The Dragon at the North Pole (5 page)

“I’m t-t-t-too cold to be hungry,” said Daisy, shivering in front of the fake fire.

After a quick snack, Jesse zipped the trail mix bag closed and screwed the lid back on the thermos. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he wandered over to the windows.

“Is it still dark out?” Daisy asked.

“We’re only a few days past the winter solstice,” Jesse said, peering out the window. “This time of year at the North Pole, the sun never rises. It’s dark twenty-four seven. And speaking of dark, come look at this!”

Daisy came to stand next to Jesse and looked out through the clear pane of ice. What was there to see? It was pitch dark outside. The aurora borealis shone some distance away, but not anywhere near where they were.

“Look down,” Jesse said.

Daisy did and her head swam. The ice palace was perched on the edge of a precipice, plunging down into an abyss.

“We must be on top of a glacier,” Jesse said.

Daisy backed away from the window and returned to the fireplace. Cozying up to a fake fire was better than staring into an abyss. Just when Daisy remembered the thermal gel pads in the backpack, Jesse said, “Maybe these will help.”

He was standing before the open wardrobe. Daisy joined him. Hanging side by side were two identical green snowsuits lined with fur, with mittens attached to the sleeves. There were also two pairs of furry embroidered boots.

“What kind of fur is this, do you think?” Daisy asked, fingering the snowsuits.

“Rabbit,” he guessed.

“Poor bunny,” Daisy said. “And what are these boots made of?”

“Reindeer,” Jesse said reluctantly. “I did a social studies unit last year on Laplanders. You know, the people who herd reindeer near the Arctic Circle. They prefer to be called Samis.”

“I guess if this is good enough for Samis, it’s good enough for us,” said Daisy.

They took the snowsuits and boots into their bedrooms and changed. The moment Daisy put on the snowsuit, she was so flooded with warmth that she felt positively dizzy. She was standing next to a big ice bed with an ice canopy and a large fur quilt, and wondered whether it would be okay to lie down just for a few minutes, until the dizziness passed. She was about to test the “mattress” when she heard a familiar voice sing out: “Hello, Jesse Tiger! Hello, Daisy Flower! Welcome to Toyland! Toyland! Toyland! Dear little girl and boy land!”

Meanwhile, in his bedroom, Jesse had taken off his coat and was struggling to get his snowsuit on over his hoodie. As he fastened the little silver buttons up the front, he noticed that although the suit was a little tight—like something he had outgrown by several years—it made him feel cozy and warm.

“Thank you, Santa!” Jesse whispered. He felt a little dizzy, but he chalked it up to the sudden change in temperature. Then he got the raw emerald out of his coat pocket and transferred it to his snowsuit pocket.

By the time he came into the sitting room, Daisy was perched on Emmy’s lap. Emmy was wearing a large green elf’s cap with a silver bell dangling at the end. The top of the hat brushed the ceiling. She jingled it when she saw Jesse and gave him a roguish grin.

“Do you like my hat?” Emmy asked. “Santa gave it to me. I’m Santa’s helper now. Didn’t I tell you that Santa wasn’t a myth?”

“You sure did,” said Jesse giddily.

“How did you and Santa meet?” Daisy asked.

“He came to the barn last night, just as the snow was starting to fall, and picked me up in his sleigh,” Emmy said. “He needs my help. Santa has been having trouble competing with the toy companies and all their fancy digital toys and computer games. He’s asked me to help create a super-duper line of toys for girls and boys that will put Santa back on the map.”

“That sounds great to me,” said Jesse.

Emmy said, “He also asked me to get him a special present.” She put a talon to her lips.
“Shhhhh. I haven’t given it to him yet.”

“What is it?” Jesse asked in a whisper.

“It’s a secret,” Emmy said, her eyes gleaming. “But I got it from the Time Before.”

Jesse and Daisy exchanged puzzled looks. The Time Before? That was the mysterious place dragons came from.

“Wait till you hear about the fancy toys I’m designing,” Emmy continued.

“What kind of toys?” Jesse asked.

“Well, for starters, I was thinking about action figures.”

“Um, Em,” Jesse said, “I hate to tell you this, but action figures have been around since my father was a kid. There’s nothing fancy about them.”

“Not
that
kind of action figures,” Emmy said slyly. “This is actually more of a kit that kids can use to convert their boring old action figures into real-life action figures. Get it?”

“You mean,” Jesse said slowly, “that my Superman action figure—”

“Could leap tall buildings and really and truly bend steel in his bare hands,” Emmy said.

“Wow!” Jesse said.

“That’s just the beginning,” Emmy said. “I’m also thinking about a mask that will help kids shape-shift.”

“You’re kidding!” Daisy crowed, shaking her hands in excitement. “That’s so cool!”

“And an invisibility suit!” Emmy said.

“Even better!” said Jesse, jumping up and down.

“But first, we have to get Santa’s Toyland Vortex machine online and working,” Emmy said.

“Toyland
Vortex machine
?” Jesse said. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.

Emmy nodded. “Santa already built it, but he needs me to operate it. Plus I’m helping him tweet it.”

“Tweak it, you mean,” Jesse said.

Emmy shrugged. “I tested it once by bringing in Santa’s special present. Before long it will produce all the magical toys I’m dreaming up.”

“When can we see it?” Daisy asked.

“Soon. It’s outside. But first let me show you around inside. You two have a treat in store!”

Emmy led the way out the door and down the hall, to a set of wide, arched doors with crossed candy canes carved into them. “Wait till you get a load of this,” she said as she pushed the doors open.

Inside, the room hustled and bustled with hundreds of elves seated at painted wooden benches, all of them hard at work. Each long bench functioned as a kind of mini assembly line. At the nearest bench, the first elf carved a piece of wood until it
resembled the hull and cabin of a ship. The second elf sanded it. The third painted it. The fourth threaded ropes through the tiny deck rail, then handed it off to the elves at the next bench, who were busily carving and sanding and painting tiny wooden animals, two by two.

“It’s Noah’s ark!” Jesse cried. “I had one just like that.”

“Would you like to have another one?” Emmy asked.

Jesse nodded eagerly. He knew he was way too old to play with a Noah’s ark set. And yet he wanted that toy so badly, his fingers, in their furry mittens, itched to play with it! Perhaps it was the thrill of knowing it had come straight from Santa’s workshop. Perhaps it was the shiny painted animals, two by two, exactly like the ones he had lined up so carefully on the blue wooden ramp of his own ark for hours at a time.

Meanwhile, Daisy was gazing at a doll with yellow yarn hair and bright blue button eyes. The pattern on her dress was little daisies. Over the dress she wore a starched white pinafore. The elf working on the doll noticed and handed it to Daisy.

“It’s Flower, Jess!” Daisy said, hugging the doll. “Remember?”

How could Jesse forget? Daisy had gotten
Flower the same Christmas Jesse had gotten Noah’s ark, the Christmas he and his parents had spent at Daisy’s house. He and Daisy had been six years old.

At the next series of benches, the elves were making cars and trucks and all sorts of things that go. Jesse was given a little blue biplane and Daisy a bright red fire truck with a shiny metal ladder.

At each area of the workshop they came to, the elves seemed to sense which toys appealed to them and offered them up, so shiny and fresh they even
smelled
new. Jesse and Daisy, eyes aglitter, held out their arms and accepted the gifts with shameless glee. After all, it was Christmas and here they were, at the source of Christmas joy, Santa’s very own workshop!

By the time the cousins had completed their tour, they were loaded down with toys. When their arms could hold no more, one of the elves followed along behind them pulling a miniature sled piled high with their goodies.

They arrived back at the front door to find Santa waiting for them, a big, jolly smile on his face.

“Thank you, Santa!” Jesse and Daisy chirped.

“Ho-ho-ho! It’s my pleasure! But next Christmas, make way for Emerald’s super-duper new line of toys!” Santa boomed.

Jesse nodded, but in a way, there was something about the simple gifts he and Daisy had received that seemed just right for Christmas. Did Christmas even really
need
Emmy’s magic? Wasn’t Christmas magic enough all by itself?

Santa Claus turned to Emmy, a big smile wreathing his face. “And where is
my
Christmas present, Miss Emerald?”

Emmy said, “Hidden away someplace where you can’t find it, Mister Santa.”

He frowned in disappointment. “Oh. But it’s Christmas Day. Everyone else in the world has already gotten their presents. Can’t I have mine?”

The cousins listened to this strange exchange with open mouths.

“Have you been a good little boy all year?” Emmy asked.

“I’ve been as good as good can be,” said Santa Claus. “And I want my present. You promised.” He pouted.

“Did I? Well, maybe after dinner,” said Emmy. “And only if you’re very good. Right now, I don’t know about my two Keepers here, but I’m
starving
!”

Santa’s Great Hall was the same room they had seen when they first entered the palace. It was the size of a school gym, with a table in the middle that was as long as a bowling alley. A row of dark windows lined one wall, with a long carved sideboard
running underneath it. An icicle chandelier hung over the table, beaming down the same cold blue light that illuminated the rest of the palace. Something about the light was beginning to bother Jesse. He missed the buttery warmth of the sunlight.

Santa had excused himself after they left the workshop and gone to his room to change. When Emmy, Jesse, and Daisy entered the Great Hall, they found him sitting at the head of the long table. Instead of his traditional suit, he wore a red embroidered smoking jacket with a green ascot tucked into the collar. He was smoking a long black pipe that was as thin as a cigarette. While he still looked like Santa, he looked like Santa taking a break.

Jesse didn’t want to say anything, but Santa’s pipe made him wonder:
Shouldn’t the North Pole be a smoke-free zone?

Emmy seated Daisy in the middle of the bench on one side of the table, and then Jesse right across from her. When Emmy sat down at the foot of the table, Santa lifted a small silver bell and rang it.

A dozen elves in white aprons streamed into the Great Hall bearing platters.

Jesse’s stomach rumbled. He licked his lips and picked up his ice fork and his ice knife.

Across the table, Daisy said, “I’m ravenous, Jess, aren’t you?”

“Am I ever!” said Jesse, his eyes following the progress of the platters.

“I wonder what we’re having,” Daisy said.

Jesse couldn’t wait to find out. The elves served Santa first. After Santa had piled his plate high with what looked like a mixed grill of meats and fish, the elves moved around to Daisy. Daisy looked at what the elves were offering and hesitated.

“Just take some of everything,” Jesse whispered. “If you can’t eat it, I will.”

Jesse had never been this hungry in his life. He watched Daisy take her ice fork and spear a piece of meat onto her plate, then another, and another, taking time to select each piece.
Speed it up, Daise
, Jesse urged her silently.

Daisy said “Thank you” to the elves. The elves nodded, then went to Emmy, who helped herself to hearty portions of everything.

Jesse’s stomach kicked up such a ruckus, he actually felt as if he were having a hunger attack. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait another moment. He reached between the buttons of his snowsuit into his hoodie pouch, where he had stashed Aunt Maggie’s sesame cracker with goat cheese. He pulled it out and bit into it.

Sweet relief!

Then he nearly choked.

He looked down. Instead of Aunt Maggie’s sesame cracker, he’d mistakenly grabbed Miss Alodie’s blue goo cracker. It tasted weird, but he didn’t want to spit it out. He chewed quickly, swallowed, and tucked the rest of the cracker back in his hoodie pouch.

Something very curious happened next. Not only did his growling stomach calm down, but he was no longer in the least bit hungry. He felt as if he had just devoured an entire banquet. By the time the serving elves got around to Jesse, the thought of eating another bite actually filled him with revulsion.

For appearances’ sake, Jesse loaded up his plate with three kinds of meat and two kinds of fish.

“Ho-ho-ho! Eat up, tykes,” Santa boomed from the head of the table.

“What are we eating?” Jesse asked, trying to make polite conversation.