Chandi and the Golden Wheatstalk Read online

Chandi and the Golden Wheat Stalk

  The Slaughters were off on one of their epic cycling holidays. This time to Wales. They took the train to Bristol with all their bicycles in a special luggage carriage and then, after a night in a cosy little B&B up on a hill overlooking the Severn Estuary, they set off on their bikes. Chandi was quite excited about the long ride ahead of them. It would be tiring but she knew she would feel such a sense of achievement when she arrived, exhausted, achy and sweaty at the next cosy little gwely a brecwast (Chandi had looked it up on Google Translate before she left), and they would be in the middle of Wales!

  As they started crossing the huge, long, high Severn Bridge, thinking about "gwely A brecwast" reminded Chandi about something her brilliant, witty and extremely beautiful aunt, Shobby Mashi had told her. All the road signs in Wales are written in English and Welsh because not everyone in Wales understands both. One day they needed to put a new road sign. So they emailed the Welsh translator and asked her how to say that in Welsh. They carefully wrote down what was written in the email she sent back and put it on the sign under the English bit. After the sign had been put up, they wondered why there was a big crowd of Welsh speaking people standing round the sign laughing. Then someone explained that in English it said "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only" and in Welsh it said "Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hy o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith y'w gyfieithu." Which means "'I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

  Don't believe me? Here's the proof!

  And as they were cycling along through Wales, she thought they might see that other Welsh translation mistake; a sign that said in English "cyclists dismount" and Welsh "Llid y bledren dymchwelyd" which roughly translates as "bladder inflammation overturn"! Chandi was laughing away to herself about this as she pedalled along the bridge, the wind whistling through her hair (the bits sticking out from under her helmet, that is, she was a sensible girl, was Chandi, and always wore her helmet), as the Severn River sparkled far below her. It almost felt like she was flying... Just as she thought this, something soft brushed her arm and she looked sideways – it was the tip of a seagull's wing that was flying along beside her.

  "What are you doing up here?" the bird asked. Chandi – using her special power to communicate with animals replied "Cycling across a bridge with my family, of course? What are you doing down here?"

  The bird gave her a strange look and wheeled off across the clouds...

  Chandi shook her head. Then she looked down and saw the Severn Bridge far below her like a big silver hairclip across the two long grey plaits that were the River Severn and the River Wye. She looked right and left and saw clouds and another couple of seagulls who were trying to ignore her, and a small plane with a pilot whose eyes were popping out of his head.

  And then she started to understand why the bird had looked at her like that.

  "Odd" thought Chandi. The fairies aren't with me and I was wide awake the whole time. How can I be flying?"

  She looked up - and saw a shiny red roof.

  "Well that's rather peculiar" she thought, as something wet splotted onto her cheek. She brushed it away. But another one came, and another, and another. Splot! Splot! Splot!

  "Oh, no! That's all I need! Getting caught in storm – as if finding myself flying through the air under a shiny red roof wasn't bad enough!" Splot! Splot! Splot! It was very strange rain. The drops were large and – she realised when one landed on her tongue – salty, and a bit of a chilli hot zing to it, like Tabasco.

  "I wonder if it really is rain? And I wonder if that wailing sound I've been hearing really is the wind?" thought Chandi.

  She looked up at the shiny red roof again. It was scaly. And attached to it were two huge legs. And attached to them were two huge feet with many huge, shiny red toes and sharp, black, shiny claws. And attached to them was.... Chandi! The claws were hooked into the spokes of her bike, which is why she hadn't noticed them before.

  "Oh well. I might as well stop pedalling now!" Chandi leaned back with her hands behind her head, looking up at the shiny red scaly roof again.

  Above the roof stretching for what seemed like miles to the left and to the right, were a pair of the biggest wings Chandi had ever seen in her life. They were barely moving and yet they were making Chandi and her bike fly along at the speed of a jet aeroplane.

  "So-o-o-oo, I'm thinking I've been kidnapped by a dragon..." thought Chandi, calmly. (I told you she was a sensible girl – not one to be easily panicked). "But that doesn't explain this peculiar rain and the wailing sound..."

  And then, as if in reply to her thoughts, a huge, slow, ancient thought came into her head. And the thought said:

  "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Sniff! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH (etc)" (It didn't actually say "(etc)", but it went on making that sound – soundlessly. This is a thought, remember. Keep up.)

  "Aaah!" thought Chandi. "I've been kidnapped by a very sad dragon...the 'rain' is tears – and that would explain why they taste Tabascoey." Splot!

  Chandi tried to telepathically ask the dragon what was wrong, but it was too overwhelmed with its sadness to reply. So she just settled back on her bike seat, rested each elbow on a giant, shiny, scaly red toe and enjoyed the ride.

  After a long time, they came to a high, rocky mountain. The dragon gently set Chandi and her bike down on a ledge, and she looked around her as she took off her helmet. The lush green trees stopped some way below where they landed and up ahead there was nothing but black rock.

  "What are we doing here, Mr Dragon?" Chandi asked silently.

  A head the size of a multi-storey car park swung slowly back to look at Chandi, with enormous golden eyes, like huge round swimming pools filled with champagne. Tears were still spilling over its windscreen-wiper like lashes.

  "Sniff! Sniff! It's Ms Dragon, actually. "It's... it's OOOOH WAAAAHAHAAAHAA!" Overcome by her misery, all she could do was point with a vast shiny black claw.

  Chandi looked to where it was pointing and saw that the hilltop was not completely bare. In the middle of the grey-black rocky expanse, a single, golden stalk of wheat stood.

  It stood up quite straight, and didn't sway in the wind. It was beautiful and intriguing. But it didn't really leave Chandi any the wiser.

  "You're going to have to pull yourself together and explain to me what's going on, or I won't be able to help you, Madam" Chandi thought-said, gently but firmly.

  With a huge, shuddering effort, the dragon swallowed her sobs and after just a few more Tabascoey sniffs, she said.

  "That's my husband."

  "Er... your husband is a stalk of wheat?"

  "No, he's underneath it. It's coming out of him. In fact you're standing on him!"

  Chandi looked down. Now the dragon mentioned it, the rocks were rather scaly. Chandi nodded and went towards the stalk of wheat to investigate. As she got closer to it Ms Dragon cried out,

  "Careful of his eyes!"

  Just in time Chandi stopped herself from stepping on a big round boulder which, she now noticed was fringed with windscreen-wiper like lashes. She carefully stepped around it and a few hundred yards later, came to the wheat stalk, standing tall and straight with the sun glinting off the delicate golden ears... But actually, now that she was closer to it, Chandi realised that it wasn't a wheat sheaf – it was an arrow. And it was stuck straight into the top of poor Mr Dragon's head!

  Chandi's eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them back and said in what she hoped was a brave and efficient voice, "Is he...?"

  Ms Dragon shook her head and pointed along the rocky escarpment that was her husband's head. Out of two holes in the rock two gentle
puffs of smoke curled up into the grey, Welsh sky. Then – after a few moments, another two puffs.

  How long has he been like this?"

  "SNIFF!! About two... two...WAAAH!"

  "Two days?"

  "Two thousand years!"

  "Two thousand years?!! But why are you crying now?"

  "Things happen very, very slowly for us dragons. That beastly George (I think humans call him saint George now) did this to him. There was a bit of a... ahem, misunderstanding you see. I just thought he would be ill for a while and then get better, which is what usually happens when puny humans try to attack us. But this arrow must have got poor Mr Dragon in a particularly bad spot. I've been looking after him for centuries, keeping him warm, feeding him sheep dipped in river water... " She hooked her claw under a rim of rock and lifted it to reveal a row of teeth as big as a picket fence, with a huge, blue tongue lolling between them. A bit of damp wool was caught on the tip of one of the gleaming picket fence posts. Chandi tried not to think about this.

  "But recently, just in the last few hundred years, he's been getting much weaker – those puffs of smoke used to be like bonfires, now look at them. They're like tiny whisps of smoke from a damp little camp fire that's just about to... to... go out.. WAAAAH!"

  Chandi left the poor creature sobbing while she assessed the situation. The situation was this. A thirteen year old girl on top