Read by Kim Scopes
When Greta Samson woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, she found her eight-month-old daughter had transformed into a baby dragon.
Obviously, she assumed she was still dreaming at first. The cot was beside their bed, so on hearing the 7am wail (a little rougher round the edges than usual, perhaps) she'd rolled over and peeked through the bars to check on Poppy. What she saw (what she thought she saw, she told herself, burrowing back into the pillow) lying on its back, forelegs curled across its chest, was a chubby lizardlike creature covered in iridescent green-blue scales the colour and sheen of a peacock's feathers. Its hooded eyes gazed sleepily at the wooden Peppa Pig mobile that dangled above the cot.
Greta stared at the charred cribscape for a long, horrified moment; then reached for the Evian on the windowsill and scattered the contents over the cot, dousing the remaining fires. Needless to say Rhys, lying next to her, had still not woken up, although the rather pleasant aroma of burning beechwood was now very strong. She glanced back at the drenched little reptile, spluttering and sneezing wetly. The creature – all right, it was clearly a dragon, but there was something Poppyish about it too – stared back at her, golden-brown eyes rapidly filling with tears. Greta kicked Rhys.
“Huarrgh?”
The dragon's pointed ears perked at the sound, and its mouth opened in a surprisingly pink smile. Poppy had always been a daddy's girl.
“Hwauaugh?” it said, as if in reply. Like Poppy, it had five teeth: two on the top and three on the bottom. They looked considerably more businesslike than Poppy's milk-white buds, though, and Greta, who had always been an evangelistic champion of breastfeeding, found herself considering the dusty formula bottles at the back of the cupboard.
Rhys rose up behind her like a leviathan from the deep. He worked a lot of late nights at the graphic design company and was never at his best in the morning. He squinted at the dragon, which having burned through half its sleeping bag, had shucked the rest and now clung unsteadily to the bars of the cot with its pearly claws, naked but for the Pampers nappy Poppy had gone to bed in last night.
“Bloody hell,” said Rhys, “what's up with Pops? Some sort of allergic reaction?”
Greta handed him his glasses and his iPhone.
“Put these on,” she said, “and then call the doctor.”
*
Dr Hall was their local GP, and also a specialist paediatrician with designer specs, a soft caramel voice, and a Grade One buzzcut topped by a stripe of slicked-back hair which Greta suspected became a fauxhawk when he went clubbing in Shoreditch on the weekends. He was always incredibly good with Poppy; so much so that when the baby was being particularly appalling, Greta sometimes fantasised about leaving her outside his office in a Moses basket with a note saying simply: YOU UNDERSTAND.
It hadn't been easy to explain the reason for the emergency appointment: in the end they fudged it with some half-truths about scaly skin and running a temperature. Swaddled in a fireproof baby blanket, under which was a layer of tinfoil (Rhys's idea) the baby dragon had seemed cosy as a baked potato, sucking on its razor-sharp thumbclaw with slitted, drowsy eyes. Greta had curtained the pram with a white muslin and resisted drawing it back for the whole bus journey. Now, as Rhys manoeuvred the Bugaboo into Dr Hall's office, a faint wild hope leaped in her that when they pulled the cloth back, their soft pink baby girl would magically have been restored.
This wasn't what happened. Instead, before Dr Hall could lift the muslin, there was a deep sustained burp and a jet of orange flame blasted a perfect circle in the centre of the fabric. The dragon peered through the charred hole in apparent delight, a thin line of milky drool adorning her green chin.
“I told you not to feed her on the bus,” Rhys muttered, sotto voce. “She's all shook up now.” Greta winced. The idea of a hungry dragon clawing through the pram hood in search of sustenance had been too embarrassing. Despite a quick, desperate phone search, she had no idea what dragons ate (virgins aside) so she'd given it the carton of Aptamil kept at the bottom of the pram for emergencies.
“Hmm,” said Dr Hall, tipping up the dragon's chin and staring into its great glassy eyes with professional interest, “well, this is unusual.”
“Unusual?” said Rhys with, Greta considered, admirable restraint.
“Mmm-hmm.” Dr Hall lifted the little creature, holding it under its forelegs so that it dangled, wriggling, from his hands. “Poppy, right?”
“We think so,” said Greta dubiously.
Dr Hall smiled. “You thought maybe a changeling? No, don't worry, it's nothing like that. This is your baby all right, just a little scaly today, huh princess?” He tickled the dragon till she gurgled, then settled her comfortably on his hip where she proceeded to claw razor slashes in his expensive-looking shirt. Dr Hall either didn't notice or was too cool to care.
“So,” he said, “good news is she's flaming well, bright and active, third eyelid working fine … you guys look a little shell-shocked but I guess you'll recover. You know I'm surprised they didn't give you the pamphlet when you were in the hospital, Mrs Samson? It tells you what to expect around eight months – I mean, some kids transform earlier, six months maybe, but Poppy here is right on track. Did you have any other concerns? White spot? Scale lice?”
Greta and Rhys looked at each other. “Pamphlet?” was all Greta managed.
In reply Dr Hall bent to the bottom drawer of his desk, releasing Poppy onto the floor where she immediately crawled towards Rhys, burping as she went, leaving a trail of scratched and scorched lino. He resurfaced holding a dusty booklet with a cartoon of a red baby dragon on the front waving a silver rattle. In large friendly letters, like the magnets on their fridge at home, it said: SO YOU'RE HAVING A DRAGON!
“It's all in here,” he said. “Obviously without in utero tests we can't know 100% you're popping out a little firebreather, but the Register usually identifies likely couples. Did neither of you know you had dragon blood?”
Greta and Rhys exchanged another glance.
“I'm O negative,” said Greta.
“I'm adopted,” said Rhys.
Dr Hall frowned at Rhys. “That's a Welsh accent I hear ,though? If your mum or dad was from one of the royal bloodlines it's actually pretty common there. Nobody talks about it though, especially not to the English, eh?” He chuckled. Rhys didn't. Dr Hall glanced at Greta, her white-blonde hair and blue eyes. “But in the maternal line … you don't have Chinese ancestry by any chance?”
“Sweden by way of Shropshire,” she said.
“Really? That is odd … there must be some reason you two've produced a full-blooded emerald.” He pulled up her notes on his screen and scanned them. Poppy, who had been gnawing Rhys's trainer with her sharp canines, suddenly started wriggling around on the floor uncomfortably. A faint miasma of yellowy-green gas escaped from the back of her dungarees, and within seconds Greta was choking, her eyes streaming with burning tears. The unflappable Dr Hall clapped a surgical mask to his face and passed her another. Rhys coughed a bit, but seemed otherwise fine. He reached for the discarded tinfoil and wrapped it round Poppy's steaming bottom, then sat her firmly on his lap.
“Yeah,” chuckled Dr Hall (who was taking this all far too cheerfully for Greta's taste), “that's one of the drawbacks of infant dragons, apart from the appearance, of course: you have to buy the special nappies with the aluminum weave. Anything else just gets eaten straight through – it's the digestive acid, you see. Don't worry, you can get vouchers. Babyproofing is a challenge, though. You'll go through quite a few cribs. Thank God for Freecycle, eh?”
“So is there …” Greta found it hard to frame the question; she wasn't even sure she knew what to ask – “no – I mean, is it permanent? Will we … will she …?”
“Be like this forever? Is the condition 'incurable'?” Dr Hall made bunny ears with his fingers, which sat oddly with his suddenly serious face. “Well, Mr and Mrs Samson, first of all you have to realise that having a dragon child is much commoner than you think. We don't shout it from the rooftops because of the obvious problems of prejudice and panic, but it's an open secret among the medical and draconic communities. Not to mention the baby product manufacturers – can't keep a lucrative market from them, right?” He winked. “And it's not a debilitating condition; you just have to make a few allowances and changes – just like if your child was colourblind, or lactose intolerant maybe. There's no cure because it's not a disease, and as soon as Poppy learns to control her metamorphoses – that's usually around the same time they start talking – you won't have to keep her out of sight in her dragon phase, either. It's all in the pamphlet. Oh, and here's a pack of those special nappies: I always keep some handy in case of accidents.”
He passed Greta a slim, discreet silver bag stamped with the brand name Alu-Mini-Bum and a stylised puff of flame.
As they shook hands at the door, Poppy safely stowed in the darkness of her pram where she gnawed busily on the shredded corpse of her favourite rubber giraffe, Dr Hall crinkled his lovely clever eyes and smiled at Greta.
“Don't worry Mrs Samson,” he said softly, “you'll adjust in no time. We love our kids no matter what, right? Besides, she'll be back to 'normal'” (he did the finger quotes again) “in no time.”
Greta wasn't so sure.
*
When they got back home Rhys bathed Poppy and put her to bed: his skin seemed to be a lot more flame-resistant than Greta's, and he was also radiating an almost palpable air of smugness at discovering he was of royal dragon blood. Meanwhile Greta rang for a takeaway, feeling that today of all days they both deserved one. They sat in silence watching Game of Thrones with a wholly new level of interest until Rhys reached across and squeezed her hand.
“I've been thinking, love: weren't you born in the year of the dragon?”
He showed her his iPhone screen with a list of years: 1988 was among them.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I never thought of it before.”
*
Later, when she went up to check on the little dragon, whose cot Rhys had now lined with the silver blanket from his Ben Nevis-climbing stag weekend, Greta was astonished to see how much, in sleep, it really did look like Poppy. It was splayed on its back, arms akimbo, little claws half-curled, and as Greta leaned over, its eyes flickered open for a second, flashing golden-brown: still Poppy's eyes.
On impulse Greta put her thumb into the small scaly fist, and instantly, just like Poppy always did, the dragon pulled it into her mouth, sucking vigorously till a few drops of blood came. Greta winced in pain, but decided that after a three-day labour, cracked nipples and projectile poo, she could pretty much get used to anything.
(c) Francine Castile, 2015
Francine Castile is the mother of many short stories, three novels – two unfinished, one unpublished – and one baby. No dragons were harmed in the writing of her story.
Kim Scopes is an actress and puppeteer who trained at East 15. Recent credits include Boris and Sergei's Astonishing Freakatorium and CBBC's Strange Hill High. She has also performed Shakespeare at the New Wolsey, Ipswich, taught puppetry in Peru and performed at Glastonbury.
Our special Parent & Child night was held on Tuesday June 23, 2015 at the Peckham Pelican to raise awareness and cash for The CATS Foundation, a charity funding research into the devastating genetic childhood diseases Tay-Sachs & Sandhoff.
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