The Dragon in the Driveway Read Online Free PDF Page B

college this afternoon,” Jesse said. “He works at night.”
    “Why would he do that?” Daisy asked.
    “Because he’s a bad, bad man,” Emmy said in a fierce whisper.
    “And because what he’s doing is illegal. You heard your dad. This isn’t his land,” Jesse said.
    “It’s the farmer’s land,” Daisy said, nodding. “And the farmer’s not here, so we’re going to have to represent his interests.”
    Jesse gave her a weird look. “Really?”
    Daisy grinned. “I don’t know. But it sounded good, didn’t it?” she said. “Let’s go.”
    The motley group, led by the trees, marched down the hill and across the pasture, over to the path that led into the Deep Woods.
    “You must take matters in hand now,” said Douglas Fir. “Start by climbing us,” he said as his transparent spirit stepped back into the solid trunk of the tree.
    “P-p-please do,” said Lady Aspen as she, too, disappeared into her pale trunk.
    Jesse turned to Emmy. “Did they just say to climb them?”
    Emmy shook her head and nodded in rapidsuccession. “Yes. No. Dragons do not climb trees. Yes, boys and girls do. Boys climb boys and girls climb girls,” she said, as if it were common knowledge.
    Jesse looked up. The lowest branches of the Douglas fir were way over his head and the trunk was too wide to shimmy up. Just as Jesse was about to protest that it wasn’t possible, he found himself engulfed by pine needles as the tree bent over him and picked him up into its branches. The quaking aspen did the same for Daisy.
    Jesse wrapped his arms around a stout branch.
    “Look at me!” Daisy called softly from her perch in the crown of the quaking aspen.
    Jesse could make out her silvery hair shimmering among the pale green leaves, and then her hand waved in the moonlight. “Whoa!” he said, hanging on tightly as the Douglas fir uprooted itself with a soft grunt and began to move over the debris-ridden path. When he was eight years old in India, Jesse had ridden in an elephant’s howdah, one of those fancy cushioned saddles with the tasseled canopies. He discovered that if he let go and went with the motion of the elephant, it could be quite comfortable. Applying the same principle to the tree, he relaxed and began to sway along.
    Jesse caught the occasional glimpse of Emmy’smoonstruck scales as she kept pace with them, moving steadily under cover of the trees of the Deep Woods.
    The light ahead grew brighter and the noise of the machinery grew louder, and the trees slowed down. Finally, they came to a silent standstill at the edge of the clearing.
    St. George was there.

CHAPTER FOUR
ENTER THE SHOVEL
    He stood in the bed of a giant dump truck like an actor on a movie set, every detail of his handsome face visible beneath a circle of powerful spotlights blazing from atop high metal stalks. He wore his usual long black coat. A bright orange hard hat satincongruously on his head, his golden hair spilling to his shoulders beneath it. His round wire-rimmed spectacles reflected the glare of the lights and made him look as if he had a slice of cucumber over each eye. He was pointing with a gloved hand and shouting to a crew of workers in orange jumpsuits.
    A steam shovel rumbled and swiveled on its base as it reached down into the hole. The scoop came up and swiveled back, dumping its load on top of the dirt mound, which had risen to mountainous proportions since the afternoon. A worker scrambled up out of the hole. He was covered in muck, a pickax slung over his shoulder. The muddy cuffs of his orange jumpsuit drooped around his ankles.
    At first Jesse thought he was looking at a child dressed up in a grown man’s work clothes. Cautiously, he shimmied out to the end of the branch to get a closer look.
    He sucked in his breath. It
wasn’t
a child. The muddy figure in the orange jumpsuit was broad and stocky through the shoulders. The worker used his pick to swing himself up onto the back of the dump truck. In a rolling gait, he