DUO

“Your folds hang so smoothly,” crooned the stream. “You pool on the ground like milk or oil.”

“Don’t come near me,” cried the gown fearfully. “I belong to the beautiful maiden, and your drops will stain my colour.”

“But I want to belong to you,” said the water passionately. “I am yours. You can possess me. I am utterly under your spell. If you lie across me you can bridge me. If you come inside my banks I will caress you so gently. You are all that I desire.”

“Keep away from me,” begged the red satin; she was afraid because she could not move. She was hanging above the stream to air before the maiden wore her to that evening’s ball. Fulfilling her purpose was all her desire, and her purpose was to enhance the young girl’s beauty.

“I will change my nature for you,” pledged the rolling stream. “If you fall into me I will let you be a dam. I will form a pool behind you and I will never overtake or push past you. If you will only join me I know we will both reach the very acme of fulfilment. I love your glossy colour and your smooth lines; I have never seen, never imagined anything so beautiful as you.”

“But you are not beautiful to me,” promised the satin ballgown. “You are alien. You say that you will change your nature, but you will still not be attractive to me. Don’t you understand that beautiful is all I am and all I am designed to be? I am a dress made to enhance human beauty. If I were to join you I would soon be nothing but a few sodden, flame-coloured rags. Even if I did desire to join you, I would not dare. You would soon stop loving me when I ceased to be beautiful.”

“No, no,” cried the water passionately. “I long for you to posses me. I will never be faithless. Let me come to get you!” And it began to lap closer to the sill where the dress was hanging.

The crimson satin shrank away in terror, and she was filled with relief when the window was opened and she was brought inside.

“The stream’s rising, and we don’t want the water to stain your gown!” said a voice from in the house.

For some moments the stream was shocked and bereft. But then he went on his way, muttering,

“I should have known she was nothing but a scarlet woman.”

On Saturday we went out quite early. Aunty Em said she was quite pleased to get us out from under her feet. Georgie took a rucksack with some sarnies in, and a torch cos you never know when you might need it, and Aunty Em called us back and made us take a mobile too.

Georgie said her dad had told her there was a dragon hiding under the cliff. I told her not to be silly. If I was a dragon I wouldn’t go hiding, that’s just boring. I’d want to be where everyone could see me and then they’d bring me their treasure and I’d make it so that my dad could come home and it would all be all right again.

Anyway, after a while we got to the top of the cliffs. It always makes me feel better to be somewhere big and open like that, where there’s just so much sky and the sea goes on forever and ever, and you can hear it booming against the rocks below and all the salt just makes it smell so clean. It even makes me think that maybe Dad will be ok.

We had our sandwiches and then we started to go down the steps. Georgie said the steps weren’t really supposed to be used any more, they were all rusty and slippery, but it was better than scrambling down any old how so we carried on. The cave’s about half way down and it was a bit tricky to get to, we had to kind of shuffle ourselves along sideways and there wasn’t anything to hold onto any more. Even the half-rusted bannister that sometimes had bits of string instead of the railings would have been a help! But we carried on, cos Georgie said the dragon might be living in the cave but she’d promised Aunty Em she wouldn’t go there on her own ever, only now she wasn’t on her own cos I was there too so it was all right.

I scraped my hand on the rock and Georgie ripped her jeans, and then we got into the cave but there was nothing there at all. It was just a hole in the side of the cliff. Georgie shone the torch around and then I got it off her and had a good look myself, but there really wasn’t anything. I felt really let down and Georgoe said she did too. So we got out and went back up to the top. We found a kind of path, it was harder than the steps but easier than the sideways bit so we just went up. Only we didn’t come out in the fields again, we were in a kind of woody place. Georgie got a bit anxious then and said we should hurry up and go home or Aunty Em would be cross. I said I couldn’t go home cos Dad wasn’t there, and Georgie said I knew what she meant, and I said yes but she shouldn’t just say home like that, it isn’t true.

We both got a bit cross then and went off in different directions. Or at least we were both generally heading for Georgie’s house but she went rightish and I went leftish. It wasn’t really a big wood, there were just a few different kinds of trees, like deciduous ones and evergreens mixed up, but not loads of either. But there was one really huge oak tree in the middle, it was really massive, and the roots went on for ages and I nearly tripped over. Then I heard Georgie exclaim and she switched the torch on and I saw she wasn’t as far away as I thought. So I went round the tree to see what she was looking at, and there was this really massive hole in the tree trunk and although Georgie was shining the torch into it it had a creepy kind of light coming out of it too, sort of a colder light where the torchlight was quite warm-feeling. It’s really hard to describe. It was fascinating, kind of hypnotising, and one really weird thing was that it felt as if I could see more and more the longer I looked. I wanted to go in and I didn’t at the same time. I couldn’t look at Georgie.

I don’t know how long we looked in through the hole, or when we realised what we were really looking at, but in the end I was sure I knew what it was.

This must be where the dragon keeps his treasure.