Dragon Keepers: The Dragon in the Library Part 8

"If we can rescue the professor," Jesse said, his jaw tight. "Have you forgotten the team of Tibetan mastiffs guarding the tower? we can rescue the professor," Jesse said, his jaw tight. "Have you forgotten the team of Tibetan mastiffs guarding the tower? The biggest dogs you've ever seen?" The biggest dogs you've ever seen?"

"We'll just stick to the plan," Daisy said confidently. "We'll get the book about Goldmine City houses and find a way to sneak around those big black dogs. Right?"

Balthazaar, who had c.o.c.ked his transparent head toward their conversation, spoke up. "Castle, you say?" he rumbled. "What castle would this be?"

"The replica of Uffington Castle that St. George--er, George Skinner--built a long time ago in our hometown of Goldmine City," Jesse explained.

"A replica, you say? Hmmm," said Balthazaar 108.

thoughtfully, scratching the crown of his head with a sicklelike talon. "Well, if it is indeed an exact copy, I will gladly show you the plans, especially if it will get me back even one half of my beloved long-lost skin."

He reached down and flipped through the pile of parchment at his feet, laying the book wide open before them and smoothing the pages out lovingly. "Gather round, my younglings," he said.

The book was so big, Jesse and Daisy had to scramble up onto the bottom edge to see what was on the page. In faded black ink was an elegant set of drawings detailing the floor plans of Uffington Castle."How come these are in your book?" Jesse asked.

"Because I was the castle's architect. The king of Uffington held a contest, and naturally," he said with a modest shrug, "my plan won."

Daisy whipped out the wildflower notebook, pulled the pencil out of her bun, and began copying the floor plans onto a fresh page.

While Daisy did that, Jesse spoke to her in an undertone. "I'd hate to raise Balthazaar's hopes only to dash them. What if we can't get the coat back? I mean, for all we know, Sadie Huffington is even more powerful than St. George. She seems so to 109.

me, at least. Doesn't she seem that way to you, Daze? I mean--"

Daisy cut short his fretting with a tug on his arm. "Look here, Jess." She showed him the plans she had copied into the notebook and pointed. "See? There's a secret pa.s.sage that goes underground, tunneling beneath the outer walls and coming up inside the castle. See? It comes out here, in the throne room. Once we're in the throne room, we go over here, to the gallery. See this set of twisty stairs? It leads up to the main tower, which is where the keep or the donjon is."

"Which is where we think the professor is being held prisoner!" Jesse said, forgetting his worries. "Brilliant!"

"Exactly. Totally bypa.s.sing the giant dogs!" Daisy beamed at him.

They hopped off the book and launched into the happy little prospector's dance to celebrate their perfect plan.

"It's all very well for you to frolic," Balthazaar grumbled, "but if I were you, I shouldn't leave my friend very long in the clutches of that evil woman."

Jesse and Daisy froze.

"You're right," Daisy said. "We've got no business dancing while the professor is her prisoner." Then she looked up into the ghostly face of the 110.

dragon storyteller. "Thank you for the plans, Mr. Balthazaar. We promise to do our best."

"Cross our hearts," Jesse said.

"Never mind your hearts. Just use your brains. You'll need all your lobes to outsmart that wily wench," said the dragon, his garnet eyes now on fire with hope. Then he dissolved into a black vapor that bubbled back into the pages of the book and disappeared.

"What did I tell you?" the shelf elf said with pride.

"You're right, Mr. Wink," Daisy told him. "That was an extraordinary extraordinary book. Thanks for recommending it. But now we have to go. We have lots to do." book. Thanks for recommending it. But now we have to go. We have lots to do."

"Where's Emmy?" Jesse asked.

Mr. Wink pointed. Emmy stood behind a bookshelf, holding a long pole that had a hook on the end of it. Whatever it was, it made for a perfect back-scratcher. The expression on Emmy's face was one of pure bliss.

"I guess she finally reached that itch," Jesse said, smiling.

"Come on, Emmy," Daisy said. "Let's go."

"Must you scratch and run? (Why are they always in such a hurry these days? Who knows!)" Willum Wink's shoulders sagged in disappointment. "I was so so hoping you'd stay long enough to hoping you'd stay long enough to 111.

view the Scriptorium's Special Collection."

"You have a collection, too?" Jesse said.

"We'll come back and see it another time," Daisy said.

"Why not now?" Jesse said.

"Ah!" said the elf with a grin. "I know a connoisseur of collections when I see one. Step this way."

Daisy held Jesse back. "What are you doing?" she whispered furiously.

"I'm going to see the collection," Jesse said. "And so are you, Daze. Remember what Miss Alodie said? She said 'Look to the collections.' I bet that's what she meant. Not just our own collection, but the Scriptorium's, too."

Daisy's eyes grew wide. "Jess, you're a genius!"

Jesse blushed.

They followed Willum Wink down the wide main aisle until they entered a different sort of s.p.a.ce, fit out with long, low stone tables, upon which elves swarmed over countless books spread out in various states of disrepair.

"We call this the Recovery Laboratory," Willum Wink said.

Some of the elves they pa.s.sed wore blue jackets. Others wore red jackets.

"What are they doing?" Daisy asked.

112.

"Those are bibliotechnicians in blue," the elf explained. "Bibliotherapists in red. Specialists. (And stuck-up ones, too, aren't they? My word, they are, indeed!) They do what needs to be done to keep all our volumes in good repair. They refresh faded inks, mend torn pages, sew raveling bindings, tidy the headbands and the foot bands, glue down peeling endpapers."

"What do the bibliotherapists do?" Jesse asked.

Mr. Wink halted. "You know, I've always wondered that myself. It's all very sensitive and hands-on and intuitive, but it's strictly hush-hush. Ah, here we are!"

They came to a place where the worktables had given way to row upon row of enormous display cases, their gla.s.s fronts sparkling in the foggy golden light.

Emmy, who had left the pole behind, ran ahead and began to work her back against the edge of one of the cases.

"Emmy!" Daisy scolded, afraid she would smudge the gla.s.s.

"That's quite all right!" said Willum Wink. "The young ones have so little self-control. But she'll do no real harm."

Jesse signaled to Daisy and she joined him by one of the cases. On display were skulls of animals 113.

she recognized along with skulls of animals she was pretty sure didn't exist in their world. There were fangs and bones and precious stones and strange-looking pressed leaves and equally strange flowers. One entire case held an arrangement of cracked geodes and the names, presumably, of the famous dragons that had hatched from them: Timor of Quartzite, Mina of Feldspar, Saffron of Hemat.i.te. Their names alone made Daisy want to hear their stories.

"We need some cases like this for our Museum of Magic," Emmy said.

Jesse and Daisy turned to look at the dragon.

"That would be cool, wouldn't it?" said Jesse.

"Super-ultra-fantastic-cool," said Emmy as she continued to scratch. She was so good-natured that Daisy found it hard to worry about the persistent itch of hers.

Jesse had moved on to the next case. "You guys," he called out to Daisy and Emmy. "This stuff is awesome!" awesome!"

Daisy and Emmy joined him. In the case were weapons and s.h.i.+elds with crests emblazoned on them. There were helmets and coronets molded to a full-grown dragon's head. In the next case were dragon-size broaches and rings and necklaces studded with a dazzling a.s.sortment of gems. In yet 114.

another were household items: bowls and goblets and cutlery and a ma.s.sive mortar and pestle made of jade. A relatively smaller object, flat and made of silver, with an intricate design of a dragon on the top, drew Daisy's attention.

"I wonder what this is," she said.

"Maybe it contains some anti-itching powder for me," Emmy said.

Jesse and Daisy both turned to her again.

The dragon was grinning widely, her emerald eyes gleaming with mirth. Was their junkyard dog making a joke? Her first in twelve days! The cousins chuckled appreciatively.

Then Daisy turned back to the case and tapped it. "Mr. Wink, what's this thing here?" she asked the elf, who had been standing by with quiet pride as they pored over the exhibit.

"That would be..." He took out a monocle and fitted it into his right eye, peering into the case. He snapped his fingers, trying to summon the name, murmuring, "(What do they call them, now? You know! I do?) Ah, yes. A Toilet Gla.s.s."

Jesse and Emmy both burst out laughing.

"A Toilet Gla.s.s," said Jesse.

"Do you make wee-wee in it?" Emmy asked.

Willum Wink leveled at Emmy the now-familiar 115.

Squint of Disapproval. "Your humor, young lady, escapes me."

Daisy explained. "It's just that where we come from, toilets are what we call the place where we go, where we make, um..." She groped for a more delicate way to say it.

Wink raised both hands, warding off further attempts to explain. "Say no more!" he said, removing his monocle. "I glean your meaning. A garderobe! (How odd they are, these Keepers and their kept one!)" He explained, "This is not an object of the garderobe. (Is it? My word! Goodness, no!) It is an object of the boudoir, a lady's private chambers."

The three of them continued to look puzzled, so the shelf elf said, "(The depth of their ignorance is unfathomable, is it not? It is!) Permit me." He fished a set of keys from a loop on his belt, unlocked the case, and opened it. Removing the object from the display, he held it in one hand and popped open the top, revealing a disk of metal on the inside of the lid. Wink polished it with his hanky and then shone it at them.

"It's a mirror!" said Jesse.

"Right you are," said the elf.

On the bottom of the disk was an empty well that Daisy figured was probably for face powder or 116.

blush. "I think it might be a lady's compact!" she said, taking it gently from the elf's hands. "It's really beautiful!" She held it up and looked at her face in the mirror. She was amazed at how good she looked, considering everything she had been through. Even her hair now looked smooth and s.h.i.+ny and straight. Why, she looked...like a beautiful princess!

Mr. Wink was saying, "It's quite a remarkable piece. It belonged to Princess Sadra during the height of her reign at Uffington with George Skinner. He'll always be George Skinner, the tanner's boy, in Balthazaar's book and in every book that sits upon our shelves, I might add. (But I digress, don't I? I do!) "Anyway , Sadra prized her vanity set. She had the finest silversmith in the kingdom of Uffington fas.h.i.+on it to her exact specifications." , Sadra prized her vanity set. She had the finest silversmith in the kingdom of Uffington fas.h.i.+on it to her exact specifications."

Daisy said suddenly, "Could we have this...Toilet Gla.s.s?"

Willum Wink gave her the Squint, then s.n.a.t.c.hed the gla.s.s back and said, "Never! It is the express property of the Scriptorium. (Face it, Winkie, you never should have opened this case in the first place. You have no one to blame but yourself, do you? Guilty as charged!)"

"But wouldn't Sadra be happy to get it back?

117.

You said yourself that she had loved it," Daisy said in her best wheedling voice.

"Of course course she would be thrilled to have it back!" Wink said. "But since when has the happiness of that crimson-haired she would be thrilled to have it back!" Wink said. "But since when has the happiness of that crimson-haired harridan harridan been a goal of ours? (My word! Keepers these days! Do they know been a goal of ours? (My word! Keepers these days! Do they know anything? anything? I am certain they do not!)" I am certain they do not!)"

"But we might be able to use it," said Daisy.

Jesse's face lit up as it dawned on him where she was going with the idea. "We can trade it for the coat and get Balthazaar his skin back," he said.

"And maybe get the professor back in the bargain," Daisy whispered to Jesse. Then she said to Willum Wink, "Surely Balthazaar's skin is more valuable to the Scriptorium than one measly piece of...silver."

"Pretty-please with sprinkles on top?" Emmy joined in.

Willum Wink pursed his lips, tugged at his hair with both hands, and went completely cross-eyed for a full minute as he held a silent conference with himself. At the end of it, he uncrossed his eyes and placed the Toilet Gla.s.s in Daisy's hands. "Take it," he said, "and use it wisely. (These Keepers are smarter than they look, aren't they? They are!)"

"Thank you!" said Emmy and Jesse together.

"And we will use it wisely," said Daisy.

118.

"So how do we get back to Goldmine City?" Jesse asked.

"Simple!" said the elf. "You just have to fly up there"--he pointed skyward--"and drop the sphere into the hole. It's a bit tricky, but nothing you can't manage. The sphere is your pa.s.s to and from the Scriptorium. Drop the sphere into the hole in the center of the dome and...Bob's your uncle!"

Daisy grinned. Jesse's dad's name was Robert, and she always loved it when people used that expression...because Bob really was was her uncle. Then her grin faded. "How are we supposed to fly up to the top of the dome? I hope we don't have to climb up there with one of your flimsy little ropes, because I'm telling you right now, I flunked ropes in gym." her uncle. Then her grin faded. "How are we supposed to fly up to the top of the dome? I hope we don't have to climb up there with one of your flimsy little ropes, because I'm telling you right now, I flunked ropes in gym."

"My word, no," said Mr. Wink. "The Scriptorium ropes would never lend themselves to such rigorous gymnastics."

"Then how do we get up there?" Jesse asked. "Fly?"

"Hmmm," said the elf, at a loss for suggestions.

"We don't exactly have wings," Daisy said.

"Oh, yes we do!" said Emmy.