Dragon Keepers #3: The Dragon in the Library (7 page)

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Emmy! Now, this is my idea of the perfect pet. We're glad you could join us."

Emmy sat up tall and dutifully offered him her right paw. "Oh, my! What manners!" said the librarian, shaking the paw. "And would Ms. Emmy care for a party hat?"

"Sure, she would," Daisy said, with hearty enthusiasm. "Wouldn't you, Em?"

Emmy whined.

"I'll let you do the honors." Mr. Stenson handed Daisy a party hat with an elastic chin strap. Daisy knelt and fit the hat carefully on Emmy's head, then stood back to admire the effect of the sparkly silver paper princess tiara. Emmy looked up at her Keepers with reproachful eyes.

"She's the belle of the ball," Mr. Stenson said.

"She is, isn't she? Um, Mr. Stenson?" Daisy was just about to ask him whether it would be all right if they checked out the card catalog on the grown-up side of the library, but Mr. Stenson was reciting the rules for them.

"We keep the dogs on leashes and the rodents, lizards, birds, and other critters in their cages. No feeding the animals people food and no teasing, prodding, poking, or otherwise provoking the animals."

"Got it," said Daisy. "Would it be okay--" she started again.

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"Would you kids excuse me? I see more guests arriving," Mr. Stenson said as he breezed away, leaving Jesse and Daisy standing in the middle of the floor. They looked around. The long wooden reading tables had been shoved off to the sides, leaving a wide-open space for kids and their pets to mill around in. One of the tables held cages filled with smaller animals, like lizards and hamsters. A single goldfish flitted nervously around in a small bowl.

"I bet no one would notice if we just sneaked over there," Daisy said.

"Since we don't have our invisible pills, I think we should probably try asking first," said Jesse. He cleared his throat and said, "Hello, Mrs. Thackeray?"

Mrs. Thackeray, the weekend librarian, was wearing an oversize hot-pink T-shirt that declared her to be a Library Goddess. She was kneeling before a cat carrier and cooing at the large tabby cat staring dismally out the small mesh window. Their party hats in disarray, the canine guests were dragging their masters toward the carrier.

"Hey, kids," said Mrs. Thackeray, not taking her eyes off the cat in the carrier. "Poor kitty. She's scared witless. Can't say that I blame her. It's a dog's world here tonight."

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"Mrs. Thackeray," Jesse said, "would it be all right if Daisy and I went over and looked at the grown-up card catalog? There's this book that we really, really need...."

Mrs. Thackeray sat back on her heels and peered at him curiously over the rhinestone rims of her eyeglasses. "Why in the world would you want to do a thing like that, Jesse? You're here to party, you two! Or should I say, you three! Now, go play video games with the rest of the mob."

Most of the other kids were, sure enough, over in the computer lab, crowded around a single station whose
bloops, blops, blips
, and
zaps
indicated that a video tournament was underway. Jesse and Daisy dumped the backpack and their sleeping bags in the big pile along with everyone else's stuff. Jesse handed Daisy the leash.

"Okay," said Jesse. "We asked nicely, and now we have to take the law into our own hands. I'm going to try and cross the orange tape and get to the card catalog. Wish me luck."

"Good luck," Daisy said solemnly, and watched him wander off casually in the direction of the orange tape. She carried their dish over to the food table and busied herself reading the labels on some of the other dishes: CLIFFORD THE BIG RED HOT DOG CHILI; WILBUR THE PIGS IN BLANKETS; BUNNICULA'S

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CARROT COCKTAIL NIBLETS; LASSIE COME HOME FRIES. Daisy printed a label for their dish, HIGGLETY PIGGLETY CARAMEL CORN POPS, and set it down between CHOCOLATE CRICKETS IN TIMES SQUARE and BALTO'S MALTED MILK BALL SOUFFLÉ. Emmy began to whine and roll her eyes. Daisy turned around, expecting to see some dog with its nose in her butt.

Instead she saw six dogs crouched in a shy half circle, staring at Emmy, heads all cocked to the same side. They looked nothing if not bewildered. Daisy wondered whether the dogs sensed deep down that Emmy was not really one of them.

"My dog's a registered purebred," boasted Dewey Forbes, the poodle's owner. Daisy had known Dewey since kindergarten.

"Emmy's purebred, too," Daisy said, straightening the paper tiara.

"Yeah? Well, since when do purebred sheepdogs have
forked
tongues?" Dewey asked.

Emmy pulled in her tongue and shut her mouth with a snap. Sheepdogs didn't have emerald-green eyes, either, but apparently that detail had escaped Dewey's attention. People tended to notice the forked tongue, so Daisy always had an explanation ready. "She tried to lick a frozen water pump one winter morning and it split the

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tip of her tongue in half," Daisy said to Dewey.

Jesse joined them. "Have
you
ever tried to lick a frozen pump, Dewey?" he asked. "You should try it sometime."

"Should not," Dewey countered. "Because that would be dumb. Your dog must not be very smart."

An offended little growl escaped Emmy.

"Poodles are the smartest breed going," Dewey said. "Watch this." He held up two fingers, and the big poodle stood at attention. "Sit, Loretta."

Loretta the poodle sat.

"Down, Loretta."

Loretta crouched on the floor.

"Roll over, Loretta."

Loretta rolled over.

Dewey folded his arms across his chest and gave them a smug, satisfied look. "So?"

"So?" Jesse said.

Daisy looked unimpressed. Emmy opened her mouth, forked tongue and all, and yawned widely.

"So? I bet your stupid fork-tongued sheepdog can't do that," Dewey said.

"Why would she even
want
to?" Jesse said. "Those are boring tricks. Emmy can do
interesting
tricks, can't you, Emmy? Emmy, go fetch the backpack."

Emmy went over to the big pile of backpacks

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and found theirs right away. She picked it up in her mouth by the strap and trotted back to Jesse, setting it at his feet.

"Good girl!" Daisy said, giving Dewey an I-told-you-so look.

"Open the backpack now, Emmy," Jesse said.

A crowd of kids and pets had gathered around to watch the performance. Emmy held the bag down with her forepaws while she took the small tab between her teeth and unzipped the top of the backpack.

The crowd let out an "Ooooooh!" of approval.

Jesse held up a hand to show they were not finished yet. "Okay, Emmy, now find the doggie book," he said.

Emmy poked her nose inside the backpack and pulled out
Higglety Pigglety Pop!
or
There Must Be More to Life
.

"Thanks, Em. Now show us how you can read the doggie book...all by yourself." Jesse looked around at the crowd. "She can read. She really can. She taught herself."

Emmy set the book on the floor. Then, nosing it open to the first page, she began to bark in a rhythm that sounded remarkably like the opening paragraph of Maurice Sendak's famous book.

While the kids, pets, and the two librarians

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stood around and listened, Daisy moved closer to Jesse and spoke to him out of the corner of her mouth. "So. Did you break through to the other side?"

Jesse shook his head and said, "That girl with the snake cornered me. I think she was hoping I'd be scared, but I told her I used to own an African rock python twice as long when we lived in Africa. She let me hold him. He's pretty nice. His name is Slick. You should check him out."

"No, thanks," Daisy said. "The only thing I want to check out is the book on the historic homes of Goldmine City."

"At the rate we're going, we're going to have to wait until everyone's asleep later tonight," said Jesse.

Just then, the crowd in the library burst into loud applause.

Daisy looked around. "What's going on? Why is everyone clapping?" she asked.

"They're clapping because our dog knows how to read," Jesse said.

Daisy shook her head slowly and sighed. "If they only knew what other tricks she can do!"

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Chapter 5 CHAPTER FIVE DRAGON HEAVEN

Emmy lifted her head from the book with a look of becoming modesty. But the look she shot Jesse said something more like
When can we get out of here and spring the professor from that dame's dungeon?

"That was great, girl!" Jesse said, kneeling and

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burying his nose in Emmy's fur, which still bore the faintest scent of hot chili peppers.

Daisy whispered, "Don't you think you got a little carried away?"

Jesse spoke through clenched teeth.
"Nobody calls our dog dumb and gets away with it."

Mr. Stenson clapped his hands loudly. "Okay, kids. Now, did everybody follow the rules and feed your pets their dinner before you came tonight?"

"I fed mine crickets," a boy said.

"I fed mine a live rat," the little girl with the python said.

"I fed mine mealworms!" someone else said.

"Okay, okay, kids, thanks for sharing," said Mr. Stenson, holding up his hands. "I'm glad your pets all have full tummies, because we humans are about to fill ours, and no
begging
pets are allowed in this library tonight."

Mrs. Thackeray, the Library Goddess, dealt out paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils as everybody lined up and filed past the food table, piling their plates high with the various pet-inspired dishes.

They had finished eating and had stuffed their dirty plates into the big plastic garbage bag when Mr. Stenson directed them to arrange their sleeping bags in a circle on the floor. Jesse and Daisy took

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care to situate themselves on the outermost edge of the circle, closest to the adult section. Mr. Stenson and Mrs. Thackeray had placed their sleeping bags in the middle of the circle next to a large electric lantern that Mr. Stenson had enthusiastically designated as their campfire.

After they had all lined up to brush their teeth and wash their faces in the library lavatory, it was story time. Mr. Stenson invited them, one by one, to come into the center of the circle and read aloud a few pages from the story they had chosen.

Jesse sat cross-legged on top of his sleeping bag and held the Sendak book to his chest, waiting for his turn to read. Jesse might be shy, but he was a much better public reader than Daisy. For some reason not even she understood, Daisy's voice just disappeared when she had to read aloud. Emmy burrowed into Daisy's sleeping bag and turned around with her nose poking out the top. Daisy wrapped her arms around Emmy and used her as a pillow. Megan Lowe, a prim fifth grader, opened her book and began to read aloud about a cat that had traveled with the pilgrims on the
Mayflower
.

The girl's droning voice quickly made Daisy as drowsy as a feaster with a belly full of turkey. She wondered whether the professor was allowed to eat anything in the tower. Was Sadie Huffington

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feeding him bread and water, or raw meat?

Then Kevin O'Hanlon, who had brought a fence lizard, read the opening chapter of
Farewell, My Lunchbag
, featuring lizard sleuth Chet Gecko. Daisy kept falling asleep and snapping awake. Were those big black dogs naturally vicious, or had Sadie Huffington bewitched them into being that way?

Next came the girl who had brought the lone goldfish. Daisy knew her only as the soon-to-be third grader who was always organizing games of wild horses on the playground. Her parents, Tina explained, had given her the goldfish, when what she really wanted was a horse. She tossed her long mane of hair and read aloud from
Black Beauty
, a deeply sad passage that Daisy only half heard.

Daisy kept her eyes open just long enough to find out what Dewey Forbes had brought to read. It was
Poodles for Pinheads
, and if you didn't happen to own a poodle, it was a real snooze.

She hoped Jesse would forgive her for missing his reading of
Higglety Pigglety Pop!
, because she really couldn't keep her eyes open another second.

Jesse's eyes snapped open. Someone had just poked him with something sharp, in the small of the back. He lifted his head and looked behind him, but no one was there. Everyone was curled up, fast asleep,

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wrapped in the folds of their sleeping bags. The lights were out, the air-conditioner rumbled, and the full moon shone in the big front windows of the library, washing the spines of all the books in a pale, silvery light.

He sat up and reached over to shake Daisy awake, and she popped up. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, then automatically ran the fingers of one hand through her bedhead hair while she tapped Emmy on the shoulder. The sheepdog lifted her head and shook herself awake, rattling the gold locket on her collar.

Daisy put her finger to her lips. "Shhhhh." She pointed to the other side of the library. Jesse pointed to the backpack. Daisy nodded and grabbed it.

Easing themselves out of their sleeping bags, they tiptoed away from the circle of sleepers and ducked under the orange tape. Finally, they made it onto the altogether less-familiar side of the library, where the grown-up books were. The grown-ups' card catalog computer, which Jesse had been eyeing all night long, sat on a small table near the librarian's desk. They approached it.

Jesse groped around for the computer switch. The screen lit up and the computer made a whirring sound, followed by a loud
voop
. He shot an anxious look over at the children's side. But all he heard was