Once upon a time, there was a wonderful boy called Johnny. He was loved by everyone, he had many friends, but his very best friend was Nanny. Johnny loved Nanny dearly and Nanny loved Johnny with all her heart. When they met, they had the best of time. Nanny took Johnny to many interesting places, they had countless great adventures together. Johnny wished he could live with Nanny and Grandad in their house so they could be together every single day. Unfortunately, Nanny and Grandad did not live in walking distance from Johnny’s house so he could not go to them alone, only when he was taken by car. Johnny was always looking forward to these occasions.

He started each morning by asking: ‘Can we go to Nanny’s today?’

‘Not today, sweetheart’, Mummy usually answered to Johnny’s great disappointment.

One morning, Johnny asked as usual: ‘Can we go to Nanny’s today?’

Mummy answered as usual: ‘Not today, sweetheart’.

They were preparing to go to school and work when the phone rang. Mummy picked it up and listened for a long time without saying a word. Johnny had a bad feeling about that call.

‘Yes’, Mummy finally said, ‘we are on our way.’

‘Where do we go now?’, asked Johnny suspiciously when Mummy put the phone down.

Mummy looked at him sadly for a while, then, she said: ‘To Nanny’s.’

Johnny was confused: ‘You’ve just said we wouldn’t’, he protested and, for some reason, he had tears in his eyes.

‘I had’, Mummy said, ‘but Grandad has just phoned that we should.’

‘But–’, tears were rolling down on Johnny’s face, ‘I have to go to school.’

‘Not today, sweetheart’, Mummy said quietly.

They did not say a word in the car.

‘This isn’t the way to Nanny’s’, cried Johnny when Mummy turned in the wrong direction at the roundabout.

‘Nanny is in hospital, Johnny’, Mummy said quietly.

Johnny did not answer. ‘That can’t be true!’, he thought to himself.

‘Nanny is surely not here’, protested Johnny when they parked at the hospital.

‘I am afraid she is’, Mummy said.

They went into the smelly, white building, Mummy talked to people in smelly, white clothes, they walked through endless smelly, white corridors. Johnny hated the place already.

‘Where is Nanny?’, he kept asking.

‘We are nearly there’, Mummy said.

And then, they were there. It was a smelly, white room with smelly, white beds: four of them. And there were smelly, white people lying on them. And one of them was Nanny. Well, she did not really look like Nanny: she was not smiling, she was not moving, her eyes were closed and there were tubes coming out of her.

‘Nanny!’, Johnny cried.

‘Shush!, Mummy said.

Nanny opened her eyes and started smiling immediately: ‘Johnny! How are you, lad?’, she asked.

She wanted to move her arms to hug Johnny, but the tubes did not let her.

‘What’s the matter with you??’, cried Johnny. ‘Nanny, get up, quick! Let’s leave this place! Chop chop! Nanny!!’

‘I am sorry, Johnny’, Nanny said, ‘I can’t go with you right now.’ Then, she turned to Mummy and asked her to go and find Grandad and give him some moral support because he was not very well.

Mummy went out and Johnny threw himself to Nanny’s bed. He hugged and kissed her tearfully: ‘Come on, Nanny, get up! I’ll help you.’

‘Sit down, Johnny’, Nanny said holding the boys shaking hand. ‘Right now, I have to stay here.’

‘Why?’, asked Johnny weeping.

‘You see’, Nanny said, ‘I am not quite well.’

‘What’s the matter with you?’, cried Johnny.

‘Well’, Nanny said smiling, ‘I am very old–’

‘You aren’t!’, protested Johnny.

‘Still’, Nanny laughed, ‘I am a bit old.’

‘Only a little bit’, Johnny said.

‘Well’, Nanny said, ‘since I am a little bit old, my soul doesn’t fit in my body anymore–’

Johnny was puzzled: ‘What do you mean?’

‘You see, my soul wants to play with you’, Nanny started to explain, ‘but my body just can’t. It is a bit too old.’

Johnny thought and thought. ‘Let’s do this’, he finally said, ‘let’s take your soul out of your body, and let’s put it in a young body, so that we can play together again.’

Nanny smiled broadly: ‘That is exactly what will happen, Johnny’, she said. ‘Unless–’

‘Unless??’, Johnny cried.

‘Well’, Nanny sighed, ‘unless the Soul Bagger manages to bag my soul.’

‘Who is the Soul Bagger?’, inquired Johnny.

‘He is there’, Nanny pointed to the corner.

Johnny looked at the corner. ‘I can’t see anybody there’, he confessed.

‘Of course you can’t see him, Johnny’, Nanny explained, ‘because you are still young. I can see him because I am ve–, well, I am a bit old. He is waiting for the moment when he can bag my soul and take it God only knows where.’

‘I won’t let him!’, Johnny promised fiercely.

‘I am counting on you’, Nanny smiled.

‘What do I need to do?’, asked Johnny, determined.

‘You need to call the Hearty Dragon’, Nanny said. ‘She is the only one who can fly my soul into a young body.’

‘I will’, promised Johnny. ‘But how can I do that?’

Nanny did not answer. She fell asleep.

Mummy and Grandad came into the room and hugged Johnny tightly.

Johnny looked at the corner, angrily: ‘I won’t let you bag Nanny’s soul’, he mouthed.

Later, Mummy and Johnny took Grandad home by car. Grandad was silently weeping all the way. Johnny was deep in his thoughts.

‘You go for a walk with Johnny’, Mummy told Grandad when she saw the state of the living room, ‘until I clean up.’

Grandad did not protest. He silently took his hat and took Johnny’s hand.

As they left the house, Johnny saw a huge ginger cat.

‘Who is that?’, he asked Grandad, twice before he actually heard him.

‘Oh, she is Tilda, the neighbour’s cat. She should have her kittens any minute now’, Grandad said, his thoughts elsewhere.

‘I wish I could have a kitten’, sighed Johnny.

‘Why not?’, Grandad said, ‘I’m sure Nanny would love it. Perhaps it would help her to get better.’

‘Oh, you are welcome to take one of them’, said the neighbour who was gardening nearby and had obviously overheard their conversation.

‘Really?’, Johnny was overjoyed.

‘I know you will take good care of it’, the neighbour smiled, ‘and I do hope it will help Ava to get better.’

Grandad sighed deeply.

‘Of course it will’, said Johnny happily.

They said goodbye and continued their walk.

‘I’ll show you something’, Grandad suddenly said.

‘All right’, Johnny said surprised.

They turned the corner and Johnny saw it at once. It was a huge graffiti on a wall of an abandoned storehouse: a lady dragon with an enormous heart painted on her chest.

‘The Hearty Dragon!’, Johnny exclaimed.

‘How do you know that?’, Grandad was somewhat disappointed, ‘Nanny and I wanted to show her to you this coming weekend, except–’

They both fell silent.

‘Let’s go home now’, said Grandad after a while.

‘You go’, Johnny said, ‘I would like to stay here a bit longer.’

‘All right’, said Grandad, ‘See you in a few minutes’, and he set off for home.

When Johnny was alone with the Hearty Dragon, he touched her enormous heart with his palm. The heart was warm and pulsing.

‘Can you help Nanny?’, Johnny whispered.

‘I would love to’, said the dragon sadly, ‘but I am afraid I can’t at the moment.’

‘What do you mean? If you don’t help her quickly, the Soul Bagger will bag her soul and–’

‘As I said, I would love to help’, the dragon said patiently, ‘but I’m unable to fly away right now because some naughty kids carved into my heart.’

‘What?’, Johnny said looking at the dragon’s heart closer.

Indeed, there was a carving there, right in the middle of it: some illegible writing carved probably with a key, perhaps the name of a band.

‘What can we do?’, Johnny begged her.

‘Nanny wanted to cure me’, the dragon said. ‘She had the recipe of the potion that would heal the carving. Only, she had no time to actually make it because–’

‘I see’, said Johnny determined, ‘I’ll find the recipe and make that potion for you.’

‘Then, I shall fly Nanny’s soul into a young body before the Soul Bagger could get to her.’

Johnny ran home to Grandad and started to frantically turn the house over to find the recipe.

‘What are you looking for?’, Mummy asked completely taken aback.

‘A recipe’, Johnny said.

‘All the recipes are in the top draw of the kitchen cupboard’, said Mummy.

‘Are they?’, Johnny ran to get them.

All in vain, there were recipes of cakes, soufflés, sauces, mulled wine, every kind of food, but none of them could have been the recipe of the potion that could heal the Hearty Dragon.

Grandad came into the kitchen: ‘I hear you are looking for a recipe’, he said, ‘Well, I found a very strange one on Nanny’s bedside table. Look. Half a tea spoonful of cinnamon, a pinch of mint, two lumps of sugar, a table spoon of oat milk, and– Listen to this: two hairs of a pregnant cat’s fur! Have you ever heard about such a recipe?’

‘Thanks’, Johnny cried, tearing the piece of paper out of Grandad’s hand immediately.

‘You are welcome’, Grandad sighed and left the kitchen.

Johnny put all the ingredients in a bowl and then, he went to look for Tilda.

‘I’m really sorry about this, Tilda’, he said when he pulled out two hairs from the cat’s ginger fur, ‘but I really, really need these to help Nanny.’

‘I’m happy to be able to help’, Tilda meowed.

‘Thank you very much’, said Johnny and ran back to the Hearty Dragon.

‘Now, you need to massage the potion into the carving’, the dragon instructed him.

But as soon as Johnny first touched the dragon’s heart with the potion, the Hearty Dragon suddenly disappeared without trace.

Johnny stood there shocked for a while and then, he slowly started to walk back to Grandad’s. When he entered into the living room, he saw that Mummy and Grandad were hugging each other crying. At that very moment, the neighbour entered excitedly: ‘Come and have a look. The kittens have just been born!’, then she stopped abruptly and looked at them. Slowly a tear drop formed in her eye and started rolling down on her face, then, another one.

‘You go, Johnny’, Mummy said.

Johnny was so confused, that he followed the neighbour without a word.

Soon, Johnny was holding a tiny gingery creature in his hand. The kitten was the most beautiful thing Johnny had ever seen.

‘What will you call it?’, asked the neighbour smiling through her tears.

‘Ava’, Johnny announced.

‘Well’, the neighbour was really taken aback, ‘That is– that was Nanny’s name.’

‘I know’, said Johnny.

‘And also’, said the neighbour after a while, ‘That one is a tomcat–’

‘I’ll call him Ava all the same’, Johnny insisted.

‘Ava, then’, smiled the neighbour.

On his way back to Grandad’s, Johnny took a bypass: he went to see whether the Hearty Dragon was back yet. She was.

‘I did it’, said the dragon, ‘I flew Nanny’s soul into a young body, so that you can play with her again. Or rather, you can play with him’, she smiled.

‘I know’, Johnny said, ‘and I thank you with all my heart.’

A few weeks later, Johnny was playing with Ava in Grandad’s garden, and Grandad came out of the house to talk to him.

‘You know, Johnny, you’ll not believe this, well, it feels a bit like, you know, as if this little kitten, this little Ava was somehow– really Ava, well, Nanny– I know it sounds silly–’

‘It doesn’t, Grandad, it doesn’t a bit’, Johnny reassured him lifting up the kitten and putting him in Grandad’s hands.