Chapter 1. Murrumbidgee and the Dragon
Maggie watched with dread as the syrupy red liquid slithered down the drain, clinging to the bottom of the sink. Suddenly, the sound of her mother's footsteps in the corridor made her stomach lurch and she quickly opened the tap and raised the glass to her lips just as the bathroom door swung open.
"Oh good, you've taken it. Well done, darling.... Are you feeling alright? You look a bit feverish. Here, let me check."
Her mother placed her hand on Maggie's forehead. She could see the sweat beading on her brow as she watched her own pale frightened face in the mirror, her heart pounding in her ears. She blushed wildly.
Everything she knew as safe and normal screamed in her to tell the truth, but she couldn't. She'd made her decision, for better or worse. Her mom just wouldn't understand.
"No, you don't have a temperature. Oh, you poor thing, are you worried about taking the medicine? Does it taste bad?"
Maggie managed a tight shake of her head.
"Well, remember what the doctor said," continued her mom soothingly,
"Keep taking the medicine and you won't have to worry about those nasty nightmares any more."
Maggie felt the 'but' rising in her throat, and swallowed it. It was a painful conversation that they'd had too many times, and it was no use trying to argue with her mother about it. This was the only way forward.
Whatever happened, she wasn't going to take the medicine any more. It made her feel so thick and slow, like she wasn't fully there. And in a strange way, she missed the other things, the things her parents called 'nightmares'. It wasn't as if the things she saw were always scary, anyway. Sometimes they were beautiful, and funny. But in her mother's eyes they were an illness, and they had to be fixed. So the medicine. And now this. For the first time in her life, Maggie was going to have to lie to her parents.
Oh well, she shrugged inwardly, maybe that's just growing up.
"Come on, dreamy. Marty's on duty at the park this morning. I can drop you off there on the way to work. Maybe you'll meet a friend for the summer holidays. There might be some nice children you can play with."
"Okay, Mom." replied Maggie.
Ten minutes later, she was at the park. Some older boys were kicking a ball around. Maggie smiled at them as they ran past, but they took one look at her scrawny frame, platinum hair and pale skin, and rightly guessed she had two left feet when it came to sports. They ignored her and carried on with their game.
Two younger children on a seesaw squealed with delight, and the sound only served to make her feel lonely. Moving here had been hard, with no friends her age, and it was still weeks before she would start at her new school. But there had been no choice in the matter, because of the 'incidents'.
It was the last one which had sealed her fate. She had only been trying to help when she told the girl there was a dark cloud around her middle. She'd tried to convince her it meant she could be really sick and had to go to the hospital, but they had only laughed at her.
Three weeks later the girl had died of leukemia, and the girl's friends recalled the things Maggie had said, and told their parents. Wild rumors had circulated and Maggie was strangely blamed, as if somehow she'd caused it. No-one at school went near her and at the end of term the principal had quietly suggested to Maggie's parents that she might be happier at another school.
Marty the park supervisor smiled at Maggie and called a greeting to her as she wandered past, then turned away and sipped at his coffee again. He was a friend of her mom, and was the reason she was allowed to be here by herself. Some days he would chat with her, but today he was too intent on his job, so Maggie sauntered on.
