‘Come on Boo, I’m waiting for you’.
Boo’s Mommy was twiddling her house keys impatiently and standing by the door, she was eager to get put of the house and to plunge head-first into the mass of shoppers at the local shopping mall.
Boo was considerably less sure about the idea. One hand she had been given money for christmas and she was eager to convert it into toys and sweets and she would get a lot more for her money in the January sales, but then on the other hand, everyone else probably had the same idea and shopping was going to be difficult.
Boo put her purple ankle boots on, they clashed beautifully with her navy blue wooly tights and her favourite tartan skirt. She also pulled on her bobble hat, and her parka before finally grabbing her backpack.
Mommies Boyfriend passed them their home-made packed lunch and kissed them goodbye. Privately he thought that they were insane, but he smiled ‘Try not to get into trouble you two, if you need me, call me’. He mimed putting a phone to his ear, using his finger and thumb and blew kisses as they walked away.
It was only a short walk to the station and it was still very early, but there seemed to be quite a few people around already. ‘Oh no’, thought Boo, ‘the train is going to be packed’. She need not have worried, they quickly found a seat and very soon the countryside was flashing by as the train announcer called out the names of stations in a not-quite comprehensible manner. ‘The train is now arrived at Waffleburger on Sea Situation’.
Boo laughed at each one. as they were announced. They went through Waffle-Burger Situation, Handily Surgeon, Mouth Benfluff and several others before finally arriving at Vicious Plackards, which was close to the name of the actual station next to the mall.
Despite still laughing from the mispronunciations, they jumped off the train and followed the crowd towards the entrance. The mall was very busy, but luckily, Boo’s Mommy had a plan, she had a map of the mall and had marked off all of the shops that she wanted to visit, so all that they needed to do was to follow the map, visit the shops, pause for a snack and then head home
‘What,’ thought Boo, ‘could possibly go wrong ?’.
They managed to get through the first few shops, both clothes shops, then a kitchen-wares shop, without too much trouble. The next stop was ‘La Cave à Fromage’, which, according to Mommy was the best cheese shop in London. As they approached the store though, they noticed that the normal window display was gone, there were no edam rounds, no sacks of Brie, not even so much as a miniature. The door was boarded shut, with ‘Police Line’ and ‘Do not cross’ tape all over the place. A rather burly, but also terribly bored looking Policeman was telling anyone that would listen that there was ‘nothing to see’ and suggesting that they ‘move along now’ in a very deep voice.
‘Dragon”, thought Boo.’There is no other way that a shop could be cleared of cheese so efficiently’.
‘Oh no Sweetie, it looks like we will not be able to get any Sternschnupf for my boyfriend.’
Boo was secretly relieved, because some of the cheese that he liked seemed to smell the house out for days, but she was also a little worried that her Dragon had cleared out an entire store rather recently. He had not returned last night and although this was not unusual, it was a little worrying.
Boo and her Mommy, though a little disappointed, decided to carry on, they shopped in the Candy Emporium, the Handbag Shack and yet another clothes shop.
Eventually they were hungry, so they found a bench and attacked their packed lunches, ham wraps, Hula Hoops and a bottle of blackcurrant each. It was while Boo was on her second bag of Hula Hoops that she finally spotted Dragon. Or, perhaps, more accurately, she spotted his legs and feet. Dragon was hiding in the window of a curtain shop. Or at least he was hiding his upper half, his legs and tummy were on display below a set of flowery kitchen curtains.
As Boo watched, everyone ignored him entirely. Boo held the theory that if you do not believe in dragons, then you cannot see them, even when they are hiding in plain sight. So far this theory seemed to be holding up very well.
While she watched, Dragon moved from behind the curtains and she was able to get his attention. Under the guise of taking the rubbish to the bin, she managed to have a very short conversation with him.
‘What are you doing here ?’
‘Cheese shops’, Dragon grinned his scary grin.
‘The whole shop ?’
‘Dragons get hungry sometimes’
‘Try and keep out of trouble, I’ll see you at home later’.
‘OK, but I may hang around here for a while, you know, people watching’.
Boo sighed, ‘OK, but please do not eat anyone’
Dragon smiled, ‘of course not, I’m not that hungry’
Boo was not sure that this was a good answer, promising not to eat people just because he was not hungry seemed a little scary to her.
‘Mommy, Mommy, can we go to the Lego store next ?’
‘Well we could but it is a long way away and we only have a couple more shops to go in.’
‘Oh, OK, lets do those and then the Lego store ?
‘Deal, lets go’.
They walked off hand in hand and headed to the Gadget shop with a list of unidentifiable things that Mommy’s Boyfriend had asked her to get, then they stopped of at the delicatessen. ‘Can I get a kilo of Lamb chops, 250g of Pastrami and 250g of Salami please’
‘Sorry love, no lamb chops, we were raided last night and the thieves took all of the lamb chops we had. Silly blighters left the cash in the till and the expensive Bourbon and just took the lamb chops, even the ones that were beyond the best-before data and were in the bin’.
Boo rolled her eyes, ‘Dragon’, she thought.
‘OK,’ said Mommy, ‘how about a kilo of pork chops’.
‘No problem love’.
Boo could have sworn that she heard Mommy growl in a dragon like fashion.
Their final stop on the way to the Lego store was at ‘La parfumerie cher fou’, Mommy did not get the smelly things she wanted for Christmas despite hinting about then for several weeks before the day, so she wanted to get a new bottle of her favourite perfume.
As they went into the store, Boo realised that Dragon was following them.
‘Erm, Mommy, can we just grab what you need and go, I really need to go pee-pee’, Boo lied. Boo, you see, knew that if anyone started spraying perfume around, there was a chance that Dragon would get a nose full and if that happened, the results could be anywhere between a minor sheet of flame, all the way up to, well, she did not want to think about it.
pssssstttttttttt
Mommy had already sprayed Boo with a tester.
Which meant only one thing.
‘Ahhhhhh, Ahhhhhhh’
‘Quick run for it’ Boo hissed at Dragon
‘Ahhhhhhhhhh, Ahhhhhhhhh,
This was going to be bad.
Dragon bolted for the door of the shop, straight through the display of expensive French Perfume.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, Ahhhhhhhh’Straight through the glass shop front
‘Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhccccchhhhhhhh
And flew straight upwards towards the high glass roof .
‘Choooooooooooooooo’The resultant fireball blasted through the roof, creating a hole several meters wide which Dragon flew straight through at high speed.
Some time later, Boo and Mommy were back at home.
‘So after the perfume shop exploded, we got a discount on my new fragrance, then we could not get to the Lego shop because the bomb squad made us all evacuate the mall.’
Mommy was explaining why they were back early.
‘Also the cheese shop was empty and we could not get any lamb chops’
‘I saw on the news that there is a national lamb shortage at the moment and oddly they were talking about several raids on cheese shops, the Police think that there is possibly a gang of cheese lovers that are clearing out the shops and perhaps sending it to France. They have road blocks setup near the tunnel to check for illegal cheese smuggling.’
‘You are making it up now’.
‘No, it’s on the news…’
Boo snuck to her room, Dragon was snoozing a little on the floor, but looked up as she entered
‘Dragon, you need to be a bit more careful, you know that Perfume makes you sneeze and you really should not eat entire cheese shops’.
Dragon looked a little sad. ‘but Dragons love cheese’
‘Oh and you are causing a lamb shortage, can’t you switch to beef or pork for a while ?’
‘Well, you did give me the lamb seasoning’
Boo sighed, she tickled him under his chin and gazed into his big green eyes before kissing him on his snout, ‘Dragon, I have no idea what I am going to do with you.’……..