The Dragon in the Driveway by Kate Klimo, John Shroades Read Free Book Online Page B

all four sides by a neat trench. It lay in the earth, an inviting rectangle set on a slight angle, with the high end sloping upward, toward the barn.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE DOOR IN THE EARTH
    The shovel rose up in the air, spun around several times, and buried its blade once again in the mound of loose dirt as if to say, “Ta-da!”
    Jesse waited a moment, then went over and, blisters and all, pulled the shovel out of the dirt. Hehefted it. “The magic’s gone,” he said to the other two in wonder. “It feels like a regular old shovel now.”
    “That’s because it’s allllll done!” said Emmy happily.
    “If it’s finished digging, maybe we should hang it back on the wall, where it belongs,” Daisy suggested.
    “Okay,” said Jesse, taking the shovel back into the barn. When he rejoined them by the side of the hole, they continued to stand there and stare down.
    “I guess we should get in there and check it out,” said Jesse finally.
    “I guess,” said Daisy dubiously.
    Jesse slid on his behind down into the hole. Standing in the trench to one side of the door, Jesse bent down and examined it. Where the doorknob should have been, there was only a hole. He put his eye to the hole and peered in. He had a sensation of open space. It was definitely a door that led somewhere. He put his nose to the hole and sniffed. It smelled musty, like roots and rot and something slightly fruity.
    Jesse hooked two fingers into the knob hole and tugged hard. The door wouldn’t open. He ran his fingers along the side of the door and tried to liftit like the lid of a large chest. But the door held fast.
    Above him, on her hands and knees, Daisy stared down at him, with Emmy peering brightly over her shoulder. A grin slowly spread across Daisy’s face. “You know what you need?” she asked. “A
doorknob
! And I’ve got just the one for you.” She leaped to her feet with such enthusiasm that she sent a small shower of dirt pattering down onto Jesse’s face.
    Daisy returned holding the green crystal doorknob from their Museum of Magic collection.
    “One Magic Doorknob, coming up. Catch,” said Daisy, tossing it down to Jesse.
    He caught it. Then he bent down and fit it into the hole in the door. It slipped in smoothly, fit perfectly, and turned with a smart, satisfying
click
. Jesse pulled the knob. The door opened a crack. Heart hammering, Jesse opened it the rest of the way with a loud, long, rusty creak. A gust of earthen-smelling air enveloped him. Through the open door he saw a set of stone stairs leading steeply downward into darkness.
    “We’ve got some stairs here,” Jesse announced to the others. “Let’s see where they lead, okay?”
    “Oh, goody!” Emmy called down to him.
    When he didn’t hear anything from Daisy, heturned and looked. She was rising slowly to her feet, backing away from the edge of the hole. Jesse scrambled out after her.
    “Wait’ll you see how neat these stairs are, Daze!” Jesse said.
    Daisy had a very odd look on her face.
    “That knob … it fit the door like it was made for it. It’s magic!” Jesse paused, then asked, “What’s the matter, Daisy?”
    “What if it’s the
wrong
kind of magic?” she asked in a small voice.
    Jesse looked down through the doorway and then up at Daisy. “First the shovel, then the door, then the knob, now the stairs … Daisy, we can’t stop now. Don’t you see?
Going down the stairs is the right thing to do.
”
    Daisy shivered and held her elbows tightly. “I never told you this, but when I was little, I got wedged behind Grandma’s claw-foot bathtub. I crawled back there to find my ball. I was stuck there for hours until they found me. They had to pour olive oil all over me to pull me out. Ever since then, I’ve had a thing about tight, dark spaces….” She looked into the doorway. “Like
that.
I don’t think I can go down there.”
    “I can!” said Emmy merrily. “I think I can, Ithink I can, I think I can,” she said as she slid