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By Root 865 0

ever further north towards the East China Sea. The first few days were hot and calm, a light breeze blowing from the south. A most islanded part of the world this is, and very beautiful, and for the first week or so I had no concern but the bright, glittering, blue world arise and afall around me, the blood red sunsets, the birds that screamed upon the spars, and the creature in its pen. He wouldn’t eat or drink, just lay flat and drooling in his corner. I watched over him like a mother with a sick child. I tempted him with morsels of raw meat and fish, tried him with bread and papaya and cheese and dumpling, offered him a live hog. Nothing. His eyes were open but stony still and empty. The only indication that he was actually still alive was the rapid, rhythmic movement of his flattened belly as he breathed. Now and again I let the others have a look, but most lost interest pretty quickly, apart from Mr. Comeragh, Skip and the captain. And Dan, of course. Dan was always there. Comeragh and the captain came to look now and then, but Skip couldn’t keep away.

“Can I draw him?” he asked, so I let him.

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Boy,” I said confidently, though I’d no idea. Such a big ugly thing. Of course, he could have been a delicate maid of a dragon for all I knew.

“Think he’ll wake up?”

“He is awake.”

“Doesn’t do much, does he?”

“Give him time.”

“What you calling him?”

I laughed. As if he was a pet. “Dunno.”

“I know,” Skip said. “Call him Bingo.”

“Bingo?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with it? Good name for him. Hey, Bingo! Bingo!”

“He’s not a dog,” I said.

“So?”

Bingo was stupid. I resisted it for a long time, but it stuck anyway. There’s no dignity in a name like Bingo. I never used it.

“How’s Bingo today?” Captain Proctor would hail me jovially.

“Fine, sir.”

“Good, good.”

“Here,” Wilson Pride would say, leaning out the galley door with a bone, “see if Bingo wants this.”

But Bingo never wanted anything.

“Think he’ll last?” I asked Dan.

He drew the corners of his mouth down. “Hard to tell,” he replied. He’d tied a stick onto a ladle and with this was pouring water from a bucket onto the dragon’s snout in hopes of making him drink. The dragon’s eyes were closed. “I’ve seen worse than this come round,” Dan said. “They grieve, see. You would, wouldn’t you? Far as he knows he’s died and gone to hell. You could do this, Jaf, look. Just don’t get too close.”

I wasn’t afraid. The poor beast was too beaten. I approached and Dan handed me the ladle. I dribbled water on the creature’s snout. Nothing.

Always nothing. Nothing and nothing and nothing. Every day I went in and talked to him. “Hello, you stupid old dragon,” I said. “Aren’t you up and about yet? What on earth is the point of you, hey? I know it’s bad, but you could at least make an effort.” I loosed his rope and made him comfy. “You won’t want for nothing where you’re going,” I told him. “This Mr. Fledge, he’s filthy rich. A madman. You’ll be his pride and joy, believe me.”

Nothing and nothing and nothing, then suddenly, about six days in, he drank. I was about four foot away from him with my stick and the clumsy ladle thing upended over his nose. His eyes blinked, the long yellow ribbon of his tongue shot out and the great crevasse of his mouth opened, pink. His little, sharp white teeth grinned for a second. It made me jump and my sudden movement jerked him in my direction.

I was away, out of the cage and the bolts shot. Safe with the bars between us, I gave him encouragement. “Good boy!” I said. “That’s the way!”

His piggy little eyes watched me suspiciously, and not a movement more I got for the rest of that day. After that came a few more days of stillness, when only his eyes moved, watching me as I watched him, as I forked his hay and cleaned the pool. You’re only an animal after all, I thought. All the dread that had somehow gathered about his image was by this time dissipated in me. I’d seen his fellows feed and it was fearsome, but if my years at Jamrach’s had taught me anything, it was that a fierce and ugly demeanour could sometimes veil a complex