Dragon Keepers #3: The Dragon in the Library (3 page)

26

"What's
impending?"
Jesse whispered to Daisy. Daisy shrugged.

"Trouble amasses on the horizon; I feel it in my very marrow," the professor said. "Until further notice, consider yourselves on red alert, Dragon Keepers."

With a heavy sigh, Jesse switched off the computer, and then they headed down the block to Miss Alodie's house. If anyone had valerian tea, they decided, it would be Miss Alodie. They didn't even bother stopping in the garage to collect Emmy. She hadn't been to Miss Alodie's house in over a week. Their newly sprouted, moody-as-all-get-out Nest Potato had no interest in anything but reading.

"What kind of a threat do you think the professor was talking about?" Daisy asked.

"I don't know," said Jesse sullenly. "Maybe there isn't any."

"What do you mean?" said Daisy.

"Maybe the professor's feeling grouchy, too," said Jesse. "Maybe he's just imagining things."

Daisy nodded thoughtfully. The professor had a tendency to express himself dramatically, but she was pretty sure that if the professor felt something in his
very marrow
, the threat was real.

When they got to Miss Alodie's house, they didn't see her in the front garden. So they headed

27

down the side yard path, which was lined by ranks of sturdy sunflowers, towering at least eight feet high. Unnoticed, the sunflowers' big pie-plate faces turned and slowly tracked the cousins as they passed.

There was no Miss Alodie in the back garden, either, where her cutting beds stretched a quarter of an acre to the high hedge of myrtle that ran along the back of her yard. But the garden doors in the rear of the cottage stood wide open. The next moment, Miss Alodie came bursting through them, waving a flowered hanky over her head, as if in surrender.

"Cousins!" she cried. Her green beanie was askew, and fine white hairs stood up around her head in a trembling nimbus. "It's
gone!"

"What's gone?" Jesse and Daisy chorused.

"Our project. Our prize! The big book!" she cried. "It's gone! Disappeared!"

Jesse and Daisy followed her into the cottage. The small, cozy parlor, normally as neat as a pin, looked as if a cyclone had hit it, leaving lamps overturned, vases dumped, and knickknacks scattered in its wake. The big, red leather-bound book, which sat between the couch and the easy chairs disguised as a coffee table, was gone.

"What happened?" Jesse asked.

28

"Not five minutes ago, I was out front, thinning my zinnia patch, when I heard all hullabaloo break out inside. I ran in the house and..." She pointed to the spot where the book had been.

"Who took it?" Daisy asked.

"Well, not St. George, we know that much. He's out of circulation, for a while at least," Miss Alodie said. She plopped down on the sofa. "But who, then?
Who?"

The cousins perched on either side of her and pondered the question in uneasy silence.

Then Jesse said, "The professor said we should be on red alert. Maybe this was why."

Miss Alodie snorted. "Well, he might have warned me. I would have stayed inside with the book. I could have thinned the zinnias another day." She pounded her fists on her thighs. "Oh, why am I blaming him? It's my fault. The book was in my care."

Daisy patted Miss Alodie's shoulder. "It's not your fault, either. And we'll get it back, won't we, Jess?"

"Sure, we will," Jesse said, not very convincingly.

Then Daisy remembered the reason for their visit. "Do you have some valerian tea?"

Miss Alodie gave Daisy an odd look.

29

"It's for Emmy," Daisy said. "The professor prescribed it...for relief of her grumpiness."

"It so happens I have a formidable valerian blend, if I do say so myself. I'll put the kettle on." Miss Alodie popped up from the sofa and darted into the kitchen. "I'll brew you a pot and put it in a thermos."

By the time Jesse and Daisy had finished tidying the parlor, the steeped tea had deepened to a golden color and Miss Alodie was pouring it into the thermos.

"It has a bit of a kick," Miss Alodie said.

"What do you mean by that?" Jesse asked.

"It might knock her out cold," Miss Alodie said.

"For how long?" Daisy asked as she tucked the thermos into the pack on Jesse's back.

Miss Alodie frowned. "A few minutes, an hour, it depends. You'll need some of these, as well." She handed Daisy a tin, which she pried open. Jesse poked his nose in and sniffed the small spicy-smelling, half-moon-shaped cookies. He reached in.

"Tut-tut! You're not a dog!" Miss Alodie said, tapping his wrist. "These would be my Rock-'em, Sock-'em Dog Biscuits, my son. Home-baked from my own special recipe. To be used only in dire circumstances."

30

"Dire?" Jesse echoed.

"Absolutely desperate," Miss Alodie said, her blue eyes narrowing with meaning.

Daisy added the tin of dog biscuits to the backpack. They were at the front door when Miss Alodie chirped, "I nearly forgot!" She clambered up the steep staircase that led to the upper floor and trotted back down a minute later holding what looked like a brightly colored tangle of yarn. She divided up the pile and handed some to each of them. "My modest attempt at crochet," she said. "A bit lumpy, but serviceable, I trust. Wear them in good health."

"Thanks," said Jesse and Daisy, examining the odd wad of yarn in their hands.

"What are they?" Daisy asked.

"Why, earmuffs, of course!" said Miss Alodie.

"Earmuffs," Daisy said slowly. "In August. How...
useful!"

"You never know when a heat wave will give way to a cold spell, do you?" Miss Alodie said brightly. "If I were you, I'd keep them handy."

Miss Alodie's gifts, odd as they seemed, had certainly come in handy in the past.

"We will," said Daisy as she stuffed the earmuffs into the backpack's side pouch. "And we'll let you know what the professor says about the book."

Miss Alodie stood in the doorway, looking

31

suddenly very grave. "Remember, children, when in doubt, look to the collections," she called after them.

Jesse waited until they were on the sidewalk before he said, "What was she talking about? What collections?"

"Our Museum of Magic collections, what else?" Daisy said.

"I didn't realize we had more than one," Jesse said, but he let it go.

On the short walk home, they agreed not to say anything to Emmy about the missing book. There was no use stoking her grouchiness with bad news.

When they got home and went to the garage, Emmy had just begun the second book on the pile. She barely looked up when they came in. Jesse took off the backpack and pulled out the thermos.

"We have something for you," Daisy said. "Something very good for you to drink."

"I will just go 'ptoooie' again," said Emmy with a little sigh. "And then you will hate me."

"We aren't going to hate you, because we could never hate you, and besides, you're not going to spit it out," said Daisy carefully. "This is tea that will help you feel better."

Emmy looked up and narrowed her green eyes. "Who says?"

32

The cousins exchanged a look of exasperation. They turned back to Emmy. "We say," they chimed.

"Your Dragon Keepers," Jesse added.

"Miss Alodie says so, too," Daisy said. "She brewed it up, especially for you."

"She did?" Emmy leaped out of her nest and bounded over to them. "In that case, I will drink every drop."

"That's the spirit," said Jesse.

"This is special tea," said Daisy, unscrewing the thermos top. "It only makes you better if you drink it when you're in dog form."

Emmy pulled back, her eyes darkening.

"Miss Alodie says," Jesse said.

Emmy burst out, "I DON'T CARE WHAT MISS ALODIE SAYS. I refuse to be a mangy-haired, butt-sniffing, leg-lifting, damp-nosed sheepdog ever, ever,
ever
again!" She turned her back on them and practically wiped them out with a sweep of her tail.

The cousins looked at each other and frowned, fists clenched at their sides.

Daisy waited until her temper had simmered. Then she said, "All right, Emmy. We weren't going to tell you this, because we didn't want to upset you...but somebody stole the book."

Emmy swung back around, her tail coming

33

down on the concrete floor with a loud smack. "Who took it? Did St. George take it?"

"Now, don't go getting all riled up," said Jesse, making calming motions with his hands.

"We don't know yet who took the book," said Daisy.

"But I want it!" Emmy wailed. "And I haven't visited it for days!" A fat tear formed in her right eye and slid down her nose, followed by another and another.

Daisy sighed and went to get a beach towel. Emmy might not be a baby anymore, but she could still cry like one. Daisy handed the towel up to Emmy. "Please don't cry," she said, patting Emmy's flank. "We'll get the book back."

"H-h-how will we do that?" Emmy said tremulously, blowing her nose into the towel with a loud honk.

"Dragon magic!" Daisy said.

Jesse gave Daisy two big thumbs-up signs.

Emmy lowered the beach towel slowly. "Really?"

"What else?" said Daisy. "But first you have to do like Miss Alodie says and drink this tea."

"In your dog form," Jesse added.

Emmy nodded and promptly masked into a sheepdog.

34

Daisy tipped the thermos and filled the lid with the hot, steaming tea. She set it down on the floor in front of Emmy, who lapped it up neatly with her forked pink tongue. Then she looked up and gave the little yap that meant "More!"

"Did she say how much we're supposed to give her?" Daisy asked Jesse.

Jesse said, "The professor said a bowl...."

But before they could decide, Emmy turned around three times, lay down with her head on her paws, and started snoring softly.

"I guess that's the kick Miss Alodie was talking about," Jesse said.

"It works for me," said Daisy. "Let's go talk to the professor."

Letting their sleeping dog lie, they locked her in the garage and went upstairs to the computer. Jesse typed in the professor's Web address and pressed Return. They waited for the professor's site to come up. Jesse tapped his foot and hummed softly to himself. It seemed to take longer than usual, but eventually, with a great deal of grinding and whirring, the page appeared.

This is what they saw: Professor Andersson's empty chair behind the desk, its leather back turned toward them as if he had spun around and leaped from it in a great hurry.

35

"Maybe he had to make an emergency trip to the bathroom?" Jesse suggested.

In nervous silence, they waited for the professor to come back.

"Maybe he had to run an errand?" Daisy said.

They waited a bit more, their uneasiness mounting. Then, through the computer speaker, they heard a door slam so loudly, they both jumped. Jesse and Daisy saw a figure enter the studio and perch on the front of the desk, so close to the screen that Jesse couldn't quite make out who it was. But one thing they knew for certain. It wasn't the professor!

The person on-screen settled farther back on the desk. It was a woman! A woman with long, fiery red hair.

"There you are!" She stared at Jesse, right out of the computer monitor, as if he were the one she had been looking for.

Jesse felt a sudden sinking feeling in his chest.
Why me?

"Well, now, are you going to tell me where he is, or are you going to be a silly little pooch and hold out on me? Come, now. Where is he?" she asked. Her voice had a sizzling quality, and her strange yellow-green eyes bored into him.

Jesse swallowed dryly and said, "Who?"

36

"You know very well who," she said, her eyes narrowing to slits.

"Oh! The professor?" Jesse asked. "We were wondering the same thing, weren't we, Daze?"

"Don't look in her eyes," Daisy whispered, delivering a sharp elbow to Jesse's ribs. But it was too late for Jesse.

"The professor!" The woman threw back her head and laughed, showing the long white column of her throat. "I know exactly where that useless old hound dog is! It is St. George the Dragon Slayer I seek! Where is he? Tell me.
Now."

"Holy moly," Daisy said under her breath.

"W-w-we don't know," Jesse stammered, which was the truth. Only Her Royal Lowness, Queen Hap, knew where St. George was, somewhere beneath the Deep Woods, imprisoned in a giant cube of amber.

"Knave!" she shouted and brought her long switch down on the desk with a sharp
thwop
.

"Honest!" Jesse squeaked from around the knuckles crammed into his mouth. "We really and truly don't know where he is."

Her eyes dug into him. She whispered, "You might as well tell me now, because I will gladly beat it out of you."

Jesse was heartily glad he didn't know where