It was one of those beautiful days that rarely come along. The sun was shining, the wind from the last few days had died down entirely and the air was filled with the smell of the sea.
‘Mommy, can we go to the seaside please’.
‘But sweetie, we live at the seaside’.
‘Yes, I know, but we never go to the seaside’.
Boo’s mother was confused. ‘What do you mean sweetie ?’ she said, smiling.
‘Well, when tourists invade in the summer, they build sandcastles, make sand sculptures, swim in the sea and wander up and down the pier. I never do any of those things.’
Boo’s mommy thought about this for a moment. ‘You know, Boo, I cannot remember the last time I did that’.
Mommy’s boyfriend who was fiddling with his computer on the sofa causally mentioned that he used to go to the seaside once a year when he was Boo’s age, ‘but it was nearly always Skegness or somewhere entirely unpronounceable in Wales. Oh and it always rained’.
‘Well, it is not raining today, I’ve finished my homework, mommy has made Lasagne for later and….’
‘We can get Ice-cream on the way to the beach !’
‘I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah, rah…Oogie de wawa rah rah rah!
Tuesday, Monday, we all scream for Sundae!
Sis, boom, Aurora borealea, bah!
Boola boola
Sasparoola
We’ve got the chocolate
I’ll take vanoola
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!
Rah, rah, ice cream soda or gingerale pop!’
They sang the verse together, this was fast becoming a traditional ‘lets go for ice-cream’ war-cry ever since Mommy’s boyfriend had found the song and pretty much played it constantly for an entire week, much to mummies annoyance.
Boo had even written about the song for a modern history project, she had amazed her teacher when she told her that the line ‘I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream’, came from a song that was in the top ten in 1928 and also that it was the name of a terrible horror movie a few years ago. Unsurprisingly she got eleven out of ten for her homework.
Once again.
‘OK, lets go, lets hit the beach !’
Boo rushed to her room, once more her dragon was sleeping peacefully on the floor, she waved a ham and cheese sandwich in front of his nose, his eyes snapped open and the sandwich disappeared. ‘Thank you’.
‘Listen dragon’, she began, ‘we are going to the beach, do you think you can stay out of trouble ?
‘I like the beach, dragons are expert sand castle makers you know.’
Boo rolled her eyes, every time the dragon had said he was an expert, chaos normally followed.
‘Well, OK, but please behave’ She grabbed her backpack and checked that there were plenty of snacks in there and rushed out.
A few minutes later, Boo, Mommy and Mommy’s boyfriend were walking to the beach. Boo was holding her mommy’s hand and they were discussing the finer points of sandcastle making. ‘The sand has to be wet, but no so wet that it sticks in the mold, but if it is too dry then the turrets go all mushy’. Boo laughed and cuddled her mommy as they walked, occasionally she would looked up into the sky to see her dragon soaring effortlessly like a gigantic hawk casting dragon shaped shadows on the ground.
After stopping off at a sea-side supply store, where Boo got a castle bucket, a pink spade and a selection of small paper flags along with a small rake and a shaping trowel. They then called into SprinkleBellys for ice cream, Boo had a 99x99x99, which is a waffle cone with two scoops of ice-cream (cookie dough and dark cherry) with three flakes stuck in the top and a selection of sprinkles. Mommy and her boyfriend shared a triple-scoop (Mint Choc Chip, double vanilla and caramel swirl), waffle cone with cherry and dark chocolate sprinkles.
Eventually they reached the beach. It was busy, very busy, not only had hundreds of tourists invaded, but there was also a sandcastle competition being held. After walking up and down the seafront for a while, they found the perfect spot fairly close to the sea, ‘Prime sandcastle building real-estate’, declared mommy’s boyfriend.
Boo and her mommy rolled their eyes together, spread out a beach towel and sat and finished off the ice-cream.
Mommy’s boyfriend turned out to be pretty good at making sand castles and he and Boo had a great time building ever more elaborate fortifications, complete with a moat, which required a very long trench to be dug from the sea. Once they were happy with the castle, they added many little details including flags and balistraria, which are the slots in castle walls from which the archers fired arrows.
Boo sketched the castle that they had created and added tiny soldiers and cannons to her picture. Imagining how such a castle would have looked in ancient times.
All this time her dragon had been curled up behind a wind-break. Well, part of him was behind the windbreak, his lower body and tail did not fit and several people had tripped over his tail, but so far he had been mostly hidden and very well behaved for once. While mommy and her boyfriend were holding hands and snoozing, Boo rummaged in her backpack and found a couple of dragon snacks. Despite his impeccable behavior so far, she felt it best to keep him well fed, just in case.
She approached the dragon cautiously, he was often a little grumpy after a nap, but this time he smiled, inhaled the snacks and suggested that they could go for a swim. ‘I’m not sure that is a good idea, the water is really cold today.’ explained Boo, ’but we could make more sand castles’.
‘Oh yes, that’s a great idea’
Boo explained that the sand had to be damp,’not too dry and not too wet,else the castles fall apart.’
‘Dragons have a much better method’, he explained, ‘dragon spit is a wonderful glue that sticks anything together and also dragon claws are really good at fine details.’. He demonstrated and formed a paw full of sand into a cube.
Boo rolled her eyes, she was really starting to wonder if this was a bad idea.
The dragon however seemed to be really rather good. He used his tail to moved the sand around and his paws and claws to shape it into some fairly intricate shapes. Every so often he would spit into the sand and the gooey mess did seem to hold together rather well. Boo busied herself digging a trench to the sea to get the moat of the second castle filled.
The castle was looking extremely good, the dragon spit was doing a fine job of holding the sand together, thus allowing for some extremely fine details. But the dragon was not satisfied, ‘It needs some windows, do you have a spoon or a butter knife I can use ?
Boo checked in her backpack, handing him a couple of strawberry granola bars while she looked. ‘Here, I have an old teaspoon, will that work ?’, she handed him an old teaspoon that she had put in her backpack just in case it was ever needed.
The dragon took the spoon and examined it, ‘Perfect’, before bending the sides of the spoon into a small rectangle.
He scooped up a heaped spoonful of sand and breathed his fiery breath into it – instantly turning the sand into what looked like toffee. Boo was intrigued, ‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I’m Making windows, in days gone by, people used to make glass out of sand and the castle needs windows.’
As the glass cooled he flicked it off the hot spoon into place in the castle. He then repeated the process many more times, glazing the castle.
As an additional flourish he melted a patch of sand and then cut an large rectangle of glass and turned it into a bridge over the moat. The castle was a complete work of art.
Before long a small crowd had gathered to look at the amazing castle, several people ask if this castle is part of the competition. Boo replied that she did not know that there was one, ‘but sure, why not?’.
A short while later, the results of the sand castle building competition are announced, ‘…..and in first place we have the nine-year old Boo, with a magnificent replica of Windsor Castle. Everyone clapped as she did a cute little curtsey.
Boo and her mommy collected the grand prize, which, it turns out was a basket of food and drink. She gave the bottle of wine to her mommy and the snacks, including the basket, to her dragon, but she did keep the jar of her favorite Nutella to herself and promised to have spoonfuls on her Toast in the morning.
Mommy was delighted, her boyfriend a little less so as he really did think that his model of a fairly obscure castle near Leicester was much more historically interesting, but he did graciously concede that his castle did not have windows or a working drawbridge and was therefore less impressive.
Later that evening, after a dinner of lasagne, Boo was pretending to sleep in her bedroom.
In reality she was tickling her dragon behind his ears, which as everyone knows is almost guaranteed to make a dragon giggle. When dragons giggle they often blow small smoke rings from the noses and before very long Boo’s bedroom smelled rather a lot like bonfire night.
Which was a very good thing indeed.