Read Online The Dragon in the Volcano by Kate Klimo - Free Book Online Page A

the canteen and took a sip. She sat up and smacked her lips. “You’re right!” she said, looking much more like herself again. “I feel fit as a fiddle.”
    “Fit as a
griddle
, you mean,” Jesse said with a laugh.
    Emmy appeared in their doorway. “How is everyone this morning?”
    Daisy, about to repeat Jesse’s joke, decided not to and said, “We’re fine.”
    “Finer than fine,” Jesse said. He could not remember ever having slept so well.
    “You were going to show us what you do here instead of reading books,” Daisy said.
    “Oh, yes,” Emmy said. “We do this.” She waved her arm across the wall where the window overlooking the driveway would have been if they were at home. Suddenly, it was as if they were peering through the wall into the next room, where Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe were pacing across a black-and-white-tiled kitchen, each jiggling a tiny, blanketed bundle. One of the babies was crying, andUncle Joe was singing a sweet, silly song to it. Somewhere nearby a teakettle rattled and whistled.
    “I know where that is! That’s my brother’s kitchen on Mass. Avenue in Cambridge!” Daisy exclaimed.
    “They don’t seem to hear us,” Jesse said. “How come we can see them?”
    “Because they are standing in front of the gas stove, where there is a fire in the burner,” Emmy said. She waved again. This time, they saw strangers in sombreros, bathed in the red glow of a campfire and singing a song in Spanish to the strains of a guitar. Another wave revealed fire trucks and a family lined up along a sidewalk, clutching pillowcases full of belongings, the reflection of their burning house shining in their wide, anxious eyes. More waves showed people blowing out birthday candles, lighting pipes, and mending fenders with welding torches. Jesse found it more than a little disturbing but also kind of mesmerizing, like staring into a fire.
    “Wherever there is a fire in the Earthly Realm, we can see through to it,” Emmy said. “It’s called the Fire Screen. Everybody has one. The fire fairies love to watch the Fire Screen. They get almost all their decorating ideas from it.”
    “So how do you control what picture you’regoing to see?” Jesse asked. “Is there some sort of remote channel changer?”
    Emmy chuckled. “I use dragon magic,” she said, waving and banishing the screen. “You probably won’t have very much control. You might see something or someone familiar … or you might not.”
    “I wonder if that’s what the professor was doing,” Jesse said thoughtfully.
    “When?” Daisy asked.
    “Last time we saw him. When he was messing around with that pipe. Maybe he was looking in on Emmy in the Fiery Realm.”
    “Makes sense to me,” Daisy said.
    “Now come along, Keepers,” Emmy said. “We’re due at the royal runching. The fiery mote of my heart awaits me.”
    When they stepped out the door, Jesse said, “Nice night.”
    It was, in fact, every bit as dark as it had been when they went to bed.
    “Do what I do,” Daisy said. “Just pretend you’re wearing sunglasses with dark-red lenses.”
    Jesse nodded and looked around with new eyes. “Okay,” he said slowly, “that ought to work.”
    When they arrived at the Great Hall, they found that the throne room had been transformedinto the world’s biggest cafeteria. Acres of huge tables stretched out before them. The room roared and flamed with the sound of dragons and fire fairies all talking and laughing at once. One long table stood on a raised platform. Lady Flamina sat at one end and Lord Feldspar at the other, with an assortment of fire fairies and dragons seated in between.
    “So this is a runching, eh?” Jesse said, looking around.
    “A
royal
runching,” Emmy said. “Jasper and I will be sitting up there with the Grand Beacons and their Aura, but my boons Opal and Galena will keep you company.”
    Emmy sat them at a table with her boons, and the three fire fairies, Spark, Flicker, and Fiero, soon