Long ago, before the blue glaze mountains were dry on China’s porcelain sky, a village perched on a cliff overlooking the Yengee River. Most years, its fields were lush, its flowers full of bees. But one summer no rains came. The young plants wilted, the clouds curdled, the yellow river shrank. People wiped their faces with their hats and said, “Drought!”

Then they set about building a “drought dragon” - as their fathers and grandfathers had done at such times.

The frame was whippy bamboo, and each of the scales was a bamboo frond. They set it on wicker paws and gave it a wicker basket for a head. Its eyes were peony flowers; tight, red, petal-balls.

“What a handsome, ferocious beast!” said everyone, standing back, well pleased.

The dragon was lifted on poles and danced between the houses and across the fields, firecrackers banging in its wake. The youngest dancer, Haoyou, danced beneath the great head, making the jaw sag and snap. It was hot work, but a very great honour for a small boy. Soaked in sweat and thirsty as July, they danced from dawn till noonI but still the sun blazed and no rain fell.

So the people decided to destroy the dragon. “Let its smoke rise into the sky and become a rain cloud,” they said angrily. “Tomorrow we’ll burn it.”

Everyone turned for home - except Haoyou, who curled up, exhausted, just where he was. Soon the rest of the village was sleeping. So, too, was Haoyou.

Not so the Drought Dragon. Its tail snaked, its six paws flexed and its leafy hackles rose. Hibiscus horns shed pollen like dandruff. Finally, the peony eyes began to open, petal after petal, like a thousand scarlet lids.

“Burn me? Burn me? It is I who shall do the burning!”

Just then, little Haoyou turned over in his sleep. “Aha!” thought the Drought Dragon, “Already I have swallowed one of them without even trying! Now to roast the rest!”

Haoyou opened one eye. Thoughts like hornets whizzed by his ears; but Haoyou’s wits moved just as fast. “No, no!” he said aloud. “Listen! Listen to me, your conscience!”

“Nonsense! Dragons have no conscience!” snorted the Dragon. “They are all heat and anger and energy!”

Haoyou knew this was true, for he was inside and Heat, Anger and Energy swathed him round like bandages. His rice-straw jacket was starting to smoulder, his hair to shrivel. He had to think fast. Even now, the Dragon was running towards the village to set it alight. (Haoyou had to run, too, or tumble out and be trampled.) “What are you thinking of?” he bellowed, giving a sharp jab with his pole. “Fool dragon! Don’t you remember?” The Dragon stopped so suddenly that Haoyou cannoned into its sinuses. “Remember what?”

“This new body of yours is made from flowers - from a garden - but don’t you remember what your soul was made from?” The Dragon searched its no-brain for memories, but found only a headache. “Don’t you remember hopping among the flowers? Singing on the peony bushes? Nesting in the bamboo? Don’t you remember being a nightingale before they trapped your soul in this wicker cage?”

The Dragon thought so hard that his head filled up with soot. “Better a dragon than some miserable little bird!”

Haoyou kicked off his sandals which were starting to char. “Ah! But to have lost the power of flight! That is terribly sad!”

The tears of a dragon drip hot, like molten metal. It wept for a whole minute before remembering: “But I’m a dragon! Dragons CAN fly!”

“Are you sure?” whispered Haoyou.

Dragging its silken tail through the dirt, the Dragon hurtled through the sleeping village, thrashing its no-wings - but to no effect. The red-hot anger increased inside its head. “Can’t fly! Can’t fly! Why can’t I fly?”

“Because you’ve grown so much bigger,” gasped Haoyou. “But if you were to launch yourself from some high place, then you might!” (He must persuade the Dragon to throw itself from the cliff into the gorge below. Then at least the village would be saved. That was surely worth the life of one small and insignificant boy?) Haoyou was bounced about until his bones rattled, but he kept on shouting: “Jump! Leap! Fly!” Dragons have no fear. Sadly the bravest of boys has all too much. Suddenly, the Dragon found its skull full of Fear. Though it rattled its snout till its snail-shell teeth fell out, it could not dislodge the feeling. In fact, the closer it drew to the cliff, the greater the Fear grew. At the very last second, it dug in its bamboo claws and skidded to a halt, peony eyes staring into the gorge. Haoyou looked down too, and his stomach turned somersaults like a Chinese acrobat.

“Why can I not fly?” demanded the Dragon, even angrier than before. “I shall just have to go back and burn down the village, as I planned!”

“NO! WAIT!” cried Haoyou. “YouI youI haven’t used your bird magic yet!”

“Bird magic? What’s that? I forget.”

“Well, singing, of course! Everyone knows that birds sing before they fly! That’s their magic! Don’t you remember anything from your days as a nightingale?”

The Dragon gulped in a breath, filled its bamboo ribs - then sat down sulkily. “Forgotten how.”

“Repeat after me,” said Haoyou: “Tweet-tweet!”

Fire drizzled from its gullet; a thornbush caught alight. Then the Dragon began to sing - hoping for bird-magic, hoping to fly:

“TWEET.TWEETIE-TWEET-TWEET.”

Far beyond the horizon, the Storm-Dragons lifted their heads drowsily, snapping at fireflies. Again the noise came and they cocked their fronded ears. It was the cry of a dragon - not of their own breed, but unmistakably a dragon.

The Drought Dragon sang, and as it sang, its bamboo body twanged like a mandolin. Flame erupted into the darkness. Haoyou squirmed free and heaved the wicker nose up off the ground. It took all his strength, but he had to keep the fire from kindling the dry, brown grass. Outside the head, he no longer knew what the dragon was thinking. For a moment, that felt almost lonely.

Then dawn came, and so did They. Shapeless smudges at first, the Storm Dragons slowly took on form and colour - the greens and blues of a bruise. Prancing and pouncing across the sky, they exhaled vast rain clouds, growling thunderously.

The first raindrops fell on the Drought Dragon’s crimson eyeballs. Then its hollow head was hissing, its leafy body disintegrating beneath torrential, battering rain.

As Haoyou ran home, his bare feet splashed through deep puddles. Later he returned to sweep leaf-litter and petals over the precipice, into the river below.

The Storm Dragons were thundering away now, over the horizon, steeping the thirsty land as they went. But Hayou could see, even with rain in his eyes, that there was one more Storm Dragon than before.

Geraldine McCaughrean’s most recent novel is Stop the Train, published by Oxford University Press