The Dragon in the Sea (2 page)

Daisy was standing before the mantelpiece in the Blue Parlor, her elfin ears poking through her blond hair. She was contemplating their favorite model ship. It was a square-rigger with over twenty-one miniature canvas sails and a sea serpent carved on the bowsprit. On the prow in gold-painted letters were the words
The Golden D
.

“She looks yar, doesn’t she?” said Daisy.

“She sure does,” said Jesse.

Yar
was sailor talk for “shipshape.” Polly had taught them the names of
The Golden D
’s sails by singing “The Sail Song,” which she had made up to the tune of an old sea chantey. Daisy was humming it to herself now as she touched the sails, from the flying jib to the mizzen topgallant.

Jesse waited until she was finished, then asked, “You want to take a walk on the beach? Polly said we should meet the new neighbors, the Driftwoods, Bill and Mitzi and their kids, Coral and Reef.”

Daisy’s blue eyes lit up. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll get the backpack.”

They stopped off in the Fishbowl to get the backpack, then ran through the garden and down
the worn wooden stairs that zigzagged along the cliff to the beach. The farther down the cliff they went, the louder the
arf-arf-arf
ing of the seals grew.

On the beach, they paused to watch the waves hurl themselves wrathfully over the rocks. Even in August, this was a challenging swimming beach, but in late November, it was downright inhospitable. Slimy tendrils of kelp lay everywhere, like the tentacles of a sea monster. An enormous rock nearly as big as a beached aircraft carrier slanted toward the sea, alive with seals sunning themselves. The seals lay packed in cheek to jowl, barking nonstop.

“Why doesn’t somebody throw them a fish and shut them up?” Jesse asked.

Daisy grinned. It was one of the jokes Daisy’s father, Uncle Joe, never got tired of cracking. In the shadow of the seal rock, they found a large tide pool. Never able to resist a good tide pool, they knelt and dipped their hands in the clear water.

Jesse yanked his hand out. It was freezing!

Daisy was already shucking off her sneakers and socks, rolling up her jeans, and wading in. Jesse watched as she picked through the tide pool and found a few seashells. There were also some choice pieces of sea glass.

“For the Museum of Magic
?” she said,
holding up a pale green piece of sea glass for Jesse to see.

“It reminds me of the gems on the beach in the Fiery Realm,” said Jesse, thinking wistfully that Emmy would be toasty warm in the Fiery Realm right now.

Daisy gasped as she dropped the treasures she had just collected. At first, Jesse thought it was because of the cold, but she was wading toward something in the center of the tide pool. It looked like the softball Jesse had lost last summer. He walked along the edge of the tide pool to get a closer look. It was definitely
not
a softball.

“Is that what I think it is?” Jesse asked Daisy, his heart starting to flutter.

Jesse charged, sneakers and socks and all, into the freezing water just as Daisy bent to pick up the object.

“It is!” she said, cradling it in her hands. It was a perfectly round rock with a rough surface the texture of congealed oatmeal. “It’s a geode.”

“Wow,” said Jesse in a hushed voice. “A Thunder Egg
. Do you think …?”

Daisy looked up at him. Neither one of them wanted to say it aloud, but they were both thinking the exact same thing:
Maybe there’s a baby dragon inside
.

They waded out of the tide pool. Jesse held the geode while Daisy sat on a rock and put her socks and sneakers back on. Emmy had hatched from a geode that had looked just like this one, except that Emmy’s geode had had purple specks in it. This one was shot through with specks of glittering gold.

“We should tell the professor what we found,” Daisy said. The professor was Lukas B. Andersson, their online dragon consultant
.

“We should probably go say ahoy there to the Driftwoods first, like Polly said,” Jesse murmured, his eyes never leaving the geode.

Daisy stood up. “Okay, we’ll say ahoy, then go back and hop online,” she said. She held out her hand for the geode. Reluctantly, Jesse gave it back to her. After all, she was the one who had spotted it first, just like he had been the one who had found Emmy’s egg.

They headed down the beach, Jesse’s wet sneakers making a squelching sound as he walked.

“We shouldn’t get our hopes up,” Daisy said.

“I know,” said Jesse with a sigh. “Sometimes a rock is just a rock.”

Daisy lifted the rock to her lips and whispered, “Hi there.” Her eyes went wide. “Jess, I think I felt it hum!”

“Really?” Jesse said. When he had first found
Emmy’s Thunder Egg on High Peak, he had felt it buzz. This was a good sign.

As they rounded the point, they saw a small, ramshackle structure made of sea salvage set into the side of the cliff. A man and a woman were digging a hole in the sand nearby. It was a chilly day but both of them were barefoot. The man wore nothing but cutoff dungarees. The woman wore a black wet suit and had long black hair that fell in ripples to her waist.

“Wow,” said Jesse. “Awesome new neighbors.”

“I wonder where Seashell and Kelp are?” Daisy asked.

“Coral and Reef,” Jesse said with a smirk. “Maybe they’re inside watching the
SpongeBob SquarePants
Thanksgiving special on TV.”

“I have a feeling there’s no TV in that shack,” Daisy said.

“I have a feeling there’s no
living room
, either. Something tells me this is not your average all-American family.”

As if they had heard Jesse, Bill and Mitzi both straightened and looked down the beach, shading their eyes against the afternoon sun. Bill raised a hand and waved. Jesse and Daisy waved back.

“Ahoy there!” Jesse called out. He and Daisy walked up to the Driftwoods.

“You must be Polly’s grandkids,” Mitzi said. Her eyes were dark and shiny, and her voice was distant but oddly distinct, the way your voice sounds when you speak into a seashell. “I’m Mitzi.” She set down a shovel made from a stick of driftwood with a large clamshell lashed to the end of it. Her hand, when she shook theirs, was as cool as an Arctic char.

The man was deeply tanned with eyes the blue of faded denim. His long brown hair was sun-streaked in ribbons of pale gold. He bobbed his head. “Bill Driftwood, groovy to meet you.”

“Groovy to meet you, too,” said Daisy.

Jesse could tell she was holding back laughter.

Mitzi stared at the geode in Daisy’s hand. “What’s that?” she asked.

Daisy put the geode behind her back just as Jesse said, “That? It’s a Thun—”

“Just a geode,” Daisy broke in briskly.

“For real? Did you find it around here?” Bill asked.

“We did,” Jesse said. Daisy elbowed him to shut up, but Jesse was already saying, “We found it in a tide pool by the seal rock.”

“How interesting!” said Mitzi, taking a step closer. “I’ve always wanted one. Where are the kids?” she asked Bill. “I want them both to see this.”

Bill waded knee-deep into the water. He raised
his arms over his head and made a wide sweeping motion. From behind a huge rock far out in the water, two kids popped into view, both wearing black wet suits. They waved back and started paddling their surfboards toward the shore as a giant swell rose behind them.

Jesse wanted to warn them but their parents seemed perfectly calm, so instead, he said, “They actually
surf
this time of year?”

“Sure thing. Winter waves are rippin’,” Bill said.

The approaching wave gathered into an enormous green-black curl. The kids stood on their boards and rode the foaming crest right onto the beach. Then they stepped off, dragged their surfboards up, and planted them, points down, in the sand. They stood next to their parents, panting, fists on hips, as if they were posing for the cover of
Sports Illustrated
. Jesse had never seen anything this cool.

“Bangin’,” said Bill.

“Thanks, Dad,” said the boy. “That was a gnarly set.”

“Hyperfierce gnar-gnar,” said Bill.

Jesse needed a dictionary to understand what they were talking about. Or was it a
riptionary
?

“Jesse and Daisy, this is Reef,” said Mitzi.

Reef nodded to Jesse and Daisy.

“And our bodacious bambina, Coral,” Bill said.

Coral waved as if she were wiping a pane of glass clean. Neither of the Driftwood kids looked the least bit cold. Jesse guessed it was because they wore wet suits, which made them look like seals with racing stripes, Reef’s blue and Coral’s yellow.

“These kids are Polly’s grandchildren,” Mitzi said. “And they found a Thunder Egg. Take a look.”

Jesse shot a look at Mrs. Driftwood. How many people know that the ancient Native Americans called geodes Thunder Eggs?

“Radical!” said Coral. She had long black hair like her mother’s, and her father’s faded blue eyes. “Can I hold it?” she asked.

Daisy hesitated. “I guess.”

Gently, Coral took the geode. “Don’t worry,” she said to Daisy with a wink.

“I am so stoked,” said Reef. He took the egg from his sister and put it to his ear.

“It’s not a seashell,” Daisy said, holding out her hand for the egg. “It’s not like you can hear the sea in it or anything like that.”

Jesse directed a sidelong look at Daisy. Why was she coming off so unfriendly? Maybe she was just being protective of the Thunder Egg. But Reef didn’t seem offended by Daisy’s manners.

“It’s all good,” he said, smiling as he handed the geode back to Daisy. Reef had his mother’s eyes, as
shiny and round as those of a character out of some Japanese animation. “You guys are stone-cold
lucky
.”

“I’d put the geode in your backpack if I were you, dear,” Mitzi said to Daisy.

Daisy handed the geode to Jesse and turned around so Jesse could unzip the backpack.

“Okay!” said Jesse. Then he looked at the hole in the sand and said, “Digging for buried treasure?”

Bill said, “If only, dude. Nah, we’re digging a fire pit to roast our Thanksgiving turkey. Wouldn’t want to smoke up our little sugar shack.”

“Have fun. It was, um, groovy meeting you,” said Jesse.

“Bodacious brody,” said Bill. He held out his fist to Jesse.

Jesse stared at it, then held out his own fist. Bill did a fist-bump, wiggety-waggety, chest-thump, slap-slap-snap routine that Jesse tried to keep up with. As secret handshakes went, it was just about the coolest and most complicated one he had ever done. He grinned at Bill, who grinned back.

Daisy grabbed his arm and hauled him back toward Polly’s house.

“Wait!” said Mitzi.

Daisy rolled her eyes. Jesse was all too happy to spend more time with these people. They both turned around.

“Take these,” Mitzi said.

“What are they?” Daisy asked.

“A little piece of the beach,” Mitzi said with a smile. She was holding out two circles of fine fishing line strung through two small translucent seashells.

They were necklaces. Jesse now noticed that both Coral and Reef were wearing similar ones over their wet suits.

“Thanks,” said Jesse, taking them and handing one to Daisy.