The Dragon in the Driveway (3 page)

“I’m a scaredy-dragon,” Emmy told them. “A scaredy-dragon needs a cozy nest of socks, please.” She crept off into the far corner of the garage, where a giant packing crate was filled with rolled-up socks. Emmy dug deep into the mound of socks until only her horn was visible.

“Where did my big book go?” Emmy said from beneath the socks.

Jesse glanced at the pile of children’s storybooks on the picnic table. “How about a
little
book?” he said brightly.

Emmy sniffed. “Okay, maybe. Read me, please,” she said.

Daisy signaled to Jesse: they
had
to get to the computer and talk to Professor Andersson. Jesse replied with a firm shake of his head. Emmy still needed comforting, and this was part of the job.

“One story,” Jesse told Emmy.

“One story,” said Daisy.

“One story.” Emmy’s voice came back to them muffled by socks. “And maybe two. Not ‘Hansel and Gretel.’ Too scary.”

While Daisy paced, Jesse selected one of Emmy’s favorite books from the stack:
The Little Engine That Could.
By the time he got to the end, Emmy was sleeping soundly.

Jesse and Daisy tiptoed quickly out of the garage, making sure to lock both doors. Inside, they took off their shoes and ran up the stairs to the computer in Jesse’s room. With Daisy standing behind him, Jesse sat at the keyboard and input the now-familiar Web address:
www.foundadragon.org
.

To their relief, the home page came up right away. The screen showed an illustration of a dragon and a picture of a very, very old man with a white
beard, a mustache, and hair that was long, flowing, and white. Bushy white eyebrows threatened to overwhelm a fierce set of bright black eyes.

Jesse clicked the cursor on the old man’s face, and the photograph came to life. “Ah, good day to you both! How may I be of service to my two stalwart young Dragon Keepers?” Professor Andersson asked, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile.

Jesse took a breath. “St. George left his lab at the college. And we have no idea where he went,” he said in a rush.

The professor’s eyebrows knit together. “Are you quite, quite certain?” he asked.

Jesse said, “Yeah. He’s gone. Pulled up stakes. Flew the coop. Didn’t leave a forwarding address. We don’t know where he went or what he’s up to.”

The professor heaved a sigh and shook his head. “I doubt he has gone very far,” he said.

Daisy stood over Jesse’s right shoulder. She said, “What makes you so sure?”

“He might not know where the dragon is, but he knows where you are, and wherever you are, he knows the dragon can’t be far away,” said the professor. “Ergo, for better or for worse, St. George can never be very far away.”

“Because St. George is thirsty for dragon blood,” Jesse said with a little shudder.

“True enough,” said the professor. “But you would do well not to focus quite so intently on the blood thirst. The imbibing of dragon blood is merely a means to an end.”

“What end?” Daisy asked.

The professor explained. “The dragon is the only entity in creation that is in harmony with all four elements: air and water, fire and earth. Emmy’s hatching, the first in more than a century, has brought about a remarkable occurrence. Her coming has reawakened the spirits of these elements.”

“But isn’t that a good thing?” Jesse asked.

“It would be, my boy, if St. George were not at large. The dragon herself is too young yet to keep St. George in check. As a result, no sooner do those magical spirits awaken than St. George will enslave them and draw upon their magic. When he has absorbed sufficient quantities of their magical essence, his power will be great. This is not a pleasant prospect.”

Daisy paced behind Jesse’s chair. “Fine, so what are
we
supposed to do about it?”

“Pay attention and follow the signs,” said the professor. “I would suggest that the best place to start is with his first victims, the children of the earth.”

Daisy stopped pacing. “The
who
?”

The computer screen flashed brightly and then went blank. Jesse didn’t bother to try to get the site back. He knew that their visit with the professor had come to an end, unfortunately before they had gotten the answer to their last question.

Daisy let out a groan of frustration. Jesse rolled back in his chair and covered his face with his hands. Daisy continued to pace, her path extending now from Jesse’s chair through the bathroom they shared, into her room, and back again. When she arrived at her bedroom window for the third time, she stopped and looked out. It had turned into such a beautiful day. It was hard to believe that bad stuff could be happening anywhere in the world when the sky stretched overhead like a vast blue circus tent.

“Children of the earth,” she heard Jesse say in his deep-thinking voice. “What did he mean? Aren’t we
all
children of the earth?”

At this, Daisy’s glance dropped from the sky to the ground.
The earth.
Her eyes roamed the side yard, where the trees had visited earlier that day. And that was when she saw it, as clear as a highway on a road map.

“Jess, come look!” she called to him.

Jesse joined her. He looked out the window and saw it right away, too. “It’s a trail,” he said.

Daisy nodded excitedly. “Made of needles and leaves—”

“From a Douglas fir and a quaking aspen?” Jesse asked.

“Yep,” said Daisy, “heading straight for the Dell, it looks like.”

“Let’s wake up Emmy and follow it,” said Jesse.

Daisy grinned, and in thirty seconds flat the cousins were unlocking the garage door.

“Emmy is alllll better now!” Emmy told them when they’d gently shaken her awake. All traces of Emmy’s jitters had vanished. She transformed back into her sheepdog shape, and they headed off to check out the trail of pine needles and leaves.

“Emmy,” Jesse said, “you need to stay in your dog form when we get to the Dell. Something’s up.”

Emmy let out a cooperative little yip, and then raced along the trail that led up the backyard to the top of the rise. There they dropped to their knees and followed Emmy through the tunnel in the laurel bushes to the Dell. On the other side, they jumped to their feet, but the mysterious trail abruptly ended.

The Dell lay before them like a big bowl lined with wet clover and wildflowers, sparkling in the sunshine like a rainbow fallen to earth. On one side of the bowl was Old Mother Mountain. On the
other side, not far from the overflowing stream, was the abandoned barn where Jesse and Daisy kept their Museum of Magic. Behind the barn lay the Deep Woods.

Emmy began barking, and Jesse and Daisy gasped. A wide ugly gouge, paved with wood chips and mud, cut into the heart of the Deep Woods. Felled trees lay everywhere like dead bodies.

“St. George is behind this,” Jesse said through clenched teeth.

Emmy took off at a run, and the cousins ran after her, half sliding down the slope and across the squishy earth. Midway across the pasture, Daisy suddenly grabbed Jesse’s arm and stopped him. “Look!” she said, pointing.

On either side of the ghastly gouge in the Deep Woods stood a tree—and around each tree trunk was a strip of cloth made from one of Miss Alodie’s old flowered shirts.

“My
trees
, Jesse!” Daisy cried, jumping up and down and flapping her hands. “A Douglas fir and a quaking aspen! See?”

Emmy bounded around them, barking.

CHAPTER THREE
EARTHMOVERS

Daisy gripped Jesse and pulled him along as she walked right up to the Douglas fir. She shaded her eyes from the sun and called out, “Hellooooo!”

Jesse shook his head while Emmy sat, her tail a tiny happy blur. They waited.

The Douglas fir stood there silently, as trees usually do.

Daisy cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey there!” she hollered. She stepped closer and rapped her knuckles on the trunk. “Hello, Douglas fir! We’re here to help, if we can. Is anybody home? You know,” she said to Jesse, “in my book on tree lore, it says the Douglas fir stands for wisdom and dignity.”

Jesse squinted up at the tall fir. “I can see that,” he said.

Emmy jumped up and circled the tree three times. Then she stopped, lifted her hind leg, and tinkled all over the base of the trunk.

“Emmy!” said Daisy. “That’s not very polite!”

Jesse burst out laughing. “Sure it is. It’s dragon piddle. It’s probably magical,” he said.

“Magical tinkle!” Daisy giggled.

Emmy trotted over to the quaking aspen and once again lifted her hind leg. She had saved a generous sprinkling of dragon piddle for the second tree.

“So what does the quaking aspen stand for?” Jesse asked.

Daisy stared up at the tree and thought a bit. “I want to say a bunch of waggling tongues, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to look it up.” Daisy walked over
to the quaking aspen. “I apologize for my dog, er, dragon,” she said.

For a second, it looked like the tree really
did
mind: its pale green leaves quivered indignantly in the breeze. But then the breeze died down and the leaves stopped moving.

Daisy sighed and stood back, hands on hips. “Maybe they just don’t trust us yet.”

“Maybe,” said Jesse.

Emmy let out a sharp bark of disagreement.

“Then again,” said Daisy, “maybe they just wanted us to see this mess.”

“Well, now that we’ve seen it,” said Jesse, “we have to do something about it!”

Emmy barked twice to say “Yes!” and started into the ravaged wood. Jesse and Daisy looked at each other. They didn’t usually go into the Deep Woods. The woods were too dense and dark for casual walking. But there was nothing casual about this situation. They both nodded soberly and followed Emmy.

Five minutes later, the Deep Woods began to thin out, and the three came to what seemed to be a natural clearing. The clearing was about the size of three football fields. Jesse, Daisy, and Emmy crept to the edge of it and took cover behind the
trunk of a tall spruce tree. Near their end of the clearing stood two supersize dump trucks, a steam shovel, and two bulldozers, all of them brand-new and painted bright orange. There didn’t seem to be any workers around.

“What’s that?” whispered Daisy, pointing to a huge machine off to the side that dwarfed all the others.

“It’s an earthmover,” Jesse whispered back. “I saw one once in Venezuela. It was mowing down the trees in the rain forest like they were matchsticks. I was really little, so at first I thought it was neat. Then my parents explained that the trees wouldn’t grow back and that the forest and all the animals would be gone forever.”

“So the Dragon Slayer is a Tree Slayer, too,” Daisy said.

“I guess he can’t do it with magic, so he needs these big machines. But where is he?” Jesse said, scanning the clearing. “He had to have done most of this work during the storm.”

“I wonder why,” Daisy said.

“Maybe so he wouldn’t get caught,” said Jesse. “Let’s go check it out.”

Daisy grabbed his sleeve. “No! Let’s wait here until we’re sure he’s not lurking around,” she said.

Jesse nodded. It could be a trap. He checked his watch. They would give it fifteen minutes, just to be safe. They waited in silence. Beneath Jesse’s hand, Emmy trembled, but she sat between them patiently, her long pink forked tongue lolling out the side of her mouth.

As if Emmy had been keeping track of the time in her head, she jumped up and started into the clearing exactly fifteen minutes later. Jesse and Daisy were right behind her. Nose to the ground, Emmy made a beeline over to the foot of a huge mound of fresh, damp earth. Next to the mound was a hole. The cousins went over to it and peered down. The hole was wide and deep, and at the bottom, they caught a glimpse of open space, like an underground cave.

“What do you think it is?” Jesse asked, his voice eerily returning to him from the damp, dark hole.

“It looks like a mine,” said Daisy grimly. “A very old, very deep mine.”

“What does St. George want with a mine?” Jesse wondered aloud.

“I have no idea,” Daisy said. “But let’s get out of here before he comes back and shoves us in.”

They walked back through the Deep Woods. At the edge, Daisy stopped and addressed the two trees. “We’ll be back,” she promised.

“With a real plan,” Jesse added, and Emmy barked twice.

When they got back home, Emmy was hungry and tired. Safe inside the garage, she assumed her dragon form and looked at Jesse and Daisy expectantly. Jesse went into the house and returned a few minutes later with a head of kale, a bunch of spinach, and a chunk of Swiss cheese. Emmy made quick work of these and afterward, Jesse and Daisy tucked her into her nest of socks. Daisy read her “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” while Jesse leaned against the packing crate and listened.

Before Daisy reached the end of the story, Emmy’s eyelids were drooping.

“Too much sudden activity after too many days of just lying around,” Daisy said to Jesse out of the corner of her mouth, sounding just like her mother.

“That weather spell probably tuckered her out,” Jesse replied with a yawn.

When Daisy closed the book, Emmy heaved a sleepy sigh and snuggled down into her bed of socks. “Emmy’s bed is not too big and not too small. It is juuuuuuust right.”