The Dragon Tree Read Online Free PDF Page B

Fred.

    “She heard! She was listening behind
the door! She heard every word you said!”

17
THE VIGIL
    T HEY DIVIDED UP the rest of the night. Aunt Alex and Georgie kept watch until midnight, and then Eddy took over. He brought along a kerosene lantern and a book, but after a couple of hours the print began to blur on the page.
    How could he keep awake? Eddy struggled to his feet and began walking around the tree, around and around, while the moon rose to the top of its arc and slowly declined, dropping at last behind the bushy top of a beech tree on Laurel Street. Eddy knew that tree well. It had always been the pride and joy of the neighborhood, at least until thesurging growth of their own wonderful tree.
    At four in the morning Uncle Fred’s alarm clock went off, blasting him awake. It woke up Aunt Alex too. “Oh, what is it?” she said, lifting her head from the pillow.
    But at once Georgie popped up in the doorway in her unicorn pajamas like a sergeant at arms. “Your turn now, Uncle Fred,” she said brightly.
    He rolled out of bed, his hair in a frowze. “Yes, sir, captain, sir.” He groaned, shuffling his feet into his slippers and wrapping himself in a blanket.
    Eddy was glad to see the mounded shape of his uncle shambling out of the house. “Greetings, oh gracious deliverer,” he whispered, and stumbled away to bed.
    Uncle Fred sat down on a lawn chair and huddled drowsily in his blanket until Georgie skipped out of the house at dawn. Beaming at him, she said, “Okay, Uncle Fred, it’s my turn again.”
    “Oh, Georgie, dear,” said Uncle Fred, whimpering and standing up stiffly, “we can’t go on this way. It just won’t work.”
    “Oh, don’t worry, Uncle Fred,” said Georgie.“I’ll call Frieda right away.”
    “Well, then,” said Uncle Fred, limping away with his blanket trailing behind him on the dewy grass, “I will await further orders.”

    “You’ve got to do something, Mortimer.”
“Agreed. What, may I ask, do you suggest?”

18
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE NOBLE TREE
    F RIEDA’S MOTHER answered the phone. “Why, good morning, Georgie. How are you, dear?”
    “I’m fine, Mrs. Caldwell,” said Georgie. “Is Frieda there?”
    There was a bustling noise in the background, and Georgie could hear Frieda say crisply, “I’ll take that.” The phone crackled, and then Frieda said, “Caldwell here.”
    Georgie explained the crisis about the tree, and at once Frieda said, “Gotcha.”
    Frieda Caldwell was small for her age, but shewas a ball of fire. In the fourth grade she had taken charge of all sixteen thousand kids in Georgie’s Pilgrimage of Peace. She had shouted through a megaphone to keep everybody in line beside the highway, all the way to Washington.
    And that wasn’t all. Last year Frieda had been the majordomo of the great Mysterious Circus. She had bossed the whole thing, telling everybody what to do, from the clowns to the elephants.
    Now of course she came right over, marching firmly all the way from her house on Hubbard Street. Georgie led her around the house to see the glorious tree.
    Frieda looked up, and at once the tree fluttered its leaves politely, as if saying “How do you do.”
    “Well, okay,” said Frieda, “I get it. No problem. All we need is a bunch of bodyguards, night and day.” She looked at Georgie and grinned. “Like, you know, a protection society, right?”
    “Oh, yes,” said Georgie, “that’s right.”
    Frieda frowned. “It needs a name. You can’t have a society without a name.”
    Georgie thought a minute. “How about the TreeProtection Society?”
    “It’s got to be more exciting than that.” Frieda had been reading some terrific books. “Knights of the Tree? No, wait a sec. How about a fellowship? The Fellowship of the Tree?”
    “Great.” Georgie’s eyes sparkled, because she had read the same books.
    But Frieda still wasn’t satisfied. She ransacked her store of fancy words. “I’ve got it. How about ‘noble’?