"See. Bad. Man," Emmy said. "Bad. Man. Get. Em. Meee. Em. Meee. Sad. Help. Em. Meee. Jesse. Day. Zee. MA! MA!"

Jesse held Emmy tighter and stared at Daisy.

Daisy shrugged helplessly.

Emmy stiffened in his arms. "Saint. George!" George!" she cried, then pa.s.sed out. she cried, then pa.s.sed out.

81.[Image: The dragon.]

CHAPTER SIX

LOST AND FOUND.

Jesse was at the computer, the connection was working, and Professor Andersson's face was back on the screen. Daisy paced behind Jesse, holding Emmy, who had not let them put her down since she had revived from her swoon. She was still wrapped up in Daisy's sweatshirt, with a purple kneesock wound around her neck like a m.u.f.fler. The little dragon was sucking away on a stalk of 82.raw broccoli as if it were a leafy green pacifier.

Jesse clicked the mouse and said, "Can you tell us about h.o.a.rding, please?"

They heard the professor clear his throat noisily. Then his bushy white eyebrows flew up and he began to speak. "'h.o.a.rding,' when it comes to dragons, is a misnomer."

"Who the heck is Miss Nomer?" Jesse muttered to Daisy.

Daisy reached for the dictionary, but the professor beat her to a definition. "The word means 'wrong name,'" he said. "'h.o.a.rding' implies greed, and dragons are the least greedy of all creatures."

"Then how come he talks about h.o.a.rding in his book?" Jesse wondered aloud.

The professor continued: "In the dark years that followed The Time Before, many believed that dragons looted castle treasuries because they were greedy for riches. Now we know that this is not the case. Dragons require the properties of silver and gold and precious gems to maintain healthy bones and muscles. They quite literally absorb the minerals through their skin."

"So it's like vitamins?" Daisy asked.

"Yes, think of it as vitamins," said the professor. "Will that be all for today?"

83."NO!" Jesse said. "Our baby dragon jumped into a brook," he blurted out. "She said she saw a bad man named Saint George...."

"Slowly!" the professor said. "You are slurring your words. I do not understand Slurvian."

Jesse took a deep breath and repeated himself, slowly and clearly this time.

The professor furrowed his brow. "Are you absolutely certain of this?" he asked softly.

Jesse looked at Daisy. Daisy nodded. Jesse said, "Yes!"

The professor's eyes lit up, and he smiled. "My, what a precocious dragon you have! It sounds to me as if your dragon was scrying! Marvelous!"

"What's scrying?" Jesse asked.

"Dragons gaze into pools or streams and, if the circ.u.mstances--the positions of the sun in the sky and the planets in their rotations--are right, they see pictures foretelling the future. The act is called scrying. Your hatchling is very young to be scrying. She must be a very powerful dragon, but powerful or not, she still requires your protection."

"Who is Saint George?" asked Daisy.

The professor's face darkened. "Don't you know?" he said, frowning. "What are they teaching children these days?"

84.For a brief moment, the professor disappeared from the screen. Jesse and Daisy cried out.

Almost instantly, he appeared again and said, "Why, Saint George is the Dragon Slayer."

Daisy clutched Jesse's shoulders.

"Therefore you must protect your dragon from him at all costs," said the professor. "Remember, it is no accident that she has come to you. She has chosen you. She has chosen you. Whatever you do, you must not betray that trust." Whatever you do, you must not betray that trust."

Then the computer made the irritating grinding noise and the screen went blank.

At that very moment, the back door downstairs slammed. The cousins started.

Uncle Joe called up from the kitchen, "Hey, kids! What do we feel like for dinner?"

"What's the plan?" Jesse asked Daisy.

Daisy said, "We tell him what we feel like for dinner. Then we ask him for a favor. We ask him if we can keep a pet, to be exact."

Daisy yelled down that they felt like chicken tenders and French fries. Then the cousins put their heads together to discuss the next part of their plan. It wasn't going to be easy. Uncle Joe didn't mind pets. Aunt Maggie did. It wasn't that she had anything against animals. It's just that they seemed to have had really bad luck with pets in their family.

85.So it was going to take some doing to convince Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe that violating the no-pet law was a good idea. Luckily, they were starting with the easy parent.

"He's really distracted by his latest project, so he he should be a pushover," said Daisy. should be a pushover," said Daisy.

"Push. Uncle. Joe," Emmy said. "Go! Go! Joe!"

"Emmy," Daisy said sternly. "You cannot yak. You cannot say a single word. Pretend you're a very cute dumb animal. Pretend you're the cutest animal in the universe and the perfect pet for this household."

"Em. Meee. Cute," Emmy promised. "Like. Joe. Like. Lime. Stone. Like. Rock. Doc."

"Did she just make her first joke?" Jesse said, wrapping Emmy up more tightly in Daisy's sweatshirt.

"No joking. No yakking," Daisy said as she opened the door of Jesse's room. The aroma of fast food wafted up from the kitchen as they went downstairs. Uncle Joe was not much of a cook. They heard him setting the table for dinner.

"Hey, guys!" he said when he saw them. "Did you have fun gallivanting?"

"Yeah. Um, Poppy, we found something interesting in the Dell," Daisy said.

"Something really nifty," Jesse added.

86.Uncle Joe opened the refrigerator. Then he stopped and looked around the kitchen. "Did you guys clean today?" he asked.

Daisy winked at Jesse. "We did," she said. "After we raided the refrigerator."

"We got it back into apple-pie order," Jesse said.

Uncle Joe gave them a funny look. He took out the ketchup and the mustard and set them slowly on the table. Uncle Joe put ketchup or mustard on most things he ate. Aunt Maggie liked to say that Uncle Joe ate like an eight-year-old.

Jesse found himself checking the ceiling to make sure the relish splat hadn't reappeared. It hadn't.

"So what interesting and nifty thing did you find?" Uncle Joe asked.

Jesse uncovered Emmy's head and held out the bundle in his arms. Emmy settled her big green eyes on Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe put down the fistful of forks and knives.

"Isn't she neat?" Daisy asked.

"Wow," he said. He took a step closer. "You found her in the Dell, you say?"

The cousins nodded. They were now crossing the fingers on all four of their hands and holding their breath.

Uncle Joe took off his ROCK STAR cap and gave 87.his ponytail a tug. Then he put his cap back on. "No one would say that she looks like your typical barn critter," he said.

It was true. Emmy didn't look like any of the critters that lived in a barn. Emmy looked exactly like what she was. But since Uncle Joe didn't believe in dragons, he couldn't be sure what he was looking at.

"She's kind of cute for a lizard," said Uncle Joe, smiling at Emmy as Emmy again fixed her big eyes on him. "You're a little cutie," he said to her. He leaned close to her and c.o.c.ked his head at the same angle as hers. "She looks like a very deep thinker, doesn't she? Makes you wonder what she'd say if she could talk."

The cousins chewed on their lips and hoped Emmy wouldn't take the cue.

"She's really tame," Daisy said.

"I think she's a green basilisk from Costa Rica," said Jesse. "Or maybe an Indian sun skink."

"Well, whatever she is, she's a long way from home," said Uncle Joe. "She must be somebody's pet that ran away. Maybe you should post some signs around town." He added, "She certainly looks valuable."

Daisy groaned. Jesse bristled. He did not not want to put up signs all over Goldmine City. Emmy was want to put up signs all over Goldmine City. Emmy was 88.theirs, or they were hers--either way, she didn't belong with anyone else. She had chosen the two of them. Hadn't Professor Andersson said so?

Uncle Joe looked at Daisy, then at Jesse. "Ask yourselves this, guys: How would you feel if you lost a rare pet like this and the person who found her didn't make any effort to return her to you?"

It was hard to argue with Uncle Joe about this.

"Okay, but if we put up some signs and n.o.body claims her after a week, can we keep her?" Daisy asked. "Can we? Can we, Poppy?"

Jesse joined in the chorus: "Can we please, Uncle Joe?"

"We named her Emmy," said Daisy.

"It's short for Emerald," Jesse said.

"Because she's green and precious," said Daisy.

Uncle Joe looked from one cousin to the other and back down at Emmy. He heaved a sigh. "Guys, this isn't exactly Fluffy, you know." He was talking about Aunt Maggie's childhood pet, the sheepdog she had loved above all other dogs. "Where would you keep her?"

Daisy smiled and winked at Jesse. Uncle Joe was showing signs of softening. "Isn't my poppy adorable?" she asked Jesse.

Jesse wasn't sure that "adorable" was the right 89.word for Uncle Joe, but under the circ.u.mstances he nodded vigorously.

"Where would you keep her, guys?" Uncle Joe repeated.

"For the time being," Jesse said, "she's staying in my sock drawer."

"That wouldn't cut it in the long run. She'd need a cage," said Uncle Joe.

The idea of putting Emmy in a cage made Jesse slightly ill, but he nodded along with Daisy. Then Daisy clasped her hands together and fell to her knees. "If you say you really want want us to keep Emmy, Mom will give in. I know she will." us to keep Emmy, Mom will give in. I know she will."

Uncle Joe closed his eyes. He sighed again. "I'll discuss it with her when she calls tomorrow. But no promises," he said. "I'll do my best. And you guys have to put up some FOUND signs. If n.o.body claims her, then we'll see.... And And you have to promise you'll go online and research what kind of a lizard she is. Find out what she needs to be happy and healthy." you have to promise you'll go online and research what kind of a lizard she is. Find out what she needs to be happy and healthy."

Jesse came close to saying, We already have! We already have!

After dinner, Jesse e-mailed his parents.

Dear Mom and Dad, Guess what? We have found a Costa Rican basilisk. Or maybe a sun 90.skink. We're putting up signs. If no one claims her, Uncle Joe says we might get to keep her. If Aunt Maggie says it's okay. Could you pretty please e-mail Aunt Maggie and tell her you think it's okay?

He heard Emmy snoring in the sock drawer and finished his e-mail: For now, we are keeping her in my sock drawer She takes after Grandma. She really seems to have a thing for socks. Love, Jesse Just as he was logging off, Daisy came into the room and showed Jesse a rough layout of the sign she had made on a page torn out of her wildflower notebook.

"Brilliant," said Jesse.

"Thanks," said Daisy. "You take care of the words. I'll handle the picture. Plan?"

"Plan," Jesse said. And they both set to work.

Daisy measured Emmy as best she could, from horn to tail. "She's four inches," Daisy said to Jesse.

Jesse nodded and added this information to the sign he was designing on the computer.

Daisy went downstairs and came back with Uncle Joe's digital camera. "I'm going to try very 91.hard to make this the worst photo I can possibly take," she announced to Jesse.

Jesse squinted at the computer screen and murmured, "You mean like those shots Uncle Joe takes of rocks?"

"Exactly right," said Daisy, .peering through the camera at Emmy. "Very fuzzy and very, very, very, very boring."

By the time Daisy was ready to transfer the pictures from the camera, Jesse had the rest of the doc.u.ment all set to go. He had deliberately chosen a font that was hard to read. The cousins examined Daisy's photographs. They finally agreed on the most boring one to use for their sign.

"Not even Professor Andersson would be able to tell this is a baby dragon," Jesse said. He selected the picture and dropped it in at the bottom of the doc.u.ment. Then he saved it and printed out twelve copies of the sign: ***

LOST YOUR LIZARD?.

FOUND.

In the area of the old dairy farm.

One green lizard four inches long. Greenish blue.