knew could do it...?
“But, Miss Grey,
I told them it was the last day of school today. And I had not asked you. So no one
knew, And I did not know if we could…?”
“Could what?”
asked Miss Grey with a sinking feeling.
“If we could all
concentrate and wish my whole town of dragons to be here, and at the same time they also wish
to be here – then when we are all here together we give a really great big wish
for my Dad, the King, to be with us?”
* * *
Mr Thoroughgood
looked out his window and saw Miss Grey and all of Room Nine with their eyes
closed, sitting in two straight lines on the football field. He wonders what
they are up to this time sitting out in the hot sun like that, then shakes his
head, he has given up understanding Room Nine and anyway he is busy writing his
speech for this afternoon.
But Room Nine
knows exactly what it is doing. It is wishing hard to have the whole football
field filled with dragons! Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Nothing.
Sixteen minutes and ‘pop’ there was the whole football field, and the tennis
court, and the playground full of dragons of every colour and size. Miss Grey
stood up and placed a finger to her lips – “shh” – but the dragons are too
amazed to make a sound. It was the rustling of their wings that sounded like a
sudden wind in the trees.
“I am so glad
we can help. Are you ready?” Miss Grey asks. “O k, all together, concentrate!”
The dragons
gave out their love for their King and wished hard he was here. Theo and his mother
wanted him home even more. And the class really really wished to see a real
Dragon King.
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