Choke

  “Listen,” I reasoned. “Just so we’re clear, we can’t go flying out there anymore. But there’s plenty of space in here for you to mess around.”

  She just kept on walking.

  “You got me busted,” I told her. “There were cops at my house.”

  Lizzy growled.

  “What?” I said defensively. “I didn’t give you up. It was that old lady with the gray hair.”

  We reached the door, and Lizzy stopped. She lowered her head and gazed at the large metal latch.

  “Stare all you want,” I told her. “I’m not opening it. You can’t . . .”

  There was a knock on the door. Lizzy looked as surprised as me. We both stepped back. The knock was soft.

  “Should I open it?” I asked.

  Dragons are so useless when it comes to conversation.

  “Who is it?” I yelled.

  There was some muffled yelling but I couldn’t tell who it was or what they were saying. I slid the bolt back and then lifted it up. The door began to roll open.

  “Kate?”

  She slipped in, and I quickly closed the door again. Lizzy wasn’t happy about me shutting the door. She started stomping her feet and thrashing her tail about.

  “What’s up with her?” Kate asked.

  “She wants to get out,” I explained. “But who cares about that. You came.”

  Kate smiled at me with both her eyes and her lips. “Your note was nice. I didn’t want it to, but it made me laugh.”

  “That was a serious note,” I complained.

  “I know.”

  Lizzy screeched and dug at the dirt with her horns.

  “I really am sorry,” I said. “You more than anyone should know how much I want to be a better person.”

  “I know, and I’m still mad at you,” Kate explained. “But, to be honest, I’ve been dying to see Lizzy.”

  Lizzy began to butt up against the steel door with her horns. The solid structure didn’t even shake under the pressure of her weight. She started slamming up against it harder. Both Kate and I stepped back.

  “Is she okay?” Kate asked.

  Lizzy screamed and began clawing at the bolt with her talons. At first it was kind of interesting, but after a couple of seconds it grew frightening. She looked over at me and screeched.

  Kate and I plugged our ears and cowered in perfect synchronicity. Lizzy blew flames at the door, but all her efforts weren’t making a bit of difference.

  Lizzy turned her head and looked directly at me.

  “She really wants you to open the door,” Kate said.

  “She’ll fly out and destroy something,” I told her. “She burnt down a church yesterday.”

  Lizzy began butting at the door again.

  “Maybe we should go out then,” Kate suggested. “She seems a little mental.”

  I was going to point out to Kate that her idea, while valid, was easier said than done. Lizzy was currently blocking our only exit.

  “We could go through the back tunnel,” Kate suggested.

  “What about the moths?” I questioned in worry. “Listen, Lizzy will be okay. We just need to distract her from the door.”

  Lizzy was looking at me again. I took the opportunity to try and talk kindly to her. “All right, Lizzy. Let’s just move you back to your nest.”

  I slowly stepped up toward her and reached out to grab the rope. She snapped her huge jaw at me and I jumped back quickly.

  “What the . . .”

  Lizzy opened her mouth and screamed.

  “Come on, Beck,” Kate said urgently, tugging on the back of my shirt.

  Lizzy stood up on her hind feet and threw the front of her body down, causing the ground to shake. Kate was no longer tugging. She was running. I decided to follow her example and set off across the cavern in a different direction. Lizzy screamed even louder, and I could hear the flap of her massive wings behind me.

  “Beck!” Kate screamed.

  I dived behind a row of crates and crawled frantically across the dirt. Lizzy slammed into the crates, sending them flying

  everywhere. One flew over my head and smashed into the stone wall next to me. Lizzy screamed and stood on her hind legs again. I could see that Kate had made it to the metal door. She was behind Lizzy and sliding the bolt open. She looked in my direction and waved me over. I tried to nod in such a way that she would know to just get out and I’d come later.

  I guess she understood me because she started to roll the door open. As she did so, the latch swung down making a clanking noise. Lizzy spun around and saw Kate. She screamed so loud, bits of rock began to fall from the ceiling. Kate slipped out and heaved the door shut just as Lizzy slammed into it. She clawed and scratched angrier than she had ever been.

  I used the distraction to get up and scramble for my life. I knew I only had a couple of seconds so I jumped into one of the empty dragon cereal barrels and slid the top over me. There was a small open knothole on the side, and I was able to wedge my head down just enough to see out of it. I didn’t have a clear view of the whole cavern, but I could see Lizzy and some of the other barrels lined up near me.

  Lizzy turned and snorted in my direction. Her head swung side to side as she gazed around the cavern. She looked like a dragon pendulum. I tried to slow my breathing. Inside the barrel my breaths echoed louder and louder. I knew if she found me that it would be bad, and I was hoping that the strong smell of dragon cereal everywhere would hide my scent.

  Lizzy stormed over, tearing at the crates in her way. She stopped in front of the row of barrels and leaned her head down to sniff one that was three barrels away from me. I held my breath, willing her to go away. She nudged the top of the barrel and then stopped. I was thinking my plan just might work when suddenly she turned and slammed her tail down against the barrel. The wooden vessel shattered into a million pieces sending dragon cereal and wood slivers flying everywhere. If my bladder were any weaker, I would have been sitting in a wet drum.

  Lizzy moved to the next barrel. She sniffed at it and then pulled back her head and screamed. I held my breath as Lizzy let loose with a tremendous plume of fire. The vat was instantly consumed in flame.

  I was going to die.

  Lizzy stepped up to the barrel right next to me and sniffed. I held perfectly still, feeling like that one lady in the movie where they were hiding from Nazis and there was a lot of singing.

  Lizzy sniffed the vat again and then rose up on her back feet. She picked up the barrel, and threw it against the stone wall. I couldn’t see where it hit, but I could hear the explosion of wood and see the shrapnel raining down.

  Lizzy lowered her body and sidestepped in front of my vat. It took everything I had to keep my body from shaking. I kept wishing Kate would do something to distract her. Or maybe Kate could open up the huge metal door, and Lizzy could fly out and ruin the entire town of Kingsplot instead of me.

  Lizzy sniffed at the top of my barrel. I could see her scaly underside through the hole I was looking out of. I couldn’t control my shaking and my teeth began to chatter.

  She sniffed once more, and I stopped breathing altogether.

  Illustration from page 63 of The Grim Knot

  CHAPTER 24

  Keep Yourself Alive

  I had one of three ways to die. One: be obliterated by Lizzy’s tail. Two: be burned. Three: be thrown against the wall and busted up. Anyway I looked at it, I was in trouble. My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to jump out of my chest and start bouncing around the inside of the barrel.

  I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy watching my life flash before my eyes. Lizzy screamed, and I knew I was done for. I breathed in deep and whimpered.

  Lizzy screamed again, and I could hear her massive wings flap. I opened my eyes and looked out through the hole. There were shadows and dark, blurring images everywhere. Lizzy was hopping up and down and blowing fire. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Moths,” I whispered excitedly.

  T
he cavern was filling up with them and they were distracting Lizzy. I was trying to figure out how the back door had gotten open, when the lid of my barrel popped off. I was a little surprised to see who was there.

  “Van?” I questioned in disbelief.

  “Hurry,” he whispered as moths covered his face. “We don’t have much time.”

  Van pulled me out of the barrel as we were swarmed by the dirty, winged insects. Lizzy was flying around the other side of the cavern screaming and blowing. Fireballs flashed through the air as pockets of moths lit up and then fell to the ground smoking.

  “Come on, Beck!” Van said as he pulled me along the side of the cavern toward the door. “Hurry!”

  The moths were bad, but they were not quite as thick as the last time. I could see enough to view the large metal door and note that Kate was opening it about a foot wide. Unfortunately, I could also see that Lizzy was on to us.

  “Run faster!” Van screamed.

  Lizzy stomped through the moths and across the cavern racing toward us. The insects were everywhere, filling my eyes and mouth every time I opened either of them. Lizzy spread her wings and shot through the air just above the crates.

  Van screamed something, but I couldn’t understand him. He reached the door first and squeezed through the opening. I turned back for one last look, and there was Lizzy five feet away, lunging toward me. Van tugged my left arm and yanked me all the way through the door just as Kate closed it. There was a tremendous crash as Lizzy slammed into the other side of the metal door.

  I fell to the ground choking and huffing. Van was right next to me rolling in the dirt and acting as if he were on fire. With the door closed, the bugs were next to nothing, although a few huddled around the lights on the wall or were flying out through the opening in the moss.

  Kate helped me up. I reached out and gave Van a hand.

  “Thanks,” I said sheepishly.

  “No problem,” he replied.

  I could hear Lizzy pitching a fit in the back cavern. She was screaming and beating against the door like a psycho dragon. We all took a few steps away from the door just to be safe.

  “Who opened the back tunnel door anyway?” I asked.

  “He did,” Kate said, pointing toward Van. “It was my idea, but he crept in and opened the door. Luckily she was screaming so madly she didn’t hear. I told Van which barrel you were in.”

  “Thanks,” I said again. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “I told you,” he smiled. “I’m here to help you.”

  I smiled back, sad that I had been such a jerk to him. “How did you even find us?”

  Lizzy began to emit some sort of howlish cry.

  “I was coming up your driveway hoping to speak with you when I saw a tiny string of light flicker on the side of this mountain. I started walking toward it and found the train tracks. I followed them and when I walked in, Kate was just coming out of that door.”

  “I keep telling Beck not to have the lights on at night,” Kate said. “But, he’s lucky he did, because there was no way I was going in there to save him.”

  “Thanks, Kate.”

  She kissed me on the cheek, making me feel better.

  Lizzy was repeatedly pounding into the steel door. I grabbed the metal pin from off the dirt floor and slid it into the latch just to make sure she couldn’t unlock it somehow.

  “So what do we do now?” Kate asked.

  “I don’t want to, but we have to destroy her,” I replied. “She’ll tear apart everything. She was going to kill me.”

  “Sorry,” Van said sympathetically. “I know this can’t be easy for you.”

  I had totally misjudged Van.

  “So how are we going to do it?” Kate asked as Lizzy screamed in the background and leftover moths drifted around us.

  “Let’s go in the train,” Van suggested as he waved some moths away. “I don’t want even one of those bugs touching me again.”

  All three of us stepped into the train and took a seat where the passengers would have once sat.

  “This is horrible,” I lamented.

  “I know,” Kate agreed. “But we can’t let her harm anyone. The other dragons didn’t seem quite so possessed.”

  I put my head in my hands and moaned. “She just wants to pillage. My head’s killing me.”

  “Hold on,” Van said. “I think I have some aspirin in my backpack.”

  Van got up and walked off the train, closing the door behind him.

  “I can’t believe how wrong I was about him,” I whispered to Kate. “Usually I’m such a good judge of character.”

  “Right,” Kate smiled. “You just need to learn to . . .”

  Kate stopped to look at something.

  “Learn to what?” I asked as if the solution to all my troubles was in her answer. I turned to see where she was looking.

  Her eyes were fixed on the door where Van had just exited. It was shut and through the small square windows we could both see him jamming a metal rod down through the door handle, locking us in.

  Van looked in through the small window and smiled. “Kids are so foolish.”

  I jumped up before Kate.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “I thought you were getting your backpack.”

  “No,” he answered. “What I’m doing is becoming the most famous person on earth.”

  “You can’t do this,” Kate reasoned.

  “Already have,” Van laughed.

  I ran to the door and started to violently shake the handle and pound the door.

  “Save your energy,” Van insisted. “You’ll get pretty weak in a few days without food or water.”

  I had totally misjudged Van . . . again!

  “Come on, Van,” I argued. “Let us out. My father . . . Thomas . . . well somebody will come looking for us.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I guess that depends upon how they feel after they read the note I forged, the one where you two talk about running off because you aren’t allowed to be together.”

  Kate joined in on the banging. “Lizzy will kill you.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, his smile oozing grease. “I’ll get a tranquilizer gun. Shoot her full of enough medication to knock her out. Then, with the help of some of my more discreet friends, we’ll move her out of here in the dark of night. I’ve already decided on the story about how I fought and captured her. Imagine, the world’s first dragon in captivity.”

  “Let us out! A tranquilizer won’t work on her,” I yelled, not knowing for sure if it actually would. “Open this door!”

  “How about you shut your trap for just one minute, Beck,” he growled. “The world’s going to be a better place without your smart-aleck mouth.”

  I couldn’t really argue with that, so I just banged harder on the door.

  “See ya,” Van waved. “I’ll be back to bag me a dragon.”

  Van walked around the train, looking at it and making sure there was no way we could get out. He then disappeared through the large hole in the moss.

  “I should never have left the light on,” I complained.

  Kate was too worried to even say, “Told you so.”

  Illustration from page 67 of The Grim Knot

  CHAPTER 25

  The Dragon Attack

  What a jerk,” Kate said, falling back into one of the padded train seats.

  “A jerk is somebody who cuts you off in traffic,” I told her. “He’s more like a murderer.”

  “What a murderer,” she said, correcting herself.

  We had beaten and tested every bit of the train from inside, hoping to find some way out. The thick plastic windows withstood all of our kicking and hitting. I had even crawled into the engine’s furnace to see if I could possibly climb out a smokestack.

  Nope.

  We could still hear Lizzy tearing apart everything and screaming in the back cavern. I was so mad at myself for letting Van trick me. And now he was going to steal my dragon. As a ki
d, I had seen the movie Pete’s Dragon about twenty times because I thought it was real. There’s just something about a cartoon dragon that made it easy for me to suspend reality. But I remember the mousy guy with the little beard who wanted to cut the dragon up and use it for all kinds of things. Now in my mind that mousy guy and Van were one and the same.

  “I bet Van doesn’t even have a backpack,” I growled.

  Kate just shook her head.

  “There’s some good news,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Really,” she said. “What?”

  “I was right about Van the first time.”

  Kate tried to smile.

  “Don’t worry too much,” I told her. “Maybe when he comes back, he’ll let us go.”

  “Or maybe,” she suggested, “when he returns with his tranquilizer gun he’ll shoot us too.”

  I looked around and then repeated what I had been saying ever since I had discovered the cave. “We could start the train.”

  Kate closed her eyes and massaged her eyebrows.

  “No, listen,” I said excitedly. “We start the train and bust out of here.”

  “Then what?” Kate asked. “The tracks are covered with trees.”

  “Not the tracks on the side of the mountain,” I reminded her. “They’re just hidden by trees. The train will at least make it to the bottom. Somebody has to notice that.”

  “Nice,” she said. “I’ll take comfort in the fact that somebody will find our dead bodies smashed inside this train.”

  “Maybe that cable attached to the back will lower us slowly,” I said wishfully.

  Kate looked out the rear window at the huge reel of cable.

  “I guess we could just wait for him to come and finish us off,” I suggested.

  Kate sighed. “This train probably doesn’t even work.”

  “Well, then, let’s at least try.” I hopped up. “Rip all the cushions off the chairs and see if you can pull any of that rug up.”

  “Why?” Kate asked standing.