The Case of the Wayward Professor (12 page)

‘What proof?' said Dirk calmly.

‘Behind the TV. There's a parcel.'

Holly dived to the TV and pulled out the parcel. She placed it on the kitchen table, opened it up and lifted out what looked like a piece of ivory.

‘A dragon claw,' said Dirk.

‘A dragon claw,' repeated the professor.

‘If only he knew who he was talking to,' said Holly.

Dirk took the claw from Holly and said, ‘Professor Rosenfield, I want you to listen very carefully to me.'

The professor nodded and leaned forward.

‘When I say, these men will take you back to the station. Catch a train home, go back to your wife, whom you love very much, and try to lead a normal boring life. You won't remember any of this conversation or the events of the last few days and when your wife asks, you'll say the cryptozoological conference was a complete bore and gradually, over time, your interest in dragons will wane. You'll find a new hobby. Holly, what's a good hobby?'

‘Skydiving?' suggested Holly.

‘Something safe.'

‘Bungee jumping?'

‘You'll become interested in stamp collecting instead, professor.'

‘I'll become interested in stamp collecting,' repeated the professor.

Dirk turned to the crooks.

‘You two, take the professor back to the train station. When you get there slap him in the face then slap each other. When you wake up you'll give up your life of crime and dedicate your time to making the world a better place.'

‘Will they be safe driving in that state?' asked Holly.

‘Drive carefully,' added Dirk to Reg. ‘They will now. Remember, they can see the world around them if
instructed to look. Reg will drive more attentively than he's ever done before.'

Compliantly, all three of them left the cottage and climbed into the car. Holly and Dirk followed them out.

‘Will it work?' asked Holly.

‘Dragonsong is very powerful, particularly on human minds, which are weaker than dragons. No offence.'

He tucked the claw in a fold of skin behind his right wing, motioned for Holly to climb on his back and they took to the sky.

‘Where are we going?' she asked.

‘I'm taking you back to school,' replied Dirk.

He tilted his wings to gain a little height. In the distance he could see the school. Holly saw it too.

‘Why can't I stay with you?' she said.

He dipped down again, flying close to the tree tops.

‘I'm sorry, Holly,' he said. ‘I wish I could, but I can't protect you where I'm going.'

Dirk was telling the truth. He really did want to take Holly with him. On the whole, dragons were solitary creatures. Sometimes small groups would stick together for short periods of time if they had a mutual goal, like the Tree Dragons in the forest or the other Kinghorns he had encountered on his last case, but
these unions would rarely last more than a few months. Dragons learned loneliness when they were abandoned as younglings. Dirk remembered the morning he awoke to find his mother gone. Barely ten years old, he had searched everywhere for her until, eventually, he realised she was not coming back. He only ever saw her once after that and by then it was too late. She was dead.

Maybe Dirk had spent too much time surrounded by humans, with their constant need for company, and perhaps some of that neediness had rubbed off on him because, since meeting Holly, he had come to enjoy having someone to confide in.

Dirk landed by the trunk of a large, fallen sycamore tree, near the perimeter fence of the school. Holly could see the main gate. She didn't want to go back. She wanted to stay with Dirk.

‘Where are you going?' asked Holly.

‘Those Tree Dragons said the Dragnet were arresting Kinghorns. That means they know something. I want to find out what. I've got to go and speak to the Captain of Dragnet and tell him what I know.'

‘What's the Dragnet?'

‘It's the Dragon Council's police force. Dragnet officers are Drab-Nosed Drakes, flightless, soil-eating dragons with a bad case of wing envy, but they're
tough. If they saw you with me, I'd be banished and you'd be killed.'

‘I could keep watch over those Tree Dragons while you're gone,' suggested Holly.

‘Holly, you saw what they did to me. Besides, they don't even know what they're involved in. I need to get to the dragon behind all this.'

‘You mean Vainclaw Grandin?' said Holly, remembering the name.

‘Exactly.' Dirk sat with his back against the trunk, eyeing the surrounding trees, looking out for green eyes.

‘If the Kinghorns want a war why would they choose a weapon which makes it look like a natural disaster?' asked Holly.

‘I don't know. Maybe they're looking to weaken the human armies before the main attack. They're gaining in numbers but I doubt Vainclaw has a big enough army yet to take on the whole of humanity. He needs more supporters and the Council will never sanction war.'

‘I don't want to go back,' protested Holly. ‘I want to come with you, to help stop the war.'

Dirk craned his neck and looked her in the eyes. ‘I'll come and see you as soon as I'm back, but I can't take
you with me. I can't risk losing you.'

Holly could tell there was no way she would be able to persuade him. Quietly she said, ‘OK. I'll go, but you have to promise to come back.'

‘I promise,' said Dirk and he stood up and held out his paw, which Holly took and held to her cheek.

‘Wait five minutes before leaving,' she said. ‘I'll draw the guard away from the main gate, so you don't get seen.'

‘Take care, kiddo,' said Dirk, ‘and stay out of trouble.'

‘Trouble?' smiled Holly. ‘Me? Never.'

She hugged him one more time and ran into the woods.

Dirk sat back down and considered the case. It was the second time he had found himself up against the Kinghorns and yet he was still no closer to Vainclaw Grandin. All he knew was what Karnataka had told him, that Vainclaw was a Mountain Dragon, that he was cautious, smart and extremely dangerous and that at the great conference he claimed to be the first in the air, voting to declare war on humanity.

Deciding that enough time had lapsed, Dirk stood up and stretched. He spread his wings, flapped them a couple of times, and took to the sky.

Flying south over the forest, towards the caves, Dirk
felt almost like Holly was still with him. It was like when you've been wearing a hat all day and then take it off but it feels like you're still wearing it; Dirk could almost feel her arms around his neck, and her body pressed against his back. He looked over his shoulder to make sure, but she wasn't there. Of course she wasn't. She was back at school, probably making some poor teacher's life a misery. He supposed that this was what it was like to miss someone.

He glided towards the base of the hill, making sure there was no one around. For human visitors the caves weren't very exciting, being neither very big nor particularly deep. There were no cave paintings to boast of nor any spectacular stalactites or stalagmites to marvel at.

Certain there was no one around, Dirk swooped down and landed inside one of the caves. If you had told one of the few human visitors that the shallow caves provided an entrance to a matrix of tunnels deep inside the bowels of the earth, they would probably have thought you were mad or being silly, or just plain lying. Humans considered rock to be a very solid, noncommunicative substance.

Dirk, on the other hand, knew that rock was actually quite malleable and, although not the world's greatest
conversationalist it was, at least, capable of understanding and following simple instructions, providing they were spoken in the ancient language of Dragonspeak and said very slowly.

Dragonspeak was a beautiful language but it was dated and lacked the richness and subtleties of, say, English or French, which was why dragons tended to use human language when talking to each other. Rock, on the other hand, had resolutely refused to learn a new language in all the billions of years it had been hanging around.

Dirk crouched down on a slab of stone and made a strange growling, muttering noise, syncopated by clicks and barks, which roughly translated meant, ‘Down, please.'

The rock shifted with ease, lowering Dirk into the ground like an organic elevator. His head disappeared beneath the surface and the rock re-formed above him, cutting out the daylight and plunging him into darkness.

After several hours descending through the dark, it grew lighter and Dirk felt the surface he was standing on pull away from under his feet. He braced himself. Orange light appeared beneath his claws and he dropped down into a vast tunnel, landing heavily and
feeling a twinge in his back like something kicking against it. He looked over his shoulder. At first he saw nothing and then he noticed the faint outline of a girl, barely detectable, but there if you looked for it, blended to match his red scaly back.

‘Holly?' he said disbelievingly. ‘But how?'

A pair of brown eyes appeared.

‘Hi, Dirk.' Holly's mouth materialised.

‘I don't understand …' he started. ‘You can …You can blend like me …even your clothes. How are you doing that?'

‘I don't know. At first I thought that hiding from the security guard during my escape was lucky but when that Tree Dragon looked straight at me in the forest and didn't see me I began to realise what was happening. I was doing it without thinking. Like you said, you just have to think like whatever you're trying to blend with. It's easy, really, isn't it?'

‘It's easy for Mountain Dragons. It's not supposed to be easy for humans,' countered Dirk angrily.

‘I thought you would feel me on your back when I climbed on.'

‘The skin on my back is pretty tough. I suppose that's why you asked me to wait five minutes before leaving the clearing, giving you time to sneak back on.'

Holly nodded. ‘But how come I can do it?'

‘I don't know,' he replied, confused. ‘Unless …'

‘What?' she asked.

‘Knights used to drink dragon blood to steal their powers.'

‘Yuck,' exclaimed Holly. ‘I haven't been drinking your blood. That's disgusting.'

‘When I came to the school I was still injured. Some of my blood had rubbed on to your shin. You put it to your tongue to see what it was.'

‘Would that be enough to do it?'

‘It would seem so, wouldn't it.'

Holly glanced around at the tunnel. ‘What is this place anyway?' she asked.

‘We're just off the north-western arm of the lithosphere tunnel.'

‘Where does the light come from? I can't see any lamps.'

‘This is earthlight.'

‘Earthlight?'

‘The Inner Core gives off light and heat. It's where dragons get their energy, just like humans can't live without the sun. That's why we cast shadows upwards. The nearer you get to it, the lighter it grows.'

Holly gazed up at Dirk's shadow. ‘It's amazing,' she
said. ‘I'm probably the only human ever to have been here.'

Dirk smiled. He would never have admitted it but deep down he was pleased she was with him.

‘Hey, Mountain Dragon, what are you doing?' called a voice.

‘Quick, blend,' ordered Dirk. Holly imagined she was made out of the same red scaly skin as Dirk's back and her body changed colour to match it.

A dirt-brown creature appeared round the corner. It had a large belly, a long droopy nose and a dark metal chain attached to its short tail, with a heavy-duty neck cuff held in its hand. In the other hand was a burger-shaped lump of mud. It waddled forward, sniffed the mud burger then nibbled it and grunted approvingly.

‘Identify yourself and your purpose.'

As he spoke tiny bits of mud flew out of his mouth.

Dirk wiped his face. ‘My name's Dirk Dilly and I want you to take me to see the Captain of Dragnet,' he said.

The Drake puffed out its chest, showing its metal Dragnet badge. ‘I'll do no such thing. I don't know what the world's coming to, civilians ordering Dragnet officers around. I never could have believed it. In my day, dragons showed a bit of respect.'

Dirk hated Dragnet officers. Drakes went into the
Dragnet for one reason. Power. They were smaller than dragons but the neck cuffs they carried enabled them to capture and arrest even the largest dragon. They were stupid, petty-minded and corrupt and they were normally looking for what they could get out of any given situation.

‘All right, what will it take to persuade you?' asked Dirk.

‘How dare you?' said the officer indignantly. ‘Are you attempting to bribe a Dragnet officer?'

‘What's your name, Drake?'

‘You are addressing Officer Balti Grunling, six hundred and thirty-two years wearing the badge.'

‘Well, Balti, I'm sure there's something I can get to persuade you.'