The last of Lurgin 4/7

Jack had recovered from the first shock of seeing a real live dragon and couldn't really believe that Clarence wouldn't let him go, so he was happily sketching various items of treasure, while Clarence gave a running commentary on each piece as it was drawn.

He noticed a particularly fine sword and picked it up. "This is absolutely superb," he said, "I've never seen one as old as this in such good condition."

Clarence smiled happily. "That's my particular pride and joy, old chap. I found that one for myself. It's still a little bit magic, which is why it looks so new. In its day it was absolutely the ultimate weapon."

Jack looked up from his sketch. "It seems vaguely familiar," he said, "more legendary than historic, though."

"Quite so," said Clarence. "That, dear boy, is Excalibur!"

"It can't be," said Jack, "if the legends are true, then Excalibur was thrown back to the Lady of the Lake."

"That's the clever bit," said Clarence proudly. "We dragons don't have much to do nowadays except sit and think, so I worked out where the lake had been. It had dried up years ago; goodness only knows where the Lady went but she left Excalibur behind.” He took a breath and continued.

It was out of date by then anyway and would have been safe enough left on its own. So I spent a couple of nights flying around sniffing and eventually found it and dug it up. We dragons have a jolly good sense of smell where treasure's concerned. Why, I once sniffed out that little gold goblin charm of young Jennifer Jane's and she lives about two hundred miles away."

Jack finished off his drawing and labelled it 'EXCALIBUR'. 'I wonder what Jennifer Jane's doing now?' he thought.

Jennifer Jane was laughing helplessly, tears running down her cheeks. Lurgin looked so funny. She couldn’t understand why everyone was frightened. He was short, no taller than she was and very fat: a round little roly-poly man with plump red cheeks. The only really nasty thing about him were his beady little eyes.

"Come away quickly," said Tasmin. "You never know what a Troll will do next and he certainly doesn't like you."

"I'm not frightened of him," said Jennifer Jane. "Why, he couldn't run as fast as me if he tried and he certainly isn't big enough to eat me."

Megan wasn't so sure. "Tasmin is right, Jennifer Jane, she knows Trolls. I've never seen one before but Trolls are bad news and I'm thinking we'd best be off home."

"Oh all right," said Jennifer Jane and she turned round and started to walk back to the woods.

A strange noise behind her made her look round. Lurgin had taken a deep breath and started to blow while keeping his mouth closed. His cheeks were puffed out and he was getting taller while she watched. Before she could think of running away, he was as big as the giant and looking very much nastier.

"Stopped laughing now, have you?" he bellowed and he reached across the river, picked up Jennifer Jane and popped her into his mouth.