Dragon Keepers #1: The Dragon in the Sock Drawer (8 page)

The cousins rinsed out their bowls and put them in the dish drainer. Then Daisy went to stand behind her father's chair and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Poppy,” she said, “we're gallivanting over to the college this morning. We want to see how Emmy's doing.”

Uncle Joe looked up and stared at them with narrowed eyes. He shook his head, then went back to his notebook. “Try not to be pests,” he said.

“Don't worry,” said Daisy. “Dr. St. George won't even know that we're there.”

When they got to the college gate, they stopped to ask where Dr. St. George's office was. The guard told them that St. George had a lab over in the basement of the Zoo. (The Zoo was what people at the college called the zoology building, where scientists and students learned about animals.)

Jesse and Daisy rode their bikes over to the Zoo and parked behind the building, near the trash cans. Then they crawled into the bushes that grew in front of the basement windows.

Daisy twitched her nose. “Do you smell that?” she whispered.

Jesse sniffed, then nodded.
Hot chili peppers!
They crawled past a set of windows looking down on long green tables crammed with cages teeming with wriggling white rats. The smell was growing stronger. They crept past a set of windows looking down on cages of monkeys. There were test tubes and beakers with chemicals, and blackboards full of numbers and symbols. The smell grew stronger still.

Finally, they came to a set of windows that were completely covered by white sheets. Unlike the other windows, these were cranked wide open, and Emmy's strong smell wafted out. Jesse lifted a corner of one sheet and looked down into the room. If he angled his head just right, he could see Emmy in her iron jail.

“I see her!” he whispered to Daisy.

Daisy peered in. “She got a lot bigger,” she said.

Jesse nodded. Emmy was now the size of a large rabbit. The cage was too small for her, and the bars were pressing into her beautiful green scales. Emmy had her back to them but lifted her head at the sound of their voices. She was so cramped, she couldn't even turn around to face them.

“Jesseeee! Let. Me. Out!” she cried.

She had called out these exact words when she was inside the thunder egg. It tore Jesse's heart to hear them again. He clenched his teeth and said, “That's it. We're going in to get her now.”

Daisy grabbed his leg. “Jesse, no! St. George could come back any minute! That's no plan.”

Emmy called out, “Jesse! Day. Zee. Hide! Bad. Man. Come!”

Jesse let out a shaky breath and quickly lowered the sheet just enough to allow them both the tiniest peek into the laboratory. They heard the tumbling of the lock as a key turned. Beside him, Daisy stiffened and sucked in her breath. “That was a close one!” Jesse whispered.

St. George stepped into the lab. He was wearing a long white lab coat in place of the black one. He looked around the room, his wire-rims reflecting the fluorescent light and giving him that super creepy no-eyes look again. Over his nose and mouth he was holding a white handkerchief.

Daisy put her mouth up to Jesse's ear and whispered, “He hates the smell.”

Jesse nodded and wondered whether being in captivity made Emmy give off an even stronger smell or if she just smelled stronger because she was bigger.

St. George leaned down and looked into Emmy's cage. He said something they couldn't hear, then took a pencil out of his lab coat pocket and poked it through the bars so that it touched Emmy's green horn.

Emmy hissed. Then she opened her mouth and spat at him.

St. George pulled back. He dropped the pencil and the handkerchief and clutched his right hand. He staggered over to a sink and ran water over the hand. The cousins, as still as statues, held their breath. Standing at the sink, St. George couldn't have been more than two feet away from them. If he had happened to look up right then, he would have seen them, as plain as the horn on Emmy's head.

St. George turned off the water and walked away. Jesse and Daisy let out their breath. He bent over and took a first-aid kit out of a cupboard. He wrapped gauze around his hand.

Daisy once more put her mouth to Jesse's ear and whispered, “Looks like she spat acid at him.”

Jesse nodded. They would have to ask Professor Andersson about that.

St. George, handkerchief back over his nose and mouth, was now jotting something down on a clipboard.

Jesse tugged on Daisy's arm, and together they pulled away from the window and crawled backward out of the bushes. “I have a plan,” Jesse said to Daisy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE DRAGON SLAYER'S DEN

Jesse shared the plan as they rode back home, pausing briefly now and then to work out the details. “Professor Andersson said Saint George was ruled by greed, right?”

“Right,” said Daisy.

“Well, then, if you're greedy—greedy for dragon blood, that is—what could be better than drinking the blood of one dragon?”

Daisy thought for a second. “Drinking the blood of
two
dragons!” she said. “But, Jess, where are we going to get another dragon?”

“That's where the rest of my plan kicks in,” said Jesse. He was getting excited. “What if we made a new sign? What if the sign said that a lizard a lot like Emmy had been found by some other family in Goldmine City? We won't put a phone number on the sign, just an address. It will be a real street, but it won't be a real house number.”

“I get it!” said Daisy. “While he's out on the wild-goose chase, we'll rescue Emmy. But how can we be sure he'll see the sign?”

“That's the easy part. We'll hang it right under his nose. Right outside his office. He won't be able to miss it,” he said. “Plan?”

“Plan,” Daisy agreed.

Making a detour, they rode up into the hills to Old Mine Lane, on the far side of town, near the old boarded-up gold mine. People were always getting lost on the winding streets there. The last house on Old Mine Lane was number 499. If they put number 501 on the sign, it would completely flummox St. George.

When they got home, Jesse ran up to his room and quickly composed a new sign. He was careful to make it look nothing like the first sign. While he was busy doing this, Daisy went down to the kitchen and packed their backpack.

When they were set to go, Daisy slipped the sign into her wildflower notebook so it wouldn't wrinkle. Then Jesse and Daisy jumped on their bikes and raced back to the college. The parking lot was nearly empty except for the million-dollar car.
Everyone must be at lunch,
Jesse thought. They walked into the Zoo through the front door and tacked up the sign on a bulletin board directly across from St. George's lab. Then they got out of there fast.

Feeling very pleased with themselves, Jesse and Daisy hid in the bushes, where they had a clear view of the Zoo's front door. In silence, they munched energy bars, drank water, and waited. And waited and waited.

After a while, Daisy said, “What if he shuts the windows before he leaves?”

“I bet he won't. He can't stand the smell,” said Jesse. “He needs to keep the place aired out.”

“But what if he shuts them anyway?” said Daisy.

“Then we take a rock and we break a window,” said Jesse.

Daisy was shocked. “Really? College property?”

Jesse nodded firmly and said, “We're Dragon Keepers. We do what we have to do.”

“Right,” she said, nodding along with him. “We also have to figure out where we're going to hide Emmy after we rescue her, because you know that the first place St. George is going to come looking is our house.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Let's not climb Everest before Kilimanjaro, okay?”

“Okay.” After another long silence, Daisy said, “What time is it, Jess?”

Jesse lifted his wrist to check the time. His wrist was completely naked! He wasn't wearing either one of his wristwatches! He had no idea what time it was—here or in Africa.

Daisy grinned and punched him on the arm. “The one day you forget to wear those silly watches—”

Jesse grabbed her wrist and silenced her as the front door of the Zoo swung open. St. George stepped out, once again wearing his black coat, and looked around. Then, with their sign gripped in his hand, he strode purposefully in the direction of the parking lot.

Jesse and Daisy waited a moment, then crawled through the bushes to St. George's lab windows. They noticed immediately that they were all closed.

“Darn it!” said Daisy.

“Hold up,” said Jesse.

He pushed one of them and it swung open easily. “He must have been too excited about the other dragon to stop and lock the windows,” he said.

Jesse eased himself through the window feet-first and lowered himself onto the counter next to the lab's sink. Daisy handed the backpack down to Jesse, then joined him at Emmy's cage.

“Jesse. Day. Zee. You. Came!” Emmy's green eyes sparkled.

The cousins threw their arms around the cage and did their best to hug her. “Of course we came!” Jesse said. He tried to open the cage door but, as he expected, it was locked.

“The key's got to be here somewhere,” Daisy said.

“Unless he took it with him,” said Jesse.

Emmy pointed her horn toward the door. Her head was the only part of her body that had any space to move. “Look!” she said.

There was a hook on the wall right next to the door, and hanging from the hook was a big ring of keys. Jesse ran to the key ring and removed it from the hook. Then he ran back to the cage and, with sweaty, fumbling fingers, began to insert one key after another into the lock.

“Hurry,” said Daisy at his shoulder, flapping her hands.

“I am,” said Jesse. But he had always been bad with keys.

“Let me try,” said Daisy.

“I think I got it,” Jesse said. The lock clicked and he pulled the cage door open. Jesse and Daisy held the cage while Emmy wiggled and squeezed herself out like a snake shedding its skin.

“Let's get out of here,” said Jesse. He held out his arms for Emmy.

Emmy backed away from him. “No,” she said.

“Come
on,
Emmy,” said Jesse, feeling his patience tested. “I don't have a watch, and I have no idea how long St. George has been gone.”

“Look!” said Emmy.

“He could come back any minute,” said Daisy.

“Look!” Emmy said again.

“At what?” they both said in exasperation.

“Look. At. The. Den!” Emmy said.

The cousins took their first good look around the lab—at the den of Saint George the Dragon Slayer.

“Holy moly!” said Daisy. “I've never seen so many thunder eggs!”

There were piles and piles of thunder eggs everywhere they looked. There were thunder eggs lying in heaps near a huge, grim-looking table saw outfitted with a sharp circular blade. There was a tall trash can overflowing with thunder-egg crystals: red, blue, green, purple—every color Jesse could imagine. It was the most beautiful trash he had ever seen, all mixed up with orange rinds and paper coffee cups.

Emmy jumped down from the counter and ran across the lab, her shiny green talons clicking smartly against the tile. “Look! Look!” she said. “Here!”

Jesse and Daisy followed. Thunder eggs were simmering in pots on hot plates. The pots were labeled: “High Peak,” “Popocatepetl,” “Kilauea,” “Fuji.”

“Know what these are?” Jesse asked. “They're all volcanoes from different parts of the world.”

“Look here!” said Emmy, running to the next counter, talons clicking.

They pulled open the doors of a series of squat white boxes and found more thunder eggs. These were coated with frost and labeled “Etna,” “Shasta,” “Krakatoa,” and on and on. Who knew the world had so many volcanoes?

“This is some big-deal production he's got going on here!” said Daisy.

“Yeah, but I bet he hasn't gotten one dragon yet,” Jesse said sullenly. “He had to steal ours. Can we get out of here now, please?”

“No!” said Emmy. She darted to a far corner of the room. “Look!”

With reluctance, the cousins followed her to a low table made of red leather.

“Very nice coffee table,” said Jesse, arms folded. “Now can we go?” “Look!” said Emmy. “Book!”

“I see it!” said Jesse. “But it's a
table.
”

“Book!” protested Emmy.

Daisy grabbed Jesse's arm and drew him closer.

“Look, Jesse Tiger,” she said. “I mean,
really
look!”

He bent down and, with dawning amazement, saw what it was he was looking at. “It
is
a book!”

The cousins circled around it in wonder as Emmy looked on, pleased. It was the biggest book they had ever seen. It was bound in rich red leather, with printing stamped in gold ink, and on its front cover was a big, rusted metal ring that looked like a door knocker. The book was bigger than the ones the librarian used to read to them at story hour when they were little. It was bigger than the biggest of the ancient books Jesse had seen in museums in London and Paris and Cairo. It was a book that belonged in the library of a giant.

“Do you think it's Professor Andersson's book?” Daisy asked.

Jesse frowned. The book's cover didn't seem to have a title, only some scratchy-looking designs stamped in gold ink. If these were words, they certainly weren't in any language Jesse had ever come across. “I don't think so,” he said. “It's not like this would fit on the library shelves, and Mr. Stenson would have said if it was this big…or written in another language…whatever it is.”

“You're right,” said Daisy, biting her lip. “Then I wonder what book it is.”

“Look!” said Emmy, hopping up and down.

“I think she wants us to look inside,” said Jesse.

They were standing next to the thick, gold-tooled spine, so they went around to the other side of the book and tried to open the cover. It was too heavy to lift. “You take the bottom corner,” Jesse said. “I'll take the top. Ready? On the count of three: one, two,
three
!” But the cover didn't budge. Jesse stared thoughtfully at the ring. “Maybe that's some kind of a lock or something.”

Just then Emmy scrabbled
clickety-click
over the top of the book and landed on the floor between them. “Some. One. Come!” she said. “Go. Now. Gonowgonowgonowgonow!!!”

They heard footsteps out in the hall. They were coming closer.

There was a knock on the door.

Jesse squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath. Dragon and kids remained rooted to the spot while the person on the other side of the door twisted the knob. Then they heard footsteps going back down the hall and, a second later, a
thunk-thunk
as the front door of the building opened and shut.

They exploded into action. Daisy unzipped the backpack, pulled out a yellow rain slicker, and thrust it at Jesse. Jesse wrapped Emmy up in it. Emmy let him pick her up without protest now. She'd gotten heavier, but he could still hold her easily.

“I'll make sure there's nobody in the hall,” said Daisy. She opened the door and peered out, looking both ways. Then she took a few steps out into the hall.

“Okay!” she called back in a loud whisper. “Coast is clear!”

Jesse headed out the door, with Emmy in his arms. Before closing the door, he cast one last look over his shoulder at the giant book.
If only we could take
that
with us, too!

         

Fifteen minutes later, they were back at the house and up in Jesse's bedroom.

“Let's get organized,” Daisy said, her finger to her chin. “We need sleeping bags, water, food for us, food for Emmy. What else?”

Jesse and Daisy's plan was to hide with Emmy in the Deep Woods behind the barn. They had no idea how long they would have to stay there—maybe several days and nights. The Deep Woods had always seemed a little too scary for sleep-outs, but Jesse and Daisy were Dragon Keepers now, and Dragon Keepers do what they have to do. They figured that once they found a camping spot, Daisy could sneak back to the house and explain to Uncle Joe that they were camping out at the barn for a few days and ask him to pretty please not tell St. George. It was the best plan they could come up with on such short notice.

Jesse ran through the bathroom to Daisy's room and pulled their sleeping bags out of the closet while Daisy hunted around in her brothers' closet for old canteens and other camping equipment. Emmy was crouched on the carpet by Jesse's bed, crunching her way through a head of cabbage.

From the separate rooms, the cousins called to each other.

“Don't forget the flashlight!” said Jesse.

“Right!” said Daisy.

“Make sure it has batteries!” said Jesse.

“We'll need a second backpack, don't you think?” said Daisy.

“Yeah, and what about the two-person tent—” Jesse broke off in the middle of the sentence because, just then, from Daisy's window, he saw the million-dollar car pull up to the curb.

Jesse dropped the sleeping bags and tore back through the bathroom to where Daisy was kneeling on the floor of his room, packing a second backpack. Jesse ripped it out of her hands. “Never mind about that now! He's here! St. George is here!”