In parts 1 and 2, Daddy came out of a betting shop carrying a lot of money that he had won. The Little Sumo and Mummy stayed in their browney-orange car. But a knight on a horse thought that their car was a ginger dragon and charged forward to attack it. When he realised his mistake, he fell off his horse. Everyone gathered around the knight as he told them about the terrible ginger dragon, which was terrorising the town and stealing money from the inhabitants.
*
Just then a shadow passed overhead. There was a huge rushing of wind, which almost blew the Little Sumo off his feet. Daddy clutched desperately to the money in his hand to prevent it from being blown away. There was a loud thump, which caused the ground to shake. Everyone stared as a huge ginger dragon landed in the street, just next to Mummy and Daddy’s car.
“Umm…” said the knight. “Although being an accountant wasn’t such a bad job, really.”
The dragon’s neck twisted and it stared down at the group with its terrible, reptilian eyes. It opened its mouth, revealing two rows of very sharp teeth.
*
Part 3:
“Kraaark! I smell money,” said the dragon. “Lovely, lovely money to add to my hoard! Kraaark!”
The Little Sumo thought that the dragon sounded a bit like a parrot, but also a bit like a human. He wondered how something so big and heavy could fly. His book about animals had told him that birds had hollow bones to make them lighter, and make it possible for them to fly. He wondered if the dragon had a really light body too. But he couldn’t see the dragon’s bones, of course. He could only see the outside of its bright ginger body.
“Kraaark!” continued the dragon, looking at Daddy, and the money he held in his hand. “Give me your money, or I will eat you up! Kraaark!”
Daddy turned to look at the knight, who had claimed to be a dragon slayer. “Weren’t you going to, um, do something,” said Daddy. “Wasn’t there some work you had to do?”
The knight waved his hands frantically. “You mean some accounting work? Yes. Now that you mention it, I probably should be getting back to my office. I have a lot of accounting work to do.”
Mummy sniffed the air. “Is there a bakery near here? I could swear someone was cooking gingerbread.”
“Kraaark!” said the dragon, swaying his neck impatiently from side to side. “I’m getting hungry. Give me the money quickly, or I’ll eat you! Kraaark!”
Daddy looked at the money in his hand and then back at the dragon. “If you are hungry,” he said, “I could buy some bread from the bakery. Do you, um, like bread?”
While everyone was talking, the Little Sumo noticed that the dragon’s huge ginger tail was swishing around. It came quite close to where he was standing. “Maybe he won’t notice if I touch it and see if it is very light,, or whether it contains bones,” he thought.
The Little Sumo reached out a hand and touched the dragon’s tail. It was strangely soft and squidgy, like a cake.
“You had better give him the money, Daddy,” said Mummy. “I don’t want to be eaten.”
“Kraaark! Yes. You shouldn’t keep a hungry dragon waiting. Kraaark!” said the dragon.
The Little Sumo squeezed the tail, trying to feel for the bones inside. Strangely, a large piece of the tail broke off just where he was holding it.
“Kraaark! What are you doing? Kraaark! Shouted the dragon.
The Little Sumo was now holding a long, squidgy piece of tail. He peered at it closely, then put one end of the tail in his mouth and started chewing. His eyes lit up.
“What is it?” said Mummy.
“Gingerbread!” exclaimed the Little Sumo, happily.
Daddy reached out a hand and touched the dragon’s wing. A big chunk of the wing broke off, and he put it in his mouth. “It’s gingerbread too!” he said.
“K – um - Kraaark! Stay back! Kraaark!” said the dragon. It started shuffling backwards, trying to make room for itself to run. Perhaps, thought the Little Sumo, it needed to build up speed before it could fly away. But unfortunately for the dragon, it didn’t get far. Mummy broke off a piece of its other wing, and started munching the gingerbread, and the knight had regained his courage too, and broke off a piece of the dragon’s body. Suddenly, many of the townsfolk, who had been hiding behind locked doors came out and started tearing chunks of gingerbread off the dragon.
“Kraaark! I need to speak to my lawyer. Um, krark?”
The gingerbread feast lasted about twenty minutes. First, the townsfolk finished off eating the dragon’s tail, then the wings, then the legs, then the body, and finally the head. Gingerbread has this effect on people.
Under the gingerbread body, there was a flying machine, controlled by the town’s baker. A wire connected a microphone in the body to a speaker in the dragon’s head.
A policeman came by, eating something. “You’re under arrest!” he said to the baker.
“And you can stop speaking like a parrot!” said Mummy. “All those Kraaarks are getting annoying.”
“The Little Sumo looked at what the policeman was eating. “I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with D.”
Vocabulary:
hollow – containing an empty space inside
frantically - desperately
“I could swear…” – I am sure…; It really
seems to me that…
to swish – to move with a rushing sound of
air being pushed aside
squidgy – (British English, casual) soft,
spongy and moist]
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