THE LITTLE RED DRAGON - PART 4

The Little Red Dragon continued....

Miss Grey is getting used to quick thinking from having a red dragon in her class. “Oops! “ She has dropped her sandwich into her lap. Mrs Hall immediately stops looking at Matthew and gets a tissue out of her bag. “Let me help you wipe up that mayonnaise and beetroot. What a mess!”

“The stain is spreading,” wails Miss Grey. ”My skirt will be ruined. I think I need to return to school so I can rinse the stain out.” And before Mrs Hall can protest she claps her hands and calls out,” Everyone into line, time to leave.”

When Miss Grey is back in her classroom she carefully shuts the door and all the windows before she says in a loud, cross voice. “Jack you were very naughty today. First the ladybirds, then there was the drama about the lizard. And what made you eat the two green caterpillars and the worm?”

The class sat very still and stared hard at Miss Grey. They knew the answer, why didn’t Miss Grey?

“Oh, I am so sorry Miss.” It wasn’t Jack who was answering, it was Theo. “It was me that ate the caterpillars and the worms. The ladybirds looked like spotted jewels. I didn’t know they would fly away when I touched them. And why did that nasty teacher want to shut a baby dragon up in a jar for? Was she going to eat it? I asked Jack to stop her because he has the biggest voice. We all thought she was mean.” And Theo hung his head and added, “I suppose you won’t want me in your class anymore?”

And for the very first time Miss Grey sees all of Theo clearly. Every single red shiny scale. His hung head, his long nailed hands twisting together. Did this mean she also totally believed in red dragons?

“Theo of course you can stay,” she answered in a kind voice. “I am sorry Jack. I am sorry class, I did not understand. Your behaviour was actually excellent today. Thank you for looking after our friend Theo so well. I think it was because I was nervous of our red dragon being discovered that made me so cross. “Matthew,” she asks, “would you open the door and windows again for me? Everyone can do quiet reading until home-time. I am going to the cloak room to rinse the stain out of my skirt.”

Miss Grey has a slight headache behind her eyes. It is not easy for a teacher to have a red dragon in her class.

Theo is reading his book with a big smile on his face and he whispers to himself. “Our friend, she called me. Miss Grey called me, our friend Theo. What a perfect day I’ve had!”

Miss Grey’s Birthday and the Adventure

For five days now Miss Grey has learnt to make a loud noise as she comes into Room Nine. Everyone who was whispering excitedly around Amy’s desk, stops and goes back to a desk. When Theo had started humming Happy Birthday, everyone hissed at him to hush and put their books up to cover their smiling faces.

Yes, it was going to be Miss Grey’s birthday on Thursday. The class had made a big birthday card with all their names on it and Amy’s mother was making a huge chocolate birthday cake. They had saved up enough money to buy Miss Grey a new cellphone, one that took photographs, for her birthday present. The problem was they had to go to a department store in the city to get it.

“I know how to get to the store,” says Matthew, “I’m used to going with my grandmother on the train.”

I thought of the idea of a cellphone as a present, so I should come too,” said Amy.

“Well if Matthew and Amy are going, then we should come too” said Michael and Marie together. And then Jack and Janice said they must come too.

“What about me? I haven’t been to a city yet.” begs Theo.

“But Theo, how can you travel on a train with your tail? Trains get crowded and people will trip over it.”

Everyone stood around and looked at Theo’s tail.

It was Jack who thought of how he could use a dog’s collar and lead to lift Theo’s tail so it became more like squirrel’s tail. Then Theo would be able to sit in a train seat as well.

The next day in the cloakroom after school, Jack buckled up a dog’s collar around Theo’s tail. He clipped the lead on the collar, brought the lead up around Theo’s chest and back down again to clip it back onto the collar. There! Theo’s tail stood up like a squirrel’s.

“Perfect, though it feels very strange,” said Theo. He walked around, then did a little dance and then a wriggle and the collar and lead stayed in place.

So off went Matthew, Jack, Amy, Marie, Michael, Janice, and of course Theo, their red dragon friend, went too, down to the railway station where they caught the 3.30 train to the city.

For a few minutes they had fun getting their invisible friend to open and shut the store’s big glass automatic doors and watching the shopper’s surprise, before they were off up the escalators to the third floor where the cellphones were sold.

“What colour do you think Miss Grey would like?” they asked each other. “There are so many colours to choose from.” But Theo just kept nudging them and pointing to the shiny red one. Finally they all agreed red was the very best choice. Amy gave the salesman the money and he put the phone in a box, then wrapped it in silver paper and finally tied a big red ribbon around it.

Matthew looks at his watch. “We still have some spare time. Let’s go and have a look at the toys!” And he leads the way in a rush to the escalator to go back down to the first floor where the toys were.

But they were so eager to go that they did not notice that Theo had stopped to look with surprise at an ‘in-store security television screen’ on the wall, showing his friends and the customers moving on it. When he turned around his friends were already half-way down the escalator! Theo rushed to the escalator, then had to stand back to let some people get on ahead of him. Then it was his turn, but now he was so anxious he was not watching properly and one of his claws on his right foot caught in the mat and down the escalator he tumbled. Bump. Ouch. Bump. Ouch. Bump. Ouch. And he landed all in a tangle out onto the second floor. That hurt. Theo wanted to howl out loud. Where were his friends?

The fall also made one of the clips on the lead come undone and his tail fell down. Theo could not do small things like do up lead-clips with his long nails. So, with one hand he held up his tail by the lead and his other hand he stretched backwards to hold the other side of his tail. In this way he rushed around the second floor looking everywhere for Matthew, Michael Amy, Jack, Marie and Janice. But of course he couldn’t find them anywhere there because they were all on the first floor looking at toys.

.To be continued:

Copyright: Lois E Hunter

lois.e.hunter2@gmail.com

THE LITTLE RED DRAGON - PART 3

The Little Red Dragon cont.

Wednesday’s list of words on the blackboard reads: The Great Ruby. Sarsaparilla. Pohutukawa. Red Mountain. “No, too red,” replied the dragon. Thursday’s list of words read: Theodore Junior. Titanic. Red Winston. Big John. “Not quite me, but nearly” sighs the dragon.

Very early on Friday morning, even before Miss Grey could read the 5^th chapter about Jack and the bean seed, there was a tap at the classroom door and in walked the headmaster.

“All stand up for Mr Thoroughgood” calls Miss Grey.

“Good morning class,” says Mr Thoroughgood.

“Good morning Sir,” replies the class.

“You may sit down. I have come to look at the special chair that all the other teachers are talking about.” And the headmaster looked very hard at the dragon’s chair which was really very big.

Miss Grey thought quickly and before the headmaster could ask, or say anything more said, ”Oh you mean this chair? This is our storytelling chair. Anyone who is going to tell a story is allowed to sit in this chair.”

Headmasters often have very long names that are hard to remember and they like to use very long words. Mr Thoroughgood also thinks he is a very good storyteller. “If I may?” he asks Miss Grey and goes to sit in the chair. But no matter how hard he tries he can’t sit down because the red dragon is already sitting in it! The glass starts to giggle and Miss Grey in a little bit of a panic flaps her hand towards the chair, meaning, quick, quick, red dragon, get out of the chair and let the headmaster sit down!

On the 3^rd try the headmaster sits down, makes himself comfortable and starts to tell a story about sailing ships and high seas and uses very, very long words, But when he sees one big yawn and then another adds pirates waving cutlasses and saying ‘yo ho ho’ and ‘walk the plank’. Then seeing the tears on Marie’s cheeks and him being a kind man says the pirates weren’t really bad. It was a hot day and the pirates used the gangplank as a diving board to go swimming. These pirates were very health conscious pirates and ate the very best yoghurt for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And Mr Thoroughgood got up and wrote up on the blackboard, right next to Theodore Junior,

acidophilus yogurt.

“I like yogurt,” said a deep grumble voice.

Miss Grey has a sudden coughing attack. The class coughs even louder. Everyone is coughing so much the headmaster thinks they must all be getting the flu. He forgets to finish his story and saying,“tut-tut and “oh dear” hurries out the door with a handkerchief over his nose.

Miss Grey starts smiling. Janice starts giggling, so is Amy. Jack is laughing. Matthew and Michael are laughing even more and soon the whole class is laughing too.

The dragon though is dancing up and down. “My name, my name, can I have that name?” And he points to the words Theodore Junior and beside them the headmaster’s word, acidophilus .

Miss Grey looks at the dragon. Then she looks at the class. They all nod.

“A good choice” she says, but instead we shall place the word junior at the end. I shall put you on the class roll as Theodore Acidophilus Junior, but we will call you Theo for short.”

On Monday morning, after reading the sixth and last chapter about Jack and the bean seed, Miss Grey calls out the class roll. She gets to Tania,

then to Ted, and then to Theo. “Theo?” she calls out.

“Present Miss!” calls out Theodore Acidophilus Junior. He is a very happy red dragon.

  

The Day of the Nature Walk

One morning, instead of starting the day with a story, Miss Grey said, “Today were going to sing a marching song.”

The class liked singing just as much as they liked listening to stories. And they sang very loud. Theo sang too, not quite in tune, but no one minded. Then, because they liked the marching song so much, they sang it again.

“Why we sang a marching song, is because today we are going to do something different. We are going to go on a nature walk to the park,” says Miss Grey “and Room Eight is coming with us.”

“Please Miss, does that mean all of us? Can Theo come too? asks Matthew.

Miss Grey has the feeling that the day could become very difficult. She replied, “It is a long walk to the park, do dragons like nature walks?

“Umm,” answers Theo, then, “ah!” Then he says, ”I don’t know. I have never been our of the school grounds.”

“Never been out of the school grounds Theo? says Miss Grey in surprise, “Can you tell us how you get here every morning?”

“I don’t really know,” answers Theo wriggling uncomfortably in his chair. “One moment I am at home, and the next moment, pop, I am here!”

Jack is waving his hand in the air. “Miss. Miss, we think it is because Matthew wrote a story about wanting a red dragon so much for a best friend. When we heard the story we all said we wanted a red dragon for a best friend too and next morning Theo was here!”

And everyone is smiling and talking at once – yes they agreed, we all thought that is why he came.

Miss Grey remembered Matthew with his red crew cut hair standing in front of the class and reading his red dragon story. It was a very good story; but she has no reply to the news of how a dragon came to be in her class other than to say it was very nice to have Theo in their class.

“Very well, Miss Grey continues, the question now is: if we take Theo with us who is going to look after him?” The first decision was that the group would have to walk at the back of the queue. Matthew would walk on the right side of Theo, Amy on the left side of him. Michael and Janice walk in the front and Jack and Marie would be behind, but a bit further back - to allow for the length of a dragon’s tail. “We can’t have anyone from Room eight bumping into an invisible dragon tail, said Miss Grey.” Then she said sternly, “Theo, if you are going to come with us you must promise me you are not going to talk!”

Theo promised and then chanted very fast for a whole five minutes, “I am going to the park. I am going to the Park,” to get all his talking out of his mouth.

Room Eight and Room Nine lined up on the tennis court. They each had a sunhat on and their lunch, notebook and pencils in their backpacks. Mr Thoroughgood walks by and calls out, “Room Nine are you feeling better from your flu?”

“Yes thank you sir,” they replied in unison, including Theo in his deep grumble voice. “Shhhh,” hissed Miss Grey. “Shhh,” went Room Nine, much louder. Together it sounded like one enormous sneeze. Poor Mr Thoroughgood he smiled faintly and said’ “Fine. Fine. Carry on,” as he pulled out his handkerchief and hurried away.

Theo tried very hard, but he had to talk - but he talked as quietly as he could. Everything he was looking at he had only seen before in the school library books. It was so exciting. He saw and heard a dog bark. He saw flowers and houses and cars and buses.

Matthew, Amy, Jack, Marie, Michael and Janice were kept very busy looking after the red dragon. They kept whispering things to him like, “No Theo, please do not eat those lady’s flowers.” “Stop barking back at that dog.” “No, we are not going to race that car.” ”No, no, that little girl does not want to be hugged, come on” “But she is so cute!” Theo replied. Fortunately everyone else was talking so much they weren’t overheard.

“What a nice day we are having, said Miss Grey to Mrs Hall who was the teacher for Room eight as they all sat under the trees eating their lunch. They had found slaters, and an earwig, a lot of red spotted ladybirds, a very long worm, two green caterpillars and a lizard. The class had taken down notes and drawn lots of sketches of them.

But Mrs Hall was looking very hard at Marie, Jack, Michael, Janice, Amy and Matthew sitting in a circle. “Have you noticed how those children have been acting strange all day?” she asked. ”And the way they always walk in a circle giggling and whispering. I was taken aback when Jack shouted we were murderers when I put that lizard in a jar and then all your girls all started crying so much I had to let it go!  And was it also Jack who ate those two green caterpillars and the worm? Why, look at them now – Matthew is spooning yoghurt into the empty air!”

to be continued:

Copyright : Lois E. Hunter

lois.e.hunter2@gmail.com

THE LITTLE RED DRAGON CONTINUED part 2

THE LITTLE RED DRAGON part 2

“Oh, oh,” said Miss Grey. “What have you children made up out of your imagination and now sits there between your desks?”

“You can see him too Miss?” asked Amy

“We told you he was real.” said Michael.

The children started laughing and talking all at once. And “hah, hah, hah,” and “ho, ho, ho,” went a deep grumble voice.

Miss Grey makes a decision.

“I can’t see him properly,” said Miss Grey. “You will have to show me just what he looks like. Jack you get out the paints we were going to use for the school Parent Day candy floss stall. Janice the brushes are in the sink-bench cupboard.”

“But what are we going to paint his picture on?” says Marie in a tearful voice. “He’s awfully big.”

Miss Grey, just for a moment, shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. Everyone goes quiet and waits.

“Well he is such a wonderful dragon,” she says, “and he is very big – I think we need the whole outside wall of the school hall to paint him on. But…”

No one is moving. But what?

“But the dragon is going to have to help us.

Can he put up a screen so no one can see us while we paint? Can dragons do that?”

And obviously dragons can, even imaginary ones.

Look at his feet, his eyes, his shiny every shade of red striped scales, the happy tail and that long, long fire-engine red tongue with a purple stripe down it. What a magnificent portrait of a dragon is staring out over the school playground.

And there is the Headmaster in front of the painting talking to a crowd of reporters. “I don’t know how it happened. It just appeared. Yes, well I think it can stay because the children seem to be very attached to it.” And the reporters wrote down lots of notes of what the Headmaster said and took some photographs of the dragon on the wall. Then they went away and printed the story of the magic dragon in all their newspapers. The story of the magic dragon even appeared on the television news that night.

The children are not saying anything. Neither is Miss Grey. She has put a large brightly painted chair, right beside hers just for the dragon so he does not take block the classroom aisle. And first thing every morning, before they open their school books, she reads a special story (sometimes they are about dragons) or the class sings a happy dancing song just for their dragon.

“Thank you. Thank you,” replies the dragon in a deep grumble voice. 

Chapter Two

How The Red Dragon Gets His Name.

It is a Tuesday morning and as she promised, before the lessons start, Miss Grey reads the class the second chapter of a story about a boy called Jack and a bean seed. Then it is time for the class attendance roll. She starts with Amy. “Amy?” “Here Miss says Amy. She goes down the list of pupils calling out their names Andrew, Assad, Barry, Ben – she has just got to Jack when she hears a loud sniff, then another.

“Miss, Miss.” Everyone has got their hand up. “Miss, the dragon is crying.”

Miss Grey turns to the chair beside her. “Are you crying Red Dragon?” she asks.

The red dragon gives an even louder snuffle and replies, “I haven’t got a real name. I am just called the red dragon.”

Miss Grey looks at the class. Everyone looks back with a sad face. She thinks that naming a dragon could take all day. “Yes of course. The dragon needs a name. But it has to be a big name, an important name, a grand name, a name that immediately says it is a dragon’s name.”

Suddenly the room is full of excited voices calling out names.

“Shush,” says Miss Grey. A dragon’s name is too special to rush. For your homework tonight you are to think up a special name and tomorrow we will write up the best names on the blackboard and the dragon can choose his favourite one.

to be continued

Copyright:  l.e.hunter

l.e.hunter2@gmail.com

Fairy Story

The Red Dragon.

There is a dragon in Room Nine. It sits in the aisles between the desks, the class tells her.

The teacher does not know what to do with it.

“Class, class,” she says. “No one can see a dragon. You know it’s not real.”

“Oh yes it is,” says Matthew as he strokes one of the dragon’s feet. “His foot feels shiny and cool and I love the way his claws move in and out when he is happy.”

And Amy speaks up. “I like his eyes Miss. They shine as bright as my torch at night. He can wink too, both eyes!”

Then it is Michael’s turn. “Oh he has the biggest red tongue with a purple stripe down it. It’s not fiery at all. He makes us laugh when he pokes it out behind the Headmaster’s back.”

“Oh yes he is real,” chorus the whole class. “We have been teaching him to dance.”

And it’s true. The children are now up dancing around in a lumpy way as if they are lifting a dragon’s feet one at a time.

“Class, class. Sit. Sit down now. That is enough!

You must stop at once. You have had your fun.

I want you to open your Math’s books and turn to page twenty seven.”

“I don’t like Maths,” says a deep grumble voice. “I like stories.”

Then there was silence. Everyone suddenly sat down in their chairs and looked at each other, then straight ahead.

“Who said that?” asked Miss Grey.

But the children stared back, and said nothing, their eyes wide as wide.

“I like stories. I like singing too,” the voice said again.

“Yes. yes. Neat. Right on. Sweet As,” the children called out. “Please Miss a story. A story.

The day is too sunny for learning Maths.”

But Miss Grey just stands there looking confused. Who was that with the deep voice?

And worse: if she half-closed her eyes and crossed them slightly she could just about believe she could see the shape of a bright red dragon. And then it closed one big yellow eye in a long slow wink!

copyright: lois.e.hunter 

email: lois.e.hunter2@gmail.com

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This is the first page of a story I wrote for one of my grandsons, Matthew, who was into dragons and dinosaurs at that stage  -  and was also read out loud by his teacher, in daily instalments, to his class of  8-9 year old boys and girls. Got lots of nice feedback for it. I had thought of turning it into a colouring-in book, because I loved colouring in my books when I was young, but have never quite got around to finding someone who would do all the illustrations