Here's the first few pages of my fantasy comedy novel. It's
gone through a lot of changes over the last few
years. It started out as a story called 'Copper Book' which
was full of ideas but woefully short on clear, accessible
prose. The early versions of this story also suffered from
a split-personality; it couldn't decide whether it was a
fantasy comedy for adults or one for children. Hopefully,
this new version of the story addresses those problems.
I've specifically written it for children while, at the
same time, making it sufficiently imaginative and humorous
to be enjoyed by adults too. The prose is much clearer and
the pacing steadier, giving the reader the chance to get
settled in the environment and know the characters before
the action kicks off.
Enjoy!
1: A strange device
A dragon stood in the middle of Cannon
Street station, scratching its bottom. It was about
four-foot high, rust red and pot-bellied. It flapped its
leathery wings and leered at the people walking to and fro,
its eyes roving around until they fixed on a plump woman
talking on a mobile phone. The dragon pulled its lips back
and grinned toothily. “Mmm” it said, “chunky!” It
reached up and rubbed its nose, revealing a handcuff
clamped to its wrist. As the dragon scratched away, the
chain attached to the handcuff flicked up and down, shaking
its other end, a handcuff fixed to the wrist of an
eleven-year-old boy standing nearby. The boy was staring up
at the departure board, seemingly unconcerned that he was
chained to a fire-breathing monster. He was slim, with an
olive-skinned complexion, green eyes and an uncombed mass
of dark brown hair. He wore a faded jacket, combat trousers
and scuffed trainers. He looked quite ordinary apart from
one, strange thing; the pair of glasses perched on his
nose. Their frames were a mass of intricate levers, cogs
and mechanisms fashioned from silver and gold. Their round,
hand blown lenses swirled with faint colours. As the boy
turned to gaze around at the crowds of people, the centre
of each lens glimmered with a cold, bright light.
“I don’t want to go back to Faëry” said the
dragon.
“You have to go back” said the boy, crossing his arms.
“You’re invisible and you eat people.”
“But Finn, I haven’t eaten anyone today!”
Finn rubbed his left temple. “Rusty, it’s only seven
o’clock in the morning.”
Rusty raised his eyebrows. “That late already? Wow,” he
clacked his fangs together and polished his claws, “how
good am I?”
“If that’s the case, death-breath,” Finn said, slapping the
dragon’s shoulder, “why were you staring at that woman like
she was a main course?” He pointed at the plump woman, who
was now munching on a chocolate bar.
“That’s not true!” Rusty replied indignantly. He lowered
his eyelids and grinned slyly, “she’d be dessert.”
Finn paused, shook his head, grabbed Rusty’s crumpled tail
and dragged him off across the station concourse.
Rusty sputtered as he was hauled along, his claws scraping
over the concrete and his wings flapping like broken kites.
“This so unfair! You haven’t even given me the
chance to be bad. You’re... you’re
anti-scales!” He spotted a school trip on their
way to the Underground platform. “Hmmm...” he said,
grinning at them, “snacks!” He chuckled, firing
out half-burnt lumps that pinged off the ground and
someone’s nose.
Finn dragged Rusty towards platform four, trying to steer
his prisoner between the tourists and businessmen. It was
no good, he thought, he really couldn’t stand dragons.
After two years of dealing with them, he’d be happy if they
all accidentally blew themselves up by eating gunpowder.
The big ones were worst, he thought, what with their
continual need to burn everything and eat anyone that
wasn’t nailed down, but the little ones were terrible too.
They were just as peckish and they polluted,
sending out gases and corrosive smoke all the time like
tiny, movable volcanoes. Fighting them was like fighting a
crazed barbecue. When Finn had become a Guardian, they’d
warned him about the dangers of working with faëry; the
secrecy, the magic but they’d never mentioned the
smells.
He slipped through the ticket gate and headed down the
platform. One of the new SuperPosition trains was, humming
to itself beside the platform. He headed towards it,
listening to Rusty bounce off a bench behind him.
“You know I can” thump! “walk, Finn. I don’t have
to” bump! “be dragged!”
Finn walked over to the nearest set of doors and climbed
on, heaving Rusty after him like a grossly overweight bat.
"This is immoral!"
Finn stopped in the carriage’s aisle. He turned and looked
down at the dragon. "You're talking about morals?"
Rusty sniffed and raised his eyes to the heavens.
“I am a victim of injustice.” He rolled
his eyes and shook his head, his mouth tipping down in
sadness.
Finn watched the performance. There really was nothing in
the world, he thought, more ridiculous than a dragon acting
innocent. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece
of paper. He shoved it in front of the dragon’s face. “Tell
me you don’t know about this.”
Rusty squinted at what was on the paper. “The writing’s too
small,” he sniffed, “and I can’t read.”
“Classified Guardian Bulletin,” Finn said out loud, “High
level faëry prophecy warning; THEY WILL TRY TO FEED THE
DRAGON BUT IT WILL AWAKEN THE WIGHT.” He looked down at
Rusty. “Tell me you didn’t sneak into the human realm after
hearing that.”
Rusty looked at the ceiling. He rubbed his nose. His mouth
rolled around. “What a crazy theory!” He shook his head.
“You’re nuts! Well,” he corrected himself, “you’d go well
with nuts.”
Finn thought of saying something, then adjusted his grip on
Rusty’s tail, yanked the dragon backwards and dumped him in
a window seat. He sat himself down in the next seat, making
sure he was placed between the dragon and any
other passengers.
Rusty sagged, slumped, shuffled and writhed. “You think the
worst of me.”
“I can’t think the worst of you,” Finn replied, “I
don’t know you well enough.”
Adrian's Writing
...in between cups of tea.
