This is StoryQuest. Today's story is the dragon in the haberdashery.

Do you know what a haberdashery is? It's a rather fun place where you can buy all sorts of things made out of fabric.

Cotton in every colour and a million patterns for you to make

clothes, thick damasks, velvets for curtains, bright neon and glittery satins for costumes.

As well as these treasures, Haberdashers stock bright needles and colourful buttons and a multitude

of ribbons like rainbows.

Smith's haberdasher's had been in business for over a hundred years.

It was now run by two sisters, great-granddaughters, of the venerable Sid Smith,

the original owner.

And whilst Sarah and Sally were kind, they were sensible sorts, who would keep the rolls of materials tidy, sort the buttons, cut the lengths for customers and generally keep everything running smoothly.

What irritated the most was when customers took the rolls of fabric down and didn't book them back.

It made the bolts grubby and creased.

And at the start of the day, the remnant tub brimmed with newly iron leftover fabric.

But after a day's work, the people in the shop had messed it into a tangle, making it look like a stool at a jumble sale.

They didn't like creases and jumbles, and they didn't like surprises, which is a shame because they were about to get a really

big one. Unbeknownst to the sisters, the haberdashery had an inhabitant that they did not know about.

A dragon. Yeah, a dragon had made his home amongst the bolts and buttons, and they had absolutely

no idea. The dragon,

Perigog, had been secretly living in the haberdashery for over a hundred years. After all,

it was a very old shop. As the bombs of the Great War devastated the country, he, like many

small things, had become orphaned and had nowhere to go.

The other dragons in the woods were quite mean, so under the cover of night he had slunk into the city and ran the back door of the haberdasher's and settled into a box of Shantung silks.

...