The Dragon in the Sea Read Online Free PDF

Where is my tail?
he wondered frantically. The next moment, he found he was leaving his own trail of fine bubbles and that his lungs had relaxed. He was breathing under the water! Exploring with his fingers, he felt them: a set of three neat slits beneath and slightly behind each ear. Could a fish tail be far behind?
    Suddenly, he felt something wrap itself around his legs, binding them together. Perhaps it was one of the mermen who had attacked Daisy yesterday? But then he realized that the feeling was coming from
inside
his body. He looked down. He could just make out his legs and sneakered feet disappearing inside a silvery sheath of scales.
    Jesse tested his new tail. It was twice as strong as his two legs. If he whipped his tail around, he swam in circles. But if he merely flicked the fins at the end of his tail, he banked smoothly to the right or left.
    Daisy appeared before him, her hair swirling around her head like white silk. “How do you like it?” she said.
    Her words came on bubbles that popped out of her mouth. There was a slight delay, like with a ship-to-shore radio. Her voice sounded a little deeper than in the air but still clear.
    “This is great!” Jesse bubbled back at Daisy.
    “Look at you two! You have scaly tails, just like me! Except that mine is green and yours are sparkly silver.” Emmy’s golden voice sounded exactly the same as it always did. And there she was, a big green dragon in the wide green sea. “This is awesome! It’s just like the air, only wet and soft. And look at me!” She spun around, executing a graceful somersault. Her wings were compacted, tucked close to her body, more like fins now.
    “Let me try that!” Jesse said. He tucked his tail and spun head over fins, like a wheel that was half boy, half fish.
    Daisy did the same. The three of them spun around and around until they were dizzy andlaughing wildly, lost in clouds of bubbles. Jesse stopped, his head reeling. When the bubbles cleared, he saw a school of little yellow fish, hovering in place, staring at them with wide, black, unblinking eyes.
    “Race you to the bottom of the sea!” Emmy said, and the three of them were off.
    The rays of the sun, shimmering in the water like spokes, grew gradually dimmer the deeper they swam. Jesse kept his eye on Emmy’s hind paws, paddling behind her like big green fans.
    Eventually, they arrived on the ocean bottom, which was covered in fine sand as pure and white as new-fallen snow. They swam about, exploring. Daisy found the hull of a rowboat. Jesse found a rusty old oil drum. And Emmy hit the jackpot, coming upon an old yellow taxicab with the checker design still on it.
    “How do you think this got down here?” Emmy wondered aloud.
    “Somebody must have made a wrong turn,” Jesse said.
    They snorted and laughed until the water was fizzy. Then Jesse swam over and peered into the oil drum. An orange claw reached out and snatched at his nose.
    Jesse reared back and said, “Yowie. Do you think it’s a sand witch or a crab?” He looked around. Daisy and Emmy had disappeared. His heart started hammering. Then he caught sight of them some distance off, hovering before what looked like a long, wavy black curtain. He swam toward them.
    The curtain was made up of black stalks rooted in the ocean floor, their gnarled branches extending up toward the water’s surface. They reminded Jesse of the Deep Woodsin winter, bleak and leafless. The closer he swam, the more grim and foreboding the place felt.
    “What is this stuff?” Jesse asked when he reached Daisy and Emmy.
    “We’re wondering the same thing.” Daisy touched one of the long black trunks. She recoiled. “Ouch!” she said, holding out her hand. There were small white ridges on her fingertips. “It’s sharp!”
    “Must be some sort of coral,” said Jesse.
    “Isn’t coral bright and colorful?” Daisy said doubtfully.
    “Maybe it’s
dead
coral,” Emmy said.
    “Creepy,” said Jesse.
    It wasn’t just the