Kumiko and the Dragon's Secret Page 3

  Suddenly, there is movement in the bushes behind me. I fall back and flatten myself to the ground. A rabbit springs out. It is small and harmless and a huge relief. It gently hops towards me, but I notice something strange about it ... and then it winks at me! Before I can even show my surprise, it makes a sudden dash into the open. With a burst of green, it transforms itself back into the missing tenth dragon. Horned and gigantic, with a roar like thunder, it gallops into the forest snorting wild jets of fire. The Shadow Catcher at the door leaps powerfully into the air, balancing toe-point on the rooftop before springing off with magical weightlessness over the trees in pursuit. With the sentry gone, I race over and dive under the steps of the cabin before several more sets of feet join the chase. Squeezing myself under the cabin floor, I settle in the dust, close my eyes and mouth a silent thank you to that brave tenth dragon.

  Chapter seven

  From my hidden spot under the Shadow Catcher’s cabin, I can hear two voices falling between the floorboards. The first is the thin, cold voice of the woman I met earlier, the other a deeper, slower sound of an old man.

  ‘Is it another?’ the woman asks.

  ‘No, it is the same,’ the man answers. ‘It will not last long. Should’ve been smarter and given up like the rest...’

  ‘You don’t think they will continue to fight?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘as long as we have her we can control them. But we should do this as soon as the Grand Kah-ge arrives.’

  ‘What about that girl?’

  ‘She was just a girl.’

  ‘No, her kimono looked like dragon silk. I was certain she was the one. I thought you’d let her escape.’

  I hear a shout: ‘Fool! I would never let this one escape, we have been searching for so long.’

  ‘Then it – it must be the sister!’ the woman whines. ‘You said there was another–’

  ‘Impossible,’ the old man spits. ‘The dragons would never be so careless twice. What could she possibly do anyway? Apart from scratch your face like that?’

  ‘I am c-certain–’

  ‘Well, if you are so confident, you can tell the Grand Kah-ge yourself. He will be pleased to have the other girl stroll into our gathering. He will be here shortly.’

  I squint my eyes against a crack in the floor. Through it I can see one big open room lit by candles. Black paper screens covered in symbols line the walls and red silk banners marked with golden characters stretch down from the roof. Luminous jars and old books clutter the walls until they reach the end of the cabin where there is a small wooden table. On a chair next to the table sits Arisu. The old Shadow Catcher holds her hand as she sits pouting like a sad fish.

  The woman points a finger towards Arisu. ‘What about this one? What will we do with her afterwards?’

  ‘Her?’ says the old man lazily. ‘Well, if she doesn’t disappear, she’ll probably become an ordinary, powerless child.’

  ‘And ... we’d let her go?’ the woman asks anxiously.

  ‘Not before we give her some of this...’ I hear the old man place something on the table. I move my eye to another crack to see it. It’s a bottle of swirling, smoke-grey liquid.

  ‘This will make her forget everything she ever knew about dragons, us, or the events of today. We’ll leave her in the forest when we don’t need her anymore.’

  Arisu stirs up. ‘You are bad and mean and I’m going to tell on both of you!’ she shouts.

  The two Shadow Catchers laugh. I can’t say that I have a plan, but through sheer anger and desperation I feel the need to act immediately. I crawl quietly to the far wall of the cabin. When I look up I can see the shadow of Arisu’s chair over the floor, and the feet of the old man beside it. I pull the blue dragon’s feather out of my kimono and stare at it. I have a glimmer of an idea but I can’t tell if it’s terrible or if it’s brilliant. Since it is all that I have, I raise the feather to the wooden floor above me with a shaking hand and do the only thing I can think of. I pull it gently across the wood. It makes a low grizzle and to my amazement, a thin cut appears behind it. I make a second cut, but the sound is heard.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I heard something coming from the floor.’

  With my hands covered in sawdust I quickly make a third cut.

  ‘Shhh! There, did you hear that?’ the woman says. ‘Someone’s down there. Quick, check!’

  I hear the old Shadow Catcher bending to the floor. As I make a fourth cut I see his eye fall to a crack and fix on me.

  ‘You!’ he shouts as I shove Tomodo’s claw between the floorboards and up into his foot. With a howl of pain he jumps heavily up and down over my four weak cuts in the floor. As I hoped, it suddenly caves in, a perfect square. The old man, the chair and Arisu come crashing down with it. There is a moment of confusion, splintered wood, bodies and shouts. Then the dust clears and there is Arisu, remarkably sitting on the top of the pile. She blinks for a second before squealing happily: ‘Kumi!’ She bounces up and down with excitement, as though watching a puppet show.

  ‘Come, Arisu, we have to get away!’ I shout as the old man breaks free of the wreckage with an angry snarl. I lift her down and we scuttle back under the low floor, to the hole at the front of the cabin. The old man crawls behind us, snatching at my heels and the hem of my kimono. I push Arisu out first then slide myself under the stairs. The old Shadow Catcher follows, but when he takes a dive to grab me he falls short. He’s stuck. He’s too big for the hole! He squirms and squeezes but can’t seem to go any further backwards or forwards. I pull Arisu onto my back and we hurry towards the forest, my heart clapping loudly as wooden clogs with every step. But with only a short way to go I find my feet unable to lift another step. My head tells them to move, but they won’t. They seem to be fixed to the ground. I glance about but there is nothing and no one in sight. The old Shadow Catcher under the stairs starts to cackle as I try pulling my legs up with my hands. Arisu closes her arms around my neck. ‘We are stuck, Kumi – shadow-stuck,’ she says.

  I see the moon now looming over the treetops, casting our shadows behind us. She is right, it is not my feet but my shadow that’s pinned to the ground. The other Shadow Catcher steps out from the shade of the nearby trees. ‘So I was right; there are two of you,’ she says. ‘The Grand Kah-ge will be very excited about this.’

  I look over my shoulder at Arisu’s pale face. I whisper to her, ‘In my pocket.’

  The Shadow Catcher stops, ‘What’s this? Are you planning something? Silly children, don’t you see? You can’t go anywhere...’

  I feel Arisu’s little hand close around the red dragon’s scale. She pulls it out of my kimono and turns it over in her hand. The scale catches the moonlight and with a brilliant flash, throws a shot of light into the sky.

  ‘Give me that!’ the Shadow Catcher snarls, snatching the scale out of Arisu’s hand. But it is too late. A twisting silver line begins to unravel from the sky, spiralling, looping, all the way down to the space right in front of us. The clouds begin to blaze orange and the Shadow Catcher turns her face fearfully upwards. Hundreds of dragons shoot down from the clouds like a shower of arrows. As I lean out to grab the rope the Shadow Catcher seizes my hands. She looks up at the dragons, ready to turn their powers against them but with a scream she lets me go. It’s as though she’s gripped a red-hot iron. In that moment, as the dragon tears scald her hands, my shadow loosens from the ground.

  I take hold of the silver rope and, before the Shadow Catcher can blink, we are whisked up higher and faster than a crow can fly, into the sky and out of sight.

  As we sail upwards dragons continue to rain down towards the cabin and the Shadow Catchers below. Some wink and prance as they fly around us, tails knotting with joy. Arisu presses her cheek against mine and says quietly, ‘I knew you’d come.’

  Finally, I can smile. The
moon and the flowers and the whole wide world are back as they should be.

  Chapter eight

  When we tumble onto the clouds we are immediately wrapped up in our obasaan’s worried arms. Beside her, Otto-wan and Tomodo beam like cats with cream on their chins and Farelli dances like the tail of a kite. One by one every dragon returns and there are so many things we want to say, so many things to discuss! Everything that happened comes tumbling out of me at speed. I get to the bit about the brave green dragon and see him smiling among the excited faces. I point to the blue dragon whose feather cut open the cabin floor. Then I get to the last part, the part that only just happened and I realise I have no ending for my story. ‘And then ... and then...’ I falter. I ask behind me, ‘What happened, Tomodo?’

  ‘And then,’ he smiles, ‘we flew down to give those Shadow Catchers a taste of their own medicine! They left it in a bottle on the table. One drop each and they seem to have forgotten all about you two, us and the events of today.’

  ‘And the Grand Kah-ge?’ I ask.

  Tomodo grins. ‘We were well hidden by then, but let’s just say he wasn’t impressed when he arrived. He doubts that they ever actually found you at all!’

  A cheer erupts in smoke and flames from every dragon in the kingdom. Arisu jumps onto Otto-wan’s back and parades excitedly out of the temple gates and all over the billowing clouds of the city.

  I stay with Tomodo and watch. ‘She’s brave, isn’t she, Tomodo? Much braver than I am. But I suppose I’m going to have to get used to that.’

  Tomodo scratches his head with his back claws. ‘I am surprised you have forgotten already, Kumiko,’ he says. ‘You should never underestimate the power of a dragon and you should never underestimate yourself! You are brave because you think a great deal about what you are facing and then you face it anyway. Your sister is fearless which is not quite the same thing as being brave. In fact, it can get you into a fair bit of trouble, wouldn’t you say? Her true power is being able to read people’s feelings, and there are none that she trusts more than yours, Kumiko.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘She’s not afraid of dragons because you are not afraid of dragons. She looks up to you for everything.’

  ‘If that’s true, why does she try to annoy me?’

  Tomodo chuckles, ‘She doesn’t mean to, surely you can see that! She wants you to like her better. All the things she does are her way of trying to be more like you!’

  I don’t know what to say to this. Little sisters! If they aren’t annoying you they are making you feel bad for being mean to them! I begin to think that maybe I am a bad sister when Tomodo places his head across my knees. ‘No, Kumiko,’ he says, ‘you are a great sister, and one of the bravest humans I have ever known.’

  Too tired for anything more, we curl up together and watch the stars dance like fallen blossoms across the ripples of the evening sky.

  When I first wake up I have forgotten everything. Then it hits me like a sack of beans. I’m home! Tomodo must have carried me back as the sun was rising over the hills. I pull off my blankets and race to the stairs but the drumming of little feet tells me everything I hoped to check was true. Arisu is running up as I am running down. We meet halfway. She giggles as I scoop her up and piggyback her down the stairs. We hurry into the kitchen. ‘Mother!’ we shout. She is at the table rolling fish in flour. We throw ourselves into her arms. Arisu bumps a bowl of water and it slops all over the table.

  ‘Careful! Calm down please girls. I’m glad you are both in such good moods this morning, but no need to get so excited!’

  ‘But, Mother, we’re back!’ Arisu chirps.

  ‘Back from where?’ she asks. ‘You only just got up.’ I pull away, my hopes sagging with disappointment. It was all just a dream to her.

  Arisu is confused. ‘From the sky, Mama, from the dragons...’

  Mother looks at me crossly. ‘Kumiko, what have I told you? You’re as bad as your obasaan, filling her head with stories. It’s time to stop this, she’s too little to know any better.’

  ‘But, Mother, it’s true!’ I cry. ‘Do you even remember what happened yesterday?’

  ‘Yesterday?’ she huffs. ‘Yes ... Well...’ As a baffled look falls upon her face, the kitchen window flaps open with a burst of wind. The air spins around the kitchen then lands with a puff in mother’s flour. The flour now starts to shake and swirl and move around ... But not by itself, and not by the wind ... In the flour is a dragon! Rolling until he is perfectly covered from back to front, Bertolli smiles a wide silly grin. No longer invisible he admires his very dusty white tail.

  A look of horror hangs off Mother’s face, as she points at him and trembles. ‘It’s a ... it’s a ... it’s ahhh...’

  ‘Yes,’ I say with a laugh, ‘It’s a dragon!’

  First published 2010 by University of Queensland Press

  PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia

  www.uqp.com.au

  ©Briony Stewart 2010

  ©Illustrations Briony Stewart 2010

  This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Ebook produced by Read How You Want

  Typeset by Peripheral Vision

  Cover design: Stella Danalis

  Illustration: Briony Stewart

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available from the National Library of Australia

  Kumiko and the dragon’s secret / Briony Stewart

  ISBN (pbk) 978 0 7022 3780 5

  ISBN (pdf) 978 0 7022 3802 4

  ISBN (epub) 978 0 7022 4633 3

  ISBN (kindle) 978 0 7022 4632 6