Newspaper Clippings 1

Pic: Grandpa

The Discoveries of Wispish: A Domestic Epic by Justin Germ

Chapter 1

            Inside the belly of a gargantuan cavern, which lay beyond dank labyrinthine canals and down perilous crannies, four dragons sat round a carved flat rock smoking. 

“Manvreet! Manvreet, my boy!”

“Pa, I’m right next you,” said Manvreet.

“Ah yes. Yes you are. Tells me, how many bloody ages have we been stuck down here?”

 “Mmm? My memory isn’t what it used to be,” Manvreet blew out a long stream of smoke, “but I’d say give or take five hundred years.”

“That long, eh! Tells me again why the clot we agreed to this,” said Grandpa.

“I can’t remember either. Doris, can you recall?”

“The details are somewhat hazy. I know there was a pact of some sort… yes, and there was a man, a human, who wore strange silver clothes,” said Doris. “He carried a small toothpick, I think.”

“Ah, the toothpick. It’s coming back to me,” said Manvreet. “He was a tiny little thing. Spoke so softly I could hardly make out a word he said. Seemed very serious, very nervous.”

“I want a human. Can I have a human?” asked Lester.

“Remember what your father told you about humans,” said Doris.

“Father says they are messy and stick in your froat if you don’t chew prop’ly,” recited Lester.

“You don’t chew properly,” said Manvreet gruffly.

“Your father’s right, Lester,” said Doris.

“Ahem!”

Everyone looked at Grandpa.

Enough bleedin’ sidetrackin’. I asked a question and I ’spect a straight answer. Why’d we agree to stay holed up in here anyhows?” Dark, angry smoke rose from Grandpa’s nostrils.

“I believe it had something to do with your wild youth,’ said Manvreet.

“Bloodlust, my son. That’s what they called it. Can’t be a real dragon ’less you gots the lust, I always says.” Grandpa grinned, winked at Lester, and then continued, “T’were a time when a slew of us’d gorge on any fleshy beast we pleased. We’d swoop down and snatch us somethin’ wholesome like an elephant or whale or suchlike thing. We fancied the bigger pickin’s ’cause we could feast, but the littler tykes were good too for a snack in between.”      

Manvreet rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

“Don’t go makin’ light of the matter,” sneered Grandpa. “Your teeth’s gone soft livin’ down here, dinin’ on rats. Even ol’ Doris has gotten all creaky without some flappin’ to keep the bones oiled.”

Doris glared at Grandpa for a murderous instant. Then she rolled back her shoulders, stretched up her arms and spread out her wings; all of her joints cracked loudly. “A rancid codger he may be, but he does make a good point. Oh Manni, I so miss the topside world. It’s been so cramped down here, and I’ve been patient, but I worry about Lester. How’s he supposed to learn proper values and skills? He doesn’t even know how to excoriate a large mammal.”

“What’s ex-cor… ex-cor… that word mean, mother?” asked Lester.

Grandpa intercepted the question. “It’s when you peels off the skin. Watch. What you do, sees, is you takes the nail of your dactyl like so,” he held up his finger and began to demonstrate, “then you makes a small incision at first on the belly, but not very big, sees, then…”