Dragon Keepers #1: The Dragon in the Sock Drawer (7 page)

The next morning, Uncle Joe was already out in the Rock Shop when Jesse and Daisy brought Emmy downstairs to the kitchen. Daisy gave Emmy some lettuce leaves for breakfast. The dragon was still hungry, so Jesse fed her a whole tub of cottage cheese, then a chunk of Swiss cheese, some strawberry yogurt, a pint of coleslaw, and five small balls of mozzarella.

“She's like the Very Hungry Caterpillar!” Daisy declared.

“Hmmm,” said Jesse thoughtfully, staring at Emmy's belly, which was bulging now.

Daisy lifted her up and tucked her into the hood of Jesse's sweatshirt. “She feels heavier today. Does she feel heavier to you?” Daisy asked.

“Well, of course she does. She just ate practically half the refrigerator,” said Jesse, adjusting his hood.

“Poppy won't notice the missing food, but my mom will for sure when she gets back,” said Daisy. “I guess we'll just have to tell her we're in training for something.”

“In training to be Dragon Keepers,” said Jesse with a short laugh.

Daisy put the copies of the sign in a big brown envelope and fastened it to the back of her bike with a bungee cord. Then they got on their bikes and rode into town. They stopped at every shop along Main Street and asked each shopkeeper if it was okay to put up a sign. Most of the shopkeepers were happy to let Jesse and Daisy post the signs. But when the owner of the dry cleaner's said he did not allow signs, that was okay with the cousins.

If nobody in Goldmine City ever saw a single sign, that would be fine with Jesse and Daisy. After all, Emmy had chosen them. They were the Dragon Keepers.

When they had placed the very last sign in the window of the coffee shop, Emmy, who had been watching in silence from the hood, scrambled up onto Jesse's shoulder, lifted her head, and yodeled, “Fooooood!”

“Shhhhhh!” said Daisy. “You just ate!”

“Em. Meee. Eat. More!” she said.

“Soon,” said Jesse.

“Not. Soon,” said Emmy. “Feed. Em. Meee. NOW!”

The cousins raced back home to boil some eggs.

“Let's boil the whole carton,” said Daisy. “We can make deviled eggs for snacks, and that way we won't waste any.”

As soon as the hard-boiled eggs were cool enough, they peeled them, put the shells in a bowl, and took Emmy out into the backyard. They watched her as she sat in the old sandbox and crunched her way through the eggshells.

After a while, Jesse said, “I think we need to measure her.”

“I know what you mean,” said Daisy. “But I'm almost afraid to.” She got up, went into the house, and came back with the tape measure. She measured Emmy twice to make sure. Emmy was now eight inches long.

“Twice as long as yesterday, to be exact,” said Daisy.

“Great,” Jesse said gloomily.

“What if she doubles her size every day?” Daisy asked.

“She's not going to fit in the sock drawer much longer, that's for sure,” Jesse said.

Daisy opened up her wildflower notebook and started writing on the back page. Jesse went to sit beside her so he could see what she was up to.

         

Day 1–4 inches

Day 2–8 inches

Day 3–16 inches

Day 4–32 inches

         

Daisy stopped writing and tossed her pencil over her shoulder. “Jeesh!” she said.

“How big do you think she's going to be when Aunt Maggie gets back?” Jesse asked worriedly.

Daisy dropped her head into her hands.

Jesse went on: “You know how she had that meltdown yesterday in the barn? That was a four-inch tantrum….”

Jesse didn't need to continue, because Daisy was nodding. They were both thinking,
What would a
sixty-
four-inch meltdown look like?

“How are we going to afford food when she gets that big? She's eating a lot now. How much is she going to need when she gets bigger? And where are we going to put her? And how are we going to keep her hidden?” Jesse was working himself into a real sweat.

Daisy lifted her head and said with a weary smile, “Take it easy, Dragon Keeper. First Kilimanjaro, then Everest, right? Let's check in with the professor. Maybe he can help.”

Daisy was just gathering up Emmy when the phone in the kitchen rang. Uncle Joe banged open the screen door of the Rock Shop and ran across the yard, up the back steps, and into the house. He caught the phone on the eighth ring. The cousins waited and crossed their fingers.

After a while, Uncle Joe kicked open the back door. He was still talking on the phone. From where the cousins were sitting, he did not look happy.

Uncle Joe crooked a finger at them.

Emmy let Jesse pop her into the pouch of his sweatshirt. As the cousins went up the steps to the back door, Jesse felt the new weight of Emmy swinging.

“No yakking,” he whispered to the load in his sweatshirt.

“Em. Mee. Not. Yak,” Emmy whispered back.

Uncle Joe put the phone to his chest and said to them in a low voice, “Looks like those signs of yours did the trick. This is the lizard's owner I'm talking to. He's coming over to get her.”

When Uncle Joe saw the look on their faces, he held up his hand. “Easy now. You'll recall I said that I knew a lizard that rare-looking probably belonged to somebody,” he said. “And this isn't just anybody. He just joined the zoology department at the College of Mining and Science. He's a well-regarded herpetologist.”

“Well-regarded? A well-regarded
what
?” said Daisy. Jesse could tell that she was fighting tears.

“Herpetologist,” said Uncle Joe. “A scientist who studies lizards and snakes and reptiles. I'm afraid I'll have to let him come over and get his lost lizard. I'm really very sorry, guys, but that's the way the limestone crumbles.”

Uncle Joe shrugged sadly, then went back into the kitchen to give the herpetologist directions.

The cousins stared at each other in shock. Slowly, they turned around and walked back to the sandbox. Emmy had heard it all. When Jesse removed her from the pouch and set her down in the sand, she spat out a fine spray of eggshell.

“Em. Mee. Not. Go!” she growled.

“We're sorry, Emmy,” said Jesse, kneeling before her. His voice was tight. “We don't have much choice.”

“Em. Meee. Sad!” she keened, and keeled over into the sand.

They took her up to Jesse's room, where she curled into a tight little ball of scales. Jesse placed her gently in the sock drawer and stared at her glumly.

Daisy came to stand beside him, blinking away tears. She almost never cried, but this was a losing battle. “We need to get in touch with Professor Andersson now,” she said.

“No!” said Jesse, thinking of the blazing eyes of their online advisor. “He's going to be so mad at us!”

“But don't we have to tell him?” Daisy asked.

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don't know,” he said.

“Some Dragon Keepers we turned out to be,” she said.

Jesse nodded, staring down at Emmy, who was once more as silent as a thunder egg. “We've only had her, what? Not even two days? It feels like my whole life! And now we're losing her.”

Not long afterward, the doorbell rang, filling the house with the melody Uncle Joe had programmed it to play: “Rock of Ages.”

“What if we just say no? What if we tell him, tough luck, he can't have Emmy?” Jesse said in a panic.

“I don't think Poppy would let us do that,” Daisy said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “This guy might be a giant fibber. But so are we. And we fibbed first.”

“What if we hide her and say she ran away?” said Jesse.

Daisy said, “Hasn't fibbing gotten us into enough trouble already?”

“Guys!” Uncle Joe called from downstairs. “Can you bring the lizard down?”

Daisy heaved a huge sigh. “Let's get this over with.”

Jesse, nodding, reached into the sock drawer and took Emmy into his hands. She felt lifeless. He didn't even need the purple kneesock, but Daisy stuffed it in her pocket anyway.

They clomped down the stairs side by side, preparing themselves to hand over their baby dragon to a complete stranger. But Jesse froze when he saw who was standing in the front hall next to Uncle Joe.

It was the man in the long black coat from High Peak. Uncle Joe had a polite smile plastered across his face. He said, “Guys, meet the man who's lost his lizard. This is Dr. St. George.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

FINDERS, CHEATERS

Jesse's first thought was that Dr. St. George didn't
look
like a Dragon Slayer. He looked like a movie star. Jesse and his parents had once been bumped up to first class on a flight. A famous movie actor had been sitting across the aisle from them. Jesse couldn't stop staring at him. In the movies, the star had looked tall and handsome. Up close, he was much shorter, and his head looked huge. He was still handsome, but he was almost
too
handsome.

This man fascinated Jesse in much the same way. His big, handsome puppet head was covered with long, wavy hair the color of tarnished gold. Behind the round lenses of his wire-rim glasses, Dr. St. George's eyes were so dark and shiny, they looked varnished.

“My prize!” Dr. St. George said in a voice that was deep and low and sweet to the ear. Jesse sneaked a look at Daisy, who was staring at the stranger with her jaw hanging open.

“I'm glad the kids could help,” said Uncle Joe. “What is this lizard anyway, Dr. St. George? The guys here thought she was a green basilisk from Costa Rica.”

“An amateur might jump to such a conclusion,” Dr. St. George said. “But she is a
Mekosuchus inexpectatus
from the island of New Caledonia. She was found in the hold of a ship that put in from the South Seas. The captain brought her to me. He didn't realize that it was the discovery of the century. You see, there hasn't been a
Mekosuchus inexpectatus
sighting since the year 1643.”

St. George spoke in a voice so mesmerizing, Jesse found himself almost believing what he said, even though he knew it wasn't true.

“Gee,” said Uncle Joe. “Did you hear that, guys? This little lizard could wind up being on the evening news!”

“Dragon piddle,” Jesse managed to say.

St. George brought his face close to Jesse's. Jesse recoiled. The man had shockingly bad breath.

“What did you just say?” St. George whispered.

Jesse felt a bit faint. “I said, dra—” But he winced and broke off, feeling a searing pain in his left arm where Daisy had dug her nails into his flesh.

“He wants to learn to play the
wagon fiddle,
” she told St. George in a steady voice. “It's his very favorite instrument, isn't it, Jess?” She gave Jesse a most stern look, and he nodded obediently.

“Oh, yeah. Wagon fiddle,” Jesse said. “It's a real old instrument. The early settlers brought them here in their, um, covered wagons.”

Daisy nodded enthusiastically. “Really,” she said.

“Hmmm,” said Uncle Joe. “That's a new one on me.”

Dr. St. George turned slowly back to Uncle Joe. “I have some tests to do to prove my theory. But I am never wrong.”

“Wait a sec. What kinds of tests?” Jesse blurted out.

“Far too complex for a mere child to grasp,” said St. George, smiling at Jesse with perfect teeth.

Jesse seethed while Dr. St. George turned back to Uncle Joe and continued: “Some idiot assistant in my lab left the cage wide open two days ago. I gave him such a dressing-down. Imagine, letting my prize escape like that!” He opened a big black leather box by his feet and took out a cage with thick iron bars. It looked like the world's smallest jail cell.

“You're not going to put her in there, are you?” Jesse asked in a quavering voice.

“How would you suggest I transport her, other than in a cage?” St. George asked, looking down his nose.

Jesse glanced out the window. In front of the house was the big black million-dollar car.

Beside him, Daisy sniffled and blew her nose.

St. George reached out to take Emmy. Like lightning, Emmy uncurled from her ball and hissed at him.

“Whoa, Nelly,” said Uncle Joe, taking one giant step backward.

St. George had leaped back, too. Without taking his eyes off Emmy, he pointed at Jesse and said, “You, boy, put her in the cage for me. She has grown violent in the last forty-eight hours.”

“It must be the cage,” said Jesse in a low growl. But all the same, he put Emmy in the cage. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do. Emmy seemed to understand, because she didn't lash out at him or spit at him. She only went limp and dull. Even her eyes had lost their glow.

“Good-bye, my sweet little Emmy,” said Daisy with a feeble wave of her fingers. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her nose was running.

“Sorry, Emmy,” Jesse told the little dragon. He wanted to add,
Don't worry. We'll think of something.
But at the moment he had no idea what that something would or could be.

St. George was staring at both of them as if they had just burst into flame. “What did you just call it?” he whispered.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Jesse asked.

St. George's eyes pinned Jesse to the wall like a pair of darts. “You heard me.
What name did you just call it?
”

“We call her Esmeralda,” he said. For some odd reason, Jesse felt it was important to keep Emmy's real name from St. George.

Daisy caught on immediately. “Yeah, after Cinderella's ugly stepsister,” she added. “You know, because she's not really very beautiful…. Although to us, she is….” Daisy's voice trailed off miserably.

Jesse held his breath. Cinderella's stepsisters were Anastasia and Drizella, but maybe St. George wouldn't know that.

St. George's eyes narrowed, and he said, “Hmmm. Well, I have to be going now. I have tests to do.”

“Wait a minute,” said Daisy. She pulled up the hem of her T-shirt and wiped away her tears. Then she took the purple kneesock out of her pocket. “She needs this.”

St. George stared at the sock suspiciously. “Why?”

“It's far too complex for a mere
grown-up
to grasp,” Jesse said through his teeth. “She just needs it, St. George.”

“That's
Dr.
St. George,” he said. “And where I come from, one pronounces it
Sin
George.”

“Does one?” said Jesse, dearly wishing he would go back to wherever he came from and leave them their dragon.

Daisy pushed the purple kneesock between the bars of Emmy's cage. The little dragon grasped it in her forepaws and buried her face in it.

St. George fastened the latch. He lowered the cage into the box and snapped it shut. “Good day to you all,” he said, lifting the case. Then he walked out the door, his coattails flapping behind him like a cape.

Uncle Joe stared at him. Then he took off his
ROCK STAR
cap and tugged thoughtfully at his ponytail. “Did you guys happen to notice that the man never even said thank you?”

         

The moment Jesse shut his bedroom door, Daisy exploded. “You
what
?”

Being the target of Daisy's wrath was not comfortable. She sat down hard on Noah's bed, and he sat on Aaron's. On the carpet between them there were still bits of green and gold sparkling in the pile.

Jesse repeated what he had said to her on the way up the stairs: “I saw St. George's car parked outside our house the night before last.”

“And yesterday, on the way to town…you saw it
again
?”

Jesse nodded, bowing his head. “Outside Miss Alodie's. And the day before, earlier, I saw him up on High Peak. I guess you and Uncle Joe were too busy to notice him. But I did. I knew he was following us…. Well, I did and I didn't…. I thought he might be, but I just wasn't sure.”

“But why didn't you
say
anything to me?” she said. “If I had known, we could have come up with a plan!”

Jesse knew Daisy was right. It all seemed very obvious to him now, but at the time…“I guess I didn't want to worry you if it was nothing,” he said. “And all this stuff was happening…the thunder egg, and Emmy hatching, and getting her fed, and Professor Andersson—”

Daisy interrupted him. “We're supposed to tell each other
everything
! Isn't that what we pledged we'd do if we ever had a magical adventure? Keep the faith and tell each other
everything
? Jesse Tiger, I swear, you're worse than Edmund.” Frowning, she folded her arms across her chest and looked away from him.

Jesse shook his head sadly. In
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,
Lucy's brother Edmund had been horrid, at least when he first entered into Narnia. Jesse wondered if he was really being
that
bad. Having a magical adventure was turning into a much more serious business than he had ever imagined it would be.

Daisy pounded her fists on her knees. “Oh, all
right
! I'm sorry I said you were worse than Edmund. That was mean.” She sighed. “You're not horrid. And it's stupid for us to fight. We need to help Emmy, not fight about her. Let's ask Professor Andersson what to do.”

Jesse bit his lip. He knew she was right.

He went over to the desk, dropped into the chair, switched on the computer, and waited stonily for it to boot up. As soon as the professor's stern and ancient face came up on the screen, Jesse steeled himself, clicked the mouse, and began to tell him everything, starting with “There was this big black car….” He spoke quickly, and he told the truth about how he had ignored the car, how they had put up the signs, how they had played right into the hands of the Dragon Slayer, and how they had lost their baby dragon.

The screen remained still and silent for such a long time that Jesse wondered if Professor Andersson had abandoned the site, leaving only his picture behind. The cousins watched his face nervously.

“Maybe you were speaking Slurvian,” said Daisy. “Maybe he didn't understand you. Maybe you need to enunciate succinctly.”

Jesse took a deep breath and began again. “There was this big black—”

“I HEARD YOU!” the professor thundered at them.

Jesse and Daisy shrank from the screen.

“We're really, really, really, really sorry,” said Jesse in a small voice.

Professor Andersson scowled and said, “Do not waste precious time on self-recrimination.”

“On
what
?” Jesse whispered to Daisy.

“Do not feel too badly,” the professor explained. “No doubt you meant well. Saint George is a formidable opponent, and now at least you know what and whom you are up against.”

Jesse said, “But he's a grown-up and we're just kids.”

“YOU ARE DRAGON KEEPERS!” Professor Andersson roared. “Now stop sniveling and find a way to get her back. It is Saint George's intention to slay your dragon and drink her blood.”

Daisy gasped.

“You have some time,” the professor said. “He will not slake his thirst until she has attained a certain size.”

“What size?” Jesse asked.

“I daresay you have until the end of a fortnight,” he said. “A month, perhaps. It is difficult to make an accurate prediction. Each dragon grows at its own rate. And this is the first dragon born into this age—environmental influences may have some bearing.”

Daisy nodded solemnly.

“Whatever that means,” muttered Jesse.

“In the first four or five days of life,” Professor Andersson went on, “dragons double their size every day. At that rate, by the end of two weeks she should be sufficiently sizable to—”

“Okay, okay, we get it!” Jesse said, feeling sick.

The professor's face softened. He said gently, “Your distress is not unwarranted. This could spell doom, not only for Emerald, but for the world.”

“The
world
!” echoed Jesse in a hushed voice. He and Daisy exchanged looks. This was even more serious than they had thought.

Daisy placed her hand over Jesse's on the mouse and clicked. Then she leaned toward the screen and asked loudly, “How can we get her back? Can you tell us, please?”

“You are the dragon's keepers. You must find the way,” Professor Andersson replied. “But know this: For as long as I can remember, Saint George has always had only one true master. And that is
greed.
”

Then came the now-familiar grinding sound and the blank screen.

Jesse shook his fist. “I wish he wouldn't keep doing that,” he said.

Daisy drummed her fingers on the back of Jesse's chair. “Did you happen to notice he called her Emerald?” she said thoughtfully. “He said this thing could spell doom for
Emerald.
”

“I heard. That's her name, isn't it?” Jesse said crossly, pounding the keys, trying in vain to get the site back.

“It's the name you gave her, all right. But I don't think we ever told him that,” she said. “In fact, I'm one hundred percent sure we didn't.”

         

The next morning, they ate their bowls of cereal standing over the sink. Neither tasted its crunchy goodness, but both knew they would need energy for the plan they had come up with the night before. Uncle Joe was sitting at the table with a notebook and a pile of rocks. With a sharp pencil, in tiny handwriting, he was writing a long column of numbers and letters and symbols.