‘Thass all right, lassie. Yous get used to these things. We bin ’ere in the woods ever since. Ten years now. Still, we get along all right, don’t we, Sarge?’ he said, leaning down to stroke the dog’s head. ‘Despite what they say.’

I was about to ask him what ‘they’ said, when Jimmy jumped in: ‘Water bubbling?’

Eli grinned. ‘You do like that ole story, little fella,’ he said. ‘Like a limpet, you is. Well, I’ll explain. The old dragon lives deep down under the water, farther than anyone can measure, cos the lake’s supposed to be bottomless. Anyways, they says it’s jess biding time and, if it’s disturbed, it’ll come up again to punish us.’

Jimmy’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

‘It’s only a fairy story, Jim,’ I said quickly.

‘Course it is, laddie,’ Eli added. ‘That’s just a bit of ole folklore, boy.’

Eli’s storytelling inspired me. That evening I took out my large notebook and began to write it down, exactly as he’d told it. But somehow, on the page, without his Suffolk accent and inflections, without the trees and the birds all around us, it felt flat and dull. I tore it up and started again.

Two hours later, I had tried various different ways of telling the story – attempting to reproduce Eli’s dialect, writing it in the first person, and reimagining it as a children’s story – and the waste-paper basket was filling fast. And then it came to me: I would write it as a story for Jimmy, starring himself. The Ugly Dragon was born.

THE UGLY DRAGON

by Molly Goddard

Chapter 1: Jimmy meets the dragon

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Jimmy, who was longing to meet a dragon. When he learned that there might be one hiding in a nearby lake he pestered his sister to go with him, because he knew he was not allowed to go on his own.

Each time they visited he would call out: ‘Are you there, dragon? Come and see us.’

Nothing appeared. But they returned day after day until, one hot afternoon, the still surface of the water seemed to ripple and a strange-looking head appeared. It was greenish-black with two big eyes on either side of its forehead, and a very, very long snout topped with two large nostrils. Its mouth was filled with hundreds of sharp white teeth and seemed set in a permanent grin.

Jimmy was a very brave boy and did not run away. He just said: ‘Hello, Mr Dragon.’

‘Miss, actually,’ she said. ‘But you weren’t to know. Can I join you?’