Summer Dragons

By Holly Haggarty

Ten-year-old Elizabeth is spending the summer at her Great-Aunt Germaines, in rural Caradoc County. Also along for the visit is her brother, Eddie, and her mother. Great-Aunt Germaine seems to be a forbidding character, and Beth does not warm up to her. Between her relationship with Aunt Germaine and Eddies antics, Elizabeth feels overwhelmed. She discovers her aunts emporium, a former tourist attraction. It is a fascinating place, filled with memorabilia, including old newspaper reports of a mysterious swamp monster. Elizabeths own adventure begins when she finds a perfectly egg-shaped stone in the local graveyard. Its brilliantly white, warm, and pulsing with energy and it feels like theres something inside. Encouraged by her eccentric great-aunt, Beth builds a nest for the egg stone. When the egg hatches, Elizabeths imagination guides her in a fantastical search for the runaway hatchling. Her investigations, abetted by her great-aunt, lead her to believe that the hatchling is the legendary Caradoc Swamp Monster. Elizabeths efforts to prove her deductions bring her into ever more fiery conflict with Eddie. What hatches is a zany adventure involving quick mud, skunk cabbage, swamp monsters, dragon dives, bonfires, fiery words and broiling tempers. Its a summer of dragons. The solution to both the mystery of the egg stone and the problem of sibling rivalry are satisfyingly reached in the humorous and imaginative conclusion of Summer Dragons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Mar 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781459716728

Holly Haggarty

Holly Haggarty was born in 1960 in Midland, Ontario. In a wonderful, magical moment, when she started grade one, she discovered she knew how to read. Finally she realized that storybooks were what she wanted to build her career around. So she became a mother, teacher, storyteller, writer. Holly Haggarty has published poems and articles in arts magazines and educational journals. Dream Dad was her first novel for children and was followed by Summer Dragons.

Book preview

story.

Prologue

On a hill, amid forest and swamp, encased within a stone lair, a dragon sleeps. Her jewels cached, she waits until the time is right.

Trees fall and swamp retreats, yet the dragon bides her time. She dreams of once upon a time.

One bright morning, a girl and her brother wander by. They long for adventure yet cannot agree. Sparks fly, catch tinder, blaze.

The flames lap into the lair. The dragon squirms; her hiding place grows hot and tight. She must burst forth.

Here is a story of fire and water, of fear and daring, of secrets and truths.

Chapter One

Death’s Door

What if she’s dead already?"

Beth was startled from her reading by this alarming question, shot at her by her brother in the back seat of the car.

Eddie! Beth reacted with shock. Eddie! How can you say that? Did you hear him, Mom?

Her mother said nothing, but her hands tightened around the steering wheel, and Beth realized that Eddie was just speaking aloud what they all feared.

Beth, her brother Eddie, and their mother, Irene, were driving across the province to visit Great-Aunt Germaine.

If she were still alive.

What if we come and she’s lying on the floor by the phone? Or in a lump at the foot of her bed? Eddie’s eyes were wide and piercing.

Beth shivered.

What if she fell over in her garden, right on top of her rose bushes?

Eddie! yelled Beth. Stop!

But Eddie wouldn’t stop. She could be lying there, her body crawling with ants and worms and rats.

You’re sick, Eddie! Beth exclaimed. She shook her head. How could Eddie enjoy this—imagining their great-aunt dead?

Oh, c’mon, Bethie. Eddie came to his own defence. I’m just having fun. I don’t even know what Great-Aunt Germaine looks like. I don’t even know who she is.

She’s my godmother, Beth told him. She sends me a card for my birthday every year.

Eddie shrugged. "I’ve never seen her."

Yes, you have, Beth reminded her brother. When we went to Great-Aunt Bridget’s funeral, when we were in Grade Two. This was before Mom and Dad separated, so Dad was with us. The house was smothered with flowers, and Dad said he couldn’t breathe. And he got into an argument with Great-Aunt Germaine when he tried to move the vases.

Eddie shook his head. Well, if Eddie didn’t remember, Beth certainly did. I had to kiss all these old ladies, and they scared me because they said I looked like Great-Aunt Bridget, and I thought that meant I was going to die, too.

Their mother, at the steering wheel, sighed. We should have visited more often, and not waited until a lawyer warned us she’s at . . .

At what? asked Beth.

No answer. Everyone in the car fell silent.

When, a while later, they drove up the driveway to Great-Aunt Germaine’s yellow brick house, the silence became funereal. Nobody made a move to get out of the car. Beth was struck still, wondering if ghosts might appear from along the wraparound porch, or from out of the elegant gingerbread-trimmed windows. As if bodies might be found in the gardens surrounding the house or in the red barn in the field beyond.

The front door opened, and an old lady stepped out.

She was thin, almost skeletal, with limp grey hair gathered up in a bun at the top of her head. An old-fashioned purple-flowered dress hung loosely from her shoulders until it was caught and held in place with a belt. She wasn’t much taller than Beth, and she looked as frail as chimney smoke, but she waved her hand energetically as she made her way down the front steps toward them. She carried a wooden walking stick that she hardly used; she was surprisingly spry.

She’s alive, Eddie cheered. Beth sighed in relief. Everybody tumbled out of the car to greet her.

Well, hello! Great-Aunt Germaine called out. I thought I heard a car pull up. Look what the sunshine has brought me today. If it isn’t my niece, Irene! Terribly hot day for driving, isn’t it? Oh, Irene, my, you’ve changed—you’ve dyed your hair! Jet black! And you’ve gained weight! Leaping lizards, who’s this? Little Elizabeth? Last time I saw you, you were knee-high to a grasshopper. Now you’re all long legs and straight hair. Just like my sister, Bridget. Though she carried it with grace. And who’s this now—Edward? There’s a mop of hair if ever I saw one! My, my, fancy you all dropping in out of the blue.

Aunt Germaine! Beth’s mother reacted in surprise. I sent a letter. Express delivery, to make sure you knew we were coming.

No, her aunt exclaimed, I didn’t get any letter—oh, the postal service can’t be relied on at all these days. Ever since Canada Post sold its service to dime stores and junk shops, mail delivery has gone down the same slippery slope as the rest of their goods.

And I’ve been calling, Irene persisted, again and again, but you won’t pick up the phone.

Her aunt shrugged. The telephone can be so annoying. Especially at my age! You struggle to answer it, only to find the caller has hung up! Well, come on in, folks—I wasn’t expecting you, so the larder is bare. I’ve nothing prepared. The guest rooms aren’t even made up.

As Beth returned to the car for her belongings, Eddie nudged her. Whad’ya think, Eh-litto-beth: she’s alive—but she’s nuts!

Sshh! Irene hissed.

The travellers collected their suitcases and followed the old lady into the house and up the stairs.

Beth was given the room that had once been Bridget’s. It had a good view of the property—if you could get to the window, that is. The room was cluttered with old furniture and knickknacks.

All the bedrooms were like that, Beth noticed, as she followed Great-Aunt Germaine. Every spare corner was crammed with chairs, cabinets, dressers, armoires, trunks, bedstands, and every shelf, desk, or table top was crowded with dusty lamps, books, statues, vases—even something that looked to Beth like a large stuffed cat.

When they got to the room that was to be Eddie’s, he threw his suitcase on the bed, the only bare surface in the room. You sure have a lot of stuff! he commented.

I do indeed! Great-Aunt Germaine looked around at her belongings and smiled fondly.

But there’s something funny. Eddie hesitated. I know—it’s all old stuff! There’s no computer here, no Playstation, no television. Hey, do you even have any places to plug in?

Her smile faded, and her brows crinkled together. So much of modern technology is just fiddle-faddle. A lion without a roar. Ever since they plopped themselves down in front of televisions, people have been forgetting how to read. Youngsters nowadays think they’re so smart, but, in fact, their intelligence is becoming just as artificial as the computers they’ve twinned themselves to. You can get more insight out of a gravestone than those idiot boxes!

Irene nodded in agreement, but Eddie blurted out, What about a smoke detector? Do you have one? ’Cause I think I smell smoke.

My cinnamon toast! Great-Aunt Germaine gasped, scurrying out of the room and down the stairs, her guests all tagging after.

Smoke wafted down the hallway from a smoke-hazed kitchen. Whatever had been toast was now in flames, belching blackly as it burned.

Great-Aunt Germaine strode forward into the thick of it while Irene ordered everyone out of the house. Eddie yelled for a fire extinguisher, for a pail of water, for a telephone, then he, too, dashed into the smoke.

Beth hesitated outside the kitchen, watching as Great-Aunt Germaine, with a great clattering, threw a stew pot over the flames licking outward from the stove.

Let’s get this smoke out! Great-Aunt Germaine cried, flinging open an outside door, then rushing to open the windows. With the lid of the stew pot, she fanned vigorously, trying to push the smoke out of the window. Beth was amazed at how fierce she looked, like an armoured queen defending her castle against a fiery invader.

Get outside, everyone! screeched Irene, pulling her aunt away from the window and dragging Eddie through the open door. Beth followed them outside.

As they stood on the back porch, breathing in the fresher air, Beth wondered if they should still call the fire department, but Great-Aunt Germaine insisted it wasn’t necessary. So, they waited on the porch, peering back in every now and then until the smoke cleared.

When they returned to the kitchen, Great-Aunt Germaine walked over to the stove and lifted the pot to reveal the crisp black remains of bread, lying against a stovetop toaster. She picked them up and tossed them into a garbage can.

See. She spread her hands in a flourish. Nothing’s damaged. It’s all as good as ever.

Following her gesture, Beth gazed about the large country kitchen. If this room was as good as ever, then it couldn’t ever have been very good.

If the rest of the house was cluttered, the kitchen was a catastrophe. There were unwashed dishes everywhere: on the counter and piled deep in the old-fashioned porcelain sink; teacups littered the table; used pots and pans crowded the top of the ancient-looking stove.

Oh my gosh! A wood stove! Eddie gaped. That’s what you use?

If I’d’a knowed you was coming, I’d’a baked a cake, washed the dishes, swept the grate . . . Great-Aunt Germaine sang, in a voice thin but melodic. Yes, of course I use it, each and every day.

"You cook with wood?" Beth asked. "Do you chop it yourself?"

At that, their mother snorted with laughter. Kids, she’s putting you on. It’s not a real wood-burning stove—it just looks like one. I can’t believe you still have it!

Why would I get rid of it? Great-Aunt Germaine demanded. It’s a real, working antique! I’ll tell you, Elizabeth: once electricity became available, a local company converted the frames of wood-burning stoves—which no one was buying any more—into electrical units. We got this when I was a child—a payment to my father for medical bills. We had just been hooked up for electricity—it took a snail’s life to get it out in the country. Still, for years we only used that stove in the summer; it was cheaper and warmer to use the wood-burning stove in the cooler months.

Notice the refrigerator? The old lady turned to Eddie, as she pointed to the large round-shouldered relic near the door. You’ll see that it runs on electricity, too. I’m not an ostrich with my head stuck in the sand—I can appreciate technology—when I can use it, instead of it using me.

I can’t believe that stove still works. Irene shook her head. It can’t be safe!

I’ve had that stove for over fifty years, and could use it for another fifty yet, her aunt assured her. Not that I will—my days are numbered, and counting down.

That stove needs to be scoured! Irene jumped in. Your housekeeper’s not keeping up. Tell you what: I’ll clean up, then I’ll make supper. Don’t worry, Aunt Germaine, I unloaded our freezer into a cooler.

After supper, Beth hurried upstairs to explore her room. It was full of her Great-Aunt Bridget’s things, even though she had been dead for years. Beth checked carefully for a hidden diary but found only underwear and stockings in the dresser drawers. She was opening the window to let in a breeze when she heard a voice from outside the window. It was her mother. Beth couldn’t see her but could hear her stepping out to the porch.

It made my skin crawl! came Irene’s voice. For one person, she sure had a lot of dirty dishes. Makes me glad that everything we use at The Scottish Restaurant is disposable.

There was a pause.

Oh, Leona— Beth realized her mother was talking to her assistant manager. "I know I haven’t seen her in ages, but I’m her only living relative. What would you do if you got that letter? And her lawyer was right—she’s half out of it. You should see this place! Okay, my