Dragons Inc

By Brian Holloway

Dragons Inc is a wonderful collection of Dragon stories and poems,all original,compiled by Brian Holloway. Stories from UK,Wales,USA,Australia, New Zealand and Germany. Delightful fun read for all ages 8-80. Each story has colour picture.
300 pages in hard copy, promotion has proved very popular with younger set,and parents.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Holloway
• Release date: Sep 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476097695

Brian Holloway

Sailor, bike rider,living in Auckland New Zealand (a 5th generation kiwi)Loves to travel, sings badly, can be good company and will party any timeHistoric novel of a runaway migrant boy in 1839Book should be in print and p- e-pub early October. Book is POSH- a New Zealand novelAlso there are twelve stories, in colour, of the Dragons that live in the garden. Will be produced at same time.This is the Scary Dragon Chronicles- it is fun for young minded people 8- 80years

Book preview

1. A Dragon Gourmand gets a Big Fright

Tammy Ashley

In a converted diary factory in the Bay of Plenty there is a charming country restaurant. What most of the diners don’t know is that it is also home to a very small dragon with a taste for fine dining and Sunday night roasts.

Geoffrey, as he is sometimes called, who is from a long line of tree dwelling dragons has a comfortable roost just behind the antlers on top of a deer’s head mounted on the wall. This is a handy perch as it is just up and around the corner from the kitchen with a great view of the waitresses bringing plates back and forth. It is also above the fire place which is a lovely cozy spot on a cold winter’s night and Geoffrey isn’t fussed if it gets a little warm up near the rafters in the summer time.

For the most part Geoffrey is happy to sneak scraps at the end of the night. He also likes to slip quietly down between the lunch and dinner service when the evening meal prep is being done to swipe a little something left on the benches by the chef’s when they have gone out for their breaks. The chefs do get a bit puzzled from time to as to why the sauce has gone down or who ate the extra dessert left on the bench. But, as he is a very small dragon he doesn’t need a big meal every day and so the chefs tend to blame one another, rodents or that cat/bird they sometimes see out of the corner of one eye peering through the window or hanging around the back door (their minds seeing only what they might expect to see, they don’t realize it is our little dragon friend).

Most of the time Geoffrey’s days roll from one to another with the main change being what is on the daily specials board. He gets up when the cleaners come in mid morning and slips outside for some fresh air and exercise, which is just as well as he is a little portly at the moment. He then peeks in through the kitchen window before slipping up to his perch to watch the lunch service. After the lunch service Geoffrey will make a raid on the kitchen if he is feeling peckish or there is a particularly intriguing smell wafting out into the dining hall.

Now this might seem like a dangerous thing for a little dragon to do, but he is very careful, keeping to the dark timbers of the ceiling, swooping very quickly and changing the color of his scales to reflect his surroundings. He has from time to time used this same technique to swipe a particularly tasty looking morsel off an unsuspecting patron’s plate just as they turn away, having discovered quite quickly that humans tend to only see what they want to see and will often just assume they had already eaten that mouthful that has just disappeared.

People did see him from time to time but no one ever noticed him, or if they did they just assumed it was a shadow, a trick of the light, a bird, or some other thing. So, maybe he was getting a little slack or over confident the night it happened.

It was the night he got his BIG FRIGHT and feared that his lovely comfy lifestyle might be coming to an end.

It started with the rain, it had rained and rained for days and the old building had sprung a bit of a leak. The water was being caught in a couple of buckets on the floor so Geoffrey had decided to have a nice bath before the evening meal. This would have been all well and good except the weather was so damp that his wings hadn’t been drying properly. So, there he was sitting up on his perch behind the antlers with his wings spread trying to dry them, when the first diners sat down to enjoy a Sunday dinner. He had done this from time to time without any trouble, the deer’s head was mounted high on the wall and the deer’s antlers cast plenty of shadows so a few more shadows from Geoffrey’s wings tended to go unnoticed.

He was watching the dinner service, checking out what he was likely to get in left-overs and half watching a little boy go down and up and around and down and up and around the sets of stairs that separated the two levels of the dining hall when the little boy looked up, pointed and said firmly

Dragon. His mother looked up, smiled and said, Yes, dear, Dragon.

This gave Geoffrey a BIG FRIGHT and he scrambled backwards, flapping and folding up this wings. This was just as the little boy looked up again and then in a big voice clearly announced,

Spider Dragon.

Well, poor Geoffrey, he nearly fell off his perch how could a little boy know about spider dragons and announce it to the world? This was a disaster, surely the waitresses would come scrambling with a broom and chase him out of there and then he would have to go back to scavenging in the wild, eating insects. Nuts and berries even were ok, but didn’t live up to roast pork and vegetables or fresh cannelloni followed by a chocolate mud pie or tiramisu.

Geoffrey lay flat on the deer’s neck and put his front paws over his eyes. What was he going to do? Baths were one thing, but getting wet out in the rain, having to build a proper nest, no warm fire to sit above in the winter and having to cook his own dinner just didn’t appeal. He wasn’t even certain that he could still blow fire from his nostrils, at least not with any proper control. This was the worst thing that had happened to Geoffrey in a very long time. He lay there shaking when he heard the mother say,

Yes, darling, a lovely spider dragon.

He waited with baited breath for her to tell the waitress who was walking past about their resident pest. Poor Geoffrey had his front paw caught in a mouse trap when he was acquiring food at the last restaurant he had inhabited. He had been given a nasty scare as he overheard the manager talking about what he would do to the resident pest, just as he got his paw free and scrambled out the window never to return. Instead the waitress and the mother discussed little children and their obsession with climbing up and down stairs. Slowly his shaking eased; maybe she had forgotten and he was going to be alright after all.

Shortly after he heard the mother laughing as she told the father that the little boy had seen the deer’s head and called it a dragon, a spider dragon, like the spiders on his boots and the dragons that his cousins love to pretend to be, roaring as they crawl around the floor. Together they laughed and once again Geoffrey nearly fell off his perch. Only this time with relief as he realised that even if the little boy and his mother had seen him they weren’t going to tell the waitresses and his home was safe.

Phew!

Perhaps he would have an extra helping of dessert tonight to celebrate.

Tammy Ashley

2. James has an Adventure

Tammy Ashley

James is a curious little boy. He has a Poppa who loves dragons very much. James also likes dragons, but, he likes dinosaurs too. Now being a curious boy he has wondered why people have found dinosaur bones but not dragon bones. Hmmmm.

One day James was out exploring in a paddock at the back of the farm and he found a little cave hidden around the back of a large outcropping of rock and covered by the branches of a weeping willow tree. Being an adventurous sort he always carried a number of useful items about him, and he pulled a small torch out of his pocket and squeezed sideways inside.

Behind the rock the cave opened into a tunnel that sloped gently up into the hill and it was high enough and wide enough for James to walk without banging his head or his elbows. The tunnel wound up for a while and James was pleased to have his torch as he soon left any daylight behind. He moved slowly to avoid tripping over loose rocks and lumps and bumps in the floor. His interest in rocks and stone led him to conclude that the tunnel had been carved out of the soft limestone rocks and after a while he thought he heard the drip-drip of water.

Then he smelled barbequed meat and noticed that there was a little bit of flickering light up ahead. James turned off his torch and crept forward as quietly as his gumboots would let him. The light got brighter as he crept closer till he came to the edge of a large cavern ringed by stalactites and stalagmites; James peered around the edge of a large stalagmite. In the centre of the cavern he glimpsed a glowing fire and scattered around the floor a number of stones reflecting different colours. He looked around the cavern to see who had lit the fire, but couldn’t see anyone. He didn’t notice the dark shape on the far side deep in the shadows.

Heart beating, he slipped into the middle of the space, looking down he noticed a pile of small rabbit bones and a few sheep bones too. Maybe they did have a sheep rustler after all or a homeless person living in the cave. It had seemed odd that it was usually from this paddock that sheep went missing from time to time, especially as this paddock was close to the centre of his family’s farm.

Feeling nervous James glanced down at a neat cluster of stones and noticed that they were arranged in a pretty pattern as was the next one over. Each cluster of stones was a different colour, blues and reds, greens and yellows and smoky browns. James reached down and picked up a deep red stone that looked like it had been polished, maybe even cut. Behind him he heard,

Ahem, young man, what are you doing with my stone?

Eeek! said James dropping the stone with a clatter. I’m sorry, just looking’. James glanced over to where the voice had come from but couldn’t see anyone.

Umm, does my Dad know you are living up here?

A deep rippling laugh echoed around the cavern, layered with something like bells and the tinkling of wind chimes.

I doubt it sonny, I doubt he would even believe that I exist.

Of course he would, you’re the one who’s been stealing our sheep.

I only eat the sick or injured ones, plus keeping down your pest population – rats, mice, stoats, rabbits and possums are all good to me – but every now and then I hunger for a really big hunk of lamb, and one sheep will last me a month or two. Anyway, I have been here much longer than any of you.

Well how long is that?

Mmmm, rumbled the voice, maybe a hundred years.

Whaaat, squeeked James. How can you still catch sheep if you are over a hundred years old? My gran-gran is 96 and she struggles to get around the supermarket let alone chase a sheep across a big paddock?

I am a little bit different from your gran-gran.

How do ya mean?

Well, aren’t you the curious one.

Yup, so you gonna tell me, or am I gonna get my Dad.

Mmmm, I’d rather you didn’t tell your dad about me or this cave. Maybe you could just say you thought the sheep might have fallen down a crevasse, and maybe I will try not to eat anymore sheep. At least, only a couple a year.

Yeah right, Mum would freak if she thought there were crevasses up here and would try and stop me coming up here. She lost a foal last year that fell in one and broke its leg over on the Johnson’s farm.

That’s a real shame. I like horses, they are funny creatures, tasty too.

Ugh, eating horse.

Not much different from cow or deer really. The French love it and they are renowned for knowing about food.

How can you know about the French and food when you’ve lived here in a dark cave for a hundred years?

Another tinkling rumbling laugh. I do get out and I do read. Besides, I haven’t spent the whole time here and besides I was born in Europe.

Something about this statement sent a shiver up James’ spine. "Just how old