The Dragon in the Driveway (8 page)

Daisy shouted over the noise of the churning earthmover. “Where’s Emmy?”

Jesse shouted back, “The laurel bushes!”

There was an alarming series of muffled explosions. Then there was silence. Dirt now covered the mineshaft entrance completely.

Daisy’s face looked ghostly and grim in the flashlight’s beam. “Well, that’s that, I guess,” she said.

“Maybe Emmy will come back with the magic shovel and dig us out,” Jesse said.

“Then shouldn’t we stick around?” Daisy asked.

“I’m worried that the mine might keep collapsing. I think we need to get away from this spot for now,” Jesse said. “Besides, if my hunch is right, this tunnel winds up beneath the Deep Woods clearing.”

Daisy didn’t want to say that if Jesse’s hunch was right, then St. George had them trapped either way. So she shut her mouth and turned to lead the way into the tunnel. Jesse followed, unraveling string from the big ball as he went. Daisy was a little surprised that she wasn’t
more
terrified. Maybe she was too thankful to be afraid; thankful that St. George hadn’t squished them flat with the earth-mover, that Emmy had made it safely to the laurel
bushes, that Jesse was with her and she wasn’t alone.

As she walked, she shone the flashlight all around even though there really wasn’t very much to see. The tunnel was framed with wood that looked very old and alarmingly rotten in places. Long, hairy tree roots reached down through the ceiling. Daisy and Jesse had to duck to avoid getting tangled in them.

“We’re under the Deep Woods now,” Jesse said with certainty.

“At least we’re going in the right direction,” Daisy said brightly.

“Yep,” said Jesse.

Every so often, other tunnels branched out to either side, but the cousins stuck to what felt like the main tunnel. Without a compass, there was no real telling if they were going in the right direction or not.

Daisy was the first to break a long silence. “Sure is dark down here,” she said.

“Sure is,” said Jesse.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’ve ever been in darkness quite this … deep.”

“It’s pretty deep, all right.”

Then they lapsed back into silence. Daisy did not want to say aloud the other thoughts that were
streaming through her brain. What if St. George had captured Emmy? What if this mine didn’t connect to the one St. George was working in? This area was honeycombed with old mines, but they didn’t necessarily all link up into one big network. What if the one way out of this place was now completely sealed?

They plodded on, their mouths dry, but neither wanting to stop and drink, not with the darkness swarming just beyond the flashlight’s feeble beam like something alive.

After a while, Daisy let out a yelp. There was a small thud, two bright flashes, and then a darkness that was so complete, it was as if they had both suddenly gone blind.

“Daisy!” Jesse crept forward. “Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said after a beat. Her voice came from farther away than he expected. “My hair got snagged in one of those tree roots and I … oh, Jess, I needed both hands to get my hair loose and I—I dropped the flashlight.”

“Where?” Jesse asked.

“Over here, I think,” she said.

“Keep talking so I can find you,” Jesse said.

Daisy prattled, “I hate my hair. My bandanna must have fallen off when we were running. If I
ever get out of here, I’m going to shave it all off and—”

“Got you!” Jesse said, fastening his hand around one slender wrist.

She clutched at him. “Jesse, we have to stick together.”

“Of course we do,” he said. He could tell she was so scared that there was no room for him to be. “Hold on to my belt loops in back,” he told her. “We’ll work our way up and down a ways. The flashlight’s got to be close by. I’m going to get on my hands and knees, so you have to come with me. Okay, Daze?”

“Whatever you say,” she said shakily.

He got down and groped around in the dirt, towing Daisy behind him.

Daisy tapped him on the right arm and said, “Try over there!”

Then, with a jolt, Jesse realized that they had lost something just as important as the flashlight: the ball of string. He must have let go of it when he heard Daisy cry out.

“We lost the string, too, didn’t we?” Daisy said in a sad little voice. When Jesse didn’t answer, she wailed, “I knew it! It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” he said.

He lay back in the soft dirt and Daisy went with
him. She was sobbing. He wanted to open his mouth and bawl like a baby right along with her, but he told himself it would only make both of them feel worse.

We should have stayed and waited
, he thought. Why had he led them into the old mine? It was the stupidest idea he’d ever had. Why had Daisy followed along? She knew better. Now no one would ever be able to find them. They were as good as buried alive. And, as if all that weren’t bad enough, Jesse had to pee.

If this is a magical adventure, then I want my old life back.

“I am so, so sorry,” Daisy said, letting out a huge shuddering yawn. She mumbled, “I should have put you in charge of the flashlight, and now it’s all my fault that we’re lost. And I
hate
my hair.”

“It’s not your fault or your hair’s fault, either, okay, Daisy?”

“Okay,” she said. After a short silence, she asked, “Are you hungry? I’m starved. I could eat a giant pizza burger with double fries right now.”

Jesse smiled in the darkness. “How about an energy bar instead?”

“I’ll take it,” she said.

“Hand me the backpack,” he said.

“Here,” she said.

Jesse fumbled for the zipper. He unzipped it and reached around inside. His fingers grazed the jar of worms and for one wild moment, he thought they might be saved. Then he remembered Miss Alodie’s directions to use them only in the presence of the book. The next thing he felt (and smelled!) was Emmy’s head of cabbage. He was just about to toss it when he thought:
We might wind up eating it if we get desperate.
Jesse shuddered. His fingers lit gratefully upon an energy bar.

“Here,” he said, holding it out. Daisy snatched it from his fingers.

“Thanks,” she said. He heard the crackle of paper as she tore it open. Then he heard her take a bite and chew.

He crawled off a little ways and relieved himself. Following the sound of her chewing, he returned to the backpack and found another energy bar, tore it open, and ate it greedily.

After that, they both fell asleep with their heads on the backpack, even though the cabbage and the jar of worms made it a far from ideal pillow.

A light woke up Jesse, flickering on the insides of his eyelids, pink as the first blush of dawn. He opened his eyes and blinked while beside him, Daisy also began to stir.

A band of hobgoblins with torches stood around them in a circle, staring at them with eyes that were without pupils or irises, red-rimmed and milky white.

Daisy squeezed Jesse’s wrist. A noise rose up from the hobgoblins, a dark, moist, grunting and snuffling through their snouts. It was a very
underground
sound.

Jesse counted seven of them. Three had bamboo torches, the kind you buy in a garden store. Tiki torches. The other four had sharp pickaxes hoisted over their shoulders. The cuffs of their orange jumpsuits dragged in the dirt. One of them had rolled up the cuffs of his pants, and Daisy nearly cried out when she saw his feet. His feet were bare and
he had no toes
! Where his toes were supposed to be was just a grayish wedge.

“Let’s see who we’ve got here,” said Jesse. “Sleepy, Dopey, Dumpy, Grubby …”

“Jess, this isn’t funny!” Daisy whispered. “It’s—it’s—” She fumbled for the right word.
“Hideous!”

But Jesse couldn’t help himself. Now he understood why heroes in action movies made dumb jokes when they were in trouble. They did it to keep from screaming their heads off. “What do you want?” Jesse asked the hobgoblins, in what he
hoped was a stern, steady he-man voice.

He got more snuffling in reply. Daisy said, “Jess, they might not use words, like us.”

One of them sidled over on his bandy legs and pulled Jesse to his feet. Daisy, hanging on to Jesse’s belt loop, came up with him. The hobgoblins crowded in closer and stared. One of them thrust out his mittenlike hand to Daisy. He was holding her purple bandanna.

“I think he wants you to take it,” said Jesse.

Daisy shot out a trembling hand and snatched the bandanna away from the hobgoblin. “Thanks,” she said, forcing a polite smile and hastily tying the bandanna around her head.

Another hobgoblin offered Jesse the lost flashlight, and still another of the odd creatures held out the ball of string.

“Thanks, guys,” Jesse said as he took the flashlight from the one hobgoblin and the ball of string from the other. He moved in slow motion as he bent down and unzipped the backpack, put the stuff away, zipped up the backpack, straightened, and slipped the backpack straps around his shoulders. The hobgoblins’ eyes followed his every move with utter fascination.

“Do you think we look as weird and scary to
them as they do to us?” Jesse wondered aloud.

“If you ask me, they look even scarier up close,” said Daisy warily.

“I don’t know,” Jesse said thoughtfully, “I was just thinking that they seem a little less scary now. See how they’re looking at us? They don’t look mean at all. In fact—”

Daisy cried out, “Look! They’re crying! Ohmygosh, Jess! The hobgoblins are
crying.
”

“Their tears … they’re actually muddy,” Jesse said. Although pretty much everything about the hobgoblins was muddy, there was something about those muddy brown tears that not only moved Jesse’s heart but also his brain.

“I think I know what they are,” he said quietly. “I mean, besides hobgoblins and chthonic ones and St. George’s minions. Daisy, these are the children of the earth the professor was talking about. We’re looking right at them.
St. George’s first victims.
”

Daisy, who had begun to think the exact same thing, said, “They are, aren’t they?”

The hobgoblins prodded them gently with their mitts and they began to move forward as a group.

“And you know what else?” Daisy said as they marched along the tunnel with their hobgoblin escorts. “I think they brought those torches for us.”

Jesse nodded. “Probably they see fine in the dark,” he said. “Or sense things … like bats.”

At the mention of bats, Daisy reached up and patted the bandanna on her head. “That would make sense,” she said. “Do you think they’re taking us to St. George?”

“Probably,” said Jesse. “But it’s not their fault, Daze. What choice do they have? St. George has made them his slaves, right?”

“Poor things. They probably don’t like St. George any more than we do,” she said. Somehow it made Daisy feel better to have been taken captive by beings who were themselves captives. “Well, at least he didn’t catch Emmy in his trap. She’s safe in the laurel bushes.”

“Right,” said Jesse, but he wished he knew that for sure.

They soon arrived at a spot where several tunnels came together to form a star. A massive tree root grew right down the center of it. The hobgoblins halted before the root. For one uneasy moment, Daisy was afraid that the root might be blocking the way. But then the hobgoblins arranged themselves around the tree root and sat cross-legged, like kids at circle time. They looked up at Jesse and Daisy and made that moist, grunting, earthy sound again.

“What do you guys want?” Jesse asked them.

“Maybe they want us to admire the humongous tree root,” said Daisy. “But I’ve kind of had enough tree roots for the time being, thank you very much.”

Still, even Daisy had to admit that it was an impressive sight, this hairy, densely tangled network of roots that hung down in a ball almost to the floor.

They were startled when the very next moment, they heard a deep voice coming from inside the tree root: “You may approach Her Eminence!”

CHAPTER SEVEN
HER ROYAL LOWNESS

The voice coming out of the tree root sounded like a bullfrog, if bullfrogs could do more than belch.

Jesse and Daisy exchanged looks of surprise.

“Another talking tree?” Jesse whispered.

Daisy frowned. She wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t exactly an expert, but it didn’t
sound
like a dryad.

The hobgoblins shifted to clear a path for their guests. Jesse and Daisy approached the strange tree root cautiously.

Daisy peered into the tangle of hairy tendrils and thought she saw a pair of shiny eyes staring back at her. Perhaps it was a dryad after all.

“You find yourselves staring into the magnificent eyes—which we have
not
given you permission to do—of Queen Hap of the Hobgoblin Hive of Hobhorn,” said the froggy voice.

“What’s a hobhorn?” Jesse wanted to know.

“It is our mountain home,” the queen said.

“You mean Old Mother Mountain?” Daisy asked.

“
You
might mean Old Mother Mountain,” said the queen distastefully. “But it’s the Hobhorn to us, and always has been, and we would know, wouldn’t we? Now, hold your tongues and go down on your knees before us!”