Avis and the Promise of Dragons

By Heather McQuillan

A Storylines Notable Book 2020!

 

This tear was a different sort. As it fell from scales to the air it hardened and gleamed clear as ice, and formed into a diamond. Humbert hummed again but not a sad hum. This was the hum of a dragon that had just received a promise as unbreakable as diamond.

 

Avis has a dream to work with animals, so when a scientist with a witchy-looking house offers her a job as a pet-sitter she jumps at the chance. But it turns out Avis is not looking after pets at all – the animals in Dr Malinda Childes' backyard are as eccentric as she is and Avis has to promise to keep them a secret.

 

But one promise and one secret leads to more promises and more secrets and before long Avis finds herself overwhelmed by promises and secrets and responsibilities and one very BIG chocolatey dragonish problem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ahoy
• Release date: Oct 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780995119758

Book preview

1

Avis slowed her steps. If she walked at a normal pace then that would put her within the radar of the boys up ahead. So she walked slowly, pausing every now and then to tie an already-knotted shoelace or to peer at a flattened bottle cap in the gutter. The boys stopped to collect some sticks from under the large tree at the bottom corner of the school playground before they moved on. When she reached the tree, Avis picked up her own stick as protection. She carried the stick upright and behind her back where it tapped on her school bag as she walked.

The boys ahead broke into a trot and formed a line behind Drake Snelling. Drake wasn’t the biggest of them, and he wasn’t the smartest of them. He wasn’t even that popular, but for some reason the others did what he said, like the time they’d blocked the footpath and made Avis walk on the grass, right into a big dog turd. Drake Snelling hadn’t been with them. He was waiting further up the road and acted all innocent, except that he overdid the groans and eye rolling at the smell of the fresh dog poo all over her shoe. Avis knew for certain that he’d set it up for his entertainment and her embarrassment. She wondered what entertainment he had planned now that they were lining up by the high green fence.

Not the witch’s fence, she thought. They wouldn’t dare.

The high fence around the witch’s house ran the length of the property and right around the corner onto Menagerie Street, where Avis lived at the dead end. She had to pass that fence at least twice every school day, and again on the weekends if she wanted to go anywhere.

The dark green corrugated iron rose up from the footpath like a fortress wall, broken only by a double gate made of the same iron, held shut by a chain and padlock. Avis had never seen the gate open. Once, in a moment of great courage, she had peered through the narrow gap below the chain, but all she had seen was a weedy driveway, which turned out of view behind gloomy trees. Her father said that the property would be worth millions. ‘An acre for just one house is unheard of in the city nowadays,’ he’d said with a hint of envy. ‘Even the quarter-acre paradise no longer exists. All that space for one person … ridiculous!’

Avis had never seen the witch but she’d heard her once, just the week before, as she made one of her early morning dashes to the dairy. With her father and brother both claiming to be night owls and morning sloths, it was Avis’s job to buy milk for breakfast when they ran out, which happened a lot. Even though Avis checked at night to see that there was enough, by morning there would be an almost empty bottle sitting on the shelf in the fridge. She was sure Bruno was the culprit, slurping the milk right from the bottle, but when she questioned him he just shrugged and went back to his bedroom where he’d spent most of his time since turning fourteen.

The morning she’d heard the witch, Avis was strolling home with a plastic milk bottle in one hand and the rising sun warming her back. The high-pitched shriek startled her and the bottle dropped from her hand and bounced on the footpath. Avis picked it up and ran for home, with the hairs on her arms standing upright.

In the days that followed, she crossed the road to avoid passing the witch’s house on her early morning milk trips. Before and after school, when there was more traffic, she ran past the high fence and stayed as close to the kerb as she could.

The line of boys up ahead had stopped, losing formation as they reorganised themselves for the assault. Drake was first. He was cunning enough to know that first position was safest but he made out that he was being brave in taking the lead. He set off at a casual jog, his stick scraping along the corrugations on the fence with a rat-a-tat-a-tat. He stopped at the gate and spun around to grin at the next boy, Archie Young, then resumed his clattering, which Archie echoed. Rat-a-tat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat-a-tat. It was a pleasing percussive sound until it was joined by a high-pitched shriek, like a cat being scraped along the strings of a violin, that came from behind the fence. The remaining two boys did not wait for their signal but dashed past, throwing their sticks on to the footpath.

The chain rattled and the gate opened.

Avis stood frozen to the spot with her stick held limply in her hand.

The witch locked eyes with her. Cold, accusing eyes. Avis let the stick drop guiltily to the ground as the boys scarpered around the corner into Menagerie Street.

The witch followed her gaze.

‘Were you next in line?’ the witch asked her, stepping out and blocking her path.

Avis was trying to decide whether to run back to school or across the busy road when she heard the shriek again. Once more the hair stood up on her arms and the back of her neck prickled, but the biggest shock was that the witch had not opened her mouth. Instead she turned back into her driveway and yelled, ‘Shut up, Percy! We’ll get complaints from the neighbours again.’ Then the witch turned her eyes back on Avis. ‘Would you like to see Percy?’ she asked. ‘He thinks he’s particularly beautiful at the moment and wants all of the ladies to notice him.’

She beckoned and Avis felt the spell reeling her in like a hooked fish.

On the weedy driveway stood a peacock proudly displaying a huge fan of a tail. He was turning slightly this way and that to let the light play on the iridescent feathers, making them shimmer and quiver.

‘He’s only a young chap,’ said the witch. ‘First mating season over with no peahens to show off to. He’ll be glad that someone is taking notice of him, won’t you, Percy, you daft creature.’

‘Why does he make that creepy noise?’ asked Avis, staring at the bird whose glorious looks were so at odds with the sound it made.

‘It’s either to attract the ladies or to warn other males off his territory. But I reckon he makes an excellent guard dog. He gave those boys a good seeing-off, didn’t he? Bet there are a few wet pants there.’ The witch’s green eyes twinkled.

Avis managed a smile. Drake Snelling had run off as if chased by the devil, but the truth was that her own heart was still pounding hard in her chest.

‘He gave you a fright too, I think. Sorry about that,’ the witch continued. ‘I’m only pet-sitting Percy for a few weeks while my friends are away. They needed someone with a well-fenced place, but a peacock doesn’t suit city life. My neighbours have complained more than once about his early morning wake-up calls. Luckily he’s heading home to the farm soon.’

Avis looked closely at the witch. She wasn’t really dressed like a witch. Her jumper was a knitted one in mossy green and seemed way too big for her – the sleeves had been rolled up and it hung halfway down her thighs. She had on a baggy pair of track pants that were a bit worn at the knees, and gumboots on her feet. In one hand was a pair of stiff leather gardening gloves. She used the other hand to wipe a lock of thin brownish-grey hair from her eyes, but the rest of her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her nose wasn’t particularly big or long and she didn’t have a wart on her chin. Avis peered at the hands again. No long claw-like nails.

When she looked back at the witch’s face she saw that she was being appraised in much the same manner.

‘You could be just what I need,’ said the witch. ‘How old are you?’

‘Eleven,’ said Avis.

‘You like animals, don’t you?’

‘How’d you know?’ asked Avis, wondering if the witch had special powers. Avis was always telling people that when she grew up she wanted to be a marine biologist or a dog rescue worker, or maybe train horses. Anything really, as long as it involved animals, but not a vet because she didn’t want to have to put any pets ‘to sleep’. (She knew what that really meant.) But her greatest, most immediate dream was to have a pet of her own, preferably a golden Labrador puppy, even though her father had vetoed that as a bad idea when they could barely keep enough food in the house for themselves. Somehow the witch seemed to understand all this without being told.

‘And I bet you’d like to earn some extra pocket money.’

‘I don’t get any pocket money,’ said Avis.

‘Well then,’ said the witch, ‘how would you like a job as my pet-sitter while I take Percy back to his home?’

‘When?’ asked Avis, hardly believing her luck and assuring herself at the same time that this woman was not a witch at all, just a nice lady with a big garden and lots of animals.

‘How about this weekend? You could call in tomorrow after school to meet the gang and then I could get away early on Friday and be back on Sunday. Unless you have other plans?’

Avis had no other plans for the weekend. ‘I can do it,’ she said straight away.

‘It’ll give me peace of mind to know someone is looking in on them,’ said the woman with a smile. ‘Right then, see you tomorrow. Just rattle the chain on the gate. Percy will let me know that you’re here. Oh my goodness, I don’t even know your name.’

‘Avis,’ said Avis.

‘What a wonderful name,’ said the woman. ‘My name’s Malinda. Dr Malinda Childe. Tell your mum and dad the Doctor bit. It never fails to impress.’

2

When Avis got home she let herself