Dragon Keepers #3: The Dragon in the Library (6 page)

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chewing on a long blade of grass. "What makes you so sure?" he asked.

"Just before you guys let go of me? I saw these two giant black dogs patrolling the ramparts just outside the big tower. I swear, they were the biggest, scariest dogs I've ever seen. Their tongues were dark blue and their teeth were...I don't even like to think of those teeth. Those vicious dogs have a job to do--and that's guarding the very important prisoner in the tower. I'm sure of it."

Jesse nodded. "They
sounded
big, like maybe Tibetan mastiffs. I wouldn't want to tangle with
one
of those, let alone two. Well, if they're guarding the professor, then we need to find a way around them."

"But how?" Daisy said. "We can't leave him there much longer! Who knows what she has planned for him."

Jesse sat there in the buzzing weeds and thought hard. "I've got it!" he said after a moment. "We go to the library and look for a book about the historic homes of Goldmine City. The castle is bound to be in it. Maybe it'll have floor plans and we can find a way to get into the tower without passing the mastiffs."

"Brilliant!" said Daisy, scrambling to her feet. "Let's go."

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Emmy leaped up, too, and yipped with enthusiasm.

They retrieved their bikes and took off, the cool breeze drying their sweaty backs as they coasted downhill into town. Parking in the rack in front of the library, they climbed up the wide stone steps. Daisy knelt to fasten Emmy's leash to the Chicken Box while Jesse grabbed ahold of one of the big brass door handles and pulled. The door didn't budge. It was locked. He tried the other door. That one was locked, too. He cupped his hands to the glass and peered into the library. The lights were off. "It's closed!" he said with a groan. "In the middle of a weekday! How could they do this to us? Why?"

Daisy pointed to the handwritten note taped to the door.

Temporarily closed. Preparing for the Pets Allowed Party. See you at six!

"Right. Forgot all about that," said Jesse.

Daisy vibrated with impatience. "Where are you, Mr. Stenson?" She turned to Jesse. "Do you think he's in the back room? I bet if we knock real hard, he'll come. I'm sure he'll let us in to get a book. He's got to. I mean, we have special privileges.

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This is an emergency. How could he say no?"

With Jesse and Daisy pounding on the door and Emmy throwing herself against it, they managed to kick up quite a ruckus. But no one came. Finally, they quit banging and leaned their hot foreheads against the cool glass. Suddenly, Daisy straightened and cried out, "Jess, look! Somebody's in there. See? Over there, by the dinky water fountain?"

Next to the low water fountain, the one for the littlest kids, Jesse saw someone a good deal smaller and odder-looking than a little kid. It looked like a he, with a flimsy little torso and long, gangling arms and legs and a great big noggin--sort of like one of the house-elves in the Harry Potter books, only dustier-looking and with sharper features. Everything about his head was sharp: the bones of his skull, the big nose that hooked down and the big chin that hooked up, the jutting cheekbones, the pointy ears, and the piercing eyes that turned up at the corners--all topped off with a tuft of hair the color of dust bunnies. And this very peculiar-looking creature was, at that very moment, staring directly at them...and beckoning!

Emmy let out a shrill bark and the creature jumped into the air, darted across the library, and disappeared into the adult stacks.

They stood for a while, noses pressed to the

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glass, hoping the funny little guy would reappear. Emmy wouldn't quit barking, so eventually the cousins gave up.

"What was it, do you think?" Daisy whispered to Jesse, her eyes round with wonder.

Emmy barked once.

"I don't know, but I think Emmy does," Jesse said. "Let's get her home quick and find out." When Jesse unfastened Emmy's leash from the Chicken Box, she practically yanked his arm out of the socket dragging him down the library stairs. It was all Jesse could do to get on his bike and fit his feet on the pedals as Emmy pulled Jesse homeward, with Daisy pumping like mad to keep up with them.

The moment they shut the garage door, Emmy unmasked into a dragon. The first breathless words out of her mouth were
"That was a shelf elf!"

"Really?" asked Daisy.

"What's a shelf elf?" asked Jesse. "And can it help us find the professor?"

Emmy squeezed her eyes shut in thought, then opened them. "Beats me." She hung her head in shame. "Some dragon I am. I have no idea what a shelf elf is or whether he can help us find the professor."

"Well, whatever he is, I think you pretty much

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scared him away with all that barking," Daisy said.

Emmy sank down onto her haunches and looked even more miserable. "I ruin everything in the end, don't I?" she said.

Daisy said, "You were excited, that's all."

"Believe me," Jesse put in. "If I were a dog, I would have barked my
head
off. That thing was
amazing."

"He was," Daisy agreed. "And the party is tonight, so maybe we'll get a chance to see him again.
And
find the book that will help us get into the tower and rescue the professor."

"But we can't just sit around until then. We need to
do
something!" Jesse said.

"If I don't do something to cool myself down," Daisy said, "my brain's going to boil over and I'm not going to be much use to anyone, including the professor. Let's go take a dunk in the brook."

"And then we can go to the barn and visit the Museum of Magic collection," Jesse said. "Remember, Miss Alodie said that's where we should go when in doubt, which we are."

After putting their bathing suits on under their shorts and throwing together a late picnic lunch, the cousins and Emmy left for the Dell. As they had done so many times before, they walked to the rear of the backyard, crawled through the tunnel in the

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laurel bushes, and poked their heads out into the Dell. That was their name for the abandoned dairy barn and the pasturelands surrounding it, which were divided by a brook. Normally, Emmy would have transformed into a dragon the instant she emerged from the laurels, but today she had made a grudging promise to remain masked.

"Just in case Sadie Huffington has any spies lurking," Jesse said.

They walked along the brook until it widened into a crystalline pool beneath the branches of their favorite weeping willow, its delicate green fronds trailing in the water.

"Hey, Willow!" Jesse called up to it.

"Mind if we borrow a piece of your shade?" Daisy asked.

"We'll just be a few minutes," said Jesse. "Then we have things to do."

The weeping willow fluttered some of its long green fingers toward them, lightly brushing the cousins' faces. Since there wasn't even a whisper of a breeze that day, Jesse knew that this was the dryad spirit inside the tree welcoming them into his shade. Earlier in the summer, St. George had imprisoned the hobgoblin queen beneath the ground in this willow's root-ball. Neither willow nor hobgoblin had been very happy with the arrangement.

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With his root-ball no longer weighed down by a goblin, the willow seemed positively perky now...for a weeping willow, at least.

Jesse and Daisy spread their towels out in its dappled shade and stripped down to their bathing suits.

Daisy was the first to wade in. Even in the deepest parts, the brook wasn't very deep. The water came up only to Daisy's chest, but Jesse knew it was as cold as the Arctic Ocean. She pinched her nose and ducked right under. It took Jesse a little longer to get wet. He liked to get used to the frigid water one toe at a time. But Emmy bombed ahead of him and then bounded out for a good long shake of her sopping wet coat...all over Jesse.

All three of them stayed in the freezing cold water until Daisy's lips began to turn blue, then they crawled out onto the bank to dry out and eat their lunch.

They had finished eating and Jesse and Daisy were packing up when they heard Emmy barking. She was standing on the other side of the brook, tail rigid, head raised, barking fit to bust.

The cousins gathered their things together and waded across the nearest shallow spot in the brook. Emmy turned and ran across the pasture toward

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the barn. By the time Jesse slid the big barn door closed behind them, Emmy was already unmasked and hunkered down over the makeshift table--old planks laid across sawhorses--that held their collection.

If you didn't know any better, you would think it was just a bunch of old junk: a farmer's ancient three-legged milking stool, some rusty old horseshoes, antique hinges, animal skulls, pressed flowers, pinecones, and a crusty old metal ball about the size of a peach. The cousins called it the Sorcerer's Sphere.

Ever since the day she had hatched, the sphere had held a powerful fascination for Emmy. She reached down and plucked it up in her talons. "I like this!" she said, as if she were discovering it for the first time.

"We know you like it, Em." Jesse yawned widely and glanced at his wristwatch. "You've
always
liked it."

"Pack this," Emmy said, tossing Jesse the sphere.

Jesse barely managed to catch it two-handed. "For the party?" he asked.

"For the party," Emmy said.

Turning the rusty ball around in his hand, Jesse

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said slowly, "I don't know, Em. We've never taken this away from the Dell."

"Do what she says," Daisy said. "If this is what Emmy thinks we need, then this is what we're taking. Thanks for the tip, Em."

"Finally!" Emmy said. "Someone who really understands me."

Jesse was hurt. "I understand you, too, Em. I was just making sure this was the right thing to do."

"Trust the ladies," Emmy said, "and pack the sphere, Jesse Tiger."

Jesse put the sphere in the backpack. "I'm packing the sphere, ladies. Are you happy?"

"For a grumpy dragon," Emmy said, "I'm practically dancing with joy."

"And does the grumpy dragon promise to make nicey-nice with the other dogs at the party?" Jesse said.

"The grumpy dragon promises," said Emmy. "I will even let them sniff my butt."

When Uncle Joe dropped them off in front of the library, there were kids on the front walk holding cages and pet carriers, saying good night to their parents. Jesse had never seen any of the kids before. The kids he knew, Daisy's friends from school,

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either weren't coming or were still at sleepover camp. But that was okay. Since he had moved twenty-six times in his life, he was used to strangers.

Sitting in the front seat of his old truck, Uncle Joe eyed the vast amounts of stuff they had brought with them. "You guys need any help carrying?" he asked.

"No, thanks, Poppy," Daisy told him. "We're good."

Daisy grabbed the covered dish while Jesse took charge of Emmy's leash, and they each carried a sleeping bag under one arm. Jesse wriggled into the backpack, which contained, among other things, their toothbrushes, a washcloth, the Sorcerer's Sphere, and Daisy's wildflower notebook, just in case they needed to write anything down.

Daisy gave her father a peck on the cheek. "See you tomorrow. Say good night to Mom for us."

Uncle Joe reached over and mussed Jesse's brown mop of hair, which was Uncle Joe's way of hugging. "Aunt Maggie's going to ask if you packed a comb," he said.

"Of course he did," Daisy spoke for Jesse. "And maybe he'll even use it."

Jesse and Daisy went up the front walk and

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climbed the stone steps to the library. Daisy drew up short in the doorway. "Pee-yew. This place smells like a gorilla's armpit," she said.

It did smell like a zoo, but Jesse kind of liked it. The library was swarming and buzzing with all manner of pets and their keyed-up owners. Jesse counted at least twenty of each.

Peering out from between Jesse's legs, Emmy began to growl ominously.

"Nicey-nice," Jesse reminded her.

Daisy tugged at Jesse's sleeve and pointed. Jesse nodded. One half of the library, the adult section, had been blocked off with orange plastic tape. That was exactly where they had last seen the shelf elf.

"We've got to try and get over there," Daisy whispered to Jesse.

"I don't think we're allowed to cross the orange tape," said Jesse.

"Would you cross the tape if it meant helping the professor?" Daisy asked.

Jesse nodded. "I guess we've got to try and get over there."

From across the room, Mr. Stenson saw them and seemed eager to take leave of the little girl with the big snake coiled around her waist. Joining them, Mr. Stenson said, "Good evening, Ms.