‘Mommy, how much longer do we have to wait ?’
Boo was impossibly bored, she had got up really early on the understanding that she was flying to Singapore today. But at the moment things were looking a little bleak. In order to get to Singapore, Mommy, her boyfriend and Boo had to travel from London to Germany, then on to Singapore. The first flight should have taken off some time ago and they were still on the ground.
‘I’m not sure Sweetie’, she glanced up at the departure board and sighed heavily. ‘It looks like about an hour’.
Boo picked up her MyPad and half heartedly played a game that involved lining things up and making them explode. She hated having to wait.
Suddenly Mommy jumped up, ‘come on everyone, we have to get to get ‘A19′, the plane is leaving in half an hour.’ The three of them started to follow the directions to the plane and within a few minutes had joined the queue of slightly annoyed people that really wanted to be “elsewhere.
‘If we are really lucky, we should just about make it to the connecting flight’, announced Mommies boyfriend who, as usual had his nose almost to the screen of his phone.
‘And if we are not lucky ?’, Boo and her mother asked at pretty much he same time.
‘We will miss it and have to catch another one’
Boo sighed. It was already getting late, she was tired and grumpy. Worse she had not seen Dragon all day, she had told him about the travel plans endlessly, but he was not there to say goodbye first thing and she had not seen him all day.
He was not outside when they loaded their bags into the taxi, he was certainly not on the M25, although there was a car on fire that could potentially be attributed to a dragon. He was also absent at Heathrow, not only when they checked in, but also when they had brunch.
‘Hmmm’, thought Boo, ‘I bet he is up to no good’.
As the plane flew through the air, Boo gazed out of the window, hoping to see her dragon tagging along in the jet stream, but there was still no sign of him.
Eventually the plane landed and Mommies boyfriend announced that they had missed their connecting flight. The only thing to do was to get their ticket changed and get a different one. Boo pouted then sulked a little. The ticket desk was chaos, it seems that many people had missed their flights already today and many, many people were waiting for their call to get their tickets exchanged.
The tired travellers found a set of comfortable seats and sat down, waiting their turn.
Boo played with her MyPad a little, but even that was no fun. She started people watching, looking out for especially wobbly bottoms or terrible hairstyles.
She was so tired, she desperately wanted to sleep, but also did not want to miss the goings on in the airport.
Boo jolted awake, she was not even aware that she had been sleeping. Dragon was nearby, she could sense him. She scanned his usual hiding places, there were no curtains and she could not really see behind the ticket counter. She spotted him eventually though, he was helping himself to the free snacks. She smiled at him.
Dragon wandered over, ‘I saw your flight was delayed, do you have to wait long ?’.
‘I’m not sure, we are number 342 and they are now serving’, Boo looked at the notice board, ‘number 87’.
She sighed.
‘I think we are not going to be going anywhere tonight’.
‘Well, perhaps I can fix that ?’. Dragon was smiling. This always made Boo feel a tad uneasy, she quickly grabbed a granola bar for him and tickled his chin while he munched it.
Boo looked at Dragon, every time he tried to fix things, he made things worse.
‘Dragons cannot be seen by people that do not believe in them, right ?’
‘Right’
‘So if you make your mommy and her boyfriend believe in me, then they will be able to see me and I will be able to fly you all to Singapore in a jiffy.’
Boo had no argument, the plan sounded great, they would get out go the airport and be relaxing by the pool in short order.
‘What about our luggage ?’
‘No problem, I’ll come back and grab it after I drop you off’.
‘OK, agreed Boo, ‘I’ll see what I can do’.
Half an hour later she was still trying to explain to Mommy and her boyfriend that a dragon had offered to take them to Singapore and, no, they could not see it, because you have to believe in dragons in order to be able to see him.
‘But Mommy, we are going to be stuck here all night…..’
It was useless, sometimes only being nine years old can be a problem, but when you are nine years old and trying to explain to your mother that you have a pet dragon, it can be even worse.
‘Ticket number 94′, came the announcement. Boo looked at the ticket in her Mommies hand, Mommy, they have served seven people in the last hour, at this rate it will take over ten days, our holiday will be over before we even get there’.
Mommy was busy working out that it was actually ten days and eight hours.
‘Boo is right, we will be here for a very long time’, Mommies boyfriend had stopped trying to e-mail customer service, the travel agent and the London Evening Standard for a moment, ‘If there really is a dragon that can help us, I say we should go for it.’
At that moment, Dragon cleared his throat, ‘Ahem’.
All three looked at him. All three actually saw him.
‘Goodness me, he looks hungry’, Mommies boyfriend made a face that looked rather a lot like a scared sheep. Mommy, recognising the hunger look, fished in her handbag and offered a bar of chocolate. Which was inhaled, wrapped, foil, chocolate. It all went down the same way.
‘Yay, you can see him’. Boo was dancing around in circles.
Once the shock had died down, and mommies boyfriend had tried taking photographs with his MyPhone, which of course did not show the dragon, Dragon explained that he could only carry two people at a time, especially over a distance. Boo meanwhile had found her favourite bobble hat and, to Mommies annoyance, had also found the sunglasses that she had borrowed from Mommy some time ago, pulled her hat on, made sure her pigtails were tight and had jumped onto Dragon’s back.
‘Come on Mommy, you and me first, Dragon, you can bring me back and collect Mommies Boyfriend ?’
‘Of course’.
With Boo’s help, Mommy climbed on to the back of the dragon, Boo showed her to hold onto the scales and to make sure her hair was tied back well and almost without warning, they rocketed out of the airport, overtook a Jumbo-jet on the run-way and hurtled south at an incredible speed.
Boo felt Mommy holding on tightly and burying her head in Boo’s shoulder. She grinned. ‘Look below mommy’. They were flying low and the view was spectacular, if not a little dizzying. Within minutes they were over mountains, then deserts and in the dying light of the evening, they were suddenly over the sea. Racing east now the sky started to brighten.
‘Look Mommy it is getting light’.
Mommy was too busy being terrified and exhilarated in equal measure. She looked down, they were back over land. ‘Look Boo’, we are over Malaysia, there are the Petronas Towers’. As she pointed, Dragon slowed down and they shot downwards towards the towers, flying sideways between the towers followed by a ‘victory roll’.
This last piece was of course accompanied by a squeal from the passengers.
All too soon they were approaching Singapore, Dragon had slowed even more and was flying just a few feet above the water. ‘Below the radar, you see’. They came in low and gently, passing between the towers of the Marina Sands hotel, circling the Merlion and then heading deep into the city to the apartment that would be Boo’s home for the next two weeks.
Dragon landed gently by the swimming pool, it was very easy in the morning, nobody was around yet. Boo and her Mommy climbed down and took a look around. Mommy started to look in her handbag for chocolate, but Boo had it covered, she reached into her backpack and hanged Dragon several packets of crisps and a granola bar.
‘mmmmm, thanks, I’ll be back in a short while’
Before they could even say thank you, Dragon was a blur heading towards the low clouds.
Boo and her Mommy looked at each other and hugged.