Dragon Keepers #1: The Dragon in the Sock Drawer (11 page)

“Hey! Watch it!” said Uncle Joe. “This is a beautiful old barn, and it's not your property!”

St. George turned back to face him. “Nor is it yours, sir. And letting these mischievous brats use it as their playhouse is reprehensible, irresponsible,
and,
I might add, illegal.”

“There's no call to get nasty,” said Uncle Joe. “Let's just find the lizard, shall we, and get on with our day.”

Daisy shook her head. Jesse sighed. He knew that his uncle meant well, but he wasn't being much of a help.

“She is here!” St. George shouted. “I know this because I can smell her! I would know that disgusting stink anywhere!”

“She does not stink!” Daisy said indignantly. Jesse gave her a swift, sharp elbow to the ribs.

“You should talk,” Jesse said boldly.
Dr. Dead-Rat Breath,
he added silently.

St. George glared at Jesse as if he had heard his thoughts. “Get up,” he told them.

Daisy looked to her father. “Do we have to do what he says, Poppy?”

“Can we please just get this over with?” said Uncle Joe.

The cousins sighed and looked at each other. They unlocked their hands, slowly got up, and stepped away from the makeshift haystack.

“Would you please assist me?” St. George asked Uncle Joe.

“You know something, buddy?” said Uncle Joe, folding his arms across his chest. “You want to dig around in that dusty old hay, you can do it yourself.”

Daisy and Jesse went to stand next to Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe put an arm around each cousin and drew them close. Daisy hid her face in her father's chest. Jesse clenched his fists and watched as St. George dug into the hay, picked it up by the armful, and heaved it aside.

Each time St. George dug into the hay, Jesse flinched. It was just a matter of time before he found Emmy. It was just a matter of time before it was all over for all of them. He remembered Professor Andersson's words—
doom
, for both Emmy and the world—and shivered.

Suddenly the entire stack started shifting from side to side, as if it had come alive. Hay began to fly every which way. St. George staggered backward. The air was full of flying straw and the smell of red-hot chili peppers.

Bit by bit, the hay storm settled.

There, standing in the middle of the fallen hay, was a large and very shaggy white sheepdog. Her long pink tongue lolled out of her mouth. Her stubby white tail thumped on the floor of the hayloft. She jumped on top of St. George and knocked him backward, onto the floor. She started licking him so hard, she knocked the glasses off his face.

Jesse hoped no one—except Daisy—would notice that her long pink tongue was forked.

“Fluffy?”
Uncle Joe shouted, as if he couldn't believe his eyes, either—but for different reasons altogether.

“Get it off me,” St. George whined. “I hate dogs!”

“‘Hate' is such a strong word,” said Jesse, trying very hard not to smile.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

OUTDOOR DOG

Two days later, Aunt Maggie came back from Paris. She stepped out of the cab and started for the door, then stopped short on the walk. Jesse and Daisy and Emmy were gathered on the front step, waiting for her. Emmy was in her sheepdog disguise, and Jesse and Daisy held their breath as Aunt Maggie stared. Then Aunt Maggie dropped her bags and ran up the walk toward them. She threw her arms around the dog, burying her face in its thick snow-white fur.

Jesse caught Daisy's eye. It was still hard for them to believe that Emmy could mask herself so completely that she even
felt
like a sheepdog.

“She's adorable!” Aunt Maggie said. “Where did you get her?”

“From Miss Alodie,” the cousins replied in unison.

Then Jesse and Daisy went on to tell her the same fib they had told Uncle Joe in the hayloft the other day. It was as if the lie had settled and taken root in both their brains at the same time. It was Miss Alodie, they said. Miss Alodie had given them the sheepdog. Wasn't that sweet of Miss Alodie?

After all the odd things that had happened in the last week, Uncle Joe wasn't sure he believed them. So Uncle Joe had called up Miss Alodie right away. And the funny thing was, the same fib seemed to have found its way into Miss Alodie's brain. Only bigger and better.

Miss Alodie said that her niece was leaving the farm where she had lived all her life to go away to college. Of course, no dogs were allowed at the niece's college. The niece had left the dog with Aunt Alodie, but she was afraid that it would dig up her beautiful flower beds. So she was very happy when Daisy and Jesse came along and offered to take the dog off her hands.

“And she'll stay in the garage,” said Jesse, winking at Daisy, “so the house can stay in apple-pie order.”

“Oh, she doesn't have to stay in the garage,” said Aunt Maggie. “She's welcome to stay in the house.”

“Oh, no!” said Daisy. “She really likes the garage!”

Emmy did like the garage. “Very nice cave,” she had told them.

“On the farm, she stayed outside,” Jesse explained to Aunt Maggie. “She's what they call an outdoor dog. You know, like Lassie. She gets nervous inside. And we wouldn't want any accidents to happen in there.”

Aunt Maggie hugged Emmy and said, “Okay, then. Why not? We've certainly never used it for cars. And what is this around her neck?”

“Those are my purple kneesocks tied together to make a collar,” Daisy told her. “She really likes my socks.”

“This dog needs a proper collar,” said Aunt Maggie. “And a leash, too. You'll need to walk her. And keep her tied up when you're not around. If she ran away or got hit by a car—” She bit her lip and shut her eyes.

Jesse looked at Daisy with raised eyebrows. He wasn't sure how well a collar and a leash and being tied up were going to go over with Emmy.

“Having a pet like this is a great responsibility, you know,” said Aunt Maggie.

“We know,” Jesse and Daisy chimed.

“One more thing, Mom,” Daisy said. “Remember how you said that one day I could give my baby locket away to someone I really loved?”

“I remember,” Aunt Maggie said, looking worried.

“Well,” said Daisy, “I've found somebody I want to give it away to.”

After a long pause, Aunt Maggie said, “Daisy, honey, is this some boy you've met? Because if it's a boy, I think you are way too young—”

“It's not a boy, Mom. It's a girl. It's Emmy. I want to give my baby locket to Emmy. I love Emmy more than anything in the world, and I want her to have it forever and ever.”

Aunt Maggie gasped. “Oh, Daisy, how did you know?”

“How did I know what, Mom?”

“That I put that baby locket on my own Fluffy's collar when I was a little girl, too.”

         

That night, Jesse e-mailed his parents:

Dear Mom and Dad, Daisy and I have a new pet. Guess what? She's a sheepdog. Just like Aunt Maggie's old dog Fluffy. Her name is Emmy. Short for Emerald. Don't ask why—it would take too long to explain. She's a great dog. She is so great, I might have to stay here longer than a year. Can we talk? I have a plan. Love, your son, Jesse

KATE KLIMO first got the idea for this book many years ago when her three sons were small and she came across a geode lying among the rolled-up socks in one of their sock drawers. Now that her sons are all grown up, she has finally found the time to write the story down. When she is not writing, Kate is a children's book publisher. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, Harry, three horses, and one grandcat.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2008 by Kate Klimo
Illustrations copyright © 2008 by John Shroades

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Klimo, Kate.
The dragon in the sock drawer / by Kate Klimo; with illustrations by John Shroades.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(Dragon keepers; #1)
Summary: Cousins Jesse and Daisy always knew they would have a magical adventure, but they are not prepared when the “thunder egg” Jesse has found turns out to be a dragon egg that is about to hatch.
[1. Dragons—Fiction. 2. Animals—Infancy—Fiction. 3. Cousins—Fiction. 4. Eggs—Fiction.] I. Shroades, John, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.K67896Dra 2008 [Fic]—dc22 2007042306

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eISBN: 978-0-375-89246-2

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