Dragon Keepers #3: The Dragon in the Library by Kate Klimo Read Free Book Online

little kid. It looked like a he, with a flimsy little torso and long, gangling arms and legs and a great big noggin--sort of like one of the house-elves in the Harry Potter books, only dustier-looking and with sharper features. Everything about his head was sharp: the bones of his skull, the big nose that hooked down and the big chin that hooked up, the jutting cheekbones, the pointy ears, and the piercing eyes that turned up at the corners--all topped off with a tuft of hair the color of dust bunnies. And this very peculiar-looking creature was, at that very moment, staring directly at them...and beckoning!
    Emmy let out a shrill bark and the creature jumped into the air, darted across the library, and disappeared into the adult stacks.
    They stood for a while, noses pressed to the
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    glass, hoping the funny little guy would reappear. Emmy wouldn't quit barking, so eventually the cousins gave up.
    "What was it, do you think?" Daisy whispered to Jesse, her eyes round with wonder.
    Emmy barked once.
    "I don't know, but I think Emmy does," Jesse said. "Let's get her home quick and find out." When Jesse unfastened Emmy's leash from the Chicken Box, she practically yanked his arm out of the socket dragging him down the library stairs. It was all Jesse could do to get on his bike and fit his feet on the pedals as Emmy pulled Jesse homeward, with Daisy pumping like mad to keep up with them.
    The moment they shut the garage door, Emmy unmasked into a dragon. The first breathless words out of her mouth were "That was a shelf elf!"
    "Really?" asked Daisy.
    "What's a shelf elf?" asked Jesse. "And can it help us find the professor?"
    Emmy squeezed her eyes shut in thought, then opened them. "Beats me." She hung her head in shame. "Some dragon I am. I have no idea what a shelf elf is or whether he can help us find the professor."
    "Well, whatever he is, I think you pretty much
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    scared him away with all that barking," Daisy said.
    Emmy sank down onto her haunches and looked even more miserable. "I ruin everything in the end, don't I?" she said.
    Daisy said, "You were excited, that's all."
    "Believe me," Jesse put in. "If I were a dog, I would have barked my head off. That thing was amazing."
    "He was," Daisy agreed. "And the party is tonight, so maybe we'll get a chance to see him again. And find the book that will help us get into the tower and rescue the professor."
    "But we can't just sit around until then. We need to do something!" Jesse said.
    "If I don't do something to cool myself down," Daisy said, "my brain's going to boil over and I'm not going to be much use to anyone, including the professor. Let's go take a dunk in the brook."
    "And then we can go to the barn and visit the Museum of Magic collection," Jesse said. "Remember, Miss Alodie said that's where we should go when in doubt, which we are."
    After putting their bathing suits on under their shorts and throwing together a late picnic lunch, the cousins and Emmy left for the Dell. As they had done so many times before, they walked to the rear of the backyard, crawled through the tunnel in the
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    laurel bushes, and poked their heads out into the Dell. That was their name for the abandoned dairy barn and the pasturelands surrounding it, which were divided by a brook. Normally, Emmy would have transformed into a dragon the instant she emerged from the laurels, but today she had made a grudging promise to remain masked.
    "Just in case Sadie Huffington has any spies lurking," Jesse said.
    They walked along the brook until it widened into a crystalline pool beneath the branches of their favorite weeping willow, its delicate green fronds trailing in the water.
    "Hey, Willow!" Jesse called up to it.
    "Mind if we borrow a piece of your shade?" Daisy asked.
    "We'll just be a few minutes," said Jesse. "Then we have things to do."
    The weeping willow fluttered some of its long green fingers toward them, lightly brushing the cousins' faces. Since there wasn't even a whisper of a