The Land of Roar. Jenny McLachlan
me . . .’
Grandad turns to look at me. ‘Who was it then?’
I rub the pale scar, trying to decide whether to carry on talking or shut up. But I can’t keep quiet. Everything that has happened since we arrived at Grandad’s is too strange. I have to tell someone.
‘I was standing by a dragon.’ My voice is loud in the silence of the attic. ‘The dragon had scales and chipped claws and smoke pouring out of its nose, and even though Rose told me not to, I brushed my fingers along its belly, and then . . .’ I look at Grandad, ‘it bit me.’
Grandad has an unusual expression on his face – one that I’ve hardly ever seen before. He looks serious.
‘Grandad, why aren’t you laughing and telling me I’m talking rubbish?’
He smiles and shrugs. ‘Because I believe you.’
Everything has gone quiet, the birds outside, even Rose and Mazen on the trampoline. The sun shines down on my legs and something warm, like magic, creeps through me. ‘What do you mean?’
He laughs. ‘Just what I said, Arthur: I believe you!’
Grandad is winding me up. He loves playing tricks on us – he loves playing full stop – and this is just another of his games. And yet . . . I know I saw a shadow at the window and heard the wings fluttering in the bed.
Just thinking about the wings makes my heart speed up. I jump up and look at the bed.
‘What’s wrong, Arthur?’ Grandad clambers to his feet.
‘Yesterday I heard something coming from in there.’ I can’t take my eyes off the bed. ‘It made me think of someone in Roar.’
‘A bad person?’
I nod. ‘A very bad person.’
‘And you think this person might be in the bed?’ Again I nod. Grandad puts his arm round me and pulls me close. His cardigan feels soft against my face. It smells of coffee and his shed. ‘Well, there’s one way to find out, Arthur. You need to crawl into the bed.’
I stare at the sagging mattress, then back at Grandad.
‘What? You think I should just crawl in there?’
Grandad nods. ‘And visit Roar.’ He says this like he’s suggesting a trip to the pier.
‘But Grandad, Roar was a game. Remembering a dragon biting me is my mind playing tricks on me.’
‘But what if it’s not, Arthur? What if you and Rose made Roar with your imaginations, then crawled through the camp bed and somehow found your way there?’
I smile and shake my head. ‘If I crawl into that mattress, I’ll come straight out the other side and you’ll be standing there laughing at me!’
‘Well, if that happens, at least you know you imagined the funny sound and being bitten by a dragon, and can get on with turning this attic into a den.’
‘And if I do end up in Roar?’
I can’t believe these words have just come out of my mouth.
Grandad’s eyes go wide. ‘Now wouldn’t that be something?’ And then he actually holds the mattress open for me and says, ‘In you go!’
‘I don’t know.’ I glance out of the window to make sure Rose is still on the trampoline. There aren’t many things in the world she’d find more hilarious than the sight of me crawling through the camp bed trying to get to Roar. There she is, jumping up and down and trying to touch her toes. ‘I’m sure I imagined it,’ I say. ‘It was probably a bird in the chimney or –’
A scuffle makes me turn round and I see that Grandad’s head and shoulders are stuck inside the mattress. What is he doing? He must think that if he goes in first, I’ll follow. He pushes in his arms and then starts wriggling from side to side, trying to get his bum in too. Then I hear a faint cry of ‘Hear me roar!’
The sight of a seventy-two-year-old man attempting to squeeze his body into a folded camp bed is like a slap in the face. What am I doing? Rose is right. I’m way too old for this. I should be learning to surf, or skating, or fighting stuff on the computer. Anything would be better than playing in the attic with my grandad!
When Grandad comes out the other side of the bed I’ll tell him I want to take the camp bed to the tip. It’s time for me to grow up, or I really will be eaten alive at secondary school.
‘Hear me ROOOOOAAAAR !’ Grandad cries, then with a final lurch he gets his bum and legs into the bed too. Then he just sits there, a big bulge in the middle of the mattress. It reminds me of the time I saw a nature documentary about a snake that had swallowed a pig. It’s pretty funny actually.
‘All right, Grandad. You can come out now.’ I try to give the bed a shake but it weighs a ton with him in there.
Grandad’s hand pops out and waves around.
‘Are you stuck?’ I grab hold of his hand and his fingers wrap round my wrist and I start to pull. But he won’t budge, and now I’m laughing because Grandad has got me to play, just like he wanted to. ‘Come on. I might have done a wee in there, remember?’
Suddenly Grandad’s fingers tighten round mine. ‘Ow!’ I say, still laughing. Then I sit down on the floor, put my feet against the bed and pull as hard as I can. But Grandad doesn’t budge and his big hand squeezes even tighter round mine. In fact, his fingers are going white from the pressure and my hand starts to hurt. ‘Grandad, stop it!’ Panic rises up in me as the pressure increases. It feels like the bones in my fingers might break!
I pull harder than ever, but I’m not trying to get Grandad out: I’m trying to free my hand. ‘Grandad, you’re hurting me!’
Suddenly he lets go and I tumble backwards. Then, with amazing speed, his hand shoots inside the mattress. What? I cradle my squashed hand to my chest and stare at the bed. The lump has gone!
‘Grandad?’ I jump to my feet and circle the bed, patting the springs. ‘Grandad? Where are you?’
Silence. My heart thuds against my ribcage. I grab the headboard, ready to pull the bed open . . . but something stops me. It’s the memory of Rose saying, Never open the camp bed, Arthur, or everything in Roar will disappear.
I let go of the headboard. Rose was talking rubbish, I tell myself. There is no Roar; there can’t be any Roar. But I still can’t bring myself to open the bed. The attic feels unbearably hot and I’m shaky with panic. I brush a tear off my cheek. ‘Come on, Grandad . . . It’s a good joke, but you can come out now.’
I know I’m talking to myself. I know he isn’t in there.
In a daze I check every corner of the attic, even under the bed, but except for Prosecco, the attic is empty. I tell myself that Grandad has to be in the bed and I kneel down, take a deep breath, and push my hand into the mattress.
It’s horrible. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as I feel around, desperately hoping that my fingers will touch some bit of Grandad, but my hand just keeps going further and further into the mattress until, finally, I do touch something. But it’s not Grandad’s trainers or hair. It’s a load of spiky, prickly stuff. I grab it and pull it out.
When I uncurl my fingers I have to squeeze my mouth shut to stop myself from being sick. I’m holding a pile of yellow straw and greasy black feathers. I chuck the whole lot on the floor, then reach forward and pick up the largest feather. It’s inky-black and the quill is