‘But Daddy, you need to go and see my teachers tonight, you will love Ms. Angel our maths teacher and Mr. Ben our History teacher is great and….’
Daddy was not listening, he was way too engrossed in the instruction booklet for his new car. He had been terribly distracted for almost a week now. His new car was bright red and very loud. It only had two doors and two seats, which Boo thought was pretty silly as it meant that she had nowhere to sit when they went anywhere with his girlfriend.
This did not seem to matter to him though.
‘Uhm, yes, school, teachers, yes’, he muttered. He was way to engrossed in the instruction book. ‘Oh Boo, did you know that this car has digital door mirrors ?’
Boo rolled her eyes, ‘Why do you need digital mirrors, that sounds ridiculous. Mommy does not have a car, she says that they are a waste of money.’
‘Well, Mommy probably does not need to go shopping, or do DIY projects, or….’
He tailed off, the truth was that the car that he had just bought was almost entirely useless for shopping, it had no storage space, this of course also made it useless for DIY projects too and Boo could tell that this was going through his mind too. She decided to pursue the parents night.
‘Seriously Daddy, you need to go and see my teachers, they really want to tell you how I am getting on. ‘
‘OK, well, you stay here with my girlfriend and I’ll go and speak to them. Boo rolled her eyes, she was not exactly seeing eye-to-eye with his girlfriend. She thought about that thought for a moment. Daddies girlfriend was just a couple of inches taller than her, but probably weighed three times as much and she had a very large wobbly bottom which she jiggled as she walked. This made Boo laugh, but never out loud.
The problem was that she always treated Boo like a baby, she put on a baby voice and simplified things to such an extent that Boo could barely understand her at times. She also pulled a goldfish pouty-face that made Boo want to vomit. She tried to explain that despite being a mere nine years old, she was already way ahead of her peers and already working in classes of children that are two years older than her at school. But she just told her to run along and ‘play with her dollies’. Boo did not even own a doll, let alone call them ‘dollies’.
Regardless, at seven PM, daddy kissed Boo goodbye, before heading to the parents evening. He looked rather strange, he was wear super skinny black jeans, black canvas shoes and a tee-shirt that Boo recognized as a Nirvana shirt. He also stunk of aftershave and his hair was all spiky. ‘Mommie’s boyfriend says that “All Apologies” is the best track on “In Utero”, but I disagree, “Pennyroyal Tea” is way better.’ Her daddy just stared at her.
‘Uhm, you are sorry you want what tea?’ He looked confused.
‘Daddy, you never listen to Nirvana do you, so why are you wearing the shirt ?’
‘Uhm, this old thing’, he stammered, caught out’ and realizing that the price tag was still fixed to the label in the back.
Boo giggled, mommies boyfriend always thought it was completely hilarious when people wore rock band tee-shirts but had never heard of their music. They had a little game that they called ‘spot the poseur’. The rules are simple – point out people in rock band tee-shirts that have obviously never even played the bands music. The winner is someone that spots the most inappropriate Nirvana or Sex Pistols teeshirt on a middle-aged man. Boo felt that she was winning todays round by a long way already.
Boo followed him to the door and gave him a list of teachers to talk to, kissed him goodbye and watched as he guided his loud, wide and very, very red Italian sports car along the narrow streets.
As soon as he was out of sight, she retreated back into the house and grinned. Sitting at the top of the stairs was her dragon. This was going to be fun after all.
Shortly at the school, Boo’s Mommy and Daddy were listening to one of her teachers ‘Yes, Boo got top marks in every single piece of homework I set for he this year, she is easily the top of the class too…..’
Boo’s daddy was not really listening, he was sending text messages to his girlfriend, who was already fretting about how long to cook fish fingers for.
‘Obviously, she is top of the class, but she is also quite popular, which is unusual for extremely bright children. She writes truly lovely stories about adventures with dragons and has a vivid imagination.’
‘Uhm, dragons you say’
‘Why yes, have you not read the stories that she writes ?’ Miss Matthews looked at Boo’s daddy incredulously, ‘you do realize that you daughter won the school fiction prize last term for her story “My pet dragon” and that since she has illustrated it and put in on our school website it is the most read story we have ever published ?’
‘Uhm, yes, ok course, yes’ he was fumbling with his phone, he had just got a message that the cooker was smoking, the kitchen window had exploded and the smoke detector was going crazy. ‘I have to make a phone call’.
A few minutes earlier at Daddies house, chaos seemed to take control.
It all started when Daddies girlfriend, the one with the wobbly bottom, blonde hair and the goldfish pout, had tried to cook Boo some dinner. She attempted the fiendishly difficult fish fingers and oven chips. Unfortunately she had not really cooked them for very long, the chips were soggy and the fish fingers were still cold in the middle. Boo mentioned this, politely. This seemed to anger the chef though and she had snatched up the plate and thrown it back into the, now switched off oven.
At that very moment her favourite soap had started on the TV, so she had run, squealing, to the TV to watch it. Obviously it was super important that she did not miss a single second.
Boo was still in the kitchen, sobbing gently, when her dragon wandered in. She explained that her dinner was not cooked and that the chips were soggy, while the fish fingers were still cold. ‘That’s ridiculous’ explained her dragon, ‘fishes do not have fingers’. Boo rolled her eyes. Then smiled. She was extremely happy to se her dragon, but also a little worried as there were no granola bars in the kitchen and her dragon was often rather hungry.
‘Help me turn this oven on and I’ll cook everything properly’, she said.
The dragon stared at the cooker, he was very smart, but he did not understand how modern appliances worked.
Nor did Boo, the cooker was nothing like the one that she used when baking cakes with Mommy.
‘I have an idea’
‘Oh no’, thought Boo, this sounds dangerous.
‘I’ll warm them up by breathing a little dragon breath on them.’
Boo could not think of a better idea, the cooker was very, very complicated. ‘OK, let me get them out of the oven’.
She opened the door and was about to reach in when there was an almighty sneeze.
‘KeeerChoooooo’ went the dragon.
Boo instinctively dropped to her belly. Which was a very good idea, because the resultant fire-ball sailed harmlessly past her, straight into the oven. The door closed and there was a muffled ‘Whump’.
Boo looked at her dragon who had a pepper pot in his paw. ‘Oops’.
Then she looked at the cooker. it still looked mostly like a cooker, which was promising, but the cupboards either side of is were blackened and she was sure that the cooker hob should be flat and not bowed upwards in the middle. It was also smoking slightly.
Then rather a lot of things happened in a very short period.
First of all the smoke alarm sounded.
This startled the dragon.
Startled dragons are highly unpredictable, almost the only thing for certain is that they will run back and forth, bump into things and they often inadvertently incinerate things.
The dragon ran around the kitchen trying to cover his ears, before eventually leaping straight of of the window.
Which was closed at the time.
The muffled ‘whump’ was not not enough to disturb daddies girlfriend from the TV. The smoke detector barely roused her. The sound of a dragon running around the kitchen was not enough either. But the sound of a dragon smashing his way through a double-glazed kitchen window was finally too much and moments later she arrived, tottering on her white stilettos and out of breath.
The kitchen was utterly devastated.
Boo was sitting at the table, trying to keep a straight face.
‘Explain’ she bellowed. Boo simply burst into tears, she hated being shouted at, it was all terribly unnecessary.
Daddies girlfriend pulled her phone out of her pocket and sent a couple of quick text messages.
Moments later her phone rang, it was Daddy.
……to be continued