The Dragon in the Volcano (19 page)

It was early Monday evening when they emerged from the crater lake and clambered up on its banks. It was the same time of day it had been when they left the Earthly Realm on Friday. The sun was turning the surface of the lake a deep pink that
reminded Daisy of the color of the sky in the Fiery Realm. She knelt down and dipped her hand into the water. It was icy cold. She pulled her hand back. Her fingers tingled.

“Well, I guess that’s that,” she said, standing up. She shook out her hand, but the tingling didn’t go away. She laughed shortly. “Maybe I should tell my parents that I dipped my arm in the crater lake and froze it stiff.”

Jesse was staring at her as if he had just seen a ghost, which, in a sense, he had. “Your arm!” he said, pointing.

“Yeah. Trust me, that water’s freezing,” said Daisy. “Knowing how you feel about cold water, I wouldn’t advise you to go anywhere near it yourself, Jess.”

“But you touched it with your
left
hand,” Jesse said. “Daisy,
your whole left arm is moving
!”

Daisy looked down slowly. The left sleeve of her winter coat was no longer hanging limp and useless at her side. Her left hand was alive and well and shaking off the freezing-cold water.

“My arm got its feeling back!” Daisy shouted.

“Yay!” Emmy shouted. “Daisy has two good arms again!”

“Whoopee!” Jesse sang.

Jesse, Daisy, and Emmy did the Happy Prospector’s Dance on the banks of the crater lake.

After a round or two, Emmy stopped. “Wait just a rootin’-snootin’ minute here,” she said.

Jesse was only too happy to correct her. “That would be rootin’-tootin’.”

“Oh, no!” Emmy tapped the side of her snout. “Because it’s my dragon
snoot
that tells me you might be on to something with this arm of yours, Daisy Flower. If damage that was done in the Fiery Realm was undone here, then maybe …”

Emmy lifted up the casket that contained Jasper’s essence and removed the lid. They watched as she scattered Jasper’s ashes over the water. The dust swirled out over the lake like a twinkling bronze fog.

Daisy was thinking,
How touching that she’s spreading Jasper’s ashes over the lake like that
.

Jesse was thinking,
Maybe now she won’t be lugging that gloomy old casket around with her all the time
.

The next moment, Jasper’s bronze, horned head poked out of the water. “Emerald!” he called out. “I’m back!”

“Jasper!” she cried. “Welcome to the Earthly Realm!”

Jasper climbed out of the lake, and the two dragons clinched.

Jesse and Daisy stood around feeling happy for Emmy and Jasper but also rather awkward. Jesse turned and invited Daisy to appreciate the way the sun was sinking down into the west.

“Like a broken egg yolk, spreading out along the horizon,” Jesse said.

“Exactly!” said Daisy. “And speaking of which, I’m hungry. Emmy, can we please get going?”

Behind them, Emmy cleared her throat carefully. “Cousins, if you two don’t mind,” she said, “I think I’d like to stay here and give Jasper a chance to see his first sunset.”

“I think that means she wants to be alone with him,” Jesse whispered to Daisy.

“That’s fine,” Daisy whispered back to Jesse. “But that means no ride home for us. And it’s a
long
way home.”

Just then, they heard a familiar clopping sound. Jesse and Daisy whipped around to see Old Bub plodding up the side of the mountain.

“Your ride is here,” Emmy said brightly.

“When will we see you back at the garage?” Jesse asked.

“Oh, no,” said Emmy, frowning with sudden
“vehemence, you won’t be seeing me in that stinky old garage ever again.”

Daisy looked stricken. “We’ll make improvements, we promise!” she said.

“Honest!” Jesse said.

“Face it, Keepers. I’m too big for the garage now. I’m thinking the barn is more my style.”

“Great!” said the cousins, relieved that her new nest would be someplace nearby and as familiar and dear to them as their own home.

Emmy went on, “I’ll stay in the barn part of the time and in my cottage in the Fiery Realm the other part of the time.”

The cousins groaned.

“I like my cottage!” Emmy protested. “It’s just the right size! I never bump my head on the ceiling, never have to be a sheepdog, and I have a very nice cozy nest there.”

“Yeah, but it’s so far away,” Jesse said.

“And no offense, but I don’t think either one of us is in any hurry to get back to the Fiery Realm,” Daisy said, with a telling little shake of her newly enlivened left arm.

“And anyway, how are we supposed to know when you’re going to show up in the barn?” Jesse said, trying very hard not to sound whiney.

“You’ll know I’m in the barn when this happens,” Emmy said, blinking her great green eyes.

Daisy let out a soft cry. She held up her left arm and pushed up the sleeve of her coat. “My arm tingles like crazy!” she said. “And look, Jess!”

Jesse gaped at the sight of his cousin’s arm. Each of the hundreds of fine white hairs had a little tiny flame on it, just the way they had in the Fiery Realm. “Whoa,” said Jesse. “Now
that
is an even cooler souvenir than your Purple Star and my Silver Heart.”

“It sure is!” said Daisy, continuing to stare at her arm in astonishment.

“I mean,” said Jesse, “that’s what I call a genuine
fire arm
!”

Daisy lowered her arm, which had stopped tingling. “Well, I guess we’ll run along now and leave you two lovebirds alone.”

“No, no, no. Not lovebirds,” said Emmy, shaking her head. “We are
like
birds, aren’t we, Jasper?”

“As I always said,” the big galoot murmured, “Emmy and I are boons.”

“I’m way too young to have a fiery mote,” Emmy said.

“Then what was all that fiery mote business about?” Jesse asked.

“St. George put a spell on Emmy that made her crave me for the fiery mote of her heart. St. George wanted to trap Emmy in the Fiery Realm, and he used me for bait,” said Jasper with a sigh.

“What broke the spell?” Jesse asked.

“Maybe it broke when we came up through the crater lake,” Daisy said. “Just like my arm got its feeling back, Emmy lost the fiery mote feeling for Jasper.”

“And we’re glad you did,” Jesse said.

“I’ll say!” said Daisy. “We should have known all along that you were too cool for school.”

Old Bub snorted and pawed at the earth with a front hoof.

“I think he’s trying to tell us something,” said Daisy.

Old Bub pawed again, as if to say,
Enough talk. Let’s get going
.

“We have to get home,” Jesse said. “School tomorrow.”

After Daisy and Jesse said their so-longs to the two dragons, Emmy boosted them onto Old Bub’s back and gave the horse’s flank a friendly smack to send him on his way. Daisy gripped Jesse around the middle with both hands, and Jesse clung to Old Bub’s mane.

As Old Bub started down the mountainside,
Jesse wondered aloud, “So how do you think the new twins are doing? Do you think Cousin Paul liked the card I made him? I wonder what Miss Alodie’s been up to while we’ve been gone. I hope Teachers’ Conference Day went well. Do you think Ms. Lasky learned lots of neat new teaching tricks?”

To which Daisy responded in her best Flamin-ian style: “Desist with the dithering details, earthly upstart!”

They both enjoyed a good chuckle as Old Bub plodded all the way back to the barn.

The sun had set by the time they arrived at the old barn doors. As soon as they slipped off Old Bub’s back, he gave a sigh and slowly faded into the twilight, leaving only the four rusty horseshoes. Jesse and Daisy returned the horseshoes to the Museum of Magic, where they also placed the Purple Star and the Silver Heart, next to the Toilet Glass. Now that the Witch of Uffington was no longer trapped inside it, they were altogether more comfortable about having it there.

When Jesse and Daisy crawled through the tunnel in the laurel bushes and poked their heads out, they saw a bonfire burning in their own backyard.

“It’s like the Fiery Realm followed us home,”
said Jesse as they kicked their way toward it through the fallen leaves.

Daisy started to sing, and soon Jesse joined in:

Miss Alodie was hunkered down next to the fire. She was roasting something over it on long sticks.

“Miss Alodie, cooking completely normal food? Hot dogs and buns?” Jesse said. “Who would have thunk it?”

“Hail, cousins!” Miss Alodie called out when she saw them. “As you can see, I have kept the home fires burning. You’re just in time for a soy wiener roast.”

“I should have known she wouldn’t cook
real
hot dogs,” Jesse said with a snort.

“You kids are looking mighty peckish!” Miss Alodie said.

“Are you kidding? We’re
starved
!” said Daisy. “We’ve pretty much been living on air for the past few days.”

“Well, I want to hear all about it,” said Miss
Alodie, her blue eyes twinkling in the firelight.

“Hey, look!” Daisy said, pointing into the depths of the fire.

“Oh, yeah!” said Jesse, seeing it, too. There in the fire, side by side, were a little orange point like the fire on a birthday candle, a small flame flickering—white one moment and blue the next—and a small, round, red burning ball that looked extremely pleased with itself.

“Hey, you three!” said Jesse, waving to the fire fairies. “I hope you guys don’t get in trouble for all licking through at the same time.”

“Are you kidding?” Daisy said with a laugh. “Those little guys
are
trouble.”

Later that night, Jesse got on his computer and typed a note to his parents.