Drachenerwachen Chapters 24-26: Flight

Despite having grown up so much overnight, both physically and mentally, Kurmo isn’t too mature to pester Frau Tossilo, as soon as she wakes up, to take a photo of him on her phone and send it to Johann and Janka so that they can see his new skin right now.  This seems a bit of a security risk – what if they’re with their parents when the photo arrives?

It doesn’t matter, though, as Kurmo’s friends are already coming round to visit.  Also, it turns out that dragons don’t show up in photographs, which is one less thing to worry about.  (This could also explain why there are so few YouTube videos on how to treat a sick dragon.)

At any rate, Johann and Janka are impressed at how much Kurmo has grown, and Janka wants to know whether she can now ride him.  Frau Tossilo isn’t impressed at the idea of treating Kurmo like a pony, but Kurmo himself is excited at the idea of going flying, with or without a rider. 

Frau Tossilo protests that it’s too dangerous – the police will be able to follow him in helicopters and see him entering the building.  Johann explains about spacing, and demonstrates it with one of Frau Tossilo’s ornaments.  Kurmo worries about whether the program could delete him altogether, but Johann promises him that it only does a simultaneous Cut and Paste, not Delete.

As it turns out, of course, there is an unforeseen snag.  Spacing transports objects or people only a few metres.  After a few farcical attempts, with Kurmo turning up in the corridor outside the living-room, behind the rubber-tree plant, next to the sofa, and so on, Johann finally gets him onto the balcony outside the flat, and he soars off for a glorious first flight under an almost full moon.

Perhaps learning to fly isn’t as difficult if you can remember past lives in which you have already been an adult and known how to fly – which is just as well, if you have to start by launching yourself off an eighth-storey balcony.  Kurmo is truly in his element, rejoicing in being alive, and – if only for a few hours at a time – free.  He is so adept that he can afford to play around with folding his wings close to his body to dive and then spreading them to gain height again, and even gliding while lying upside-down! 

Kurmo’s new form is still taking shape:

‘As he contentedly stretched out his neck, something suddenly opened on its sides, directly under the jaws.  Filigree tentacles shimmered out.  Fine as silver-grey seaweed they glided around each other and eventually formed themselves into a second pair of wings, as delicate as breath.  Now Kurmo could fly smoothly through even the tightest bends.’

Remember the Wikihow article on dragon-care with the pictures of dragons with facial wings?  Admittedly, what Kurmo has seem more like facial tentacles, which are rare on European dragons but quite common on Eastern dragons.

At any rate, Kurmo probably doesn’t look like the Irregular Webcomic version of Cthulu, who was created by combining a Lego dinosaur with a Lego octopus.

Kurmo returns from his flight ecstatic, and keen for Frau Tossilo to come with him next time.  She isn’t keen, and neither is Johann – after all, riding on a flying dragon isn’t a remotely safe hobby, especially with a dragon who likes exciting aerobatic manoeuvres. Janka – not surprisingly – is looking forward to going flying, but they have to wait until spring comes and the night sky is a bit warmer.

Besides, in the meantime, winter brings another delight – skating on the frozen River Spree.  Janka encourages Johann to come out skating with her, and is surprised at how enthusiastic he is about it, for a boy who generally prefers computers to sports.  They meet Janka’s friend Lenya, and – Marlon.  This is even more of a surprise to Janka than Johann’s willingness to skate, since Marlon mostly prefers to be at home reading scholarly books, and usually arranges to be off sick on days when there are skating lessons at school.  Yet he turns out to be an astonishingly good skater, as are Janka and Lenya.

Janka senses that her joy in skating is much like Kurmo’s joy in flying.  When she longs to skate on, further and further away from the city, but knows that they need to turn back before it gets too late and dark, she realises that this, too, is how Kurmo feels at having to turn back – though on this occasion he has been given permission to stay out for two nights, hiding in a forest during the day in between.

Janka seems to be gradually warming up to Marlon.  When Johann is irritated with him for saying rather sententiously that ‘Even turning around can sometimes lead to the destination,’ Janka relieves the tension by adding, ‘Okay, let’s turn round – but only if the “destination” is named Waffle Pavilion!’

Meanwhile, back at the flats, Frau Tossilo has an unexpected visitor: ‘Blanket-Peter’, the bedspread salesman whose company she had enjoyed so much while on holiday in Mexico.  Apparently, he just happens to be in Berlin on business, and has decided to turn up at Frau Tossilo’s address with an enormous bouquet of flowers and a paper-thin excuse about wanting to know whether she is quite satisfied with the quality of his woollen goods?

It could be quite innocent.  It could simply be that he fancies her as much as she fancies him, and that he wants to seize the opportunity to see her again.  Really, this seems much more probable than that a random man whom she bought some blankets off in Mexico and had a brief holiday romance with should just happen to be an agent of Black West who has been sent to smarm his way into Frau Tossilo’s flat to inspect it for signs of dragon occupancy.

So why do I get the impression that this visit is something sinister?