The Dragon at the North Pole (13 page)

The three of them watched in utter dismay as the tip of the ship’s mast disappeared back into the abyss.

“He was just waiting for us to uncover the eggs so he could steal them!” Emmy said. “And news
flash—that isn’t an abyss, it’s a portal. Let’s go.”

Daisy walked to the edge of the portal and looked down. It was black and swirling like a tornado. It made a noise like a freight train pounding through a tunnel.

Daisy lifted her head to the lights and sang out loud and clear:

They held out their hands, and the light swords appeared.

“Thanks!” they both said. Jesse and Daisy took off their snowshoes and parked them on the edge of the portal. Then they climbed onto Emmy’s back.

Without further ado, Emmy popped her wings and dropped like a big green stone into the portal.

The descent into the portal was more like riding white-water rapids than falling into a well. Emmy’s body roiled and bucked against the current. Knuckles white and jaws clenched, Jesse and Daisy clung to her shoulder blades like a pair of rodeo riders hanging on to the horn of a bucking bronco’s saddle.

Daisy was just getting the hang of staying on Emmy’s back without wrenching her arms out of their sockets when something emerged from the whirling depths and came scuttling toward her on long hairy legs.

Daisy opened her mouth and screamed.

It was a tarantula the size of a giant tortoise. Moments later, a vampire swooped at her, flapping his long black cape and gnashing his fangs. A millipede soon followed, its thousands of toxic legs wriggling toward her.

When she had just about screamed herself hoarse, Jesse’s scream pierced her eardrum. She looked over and saw that he was swatting at a green snake whipping around his head.

“Poisonous sea snake!” he cried, arms flailing.

Then a doctor in a white coat holding a long, dripping needle came at Jesse. “No shots!” Jesse pleaded.

Meanwhile, Emmy reared up as a wolf loomed before her. To Daisy, it was just a cartoon character and not scary at all. It was wearing overalls and red suspenders, licking its chops. It was the Big Bad Wolf from “The Three Little Pigs.” As a small dragon, Emmy had been so afraid of that wolf that she had insisted on Jesse’s taping a blank piece of paper over the picture in the book.

Daisy raised her sword to defend Emmy from the Big Bad Wolf. When she sliced through the wolf as if it were nothing, Daisy understood what was happening. She was afraid of millipedes and vampires and tarantulas. Jesse feared sea snakes and getting shots. And the otherwise fearless Emmy was afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.

Daisy called out to the other two: “Beowulf spelled the portal with things that scare us! But they’re like scarecrows in a field. They’re meant to frighten us away, but they’re not real!”

“Thanks!” Emmy called back to her. She flew directly at the Big Bad Wolf, and the figment exploded around them like a burst balloon.

After that, they flew without flinching at the figments meant to send them scurrying back to the North Pole. Emmy also got the knack of working her tail like a rudder. It wasn’t long before she was riding the portal’s currents like a champion river rafter.

Ahead, Daisy saw a pinpoint of light. The pinpoint kept growing until they dropped out of the portal into a cold damp fog. The fog smelled of salt and fish and echoed with the screeching of gulls.

Gradually, the fog thinned. Beneath them, the vast gray surface of the ocean teemed with white waves. To the east, the sun rose up out of the
ocean, looking like an unripe orange.

“It’s dawn,” Jesse said. “This is about as light as it’s gonna get.”

“This is Beowulf’s home turf,” Emmy said. “Geatland.”

“Then this must be the North Sea,” Jesse said. “At least that’s where Geatland was in the legend.”

Emmy flew toward an isolated mountain of streaked limestone jutting out of the sea. Clinging to the northernmost side of the peak was a castle with towers as jagged and grim as the rock out of which it had been hewn. Moored at the foot of the island was Beowulf’s warship, its oars bristling like a millipede’s legs, its red-and-gold-striped sail tightly furled.

“Coming in for a landing!” Emmy called out as she plummeted toward the parapet atop the castle keep.

As they drew nearer, Jesse saw that the battlements were manned with warriors clad in stiff leather skirts and vests and ox-horned helmets. When they spied Emmy, they swarmed back to the keep.

No sooner had Emmy set her feet down on the parapet, Jesse and Daisy tumbling off her back, than the first of the Viking warriors arrived, pounding up the narrow stone stairway.

“This ought to hold you,” Emmy said to the cousins. She touched the tops of their heads. Instantly, they were clad in shiny green mail from head to foot.

“Dragon scales,” Emmy said. “No sword can pierce them.”

The Vikings rushed toward Jesse and Daisy, broadswords drawn. Their own light swords morphed into broadswords. Jesse and Daisy fought back to back as the warriors came at them, swinging and hacking with both hands. Meanwhile, Emmy hovered over the fray, plucking the most threatening warriors from the battlements and dropping them, kicking and screaming, into the North Sea. But as many Vikings as Emmy picked off, more came to take their places.

Suddenly, there came a sound like a foghorn blasting. Everyone froze, weapons in midair. Jesse looked down. Beowulf stood on the parapet below, one hand clutching a ram’s horn, the other holding the net of Thunder Eggs.

“Surrender, Dragon!” he bellowed. “You are outnumbered.”

Emmy roared in fury. “Never!”

Instantly, the broadswords resumed their hacking and slashing. Emmy flew down to the lower parapet and, with one sweep of her mighty tail,
knocked Beowulf off his feet and into the side of the castle. She grabbed the net of eggs as they fell from his grip. Flying the net back up to the keep, she set it gently down. Then she returned to the dragon slayer, who was just regaining his feet, his face purple with rage.

Jesse and Daisy now had to fend for themselves. Jesse continued to meet the blows of the broadswords, but his arms were growing weak. Daisy’s face was white and her hair beneath the dragon scale helmet was a wild tangle. Worse still, the Vikings had driven a wedge between them and they no longer had each other’s backs.

A wall of Viking warriors drove them toward the battlement wall. One of the Vikings chopped at Jesse’s wrist and his sword went clattering to the ground. Daisy, seeing Jesse lose his sword, flung hers down.

“We surrender,” she said, raising her hands above her head.

Either the Vikings didn’t understand the rules of war or the English language—or both—because they continued to back the Keepers up toward the wall, sword points at their throats.

Jesse opened his mouth and let out a feeble “Help!”

“Help!” Daisy joined him.

Together, they yelled with their remaining strength, “HELP! EMMY, HELP!”

From below, Emmy shouted, “
Yes!
I’ve
got
it!”

Jesse glanced over the parapet wall and caught sight of Emmy just as the dragon’s eyes began to spin, blazing with a fierce and fearsome light. Beowulf staggered back, a look of genuine fear on his face. When the multicolored smoke from Emmy’s nostrils disappeared, the entire Viking horde had vanished.

Jesse and Daisy straightened up and looked around. The parapet was littered with dozens of tiny plastic action figures.

Jesse picked one up and held it close to his face. Beneath its yellow mustache, the figure wore
a deep scowl. Its elbows were jointed, and its little plastic broadsword could fit in either hand. Jesse worked the arm and made the sword swing in a small arc. “Cool!” he said.

Emmy flew up to join them. She touched the cousins’ heads and their armor disappeared.

“I guess you finally got your full power back,” Daisy said.

“Big-time,” said Jesse.

“Aren’t you two glad I had some practice being Santa’s helper?” Emmy asked.

“What exactly did you do?” asked Jesse.

“Reverse Action Figure Spell,” Emmy said with pride. “Worked like a charm, didn’t it?”

“It sure did,” said Jesse. “Where’s Beowulf?”

Emmy shrugged. “Somewhere in this heap of plastic. These little dudes all look alike to me.”

She walked over and picked up the bag of Thunder Eggs. “Let’s get these back on track. To the North Pole on the double!”

“Oh, goody,” said Jesse drily. “I can’t wait.”

“Do we have to go through that nasty portal?” Daisy asked.

“I think you’ll find the portal quite changed,” Emmy said.

With the net of Thunder Eggs clasped in her talons and her Keepers on her back, Emmy flew up
toward the mouth of the giant gray funnel hovering in the sky over Geatland. Emmy was right. The trip back was like a pleasure cruise, the air filled with flitting butterflies, tweeting birds, and fragrant flowers.

When they emerged from the portal, Jesse and Daisy climbed down off Emmy’s back. The very next moment, the great plates of ice began to move together with a scrape and a rumble, closing the portal to Geatland.

The Aurora greeted them in colorful splendor:

“Shucks,” said Emmy. “It was nothing. Right, guys?”

Jesse and Daisy blushed, then sat down and put on their snowshoes. They were both feeling more than a touch of snow fatigue. Following Emmy, they trudged across the ice to Beowulf’s Vortex machine.

“I sure hope she’s figured out how to swivel the
whosits to get the thingie to whirligig in the right direction,” Jesse said.

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Daisy.

Emmy set the eggs down and slowly circled the Vortex Interceptor, all the time staring up at it. Then she threw back her head and directed a jet of flame at the bottommost girders. The metal turned bright yellow, then red, then finally white-hot. Like a flame traveling the length of a fuse, the white heat snaked up the Vortex machine. When it reached the top, there was a blinding flash. The next moment, the entire structure sagged, then collapsed through a hole in the ice, disappearing into the waters of the vast polar sea that lay beneath.

Emmy heaved a sigh of satisfaction. “Sometimes wrecking things is so much more fun than building them.”

Jesse and Daisy were both mortified.

“What about the eggs?” Daisy asked.

“How will you get them back on track now?” Jesse asked.

“Who needs a Vortex Interceptor when you’ve got dragon magic?” Emmy said with a grin. She retrieved the net and rocketed with it back up into the air. Jesse and Daisy stood with their heads tilted back, eyes on the sky. For the longest time, nothing happened. Just when their necks were beginning to
get stiff, the Aurora gathered directly above the spot where the Vortex Interceptor had been. This time, the light was green.

The green light formed itself into a long pipe, one end pointing into the sky and the other aimed at the hole in the ice. Through the pipe, the Thunder Eggs began to swirl down, moving in a clockwise spiral. One after another, the Ethereals wound down through the pipe and plummeted into the hole, until they were lost to sight.

When the last egg was gone, Emmy came rushing back to earth, the wind whistling through her wings. “The Ethereals are officially back on track!” she cried. “The Aurora are out of danger. And all’s well with the world. Let’s go home, Keepers.”

“Plan,” said Jesse and Daisy.

“Is it still Christmas?” Emmy asked hopefully as Jesse and Daisy climbed onto her back.

Jesse looked down at his wristwatch. “It’s the day after. Four o’clock in the morning.”

“It’s Boxing Day!” Daisy announced.

Emmy brightened. “Does that mean I get to lace on the gloves and go a few rounds in the ring?”

“Silly girl,” said Daisy. “Boxing Day is when people go to the store and return the gifts they don’t like.”

“How rude!” said Emmy.

“It’s tradition,” said Daisy.

“It’s a rude tradition. But you haven’t even
gotten
my gift yet,” Emmy said.

“We told you,” Jesse said. “You don’t need to give us one.”

“Having a dragon for Christmas is our gift,” Daisy said.

“And having a Christmas adventure with you is something we’ll never forget,” said Jesse.

“Oh, but you don’t understand!” Emmy said. “I finally found you guys the perfect gift. And I’m pretty sure you would never, ever
dream
of returning it.”

After Emmy had flown them back to Goldmine City, she retired to the barn for a well-earned rest. But Jesse and Daisy couldn’t rest yet. They woke up Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe from their “long winter’s nap,” and got the delayed holiday festivities underway. By midmorning, Jesse and Daisy were sitting in a patch of buttery golden sunlight next to the Christmas tree in the living room. They were surrounded by a sea of crumpled wrapping paper and ribbons all sprinkled with Christmas cookie crumbs.