Phoenix Ark's Blog

PHOENIX TAKES WING – WITH ALL OUR WRITERS THE STARS!.

Sherlock Holmes, security, disclaimers, Ra Ra Rasputin, and releasing the Phoenix Files!.

DRUE HEINZ, AND THE LITTLE LITERARY MYSTERY OF A WARTIME STRIPTEASE.

DECLARING OPEN WAR ON THE ARROGANCE OF EDITORS!

I like WordPress’ instant proofreader, and the tools it gives to get more or less corrected text up there. When I think of the sloppiness of some sub-editors, but more especially the arrogance of editors, and people at the top of big publishers too, who seem to have no knowledge of writer’s lives and struggles, sometimes it makes my blood boil, with dragon fire! Twelve hard years I fought to create my books, to win 300,000 readers, to survive as a writer, and only 1% do so as I did, but in just a year a New York publisher, and more especially people I knew intimately, took me, my life and work apart. HOW DARE THEY?

But although they protect each other, sit in cosy offices, indulged by share profits and pension plans, and even though they sometimes do good work to find talent too, it is not editors at all that make the stories. I make the stories, and people like me. I put my heart and mind on the line, to do something I am damned good at, care about, and in order to engage with readers, meaning and the world. It can be the same with the arrogance on Newspapers, when an editor on the news desk on the Daily Telegraph recently did not even find the courtesy to acknowledge a piece I sent him, straight from the heart of the letter bomb attack on the Chilean Embassy in Rome.

They should be utterly ashamed of the prevailing climate of arrogance, and with a revolution in communication, I warn them that they will drive the true storytellers away, in the end, and find that we all get sick of the Celebrity biogs, the repeated formulas, and the pap. It’s time authors and writers took their power back, and kicked against the system. We do not believe in the big news fronts anymore, the careful marketing machines, the hunt for vast profits alone, and the degradation of human and literary value, by the spin and carefully presented face. Perhaps we would like to hear some deeper and more lasting truths. If I can, I am going to make Phoenix into a publisher, a newspaper, and a little film studio too. The irony is, that in the mad age of media, if it works, it might turn into a version of the brilliant film satire Network – with Peter Finch exhorting us to throw open our windows and shout out loud “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” DCD

DEAD ROSES

A parcel –
Damp,
Hidden in a garden.
These are my clues.

Brown petals
Spill
From between silver
And turquoise,
And words

Reminding me
Of the frogs
Singing
Beneath my balcony.

Here, by the canal,
The rosebuds rot:
Earrings too heavy
To wear.

You are not there,
Not here.
Your broken face in the water,
Dreaming of breakfast,
Distant and strangely young.
In your house full
Of women.

Sita Schutt Copyright 2004
Sita was born in Constance, and lived for a time in Ankara. She has a PhD in Literature, runs the Charity co-ordinator Prospero World, and now lives in London.

A friend wrote to me yesterday to say that January 11th 1908 was when Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed the Grand Canyon National Monument. It sparked a memory of when I was in the Grand Canyon in 2007, doing a Writer-in-Residence programme, and a ranger there, Eric York, died of the Pneumonic Plague. He had caught it skinning a mountain lion carcass, he died on Halloween, and it sparked a visit by the CDC, the Centre for Disease Control, and their top virologist in Washington. Thankfully the Black Death, although existing in some animals, like squirrels and cats, especially at certain heights, is very difficult to transfer into the human population – Zoonotic Transfer, it’s called. It’s also easy to cure with antibiotics, if you get to it in time. It was a tragedy for Eric York’s family, and his girlfriend and friends, but for me it was part of a series of surreal, even unbelievable events, in America and London, that highlighted a growing ‘grand canyon’ gulf in sensibility, and deeper than The Pond, that could redefine the special relationship!

I remember another ranger though, before we learnt of the death, giving an impassioned talk at the foot of the canyon about the CCC programme for public works, the Civilian Conservation Corps, inaugurated by another Roosevelt, FDR, in a vital spirit of National Renewal, that Obama seemed to try for. Maybe we are too cynical now, but the ranger was glowing with health and that special brand of American idealism, that politicians can so often exploit, and which often sadly masks the hardball behind the scenes. I had talked about that kind of needed connection, and inspiration, often found in nature, after a visit to the amazing Muir Woods in San Francisco. What could highlight that needed spirit more than yet another American horror story, and the Arizona madness and killings? It is a national tragedy, but is there really a kind of madness in America that is spreading? I am afraid I felt it in the way I was treated by someone I had gone out with for two years, and my own publisher in New York too. That person, when I complained a little that they had not even acknowledged an email about the Black Death, concerned only with issues at their work in New York, said they thought ‘I was joking’. Don’t they know hundreds of people still die of the Plague each year in India? They had already disconnected though, and so quickly, it was as if we had never even known one another. I and others have called it a kind of Ego Consciousness, that some Americans are very guilty of, an obsession with their surface opinions, rights, and decisions, without any sense of a bigger or deeper picture, including a psychological one. An aspect perhaps of a younger society, a newer consciousness, and I still feel the failure to teach History in American schools, but to wrap it all up in Social Studies, designed to convince everyone how wonderful America is, is a big mistake.

What is it that leads to Colombines, Lock-Downs, gun sprees, yet another awful and frightening tragedy? You have to profile the individual, of course, for WordPressers interesting that he was madly obsessed with literacy, and not lives, yet it must be possible to make wider cultural points. About the aggression in American politics, and by extension society, the Republican-Democrat Ping Pong match, with metaphorical hand grenades, about the puerile madness of politicians like Palin setting each other up as gun targets in crosshairs, but also about a public climate of fear. I felt that fear in New York, when I ‘fought’ for a person and lost, then fought a whole firm on quite different principles, for nearly a year, and experienced the brutal arrogance at times, from people I knew, and was supposed to be working with. I went wrong, but it became truly awful, and if that can happen to an established author, under contract, what pressures are American youngsters suffering under? What deeper role models do they have? I found from another person that they were terrified to raise their head above the parapet, frightened of that public face a writer has to have, and in effect utterly unaware of it too, yet were perfectly willing to see the weight of that fall on me, with a bizarre moral righteousness too, that a firm bought into, a political correctness, they did not merit. Political correctness is itself a curse, when it masks truths about human beings, societies, lives, because it becomes nothing but an inhuman front. Feeling themselves totally in the right, when they certainly weren’t, and when it became purely political, the arrogance and aggression became awful, the disillusionment even greater. A much used word became ‘respect’ too, when I was badly disrespected at every level of my life, but that became the official political tool at a firm, that was completely one-sided, indeed exactly about sides. It was also about fear and projection too, that created a wall of nonsense. There are so many absolutes and Holy Cows in bullish America, and one of the very reasons may be the unchangeable Constitution itself. In Britain on Newsnight two nights ago we were told that the American gun issue is just a no-no. The genii is too long out of the bottle, the Gun Lobby far too rich and powerful, ‘by my cold, dead hand’, and above all the 2nd amendment is still there; the ‘states’ verses Washington, the individual versus big Government. The American Constitution is an extraordinary document, founding the idea of Government of the people, by the people, for the people, underlined at Gettysburg, but very many societies have fought the causes of freedom and equality over vast amounts of time, not just America, and a government is only as good as its people, and people only protected by good government. It also seems to make Americans think they are still fighting the American Revolution, which is what the 2nd amendment was about, and that they and the World does not need at all. As it gets smaller and smaller, it needs true leadership and connection, involving many cultures that fear America too, and which America can learn from, and is vitally made of. Perhaps it needs to deepen, and really talk, not shout. The problem is in such a big place, most often you have to shout to be heard.

The American psychologist Robert F Johnson also makes an interesting point about that famous substitution of the ‘right to happiness’. Better than wealth, maybe, much as we’d all like it easier, but do any of us actually have a right to happiness? Is that supposed ‘right’ not crystalized in the overwhelming prosperity goal of the often tarnished American Dream, tarnished most especially recently? Surely happiness is something that life teaches us, or not, and actually most about our engagement and involvement with other human beings, and the world. For some that is a lesson that takes a long time to learn. So our responsibilities to each other, as much as our rights, are involved, and that makes freedom a complex interrelation of factors, not any absolute. Politicians, Democrat and Republican, might learn some respect for each other, some deeper dialogue, remembering that. Johnson points out that the root of the word happiness though is the latin verb Hapere, namely to make things happen. It is when voices are not heard, individuals are alienated, when they feel disempowered and cannot make things happen, in a frightening and rabble-rousing public climate, often hypocritical, and very violent in what is peddled culturally too, that much danger lies, especially when guns are so readily to hand. That spirit of engaging, connecting, and making things happen, is exactly what gives us our meaning and dignity in life, and what both Roosevelts keyed into in America, with that most appealing element of true American idealism, that also addressed and helped solve an equivalent economic crisis. Yet it is not just about America, because we are all interconnected now, not things to be made easy enemies or scapegoats, an easy ‘other’ that has so harmed the world, and fear and aggression do spread like a plague. DCD

DEAD ROSES

A parcel –
Damp,
Hidden in a garden.
These are my clues.

Brown petals
Spill
From between silver
And turquoise,
And words

Reminding me
Of the frogs
Singing
Beneath my balcony.

Here, by the canal,
The rosebuds rot:
Earrings too heavy
To wear.

You are not there,
Not here.
Your broken face in the water,
Dreaming of breakfast,
Distant and strangely young.
In your house full
Of women.

Sita Schutt Copyright 2004
Sita was born in Constance, and lived for a time in Ankara. She has a PhD in Literature, runs the Charity co-ordinator Prospero World, and now lives in London.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Oh just wait up, can’t you please?” cried Sarissa Hallet angrily, as she tried to keep up herself. Poor Sarissa was hot and very red in the face already. They had set off before dawn, and been walking for what seemed like ages. Now, beyond the great Citadel, a sallow morning light was beginning to come fast.
Ahead, Gareth, Sao and the seventeen year old scullion who had first led them to Bouchebold’s kitchens, were carrying metal shovels, apparently for the nasty job of collecting Dragon Dung. The scullion, who’s name was Snare, was clearly leading, but Gareth’s triumph in the kitchens, and Bouchebold’s evident approval, had at least made him treat the three of them with a little more respect.
The great island Citadel of Pendolis, and the hamlets and forges which they had seen when they arrived, had dropped behind them, and now they were on foot, in ragged open country, which seemed to stretch for miles around them, although they knew that somewhere it was surrounded by the strange, magical Seer Guard. After the steamy labours of the day before, it was bliss to be outside again.
The air was fresh and clean, and the grass was thick and soft around, though the green had a strange yellowish hue, while the track they were following was deeply rutted with wagon tracks. Many had been at work in Pendolis, it seemed, with the coming Dragon Wars.
All morning, as they walked, and after a night of troubling dreams, Gareth Marks had been thinking of The Lady Mordana in the kitchens, and her strange forgotten words of a prophecy. Of evil already being here in Blistag too. She had said something was happening that very day, and that the Seer Guard would soon be breached. What horrors lay outside, from the wraiths, and that terrible Ice Dragon, or the Black Warlock himself, Gareth could only guess at. He looked about nervously, but now the twelve-year-old was furiously excited to see a real dragon, and perhaps the young Dragon Warriors in training too. That is the chance Bouchebold had given him.
Although he was only twelve, Gareth Marks already felt he had a special link to dragons, his own Godfather had sent him the Very Dangerous Book, after all, if not that strange egg. If he could help it, Gareth didn’t plan to spend too long down in the kitchens, even if he had saved the Bloodberry Souffle. The boys slowed reluctantly and waited for Sarissa Hallet to catch up. They were getting rather irritated, but Gareth felt for the bits of book in his pocket, and wondered what other useful tips they might give him about this extraordinary world.
“Well thanks, I’m sure,” Sarissa said sourly, as she joined them at a run.
“Why were you dawdling then?” said Gareth rather coldly. “You kept stopping all morning.”
“I was thinking,” panted Sarissa, “if you must know. About those Dragon Maidens. I think those jewels on their foreheads have something to do with their power. It turned a strange Golden colour when she spoke in the Kitchen. I wish I could do it too.”
The scullion raised an eyebrow and looked scornfully at Sarissa.
“It’s in the blood, fool,” Snare grunted, “and you have to be born a Dragon Maiden. Not for the likes of you, down below with us.”
“Me?” said Sarissa, standing her ground, and trying to look as tall as she could, “I don’t know about your parents, boy, but I’m a Hallet. Of Hertfordshire. Don’t you forget it.”
Gareth suddenly thought with anguish of his father.
“Well I ain’t got any parents,” said Sao Cheung rather mournfully, “I’m an orphan, I guess. Though they say I’m bright.”
“And my Dad left home,” admitted Gareth suddenly. “Although I’ve got a Godfather. You’re lucky your parents are together, at least, Sarissa.”
Sarrissa blushed strangely though, and Gareth suddenly thought she seemed rather upset. She lifted her chin, as they walked on. In the distance now they could see several of those large wooden stockades and one, closer than the others, and set apart, was round, like the pictures Gareth had seen of the Colosseum in Rome.
Through the slats, Gareth thought he saw a shape, but they knew that a dragon was inside when they suddenly saw a huge jet of flame shoot into the air, like a geyser. The countryside suddenly smelt like a brewery, or those huge gas tanks they have in London, and they all shivered.
“Careful when we get there,” grunted the scullion, in a cracking voice, as Gareth noticed a huge stadium like space beyond, of brown earth, with two tall metal poles at either end. “Dragons are very dangerous, right, especially the penned kind, and we don’t want it to notice us. Hopefully it will settle, eating so much, so we’ll sneak in, collect the dung, and pile it outside for the Gas Carts. They’ll come to pick it up later.”
Sarrissa Hallet grimaced, but even she was excited to see what was inside. Gareth was looking around for any sign of the brave young Dragon Warriors, or their training, but he could see nothing, except the other square pens beyond, and that open stadium space.
As they got closer, the wooden boards of the huge enclosure were too close together to reveal much, so they skirted round. At last they reached an open gateway, constructed of what seemed like latticed tree trunks. Gareth noticed a wooden pallet to the right, marked GAS, and that the roof of the enclosure was barred too, supposedly to stop a dragon flying out, as Sarissa let out a muffled cry.
The huge beast they suddenly spotted within was the size of a small hill, it seemed. It was a great mustard-yellow dragon, although with a head that was almost entirely red, like some exotic bird of paradise. Here, in the flesh, lying on the other side of the enclosure, it was nothing like the picture book images of dragons the children had seen. It looked like an enormous dozing wildebeest, and smelt like one too.
Its fat body was almost entirely covered in leathery scales, that stood up in diamonds on the ridges of its sinuous back, and its tail seemed to go on forever, ending in a large spiked club, like a dinosaur.
The dragon’s sharply pointed head, crowned with two blunted horns, was curled onto its curled front legs, and its leathery eyelids were closed tight, as steam smoked in the morning, from its bulbous nostrils. Dribble was pouring from its fat lips too, and making a growing pool in the dirt under its chin. The dragon was breathing deeply and steadily, but every now and then a slobbery blue tongue came out and licked its hairy upper lip. In front of it was an enormous pile of what looked like purple cabbages, and black bananas.
Gareth, Sarissa and Sao stood there quivering at the sight of such a funny and enormous brute, their mouths hanging open. This thing was nothing like the sweet little Firecutters, one of which had hatched in Gareth’s egg box, and though it had wings of course, they were rather small, so it hardly looked as if it could fly at all. You could certainly not fit this Dragon in the post, to anyone, and Gareth wondered if his dear little Fire Cutter could grow into such an ugly beast too. He suddenly hoped not.
“That’s a Gas Dragon,” explained Snare, staring at its enormous distended stomach. “Not the kind the Warriors use for fighting, from the pens beyond. It’s fed special, for the Gas. The Great Naturalist chooses its diet.”
Suddenly there was a terrible farting noise, and the atrocious smell made Sao’s eyes narrow tightly, and the Chinese American boy look as if he was about to faint. The monumental stink was ten times as bad as the Elephant House at London Zoo – Gareth had gone once with his dad – and so pungent that it seemed to soak into their clothes, and make their flesh crawl.
Now the scullion pointed to a huge pile of freshly steaming Dragon dung too, in the mud close to the gate.
“I’m not touching that,” snorted Sarissa, as she eyed the disgusting brown mulch, ribbed with bits of half digested straw, and what looked like stones and sweet corn.
“You heard the great Bouchebold,” growled Snare, although in a whisper, and holding up the shovel like a sword, “Pendolis needs power, girl, and here’s the only place to get it. Everyone must win their spurs in Blistag, and earn their keep too.”
“I’ll go,” said Gareth, with a gulp, looking between Sao and Sarissa, and wishing he was somewhere else entirely.
“No. We’ll take turns,” said the scullion, “we need a lot, but no one can stand being in the enclosure too long with a Gas Dragon that’s just fed. We work together.”
Snare had just pulled a kitchen napkin from his pocket, and was wrapping it carefully over his mouth and nose. Then he climbed in, between the lower slats on the gate, with his shovel, and made boldly for the dung. He almost went on tip-toe, and was clearly doing all he could not to wake the sleeping yellow dragon beyond.
When Snare reached the dung, he kept turning his head away, in something close to revulsion, as he scooped up a shovel full. The most precarious bit was getting back through the gate, without dropping the fresh dung, or waking the terrible farting creature. But he managed it, and soon the first collection of fodder for Dragon Gas, to fire the Citadel again, was sitting proudly on the palette, steaming in the sunlight.
“Well, it’s certainly organic,” laughed Gareth, remembering the egg box, as he put on the proffered napkin himself.
Gareth’s heart was in his mouth, as he climbed into the dangerous enclosure too. At first he was so fascinated with the Gas Dragon, so close, so very real, and so very dangerous looking too, that he hardly noticed the smell. Until the napkin slipped slightly, as he stuck in his shovel himself, and he was nearly knocked backward off his feet by the terrible pong.
The gross, acrid odour made his eyes water and sting. His throat and mouth were suddenly burning, and he wanted to be sick, while the feeling that gripped him was almost as bad as touching the fish from the Foundless Sea.
Yet somehow Gareth Marks managed to close his nostrils and hold his breath, and the dizziness cleared. He was sweating and swaying badly though, as he got his own dung back through the gate, and gave a great sigh of relief, as he deposited it safely on the pallet too.
Sao was the next to go, and he was doing very well, until the clumsy Chinese American boy tripped on a bit of dried mud. With a loud ‘whoah’, Sao fell straight into the dirt, and although he missed most of the dung he had just dropped too, his cry made the huge Gas Dragon stir. Gareth and Sarissa gasped, as it lifted its tail, then slapped it back hard on the ground, which seemed to shake, as it farted again. Then in its sleep its blue tongue shot out, scooped up some bananas, and drew them back into his mouth and started munching.
Sao lay there motionless, quivering like a leaf, looking desperately at Gareth and the others, safe behind the fencing. But thankfully the hungry dragon didn’t wake fully, so Sao picked himself up, collected his bounty, and made it back quickly too. He looked quite green, as he got out, and breathed in the clearer air with a thankful sigh.
Sarissa Halllet climbed in carefully in turn and gingerly plucked some dung from the mound too. She looked like a princess as she glared at the poor dragon, with such hatred and contempt, it might have killed it in its sleep. Gareth did not fancy its chances in a fight with her.
So the nasty, smelly labour went on, all morning, as the burning sun began to climb in the skies over Pendolis. They all did very well, and never once did the Gas Dragon wake, although inevitably, by the time their labour was nearing its end, and the palette was well stocked, they all had dragon muck on their hands and cloths.
They had almost got used to the terrible stench though, and were feeling rather proud of themselves, even if all Gareth wanted by now was to see the Dragon Warriors. He most definitely did not want them to see him though, involved in such humiliating work.
Gareth was rather ashamed of himself too, for some of his thoughts, as Sarissa tried to navigate the compound. He found himself thinking how funny it would be if she tripped too, and fell straight into some dung herself. It would certainly bring Sarissa Hallet down a peg or two. She seemed to sense it, for Sarissa suddenly turned and glared at him, as she was climbing back through the gate once more.
“What are you smiling at?” she hissed. “You wanted me to fall, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes you did. I know you did. I think you’re horrid. Boys are horrid.”
“Well there are wars coming,” mumbled Gareth guiltily, “and we all have to get our hands dirty, Sarissa.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning…” Gareth blushed, and looked at Sao, “meaning, well, you do complain a lot, Sarissa. You seem too good for everything.”
“No I’m not. Though there’s a lot to complain about. My parents…”
Sarissa was suddenly looking sharply between Sao and Gareth, and seemed about to say something, but she turned away instead.
It probably served Gareth right then, when his turn came again and, as he was climbing through the gate, he pressed too hard on one of the trunks. There was a sharp snap and the thing broke and fell to the ground with a crash. Although Gareth kept his balance, the munching Gas Dragon was awake now, its golden eyes blazing.
It suddenly burped, then gave a terrible, indignant roar inside the enclosure, as if the disappearance of its dung was a dreadful theft, and as its sharp red head swung towards them, a shot of flame seered across the ground. They jumped back, as it hit the remaining dung, incinerating it, but the dragon’s eyes were fixed on Gareth now, as Sao noticed a large wagon coming towards them.
“Hey, look,” he cried, “it’s the twins.”
Gareth realised in horror it was all the Dragon Warriors, as the yellow Gas Dragon opened its fat lipped mouth again. Snare was shaking badly, but Gareth held his poise and stared back defiantly, and just for a second he thought he saw some gleam of recognition in the creature’s eyes. It roared again though, its head arched forward, and now it blew, or rather belched. Thankfully no flame came out, but instead they all felt a great wind, far more revolting than the dung or farts. There was nowhere to run now, and just as the cart reached them, and Gareth turned away from the enclosure, the dragon’s foul breath hit him, full on, and the twelve-year-old was blown forwards, straight onto the palette. Gareth Marks went tumbling face down into the filth.
As he picked himself up, covered from head to foot in dung, the Dragon Warriors stood in their wagon laughing, jeering and pointing at him, even the Oblormov twins. They were all dressed in those tunics, carried golden lassoes in their hands, and they looked very fine indeed. Poor Gareth went puce, and felt so humiliated that he almost wanted the Gas Dragon to gobble him up, there and then.
“Stop that,” cried Sarissa Hallet indignantly though, “we’re trying to heat your stupid castle. Cooking for you lot is bad enough.”
Sao and she were helping Gareth up again.
“Thank you, Sarissa,” Gareth whispered, “I won’t forget it.”
The twins looked rather shame faced, though they clearly did not want to be associated with these lowly workers, but as Gareth stood and tried to dust himself off, he suddenly saw Sarissa’s eyes glitter, then her hand plunge straight into the dung, and pluck something out. He fancied it sparkled, as Sarissa withdrew it, and slipped it into her pocket. He had caught the eye of one of the Dragon Warriors though, a brutal faced fifteen year old, who was standing still and sneering at him particularly scornfully. Gareth glared back at him.
“What are you staring at, scum?” cried the Dragon Warrior, “Don’t you know your betters? Drop your eyes.”
“Come, come,” cried a gruff adult voice, “we don’t want to waste precious time watching gas scullies. We’ve loftier work today, and the pens await; the Dragon Corals. We’ve some dragon breaking to do, and after you’ve all chosen your mounts, or they you, the Dragoman will visit later.”
It was none other Mordellon, who had protected Gareth before. He was sitting with the driver at the front of the wagon.
“Though there’s a stream beyond,” added Mordellon, trying not to look too kindly at Gareth. “So you may run behind the cart, boy, and wash off that filth, if you like.”
“You can’t wash off your origins though,” said the standing Dragon Warrior coldly. The others had sat down. “Which is why you scum serve us Dragon Warriors always.”
Gareth was wiping his face, but he looked back defiantly too, and almost stuck out his tongue.
“I’m as good as you,” he grunted, and blushed in front of the twins. “And I’ll show you with any dragon, any day.”
Mordellon’s eyes gleamed, though Gareth did not know what he was saying, since he had no idea what Dragon training involved.
“Oh you will, will you?” said the Dragon Warrior. “And break and ride one too, I suppose? Wonders never cease in Pendolis, but liars and cowards are everywhere, however they hide in the muck.”
The brutal faced lad laughed, and most of the others joined him. Poor Gareth, smeared in dragon dung like this, could think of nothing at all to say.
“Peace, lads,” said Mordellon sternly though. “Pendolis isn’t a game for jealous children. This is a Warrior training Camp. There are dark rumours about this new comer, with his Firecutter, and Lord Cracken’s questioning him still. While there’ve been worrying sites near the Seer Guard too, and one of the Dragon Maidens has vanished as well. We must be prepared, more than ever now, to face an attack from the Black Warlock. The spirit of Pendolis must be united.”
Gareth noticed that Sarissa’s face had flushed, and her hand was clutching the thing in her pocket. He suddenly knew what it was, and looked at the Gas Dragon in horror. She had found one of the Dragon Maidens’ crystals, embedded in the dung.
“I’m always prepared, Mordellon,” cried the hard faced Dragon Warrior arrogantly though, as Gareth wondered who had vanished and if this thing could really have eaten a Dragon Madien alive. “For a good fight anyhow. With a wraith, a dragon, or an impertinent scully.”
Gareth felt something stir in his gut, as he noticed that both the twins were smiling at Sarissa, and shaking their heads rather pitifully at him, but suddenly there was the most extraordinary noise. Inside the enclosure, the watching Gas Dragon had farted again, but this time it seemed directed straight at the Dragon Warriors, and the lad who was bullying Gareth turned white, and sat down sharply. Gareth and Sao giggled.
“Pooh,” cried Sao, although the four of them were more used to the stench than the others, so not so troubled by this particular erruption.
“Quick,” cried Mordellon, clamping a gloved hand to his face in in disgust, “let’s get out of here.”
Another large cart with a heavy tarpaulin was coming down the track, to collect the dung they had gathered, so the four of them found themselves dropping their shovels and running after the Dragon Warriors, Gareth trying to look as bold as possible, as they made for the great stockades beyond. There they saw the stream Mordellon had mentioned, clear and delicious, while the farty activity of the Gas Dragon had clearly woken the other dragons too, from the roaring and groaning that was now waking and shaking the country air. The Dragon Training was about to begin for real, and now Gareth Marks had something to prove. The boy had face to save, though badly covered in dragon muck.

David Clement-Davies Copyright 2010 – All Rights Reserved Published by Phoenix Ark Press

The right of David Clement-Davies to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988

TO CATCH UP WITH THE WHOLE STORY CLICK

Is it bad to fall in little in love with an advert? It’s none other than Sky, on British TV, and simply Dustin Hoffman being charming, and a little watery eyed, talking about the power of stories. It’s true though, stories are a vital way of making us human, and giving us meaning and connection. I wish he would join a Storyteller’s publisher. There’s an actor who fought for his talent and won, and it’s good for the heart. A little movie coming soon.