My name is Matthew Lawson and I work in the local smokehouse, hanging the fish to be treated.
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I spike the fish onto wooden skewers and then stack them in the tower. It’s a foul-smelling job but it earns enough for me to pay the rent. Each day I would attend to my work, spiking the fish and hanging them upon racks, to be smoked in Mr. MacDonald’s smokehouse.
One day I was surprised when Mr. MacDonald asked me to visit him in his office. Perhaps, I thought, he was going to congratulate me on my work and offer me a promotion.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I am going to have to release you. Profits are down and my costs have risen. I simply can’t afford to employ as many workers as I once did.”
I was shocked. I had worked at the smokehouse for all my adult life. I knew no other occupation. I left the smokehouse office downhearted. I knew that it was going to be tough to find another job in the city. As I stepped out into the street, I met William Marley: the local chimney sweep.
“Hello Mr. Lawson,” he said to me. “You’re looking a bit blue today. I hope that everything is all right.”
I explained that I had just been discharged from my work and that I had to look around for a new job now.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Lawson,” smiled William. “Everyone knows that it’s lucky to cross a sweep on the street. I’m sure that you’ll find a new job soon, with no difficulty at all.”
I smiled briefly and then I stepped away down the street. I hoped that meeting a sweep would indeed bring me good luck. I needed to settle the rent at the end of the week and there were all sorts of other bills to pay.
I thought I would visit the greengrocer’s store first. Perhaps they might need a strong young man to help with their deliveries of fruit and vegetables.
“You smell awful!” exclaimed Mrs. Jones, the greengrocer. “You stink of smoke and I don’t want you working here. You’ll put our customers off their food.”
She pointed back onto the street and I headed away. I knew that I wouldn’t have any luck working in a shop. My clothes smelt too much of smoked fish!
Next, I tried visiting the docks to see if they wanted labourers: to unload the boats and ships and at the quayside. Unfortunately, I got the same negative response.
“Your clothes stink!” complained Mr. Edwards, the gaffer. “I don’t want you working here, tainting the cargo with the stench of smoked fish!”
Perhaps, I thought, I could walk over to the tannery. I knew that they used urine to treat the leather and I doubt whether the smell of smoked fish on my clothes would be noticed by any of the tannery workers.
I walked through the city streets towards the tannery, wondering if I might ever find a job. As I walked past the city’s fire station, I heard a voice call out to me.
“You’re early!” called out the voice. “I was expecting the first replies to the fireman’s job vacancy later today.”
I turned and looked towards the fire station. A man in uniform was standing by the door to the adjacent office and he beckoned me in.
“Don’t stand there gawping at me, man!” he exclaimed. “I haven’t got all day. Do you want this job or not?”
I stepped into the fire station office, not knowing how I should respond. I didn’t think that they would want an ex-fish smoker as a fire fighter.
“I’m afraid my clothes smell of smoke,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” the fire officer replied and he laughed aloud. “I can’t think of any fire fighter who doesn’t smell of smoke! In fact, it proves that you aren’t scared to get involved in the work. Do you want this job or not?”
I couldn’t believe my luck. Becoming a fireman sounded a great deal more attractive than going to a job interview at a tannery that stunk of urine! My mind was made up.
“I’m Matthew Lawson,” I said, “and I’d be very pleased indeed to work for you. Yes, I’d be greatly honoured to join your crew and serve the city.”
When I walked back home. As I marched down the street I passed William, the chimney sweep, again.
“Thank you, William,” I called out to him. “You certainly brought me luck today. I’ve found a job at the city’s fire station.”
William smiled and gave a wave as he walked on. I think it certainly helped, meeting a lucky sweep when I needed to find a new job that day.
And so, that is how I started work at the fire station. It wasn’t long before I got kitted out in my new uniform and joined the city’s fire crew in protecting everyone from all sorts of unknown emergencies. However, the glamour and excitement of being a fireman was quickly cut short. I was soon to discover that there were very few fires to attend. Most of the time was spent cleaning the fire engine or doing some other menial task.
Occasionally, we would be called out on a ‘shout.’ However, it was not what you might expect. For, you see, cats were very popular pets and everyone in the town owned one. Sometimes we might be called out to recover cats that had been stuck in trees. At other times, we might be asked to rescue cats that had fallen down wells. Just occasionally, we might even be asked to cut cats free, from being stuck in the park railings.
However, all this was to change when, one day, a frightened citizen ran up to the fire station, waving their arms and shouting dramatically.
“Fire!” he screamed out. “There’s a chimney fire in an old house on Northgate Street. Come quickly, before the house burns down!”
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With horses galloping, we ran through the town and reached Northgate Street. Flashing sparks and plumes of acrid smoke were bellowing from a chimney of one of the houses. We ran into the home and extinguished the fire in the grate using a bucket of sand. Some of the firefighters blocked the fireplace while others, from outside, sprayed a fine mist onto the chimney stack.
No sooner were we sure that the fire was completely extinguished and the house was safe than we heard a second shout of a man in an adjoining street.
“Fire!” he screamed out. “There’s a chimney fire in an old house on Eastgate Street. Come quickly, before the house burns down!”
With horses galloping, we ran through the town and reached Eastgate Street. Again, flashing sparks and plumes of acrid smoke were bellowing from a chimney of one of the houses. Again, we ran into the home and extinguished the fire in the grate using a bucket of sand. Some of the firefighters blocked the fireplace while others, from outside, sprayed a fine mist onto the chimney stack.
However, no sooner were we sure that the fire was completely extinguished and the house was safe than we heard a third shout of a woman in an adjoining street.
“Fire!” she screamed out. “There’s a chimney fire in an old house on Southgate Street. Come quickly, before the house burns down!”
This didn’t seem right! With horses galloping, we ran through the town and reached Southgate Street. There were flashing sparks and plumes of acrid smoke bellowing from a chimney of one of the houses.
“There can’t be three fires in just one day!” exclaimed one of my colleagues. “I bet that young chimney sweep has been skimping on his work. Something’s not right here!”
However, as we ran into the home and extinguished the fire in the grate using a bucket of sand, we heard a loud squealing noise coming from the chimney. As one of the firefighters blocked the fireplace and the others, from outside, sprayed a fine mist onto the chimney stack, the squealing noise became louder and louder. We were sure that the fire had been extinguished but the squealing noise from within the chimney simply continued. I peered my head up the flue of the chimney, towards to the source of the sound. I thought that it was strange; I could not see any sign of daylight from the very top of the chimney.
“There’s something up this chimney,” I tried to explain to my colleagues, “and it’s blocking the chimney flue. I don’t know what it is.”
The squealing continued as one of my colleagues peered up the chimney too.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “There’s some creature stuck up the chimney, making that squealing noise. How on earth could it survive in that fire!”
He reached up the chimney but the animal was too far up to touch. It was well out of his reach.
“Let’s get William Marley, the chimney sweep,” I suggested. “He’s used to climbing chimneys. Perhaps he can help us free the poor thing.”
One of the firemen dashed off to find William while the rest of us remained in the house, pondering as to why there had been so many chimney fires in one day. We chatted wildly as we waited.
“How did that creature get stuck up there?”
“I bet the chimney sweep hasn’t swept these chimneys properly.”
“I bet it’s all William Marley’s fault.”
“What sort of animal can survive in a chimney fire?”
When William finally arrived, we were still talking enthusiastically. He overheard us suggesting that the chimneys had not been swept thoroughly.
“I can assure you that I have swept these chimneys well, just last week!” William explained. “Let me shimmy up the flue and see what the problem is.”
William eased himself into the fireplace and began shuffling upwards towards the blockage. All the time, the squealing continued.
“I’ve reached the blockage,” William’s voice echoed down the chimney. “I can feel the scaly back of some large lizard-like animal, wedged firmly between the bricks.”
Bit-by-bit William eased and pushed to try and free the creature. The sound of squeals became replaced by delicate grunts and groans, as the animal was gently wedged upwards towards the top of the chimney flue. Suddenly there was a muffled cheer from deep within the chimney and a tiny handful of soot cascaded down the chimney flue and fell onto the hearth below.
“It’s out!” called William, from deep within the chimney, “Whatever it was, it’s out! I can see the light of the sky now, shining down through the top of the chimney pots.”
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The chimney sweep shuffled his way down the chimney flue and out into the chamber below. As he stepped out into the room, the smallest smudges of soot fell from his clothes and onto the floor. It was clear that the chimney was practically clean. Hardly any soot at all had been dislodged from the brickwork. Obviously, William Marley had done his chores well the previous week.
“I don’t understand it,” each of the firemen said in turn. “ What caused all these chimney fires? How did that creature survive the inferno, so deep within the chimney?”
We all stepped out into the street, to where the fire engine had been parked at the side of the house. As we did so, something really strange happened; something that took our breath away and left us dumbfounded. High in the sky a dark shape was circling in flight and, as the chimney sweep stepped out into the road, it flew down and landed at his feet. It was a baby dragon! The dragon playfully nudged his head into William’s legs and whistled affectionately as it did so.
“Well I’ll be jiggered!” I exclaimed aloud.
“Well strike us pink!” my firefighter colleagues declared.
“Mercy upon us!” the householder proclaimed.
However, William just looked down at the small creature and ran his sooty hands across his scaly head.
“I think it’s kind of cute,” he uttered, “and I think it likes me too. It must know that it was me eased it free from the chimney flue.”
It was then that we all realised what had caused the chimney fires in the town: dragons love fires so it had obviously been drawn to the warmth of the chimneys but it had caused the flames to flare up, as the chimney had been obstructed.
“The dragon is obviously very small. We can’t just leave it be. Anyway,” I added, “it would only cause more fires around town.”
We were at a loss as to how to proceed. None of us wanted to see the dragon abandoned and none of us, most certainly, wanted to spend each day dealing with hundreds of extra chimney fires. We walked back to the fire station, talking as we went. As we passed the docks, Mr. Edwards stepped out from his office and shooed us away.
“Don’t linger around here with that dragon,” he protested angrily. “It might burn my business down.”
As we passed the greengrocer store, Mrs. Jones stepped out from her shop and shooed us away.
“Don’t linger around here with that dragon,” she also protested angrily. “It might burn my business down.”
However, as we passed the smokehouse, we saw Mr. MacDonald outside his premises. He turned to us and smiled broadly.
“Can I take your dragon?” he suggested tentatively. “You know that I am in deep financial problems and this dragon might be the answer to my prayers.”
As he turned back to the door of the smokehouse, a waft of air blew a cloud of thick smoke into the street and the air was filled with the delicious aroma of smoke-cured kippers. As quick as a shot, the tiny dragon bolted into the smokehouse and bedded itself down in the smoldering sawdust. A small pair of whisks of smoke erupted from its nostrils and it began to hum serenely.
“I think my dragon has found himself a fine home,” William smiled to us all. “It seems that all our problems are solved!”
And so life in the town returned to normal, in as far as you could call a town with a dragon ‘normal.’ Mr. MacDonald’s smokehouse business was rescued. Everyone, it seemed, loved the taste of dragon-cured kippers. I returned to my work as a fireman, saving trapped cats from trees, trapped cats from wells and trapped cats from park railings … and William Marley returned to his duties, cleaning the town’s many sooty chimneys. In the evenings, we would all return to our many different homes, where the rescued cats were happily awaiting our return.
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All, that is, except for William Marley: for he was the only person in the town who did not own a cat. After all, who needs a cat as a pet when you have your very own pet dragon? It’s the perfect friend; to keep you warm in the cold winter nights!
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can't wait to read it!