The Bone Dragon (2 page)

I smile, drawing my feet up to make space on the sofa, as Uncle Ben comes back into the living room. He pats my ankle as he sits, perching on the edge of the seat so that he can lean over to the table crowded with drinks and pills and tissues that Amy has set up beside me: everything within easy reach of where I lie, propped up with five pillows and snuggled under my quilt.

‘Comfy set-up you’ve got here,’ he says as he peers into the pot holding my rib.

‘Apart from the great big hole in my chest and the eight staples, you mean?’

‘Yeah, apart from that,’ he answers casually. That’s one of the things I love about Uncle Ben. He’s never thrown by these things. And he never tries to drown me in sympathy. But I still know he cares. He’s just smart enough to know that sometimes you don’t have to be serious, even about serious things. He’s holding my rib up to the light now. ‘Pretty good specimen,’ he says.

And he should know. He’s a pathologist. Which is really odd: he’s such a nice person it’s a pity he isn’t a doctor for living people. But I suppose I can understand it: he says he doesn’t want to have to deal with people who spend all their time whining about having a pimple at the end of their nose. I wouldn’t want to have to listen to people whining about that either.

‘Amy says it’s morbid and disturbing.’

‘I never could figure out how I ended up with such a squeamish sister,’ Uncle Ben says, shrugging. Then he grins. ‘But it was great fun when we were kids. She had the most amazing squeal.’

I grin too, reminding myself not to laugh. ‘What did you do?’

‘Oh, nothing too horrible. The odd slug on her toast . . .’

‘Ew!’ I grimace, but I’m grinning still, wanting to laugh. But it’s going to be another six days before I can laugh – after the staples come out.

I hate the staples. It’s not so much that they hurt; it’s the way my whole left side feels so stiff and heavy all the time. I can’t understand it really. They’re only little. The wound – the bit where they cut my chest open during the operation – is only about four inches long. Which is big, but not so big that it should make it this difficult to move. I have to move very slowly when I do things like getting up: anything that involves twisting or bending. Amy has to help me in the shower. I thought I would mind that. A lot. But I don’t. Because it’s Amy. And she loves me. And I’m not at all afraid of her. Besides, nothing bad ever happened in a shower. I think that helps.

‘So, Squirt,’ I stick my tongue out at Uncle Ben, ‘your Uncle Ben, being a man of stunning genius,’ I roll my eyes, ‘has had a brainwave! A moment of unsurpassed brilliance.’ He grins at me, waiting for me to encourage him.

‘What?’ I ask, annoyed at myself for giving in, but not really. Annoyed in that good way. Because I like it when Uncle Ben teases me. As if it’s been like that since I was born. As if we really are family. Uncle Ben’s great that way too. He was never awkward with me. Never seemed worried about what to do or what to say or . . . anything. Auntie Beth, Paul’s sister, is lovely but she’s still so . . . careful. As if I’ll break. Or bite. Or both.

‘I’ll give you a clue. It has something to do with this impressive specimen.’

‘But what?’ I plead. ‘Come
on
! You have to be nice to me! I’m sick!’

Uncle Ben sighs dramatically. ‘It’s going to be a terrible struggle, you know, being nice to you for another fortnight. I don’t see how I’ll manage it. I’m far too wicked.’

I grin and nudge his thigh with my toe. ‘You are! You always make me wait!’

‘Well, I suppose I’ll just have to come clean. So, my idea of amazing brilliance is . . . Well, no. Let’s start from the other end.’

I roll my eyes, heave a dramatic sigh and feel the air jerk out, pain catching in my throat. I lever my left knee up towards my chest and breathe through the ache. Uncle Ben’s hand comes down on my leg and squeezes gently.

‘What’s the other end?’ I ask. My voice is a little flat, but Uncle Ben doesn’t mind.

‘The other end is a story. People say – well, Jews and Christians say – that after God made the world and all that, he made Adam . . .’ As the name passes his lips, I see his thoughts go to Paul and Amy’s Adam, his Adam: the pain ripples across the muscles of his face and through his eyes.

But Adam is gone and I am here and, as I watch, I see him lavish his grief back into love to offer it where it’s needed.

‘So,’ he says, just a little too briskly: moving along, moving on, ‘God put him in the Garden of Eden. But,’ a breath for courage, ‘Adam wasn’t too keen on kicking about in there by himself, so he asked God for a companion. Well, God thought that this was a pretty reasonable request, so he put Adam to sleep and, while he was asleep, God took out one of his ribs and made it into Eve. So, really, all of womankind came from just that one rib.’

‘God’s never been very interested in me.’ There’s something nasty in my voice. I can’t stop it.

For a moment, Uncle Ben frowns. Then he squeezes my knee again. ‘You know I don’t believe in any of this stuff either, Evie. I’m just like Amy and Paul: a hopeless heathen.’

I try to swallow away the nastiness that stings my throat, makes my chest pull around the staples with the weight of the air in my lungs. ‘Yeah.’ My voice is hoarse, like a whisper. But it’s not so nasty this time.

‘I just thought it was a funny sort of idea that if all of womankind came from one of Adam’s ribs then, theoretically, we should get something pretty amazing out of yours, right?’

I shrug. I used to believe in God. I was quite good at it, even if I didn’t go to church. I used to pray every night. But it never did any good.

And if God hadn’t done anything to help me back
then
, there wasn’t much chance he was going to be interested now. And if he’d wanted one of my ribs, well, why couldn’t he have taken it the way he took Adam’s? If it had just been an operation, just a matter of going to sleep and having it taken away, that wouldn’t have been so bad. Even with the staples.

‘Think of it as one of those myths and legends about the Norse gods. You know, like in that project you did at school last year,’ Uncle Ben says, but his voice is losing the laughter that it had before.

And I know I am frowning, pulling my face down into that look that made my . . . made Fiona’s mother call me ‘an ugly, sullen little beast’. I try to breathe it away, smooth it away just like my hands straightening the creases in the quilt.

‘How about this,’ Uncle Ben says, almost urgently, ‘if you could have a pet – any type of animal in the world, or even out of the world, even things that don’t really exist – what would it be?’

I don’t even have to think about it. ‘A dragon!’ I say, breathless at the very thought, seeing in my mind a picture from a book about Chinese art from school: a serpent-dragon, red and gold, twisting and circling, smoke and fire wreathing from its nostrils. I focus on it, making it as real as I can in my mind, willing myself to forget about God and prayers never answered and the bitterness of worthless hope.

I make the dragon realer and realer, clearer and clearer.

Uncle Ben laughs. ‘I can see that,’ he says. ‘A dragon. That would be a pretty amazing pet. What colour would it be?’

The dragon in my mind – from the book – is red, but I say, ‘Any colour.’ It wouldn’t matter. If there really were a dragon, if I really could have one, I wouldn’t care what colour it was. ‘And any size. A little one would be perfect too,’ I say out loud.

This time my chest is tight with longing. If I had a dragon, I’d never be powerless again . . . But I can’t let myself think about that.

‘So long as it could breathe fire,’ I whisper, forcing my thoughts away. I imagine the dragon sitting there, on my lap, looking up at me. ‘It would have to breathe fire.’

‘Of course!’ Uncle Ben says, the laughter back in his voice. ‘Anyway, I thought that we could have a little project together. We could take that rib of yours out of the formaldehyde and dry it out and then carve it into a dragon. Not quite as good as a real one, but I’m afraid I’m all out of magical powers. Besides, maybe if you did a spell on it or a wish or something . . . Who knows, right? It’s a nice thought at least.’

‘Wonderful.’ I sigh, closing my eyes and seeing the dragon. I smile at the picture in my mind. ‘There’s this book at school with a picture of a dragon. Do you think we could try to carve it like that? All twisty and stuff.’

‘Well, we could have a look and see,’ Uncle Ben says, undaunted. ‘I’m sure we can come up with something.’ 

Scales are really difficult: they’re so fiddly. I keep making little holes in my finger with the weird tool that Uncle Ben is letting me borrow. It looks a bit like one of the things the dentist has so I haven’t asked Uncle Ben about it: I figure it’s better not to know what it’s normally used for.

Amy was really angry with Uncle Ben when he gave it to me. But he talked her around. He usually does, though this time he did it by telling her the tool was brand new and hadn’t gone near any dead people yet, so he wasn’t as successful as usual: Amy keeps on coming in from the kitchen, hands coated in flour from the biscuits she is making, to check on me. She’s going to have to hoover soon or it’ll get ground into the carpet.

I’ve been working on scales all day – it’s nearly five o’clock now – and I’ve still only done the dragon’s tail. The tail is so cool. It’s got a point almost like the spades suit in playing cards and a whole line of ridges that go all the way up the dragon’s back. Only little ones of course, but the bone isn’t as smooth as I’d expected. I suppose that’s because it was too broken to mend in the first place. But I’d rather not think too much about that. I think about the dragon instead.

Yesterday, Ms Winters brought over the book with the picture of the Chinese dragon, even though it’s still the holidays. She and Amy pretended that she’d just come to drop it off, but I knew they were up to something even before Ms Winters directed the conversation to the fact that I’m going to miss the first three weeks of autumn term.

She’s offered to come over one evening a week to make sure I don’t get behind. And that’s great because she’s far and away my favourite teacher, but somehow I can’t help feeling that there’s something more to the whole thing. For now though, I’m busy with the dragon.

After Uncle Ben and I got the bone dried out, he did the first bit of the carving. Well, to be honest Uncle Ben did all the real work making the shape of the dragon. We couldn’t really make it curly in the end. But Uncle Ben did sort of manage to carve little feet into it. And because the bone is thicker at one point, he made it so it looks like the dragon is curled over on itself there. And it does curve a little bit anyway, just with how the bone curves naturally.

And when I’ve finished the scales and made the eyes and everything – Uncle Ben says they should be slitty eyes because dragons are like snakes or cats – it’s going to be beautiful. It only makes me wish even more that it was real.

I keep catching myself about to pray that it will turn into a real dragon. But I don’t. I won’t. I’m never going to pray for anything again.

Amy comes out of the kitchen to check on me for the twenty-seventh time. ‘How’s it going?’ she asks, wiping wet-clean hands on her apron.

I sigh – carefully. I’m getting used to the staples now. ‘Slowly.’

‘Why don’t you have a little break? It might be nice to go and listen to some music in bed for a while.’

What Amy really means is that she wants me to have a nap. But it’s nice that she doesn’t tell me to do it.

I yawn reflexively. She smiles and I grin, putting the tool and the dragon down on the table, then starting to push myself up. I’ve only got as far as throwing the quilt off my legs before Amy is there, her anxious hovering reminding me to go slowly: push myself up with my right arm, swing my legs down to the ground, move to the edge of the couch, push myself to my feet, staying bent at the waist until I am standing. Amy gathers up the quilt.

‘Can you bring the dragon for me?’ I ask. ‘I don’t need the tool. I just want to take the dragon up with me,’ I add before Amy can suggest – only a suggestion – that I’m meant to be going up to have a rest.

‘How are the fingers?’ She hovers behind me, quilt over one arm, dragon safely ensconced in the pot in her left hand. Her right is outstretched, almost touching my elbow as I shuffle towards the bottom of the stairs.

‘It’s not any worse than sticking a needle in myself in one of Mrs Poole’s awful textiles projects “to explore the applied aspects of Art”,’ I say, rolling my eyes. It’s impossible to truly dislike Mrs Poole, but I wish she wouldn’t make us sew. I mean, I get that it’s a useful skill and that she’s trying to slip it into class so that we all know how to fix a button at least. The fault in her thinking is that some people just aren’t destined to sew.

‘Do be careful, darling,’ Amy says. ‘It’s better than cutting your fingers open, but try not to treat yourself like a pincushion if at all possible.’

I’m concentrating too hard to answer as I lift my right foot on to the first step, then draw my left up. Right foot on to the next step, then left, hand on the banister to help with my balance because I seem to be very clumsy since the operation. Uncle Ben says that’s probably still because of the anaesthetic. But the staples don’t help either. At least it’s only another two days until they come out. I can’t wait.