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‘A dragon? No. No, no, Eugene!’ Firedrake and Sorrel heard him murmur. ‘You’ve obviously eaten too many coral-grass fleas. Although…’ Eugene opened first one eye, then the next, and finally all four of them. ‘Yes. Why not? A dragon? No, two dragons. Okay. And a… yes, a what?’ The four eyes examined Sorrel from head to foot. ‘Monkey. Yes. But what species?’
Tattoo and Firedrake exchanged an amused glance. Sorrel, on the other hand, didn’t think that Eugene was at all funny.
‘Monkey?’ she snapped at him.
Eugene inspected her again, very thoroughly. ‘Hmm, no, I take that back,’ he said. ‘So you’re a…?’
‘Spotted Scottish brownie,’ said Sorrel sharply. ‘And my sort don’t like anything with pincers on the ends of its arms. Especially when it steals from friends of ours!’
Eugene closed his claws even more firmly on the chain of the locket, and planted two legs on its silver lid. ‘Right. Prove that it belongs to this so-called friend of yours. What’s inside it?’
‘One of my scales,’ said Firedrake. ‘Or so I assume.’
Eugene looked very disappointed. With all four eyes.
‘Ah. I see,’ he murmured, and lowered his pincers. ‘A dragon’s scale. I’d been wondering why someone would keep such an insignificant metal thingy in a beautiful silver case like this. But any reasonable crab must admit that it looks very much like your other scales.’
Eugene sighed, and his four eyes went to Firedrake’s breast, with the dark patch showing where the missing scale had been.
‘Was the locket lying exactly here when you found it?’ asked Firedrake. ‘I gave the scale to a friend, and I’m afraid he is in danger.’
Eugene guiltily avoided the dragon’s glance.
‘Er, no,’ he murmured, while two of the eyes taking evasive action looked at the sky and another two looked at the sand. ‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t really find it. I took the silver thing away from a lanternfish. Out there,’ he said, waving one pincer at the sea. Where the shipwrecks lie and the coral nixies live.’
Sorrel tried very hard not to look too worried, but she could sense how heavy-hearted Firedrake was. Brownies don’t need any dragon scale to know what their own dragon is feeling.
‘Where the shipwrecks lie?’ repeated Firedrake. ‘When you were there –’ he hardly dared to ask – ‘did you see the wreck of an airplane among them? A flying machine made of wood?’
Eugene looked at him with obvious sympathy (it gave the crab a slight violet tinge). ‘A flying machine? No. But Eight swears he saw something of that kind. A machine made of wood, with wings. I thought it was just one of his stories. He simply has too much imagination!’
‘Where?’ asked Tattoo. ‘Where did he see it?’
Yes, he was a rather impatient young dragon.
‘On the beach of Pulau Bulu,’ replied Eugene. ‘You know: the island of the lion-birds.’
‘Lion-birds?’ Tattoo exchanged a quick glance with Firedrake and Sorrel.
‘Yes. There are all kinds of strange creatures around the place on Pulau Bulu,’ commented Eugene, with a dismissive wave of his pincers. ‘Though, mind you, Eight also says a green man climbed out of the flying thing. Oh no, I said to myself when he came out with that, he’s gone and found a barrel of rum among the wrecks again! When he does that he always talks sheer nonsense for days on end, and he ties knots in his own arms!’
‘Eight?’ Firedrake was trying hard not to lose patience with Eugene. After all, the crab could be their only hope of finding Ben in spite of everything. Lion-birds. That didn’t sound much like a phoenix!
‘Do you think your friend Eight could take us to this island?’
‘Sure! I don’t know exactly where he is at the moment, but I can call him,’ offered Eugene. ‘He’s probably painting a ship’s hull again. He doesn’t even leave the drilling rigs alone. “Eight.” I always tell him, “human beings don’t know how to appreciate your works of art!” And believe you me, his ink lasts a long time, even under water. One of these days they’ll make him into octopus salad, but he doesn’t even know what that is. My friend Eight is such a little innocent!’
Eugene looked at his reflection in the silver of the locket. Then he picked it up by the chain – and dropped it in front of Sorrel’s paws.
‘I once heard that dragons bring out the best in every living being,’ he sighed. ‘But I’d never have thought, not in a hundred years, that it also applied to four-eyed crabs. What a nuisance.’
Eugene tripped towards the surf breaking over the beach in shallow waves, and began rattling his pincers faster than a flamenco dancer rattling her castanets.
At first it almost looked as if the entire Pacific Ocean was answering Eugene.
Out in the open sea, a wave began to swell. It towered up and up, until Sorrel took shelter behind Firedrake’s legs. Then arms densely covered with suckers reached up out of the wave, and a gigantic head with eyes so large that Sorrel could have fitted comfortably into them.
Eight. A good name for a Great Kraken.
