 |  |
Having found some distinctly non-environmentally-friendly cleaning items in a cupboard, George was now busily exacerbating the hummus situation. There must be a way, he told himself as he tried to wipe the gloopy mess from the top of the turmeric shelf where he had accidentally flicked it instead of into his bucket. If the people would only listen to me, they’d see I’m a decent chap, a perfectly good—
His ears pricked. A faint sound from outside was starting to flow into the shop. It sounded like voices but no, it couldn’t be; everyone had run off.
George continued to clean but after a few seconds, stopped again. The noise was getting louder. Curiosity getting the better of him, he put down his mop and then walked over to the door and poked out his head.
Immediately, the noise increased ten-fold.
“Oh, my goodness!” he gasped. “Surely not?”
“There’s the foul monstrosity!” A red-faced man thrust the horned end of his walking stick in George’s direction and shook it vigorously. “The hideous green fiend is wrecking the expensive hippy shop! CHARGE!”
The mob roared and some violently waved the weapons they were carrying. Pitchforks, rakes, and a surprising number of snooker cues – all were being pointed towards George.
In the shop doorway, George’s initial disbelief had now turned to annoyance. “Typical!” he muttered. Wouldn’t stick around for a polite chat but they’d happily turn up en masse to beat him to a pulp. He took a deep breath then fastened his dragon bag and straightened his poncho. Come on, he told himself. Keep calm. Try to talk some sense into them. We don’t want things getting messy!
Bending his knees, George tried to look as dignified as possible as he squeezed himself through the doorway and then out into the street. “Grrr-eetings, people of People Town!” he announced in as haughty a manner as he could.
Instantly, the mob’s aggressive cries decreased in volume and increased in pitch. “G... g... go away, d... dragon!” stammered a balding man in a grey business suit. “Or there’ll be tr... trouble!”
George let out a silent sigh. He was sadly familiar with dealing with giant, fire-breathing dragons – far scarier adversaries than walking-heart-attacks with golf clubs. “Now look here,” he said, doing his best to be both firm but amiable. “I mean you people no harm.” ‘You people?’ Had he really...? Blushing with convoluted embarrassment he pushed on, “And um... if this little um... gathering is about the er... state of the highways leading from the outskirts up to here, then let me assure you, there was already a significant amount of disrepair prior to my arriva—”
“KILL THE MONSTER!” A scream from the back cut short George’s damage downplaying and again the whole mob roared, albeit half-heartedly.
“IT ATE MY HUSBAND!” yelled a woman’s voice. “And it stole all the jewellery and money from the shop safe. And it maxed out the credit cards on plastic surgery treatments. It left me a poor, penniless widow!”
George rolled his eyes. It was time to put this ridiculous rumour to bed once and for all. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me! Can I just ask;” he pointed across the crowd, “yes, you – the charming lady clearly fond of the sun. Your dead husband; is he perchance Mr Winterbottom?”
“Burn,” she corrected. “Winterburn.”
A tittering had now started within the crowd. “Bottom! Tee hee!”
George squirmed. “Dreadfully sorry, my mistake.” Getting the name of the deceased wrong; now that was a legitimate reason to get flustered. “Mrs Winterburn,” he oozed, his cheeks glowing furiously. “Please accept my condolences in what must be a very difficult time. I’m certain your husband was a kind, loving and honest—” A sudden loud sniggering made George realise he was losing the mob’s attention, so he curbed his digression. “Anyway,” he added sharply, “returning to the matter-in-hand, let me state for the record that I have not, I repeat, not, murdered and slash or consumed Mr Winterburn – may he rest in peace – nor do I want to hurt or eat anyone else for that matter. Actually, I’m a vegan, you know!”
Straight away, bored groaning came from the mob as irritation momentarily replaced fear. Fortunately, though, the man in the suit managed to get his voice heard. “Wait!” he yelled. “Listen to it.”
George fought back his grin. This was a turn-up for the books; a colourful non-native being given a platform. He had always suspected people were far superior to dragons but this really was most progressive. Now kicking himself for having not prepared a suitably buzzword-laden, status quo-disrupting, bandwagon-jumping speech, George took a deep breath. “Well, thank you very much!” he began. “Ok, first of all, I’d like to take the opportunity to say what a lovely town you have—”
“COME ON!” came a shout from the back. “What are we waiting for? I’ve got to be back at work in twenty minutes. KILL THE SANCTIMONIOUS, VEGGIE-LOVING BEAST!”
WHOOSH!
A metal canister clanged down at George’s feet and started to fill the air with yellow smoke.
The mob froze.
“Good grief!” George dramatically pulled out a handkerchief and flapped it open. “I may look different but there’s no need to be afraid of me. This is nothing but unjustified preju... preju... preju... ACHOOOOOOOO!”
A huge jet of flames burst from George’s mouth and shot just above the heads of the crowd.
“AAAAAAAAAARGH!”
That was enough. The entire mob dropped their weapons and took off down the road at full speed.
–––
Standing in a cloud of fumes, George let out an irritated grunt. It was no good. No matter how hard he tried, the people were always going to be terrified of him. He swallowed, trying to shift the lump in his throat. Oh, well.
Cautiously, he began to feel his way back towards the shop doorway. That was enough ‘socialising’ for one day; time to get some more hummus and then return to his lonely life on the outskir— Suddenly something occurred to him: The panicked mob was charging along the same road that he had just walked down. The road that headed out of town and that eventually led off into the hills. And given their petrified state – and even though they had never gone that way before, nor given any indication whatsoever that they would go that way today, it was necessarily plausible that the people would keep on running in that direction.
Towards Dragonville.
George clutched his head with both hands and stared into the yellow smoke. This was bad, verging on very bad. If the people ended up there, they were dinner – no, lunch; it was barely 1 pm. But that wasn’t even the worst of it; once the dragons had finished their hors d’oeuvre, they would eventually work out there was more meat where the first course had come from. And if the dragons discovered People Town, then that would be something that George no longer had over them. Plus, they would eat everyone which was also rather peeving. There was nothing for it; he had to do something and he had to do it now!
Flattening down his poncho and tucking in his dragon bag in a futile attempt to streamline himself, George set off down the road. “Stop! Wait!” he wheezed at where the people had been about two minutes before. “I most strongly suggest you...” PANT! “...do not go that way!” COUGH! COUGH! “The area to which you are headed is populated by...” WHEEZE! COUGH! PANT! “...a large number of highly aggressive, completely carnivorous... HUH! HUH! HUH! ...dragons! Who absolutely will not...” PANT! PANT! WHEEZE! “...hesitate in making you into some sort of...” GASP! GASP! SPLUTTER! COUGH! “...grotesque, minced-up, breadcrumb-coated, deep-fried product! HUH! HUH! HUH! HUH! HUH!”
It was no good. The mob had vanished.
Now painfully out of breath after twenty seconds of jogging, George pulled up at the kerb with a stitch in his side and momentarily reminded himself that everyone had different strengths and it was admirable that he had made the effort to do something which the discriminatory laws of physics largely prevented him from doing. “Ok,” he choked. “What was I...? Oh yes! The impending eradication of the human species!”
George stood there thinking and sweating. Mostly sweating. What to do? What to do? It would take him ages to catch up and by the time he got to Dragonville, there was a fair chance the cat would be out of the bag and the mob members would be browned and encased in pastry. He needed help and fast – but from who?
Suddenly it came to him – his recently-borrowed, definitely-not-stolen phone! During his fruitless faffing with it, he distinctly recalled seeing an entry called ‘Emergency Services’ in the contacts list. That had to be worth a try!
Delving into his bag, George pulled out the device and dragged his claw over the screen, accidentally carving a deep scratch, before eventually hitting ‘dial’.
BUR BUR. BUR BUR.
CLICK.
“This is Emergency Services. Which service do you require?”
“Ah!” exclaimed George, pouting approvingly. “Very prompt! Well done! And a jolly good day to you, ma-daaam! I must say, it’s nice to see that some organisations still take good old-fashioned customer-service seriously. The human touch, so to speak. Not some god-awful, robot-switchboard malarkey. Press one to be placed into a queue, press two to swear at an automated message, press—”
“Which service do you require, sir?” pushed the operator.
“Which?” said George, a little taken aback at the interruption. Whatever happened to the customer-is-always-right mentality? “Um... well, the emergency one, of course!” Two could take that tone. “This is Emergency Services, is it not?”
“Police, fire, or ambulance?” asked the operator.
“Ah!” That made sense, although it was actually quite a tough choice. “Um...?” George began to think carefully. He didn’t want to give the wrong answer. “Er...” Another call he should have prepared in advance. “Oh, what the hey!” he finally exclaimed. “Can I possibly choose all three? Or is that being greedy?” If ever there was a situation that probably needed all of them, it was the massacre of a group of people by huge, fire-breathing dragons.
“Certainly, sir. Can I take your name?”
“Of course! It’s George.”
“George what, sir?”
“Just George.”
“Ok. And your address?”
“Sooo,” George took a breath, “I like to call it ‘The Grange’. Strictly speaking, it’s number 227b. Technically, it’s in Dragonville, but it’s so close to the boundary with—”
“Sorry, Dragonville?”
“Mmm. Really only in terms of postcode. I have tried to get them to reassign it but obviously, it’s far too much to ask that they—”
“Dragonville?”
“Yes!” groaned George. “If you insist on being pedantic and,” he raised air quotes despite being on the phone, “‘official’ about it, it is in Dragonvi—”
“Is this a prank, sir?” demanded the operator. “You do know it’s a serious offence to misuse this emergency number.”
“I... I... I’ve never been so insult—”
“The Emergency Services are extremely busy today,” scolded the operator. “Some lunatic dragon just ransacked the overpriced organic shop; the last thing we need is—”
“THAT WAS ME!” shouted George, now exasperated. “I am that dragon! Although I’ll hasten to add I am not a lunatic and that is not a confession. Also, you should have seen the state of that place before I even set foot in...” George stopped. No, now wasn’t the time. He needed to get help to the people and fast. “I’M FROM DRAGONVILLE!” he snapped. “In a purely legal sense, it is my home town. Nominally, I am a dragon from Dragonville! And you need to get over there sharpish because a bunch of people are about to become central to one of the mayor’s Freaky Foreign Flesh Fests – which I know sounds a bit smutty and racist but the culture is very different over there and that’s what they call them so don’t blame me!” This was ridiculous. George could deal with this faster by himself.
With a tut, he hung up, threw the phone into his bag and once again launched into a curvaceous canter.