‘Hey Dragon, have you ever been on a trampoline ?’
Dragon was still sleepy, he had only just woken up and was still at the point where he could not differentiate between the dream he had been having and the world he had woken up in.
‘A what, where, how ?’
‘A trampoline Dragon, have you ever been on one ?’
Dragon frowned, sometimes he found it hard to keep up with Boo, last night they had been flying along the coast in the cool air, they had munched donuts and smokey bacon crisp and drunk hot chocolate at midnight, now Boo was quizzing him about trampolines.
‘Oh yes, bouncy things, I’ve never been on one, I’m not sure it would be a good idea to try either.‘
‘I’ve been invited to Bouncy City later, it’s going to be so much fun.’
Dragon smiled and instantly found that a pack of cheese and onion crisps right in front of his nose. This was pretty normal, his smile exposed a lot of very sharp teeth and he looked hungry, Boo kept a selection of snacks within reach just for such occasions. Dragon, as it happened was hungry so the crisps were very welcome.
‘What time are you go to this Boingy-boingy place ?’
‘Right after lunch, Pollys mum is taking us for a burger and then we are going to Bounce City, I can’t wait, it’s going to be so exciting, I’m going to do somersaults and bounce so high I’ll reach the ceiling.’
Boo was jumping up and down on her bed to demonstrate and making an awful lot of noise.
Boos mommy knocked on the door, ‘Sweetie, can you save the bouncing for later please, I’m trying to balance my bank account and I’m struggling to concentrate. For a moment there I thought we had spent £92 on cheese this week, not £9.20. ‘
Dragon drooled a little, £92 would buy a great deal of cheese, he could have cheese, cheese, cheese and cheese on toast, with extra cheese.
‘Sorry Mummy’.
Dragon grinned and again he found a snack in front of his snout, this time it was a granola bar which he simply inhaled.
Boo picked out her outfits for the day, her favourite plaid skirt, her adorable bunny tee shirt and some thick woolly tights.
Half an hour later she had kissed Dragon on his snout, fed him a cheese sandwich and a packet of hula-hoops, told him to behave and skipped off with Polly in the direction of Billy’s Burgers.
Within a few minutes Dragon was bored.
He was also a little hungry, despite not being over keen on Billy’s Burgers, the cheeseburgers only had one thin slice of cheese and the buns always seem to be too crusty, he slipped quietly out of the window and headed for the burger bar.
Boo and Polly were already there, and as Dragon arrived Pollys mum had just set down a tray loaded with food.
Boo spotted Dragon immediately, but started to fret because rather than sitting quietly, he had smelled food, she watched half amused and half worried as Dragon snuck behind the counter and headed to the kitchen.
‘Boo, your skinny fries are going cold’
Polly pointed to the fries which indeed were already looking a little limp and decided that she did not really fancy them, but out of manners she picked at them a little.
Boo ate her lunch slowly, the burger was ok, the cheese was rather thin and there’s were mushrooms in hers,’what kind of idiot puts mushrooms in a burger, she thought as she picked them out.
There was a bit of a commotion going on at the counter. Boo strained to hear.
‘I’m sorry but we have run out of cheese so the cheeseburger, the megacheeseburger and the cheesy special are all not available’
The flustered Billy-Burger team member taking orders did not look happy.
‘But if you want the gluten free cheesy nut burger, we have plenty of non-dairy cheese substitute available ‘
Boo grinned, she knew that there was no way Dragon would eat that. She also remembered his outrage when she tried to feed him a Billy-Burger cheeseburger recently, there was so little cheese on it that he was adamant that it was breaking the trades description laws.
‘Ok, in that case I’ll have a Billy-Burger lamb-burger special please with mushrooms.’
‘Sorry sir, we seem to be out of lamb burgers, ham burgers and jumbo hot dogs’, she glanced into the kitchen, ‘and mushrooms, and eggs and fried onions and Texas toast too.’, there was a long pause.
‘We only have vegan burgers, tomatoes, lettuce and gluten-free buns and vegetable chip fries…’ Boo smiled, typical Dragon, he had cleaned the place out of all the tasty things and completely ignored the vegetables.
Polly had finished her burger, but seemed to be very wary of her fries which were looking limp and unappetising.
Boo was looking around for Dragon, but she could not see him. She suspected that he was probably sleeping off his lunch somewhere.
A little while later they arrived at Bounce City.
Boo had never seen so many trampolines. A young, and rather spotty, teenager was trying to show them around and presumably impress them.
‘This is the low bounce ‘poline ‘, he hopped on and jumped up and down demonstrating that it had hardly any spring in it, ‘it’s for young kids really’.
Polly giggled.
‘Then this ‘poline is better but not really that much fun.’
Again, he jumped on and bounced fairly high, he managed a lazy somersault then hopped off. ‘We call it the wussy ‘poline.’
Boo sighed, she was already fed up waiting to bounce, she did not need a spotty boy trying to impress them.
She spotted Dragon, he was sitting in the rafters, grinning at her. She smiled back and using a complicated set of hand gestures tried to indicate that the boy was irritating her.
‘Right then ladies, here is the one for you, we call it the super ‘poline, let me show you.
He hopped on and within a couple of bounces he did a double somersault. ‘If you ladies need some help with technique, I’ll hold your hand.’
Polly made the ‘puke’ sign to Boo, who returned it with extra emphasis.
Boo and Polly jumped onto two trampolines side by side and started to bounce. They bounced higher and higher, adding little twirls and swirls. As they gained confidence they got better and better. Initially a tentative forward roll became a full somersault.
Pollys mum was taking photos from the spectator gallery, she thought it was marvellous. She was not the only one paying attention though, the spotty boy was watching and Dragon watched from his vantage point too.
‘Not bad ladies’, it was the spotty boy,’ let me show you how to go it properly’.
He hopped onto the trampoline next to Boo and bounced one, two, three times reaching higher each time.
On his forth bounce however he barely left the mat, he managed perhaps 50cm or maybe a little less.
As he landed he bent his knees and tried to take off but this time he did not leave the mat at all.
A casual observer, perhaps say one that does not believe in dragons for example, would perhaps think that there was something horribly wrong with the trampoline.
Boo snorted with laughter.
The spotty boy was jumping up and down on the trampoline and not getting anywhere.
Polly had noticed too and was crying with laughter as the boy jumped and jumped and totally failed to even leave the ground.
Suddenly there was a tremendous ‘boing’ and the boy hurtled upwards he seemed to hang in the air for an improbable amount of time, flailing at thin air before connecting to the rafters. Somehow he managed to scramble onto a beam.
Boo and Polly went back to bouncing, the sobbing from the rafters barely putting them off. They managed somersaults, back flips and even a crossover where they high fives each other and swapped trampolines in mid air.
Eventually they decided that they were too tired and too in need of ice cream to continue. The spotty boy was still stuck in the rafters so Pollys mum nipped behind the desk and retrieved their shoes.
Boo looked over her shoulder for Dragon but he was nowhere to be seen.