The Dragon in the Driveway (12 page)

Finally, with a quick shake of his head, St. George went back to rubbing the Golden Pickax. Jesse started breathing again. He was bathed in sweat and a little dizzy from holding his breath, but it was now or never.

Jesse gave Daisy’s hand a firm squeeze. Almost immediately, her hand slid out of his. Jesse had an impulse to reach out and grab it back. It suddenly felt all wrong to break contact with her, but it was too late to change their plan now.

Seconds later, St. George’s head jerked backward. His hands fell away from the pickax as he sat up and swung around to see who had just given his hair such a pull. Jesse seized the pickax and muffled a cry. The pickax was
heavy
! He had to lift it one-handed because the other hand was holding the fern. With all his strength, he swung the pickax up onto his shoulder, like a hobgoblin.

St. George swung back around and gaped at his
empty lap. He leaped in the air and landed in a crouch, hissing, “Who’s there?”

Jesse dodged out of St. George’s reach as he lunged forward, moving this way and that, sweeping the air with his long arms. Jesse backed up toward a nearby torch-lit tunnel. He hoped it led to the queen’s jail. The tunnels all looked alike, but this one felt right to him.

St. George pounced on the exact spot where Jesse had been standing a second before. With a petrified yelp, Jesse whipped around and ran. Almost instantly, he collided headlong with what felt like a wall.

Jesse sat down hard, arms flopping to his sides, his fern on the ground a foot away. For a moment he saw stars. When the stars faded, he saw Daisy, also fully visible, sitting opposite him with her legs splayed out, rubbing her nose. The Golden Pickax lay beside him.

“I knew it was a mistake to stop holding hands,” Daisy muttered.

“One hopes it will be your last,” St. George said, strolling over to them. He leaned down and picked up the fallen ferns. He tore them to shreds and scattered the pieces, smirking.

Daisy scowled up at him. “What’s so funny?” she said.

“Why, you are, of course!” he said.

“What are you going to do with us?” Daisy asked.

“What else, you silly little fool? I’ll use you to bait my hook and go dragon-fishing. And I’m sure to land me a fine catch, with such perfect
worms
for bait.”

Daisy sneered at St. George. “Emmy’s too smart to go for your bait. You’re going to need a cleverer plan than that,” she said.

St. George swooped down and brought his face to within inches of hers. The blast of foul breath made her turn her head to the side and hold her nose.

“Oh, she’ll go for it,” said St. George. “That nub-tailed little canine of yours is going to come running to your rescue.”

Jesse maintained an even expression as he said, “What’s our dog got to do with any of this?”

St. George drew himself up. “Oh, you two think you’re quite the little wizards, don’t you? But the laurel dryads told me all about how she transforms into a dragon as she passes under their gossip-happy noses, day in and day out. Don’t you know that I have far too many spies in this world for you to be able to keep anything from me?” He
dusted off his hands. “And now, dear ones, I have precious little time for chitchat.”

“And what makes you think we would ever want to chat with a rat like you?” Jesse said. As he said this, he nudged Daisy’s leg with his foot and raised one eyebrow in the direction of the ramp. She raised an eyebrow in response and nodded her head slightly.

“RUN!” screamed Jesse.

Daisy and Jesse both leaped to their feet and took off, but St. George clamped a hand on the backs of their necks and held them in place.

“Really?” St. George said. “Leaving so fast? I wouldn’t hear of it!”

As if they were no heavier than a couple of parcels, he gathered them both up in one arm and grasped the Golden Pickax with the other. He carried all three over to the big book and dumped them beside it. Then he began to work his way around them and the book in a wide circle. The cousins actually heard the invisible membrane squeak as St. George stretched it this way and that.

“There,” he said, sealing it with a final wave of his hand. “That ought to keep you out of mischief. Don’t bother trying to break through. You’ll only
exhaust yourselves. Why not use some of that youthful energy and finish polishing the rust off the Golden Pickax? I’m off to town. With any luck, when I return, I’ll find a dragon in my trap.” He chuckled as he marched up the ramp and out of the chamber.

The moment he was gone, Jesse took off the backpack. “Here’s the jar of worms,” he said, pulling it out.

“Quick,” said Daisy, “before he comes back!”

Jesse unscrewed the lid, knelt down, and gently emptied the contents of the jar. Six pink earthworms wriggled wildly about on the ground.

“What’s happening?” said Jesse, standing back.

“They’re getting bigger, I think,” said Daisy, giving them a wide berth. “Definitely, a lot bigger!”

In minutes, the worms became as thick and long as the foam noodles people use in swimming pools—only the worms’ skins were glistening and pink like chewed bubblegum. Then the worms lined up, side by side, and started burrowing into the ground beneath the invisible wall. Jesse and Daisy watched, goggle-eyed, as the giant earthworms dug a deep trench big enough for the cousins to crawl out to escape their invisible prison. Daisy went through first, then Jesse, dragging the pickax behind him.

The worms, back to their normal size, were crawling away, each in its own direction.

“I guess they’ve earned their freedom,” Daisy said wistfully.

“Hey, guys, hold up!” Jesse called out to them, but the worms paid him no mind. He said to Daisy, “Too bad they couldn’t hang around long enough to get the book for us. Miss Alodie won’t like that we used her worms but didn’t get the book.”

“We can’t help that,” Daisy said with an impatient sweep of her arms. “We’re doing the best we can, aren’t we? Jeesh!”

“Right, so let’s get this pickax to Her Royal Lowness and let the revolution begin!” Jesse said.

“Time to turn the tide of battle,” Daisy agreed.

“Jesse! Daisy! Is that you?” Emmy’s golden voice rang out to them from above.

“How did she get out?” Daisy whispered frantically.

“We’re down here, Em!” Jesse called up, then gave Daisy a look of panic. “What’ll we do? She’s walking right into the trap!”

“Don’t come down!” Daisy called up to Emmy. “We’ll come up to you.” She whispered furiously to Jesse, “Remember what the professor said? We need to keep her out of the way. You bring the pickax to the queen. I’ll take Emmy back to the lair.
I mean, the garage. I’ll meet you back at the barn. Good luck, Jess.”

“But I have to come,” said Emmy, who was already halfway down the ramp.

Jesse and Daisy ran to meet her. Emmy’s great green eyes were pooled with tears.

“How did you get out of the garage?” Jesse asked her gently.

“My friends let me out,” Emmy said in a small voice.

“Like they did before?” Daisy asked, caressing the smooth scales on Emmy’s back.

Emmy nodded, sniffling. “They said I had to go to St. George and lay my life at his feet. So here I am.” She lifted her face to the patch of blue sky visible through the hole overhead and let out a long, plaintive wail. Then she took in a deep sucking breath and fell to weeping as if her heart would break.

Daisy wished she hadn’t given away her bandanna. This was turning out to be a very teary day! She dabbed at Emmy’s tears with the bottom of her extra-long T-shirt.

After a final burbling honk of dragon tears and snot into Daisy’s shirt, Emmy said with a stamp of her hind leg, “I
like
my life. I don’t
want
to lay it at St. George’s stinky feet. Douglas Fir and Lady
Aspen are
mean
friends! I don’t like them anymore.”

Daisy and Jesse exchanged worried looks.

“Why would the dryads say a thing like that to Emmy?” Jesse wondered.

“Why would they want to sacrifice her like that?” Daisy said.

“Because I commanded them to,” St. George said, sauntering down the ramp. Dangling from his bony fingers were two long tattered strips of gaily colored fabric.

The last two trees had fallen.

CHAPTER TEN
THE WILLOW SONG

At first, every scale on Emmy’s body stood up like small razor blades. Then her form grew fuzzy and started to change in slow motion. It was as if her ability to mask had not only grown sluggish but uncertain as well, as if she weren’t quite sure what to
mask herself as. First she became a rhinoceros, then a lion, then a shark with a whipping tail. These images morphed into each other and overlapped so that one moment she was a shark with a rhino horn and the next, a lion with a dorsal fin. It was painful for the cousins to watch, but St. George found it all very entertaining.

“Oh, dear. Some days it’s so
difficult
to decide what to put on, isn’t it? I think I have the perfect thing for you,” he said with a brisk clap of his hands. The ringing nearby ceased and a gang of hobgoblins trooped out from one of the tunnels into the cavern, dragging a long and heavy length of iron chain with them.

“Bind her,” St. George said, pointing to Emmy, who, having failed to find a satisfying form, had changed back to her dragon self.

Obediently, the hobgoblins wrapped the chain around and around Emmy.

“You,” said the Slayer, pointing to Jesse. “Bring me the Golden Pickax.”

“Don’t do it, Jess!” Daisy told him. “You’re not his slave!”

Jesse didn’t want to do it, but his body ached to. He cast a helpless look over his shoulder at her as, against his will, he crawled beneath the invisible wall and brought the Golden Pickax back to
St. George, offering it up with shaking arms.

“Jess, what are you doing?” Daisy cried out.

“I can’t help it, Daze. It’s like my body is obeying him even though my mind wants to run and butt him in the belly.”

“Well, I don’t have to obey him,” said Daisy fiercely. But when she went to take the Golden Pickax away from Jesse, she found that she couldn’t move. She was in a prison no larger than the skin of her own body. It was worse than being stuck behind the bathtub!

“Jesse!” she cried, panic gripping her. “I can’t move!”

“Stay calm,” said Jesse. “Take deep breaths.” Jesse tried to take his own advice as he held the pickax out to the Dragon Slayer, the muscles in his arms quivering with the strain.

“Stand there and hold it,” said St. George. He waved his arms and brought the invisible wall down with a loud squeak. Then he clapped his hands and the squad of hobgoblins reassembled before him, ready to receive their next order.

“Fill in that trench!” he commanded, pointing to the hole the giant earthworms had dug.

The hobgoblins formed a line. Digging with their shovels in unison, they quickly filled the hole.
When they were finished, they stood at attention and waited.

“Wheel the cart over to the dragon,” St. George ordered, pointing to where Emmy stood in chains, her head hanging. Enormous dragon tears dropped off her snout and plopped onto the dirt at her feet.

A thick rope hung from the coupling on the front of the wagon. The hobgoblins picked it up. Bending forward as one and with a mighty grunting heave-ho, they began to haul the cart over to Emmy.

St. George unbuttoned his long black coat. Jesse and Daisy both gasped. Beneath the coat, he wore heavy silver hose and a white doublet embroidered with the bright red coat of arms of Saint George the Dragon Slayer. On his Web site, the professor had shown the cousins pictures of Saint George as he had been depicted in so many paintings and stained glass windows. And now here he was, in the flesh. He wasn’t saintly at all!

St. George stood before the big book. For a moment, he closed his eyes and bowed his head. Then he opened his eyes and jabbed his hands at the book. A yellowish-greenish-brownish light shot out from his fingertips. The light didn’t just
look
sickening. It actually made both Jesse and Daisy
want to throw up. With a loud creak and a flapping of pages, the cover of the big book lifted, like a drawbridge rising. The book fell open to a place in the middle.

Jesse got a whiff of must and mildew and red-hot chili peppers. He found that the familiar smell calmed his stomach.

St. George clapped his hands again. “Light!” he called to the two hobgoblins sprawled in the dirt at his feet. Daisy noticed that whenever they weren’t busy, the hobgoblins sank to the ground and moaned and wept pitiful mud tears.

The hobgoblins stopped swaying and weeping and jumped to their wedgelike feet. Then they scuttled off into one of the tunnels, returning momentarily with two flaming torches. They stood a little behind and to either side of St. George as he leaned over the book, the torchlight dancing on the lenses of his glasses. He ran a finger down the page and moved his lips silently.

Jesse’s muscles burned beneath the weight of the pickax, still in his hands, his arms trembling. He caught a glimpse of black symbols marching down a creamy page of brightly painted pictures of dragons with their blood spilling everywhere. He swallowed, hoping against hope that he wasn’t
about to be ordered to take part in the slaying of his own beloved Emerald.