Search for the Dragon Ship

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: A Kick from Beyond

  2: The Not-nice Princess

  3: The Hands of Thog

  4: Eyes in the Darkness

  5: Surprise by Candlelight

  6: Island of Secrets

  7: The Puzzle of the Past

  8: Zello’s Believe It or Not

  9: A Very Important Person

  10: Follow That Ship!

  The Adventure Continues …

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “Slow down!” said Eric Hinkle as he and his friend Julie raced around the track behind school.

  It was Field Day, and their class was outside shooting hoops, playing catch, jumping, swinging, climbing, and running.

  Eric glanced down at Julie’s feet.

  Well, at least he was running.

  “Someone will see you,” Eric huffed.

  “But it’s so much fun!” said Julie, pumping her arms and legs as if she were running fast.

  She wasn’t running. Her feet never touched the ground. Julie was flying.

  Eric hustled to keep up with her. “Having powers is fun, but you have to keep them a secret —”

  “See ya!” said Julie, zipping away and leaving him in the dust.

  “We need to keep you-know-where a secret, too!” Eric called out as he slowed to a jog.

  Julie knew where. So did their friend Neal.

  The place to keep secret was Droon.

  Droon was the strange land they had discovered one day under Eric’s basement.

  It was a world filled with wonderful friends, like the great and powerful Galen Longbeard, and Keeah, a young wizard and princess, and Max, a furry little eight-legged spider troll.

  Droon was also a land of mystery and magic.

  In fact, it was on the kids’ last adventure there that Julie was scratched by an ancient magical creature called a wingwolf.

  Eric remembered the prophecy he’d been told.

  The one who strikes the wolf at noon, shall earn a secret wish in Droon.

  Julie’s secret wish, she told Eric and Neal later, had always been to fly. And thanks to her battle with the wingwolf, now she could.

  Still pretending to run, Julie flew around the track to where Neal was dribbling a soccer ball.

  Eric walked across the field to them.

  “Julie, that was so awesome!” said Neal.

  She laughed. “Last night I flew out over my backyard. I almost fell, but I keep surprising myself. On the stairs at home, playing hoops — it’s just so easy to take off and start flying —”

  “And easy to be caught,” said Eric with a frown. “And besides, you never know if the wingwolf gave you other powers you don’t know about.”

  He didn’t want to sound like a big brother, but he knew that powers had a way of coming out when you least expected them to.

  “Sorry,” said Julie. “I guess I should be nervous. But I always wanted to fly. You already have powers. This is really new to me.”

  That was true. Eric had had powers ever since he was accidentally zapped by Keeah’s magic. He couldn’t control them all, but he hoped he was getting better at it.

  “Anyway,” said Neal, “with crazy Salamandra on the loose in Droon, we should probably train as much as we can, right?”

  They shuddered to recall the name.

  Salamandra, Princess of Shadowthorn.

  Traveling through time in the Upper World, Salamandra had stolen magic from the greatest wizards of the past. She had become very powerful. Now she was in Droon.

  “I can’t fly or shoot sparks,” said Neal. “But watch this.” He began bouncing a soccer ball on his head. Boing! “Ouch!” Boing! “Ouch!” Boing! “Ouch! Pretty — ouch! — cool, huh?”

  “Doesn’t it hurt your head?” asked Eric.

  Neal shrugged. “No more than math class.”

  Weeeee! Mr. Frando, the gym coach, blew his whistle. “Last event of the day, kids,” he announced. “The soccer kick! Bring all the balls in.”

  As Neal rounded up the balls he’d been using, there was a sudden whooshing sound overhead.

  The three friends looked up to see a soccer ball in mid-flight, zigzagging across the field. It dipped sharply, circled their heads, then arched up and plopped down onto the school roof.

  Eric turned to Neal. “How did you —”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “I don’t have powers.”

  “But that ball does,” said Julie. “It’s like …”

  Eric gasped. “Whoa! You don’t think it’s our soccer ball, do you? The one that Keeah put her magic spell on?”

  Long ago, after their first visit to Droon, Keeah had enchanted the kids’ soccer ball to give them messages whenever they were needed in Droon.

  “If it is our soccer ball,” said Neal, “how are we going to get up to the school roof?”

  Julie grinned. “Create a distraction. I’ll fly up!”

  “A distraction?” said Neal, his face lighting up. “You’ve come to the right guy. Watch this!”

  Neal grabbed a soccer ball, started bouncing it on his head, and ran onto the field, yelling, “Blaga-blaga-yee-yee-yee! Go-team-go!”

  Everyone stared at him, then started laughing.

  Even Mr. Frando laughed. “Neal, you’re a nut! But full of spirit. Everyone — yell like Neal!”

  While the whole class was yelling and chasing Neal around the field, Julie leaped up.

  As if she had invisible wings, she fluttered all the way up to the school roof.

  Eric checked the field. No one had seen her.

  A moment later, she leaned over the edge. “Eric, get up here right away! Find Neal, too!”

  While the other kids gathered for the last event, Eric waved Neal over. They both slipped into the school and charged up the stairs to the roof.

  Julie called them over. “Take a look at this.”

  Holding the ball in front of her, she let it go. But the ball didn’t drop. It hovered in the air.

  “Whoa!” said Neal. “It is our magic ball. Do you think someone is calling us to Droon?”

  All of a sudden, the ball’s white and black patches began to shift, moving across the surface until the ball was entirely black.

  Eric shivered. “This doesn’t look good.”

  “You think it has something to do with Salamandra?” asked Julie.

  Before anyone could answer, letters appeared on the ball, as if written by an invisible hand.

  G … A … L … E … N

  Eric staggered back. “Oh, my gosh. Galen’s trying to send us a message. What is it? What?”

  But as quickly as they had appeared, the letters vanished. Then the ball dropped, bounced, and lay still, a normal soccer ball once more.

  Julie snatched it up. “This means one thing, at least. We have to get to Droon now.”

  They hustled down the stairs and out to the field just in time to hear Coach Frando’s whistle marking the end of the last event.

  A moment later, the dismissal bell rang.

  “I can’t believe we missed the soccer kick,” Neal grumbled.

  Eric smiled. “Maybe we’ll have a chance to kick Salamandra out of Droon. Let’s go.”

  The three friends ran for their bus. Twenty minutes later, they raced across Eric’s front yard, burst through the kitchen, and tramped down to his basement.

  Julie set the enchanted soccer ball on the workbench, while Neal and Eric pulled two heavy cartons away from a small door under the stairs.

  Beyond the door was a tiny room, empty except for a lightbulb hanging from the low ceiling.

  They crowded in. Neal switched on the light.

  “No matter ho
w many times we do this,” said Julie, “it still gives me chills.”

  “Me, too,” said Neal. “Every time.”

  Eric grinned. “Ditto for me.”

  He shut the door and switched off the light.

  The room went dark for a moment, then — whoosh! — the floor disappeared. In its place, shimmering in its own bright light, was a set of stairs curving down and away from the house.

  Eric took the first step. “I hope Galen’s not in trouble or anything. We’d better hurry.”

  Step-by-step, the kids descended through pink clouds, until they found themselves above a desert of rolling sand dunes.

  But the normally bright sky over the dunes was streaked with smoke.

  Julie frowned. “What’s going on here?”

  “It looks like Lumpland,” said Neal, “home of Khan and the Lumpies — whoa — look at that!”

  Nestled between a large dune and a small village of mud houses, was a stone tower.

  They had seen it before in different parts of Droon. It was Galen’s enchanted traveling tower.

  And there, pacing in a circle around the base of the tower, her hair a long cascade of prickly thorns, her skin purple and scaly, was the wicked sorceress herself.

  Salamandra, Princess of Shadowthorn.

  “It’s her,” said Julie. “And she looks mad.”

  “Is she ever anything else?” asked Neal.

  In her hand, Salamandra held a tall wooden staff. At its tip, a cluster of pointed thorns burned with a violent green flame.

  “Wizard, give me what I seek!” Salamandra shouted, her catlike eyes gleaming yellow. “You know where it is — I want it now!”

  Galen appeared at the tower’s upper window. His face looked stern. “Never!” he shouted.

  “That’s right — never!” chirped his spider troll friend, Max, trembling next to him.

  Salamandra narrowed her eyes. “Then prepare for a fight!” She aimed her staff, and a blast of flaming thorns shot up through the air.

  “Holy cow!” gasped Eric.

  Vvvv-boom! The thorns struck the tower, rocking it back and forth in the sand.

  “Oh!” cried Max. “Oh, dear — help!”

  Vvvv-boom! Vvvv-boom! — Salamandra hurled more flaming thorns at the tower.

  “Don’t make me come up there!” she yelled.

  “Y-y-you s-s-stop that!” cried a lumpy pillow-shaped creature charging up from the village. He wagged a short wooden sword at Salamandra.

  “It’s Khan, king of the Lumpies!” said Julie. “Khan, watch out! She’s a meanie —”

  “What? Oh!” The tiny king leaped back to his little mud house just as — vvvv-boom! — thorns exploded right where he had been standing.

  As the wicked princess turned her attention back to Galen’s tower, the kids scrambled down the dune to Khan’s house, where the Lumpy king and his family were huddled inside.

  “Are you all right?” asked Eric.

  “It’s terrible,” said Khan, shaking sand from his shoulder tassels. “She just appeared from nowhere and attacked Galen’s tower. We barely escaped!”

  Cuddling their two Lumpy children, Mrs. Khan continued, “Keeah is trying to get into the tower. But the poor dear hasn’t had any luck —”

  Boom! A blast rocked the house at the exact moment a girl in a blue tunic flew in the front door. “Well, that didn’t work!” she said.

  “Keeah!” said Julie. “Are you all right?”

  The princess of Droon smiled to see her friends. “So far,” she said. “Galen and Max are fighting back, but I haven’t gotten close yet.”

  “I am ready to serve,” said Khan, holding up his little sword again. “I can give you cover.”

  Mrs. Khan looked worriedly at him. So did the children, their pillowy faces wrinkling with fear.

  “We’ll help Keeah on this one, Khan,” said Eric. “You should probably stay here to protect your family until Salamandra’s gone.”

  Khan sheathed his sword. “Right you are,” he said. “But call me the moment things get rough.”

  “We will,” said Keeah. “Is everyone ready?”

  Neal nodded. “You bet. Let’s mess up Little Miss Tangle Hair’s plans. Whatever they are!”

  The four friends crept carefully out the door. At once, Salamandra threw a blast. Vvvv-boom!

  “That happens every time I try to get close!” said Keeah, leaping behind a sand dune.

  “What if we fly up to the tower?” asked Julie. Then she told Keeah about what had been happening since the wingwolf scratched her. “It’s totally healed. But now I can fly. Cool, huh?”

  “She’s pretty good at it already,” said Neal.

  Keeah blinked. “Let’s try it. Come on.”

  While Salamandra was busy conjuring more flaming blasts, Julie held out her hands, everyone grabbed on, and — fwit-fwit! — she fluttered up to the topmost room of the tower.

  Blam! Blam! Galen was at the far window, hurling blue thunderbolts at Salamandra while Max scrambled around searching through books.

  “A spell, a spell!” he chittered. “We must find a spell! That terrible creature is after something!”

  “What’s going on?” asked Keeah.

  Galen’s eyes flashed with anger. “Salamandra has been up to her old tricks, stealing magic —”

  “And our secret thoughts, too,” said Max. “It’s as if she can read our minds!”

  Ka-foom! The tower wobbled in the sand and suddenly — blam!— the door blew wide open.

  And Salamandra stormed into the room.

  “Sorry to barge in,” she snarled. “But I couldn’t wait for you to invite me.”

  Both Keeah and Galen leveled blasts of blue lightning at her, but the princess simply thrust out her staff and their lightning vanished into it.

  Then she lifted her hand and — flang — everyone seemed rooted to where they stood.

  Eric tried to raise his hand to blast her, but found he couldn’t move. “I’m … stuck!”

  “I stole that little trick from an old witch,” the thorn princess said, the flames on her staff sizzling as she gazed deeply into their eyes.

  Eric recalled Salamandra’s amazing power to reach into the deepest parts of people’s minds and discover their secrets. It was like being hypnotized.

  “Pah,” she snarled. “You cannot help me!”

  “As if we’d want to,” snapped Neal.

  She then pointed a long purple finger at Max. “You! Furry one! You know what I want —”

  “We know what you need,” Julie mumbled. “A complete makeover!”

  Salamandra flicked her staff and a sharp green light shot out, encircling Max’s head. His eyes lit up with the same green light and began to roll. An instant later, he clambered up to the room’s highest shelf and pulled down a folded paper.

  A cruel smile broke over the sorceress’s face as she snatched the paper and unfolded it. “So the legends are true. How very … perfect….”

  “How very wicked, you mean,” said Keeah.

  “Thorn princess, you don’t know what you are doing,” said Galen, his eyes flashing. “Where you seek to go is a place of darkness and evil.”

  Salamandra stared at the wizard. “Just the way I like it. See you later, old man!”

  With that, she leaped to the window and — ka-foom!— vanished from sight.

  Max whimpered. “Oh, I’m so … sorry….”

  “Do not blame yourself, my friend,” said Galen, patting Max on the head. “Her power is nearly impossible to fight.”

  “What is on the paper?” asked Keeah.

  Galen took a deep breath. “A picture I drew long ago. It shows a ship … a flying ship —”

  “In the shape of a dragon!” chirped Max. “Built by the evil Emperor Ko centuries ago. Salamandra wants to find it — and fly it —”

  Vvvv-booom! A sudden spray of thorns blasted through the upper window, struck the wall, and began to grow and spread around the room.
r />   “Oh, my gosh,” said Keeah. “Everyone out!”

  But the instant the kids jumped through the door and into the hallway, thorns coiled around it, blocking the way.

  “Galen and Max are still inside,” cried Julie. “They’ll be trapped —”

  Keeah and Eric shot at the thorns, but their blasts only made the thorns grow more quickly.

  “Wicked curse,” Galen called out from behind the door. “Go — stop her — stop her —”

  Thorns began to slither up the walls.

  “We’ll be trapped, too,” said Neal. “Hurry!”

  The kids raced down through the tower and tumbled outside, only to find thorns growing over the entire tower. The wizard’s home was barely visible.

  “Galen!” cried Eric. “Can you hear us?”

  A faint call came from the window. “Thog!”

  Eric turned to Keeah. “Did he say thog?”

  “It sounded like thog,” said the princess.

  “Maybe it means good luck,” said Julie.

  “Thog to you, too!” yelled Neal.

  “No!” cried Max. “Find Thog! Salamandra will seek him out. Find him first! At Zorfendorf!”

  Then a large sheet of paper fluttered down from the tower’s upper window.

  Julie caught it, then looked at her friends. “It’s a map of Droon. I guess we’re on a treasure hunt.”

  Khan scurried up a dune to them. “And we must start now. Come, my pilkas can take us to Zorfendorf.”

  Keeah stared at the tower. “Galen!” she called out. “We’ll stop Salamandra!” Then under her breath, she murmured, “Somehow …”

  Mrs. Khan and her children quickly brought the pilkas. She hugged the king, saying, “Be very careful, dear. And hurry back.”

  “I shall return by suppertime,” said Khan.

  The shaggy, six-legged beasts whinnied — hrrr!— the kids piled on, and — wumpeta-wumpeta!— they galloped away swiftly.

  Behind them, the wizard’s tower grew black with thorns, and the voices of Galen and Max became too faint to hear.

  Wumpeta-wumpeta! The shaggy pilkas galloped south across the dunes, carrying the children to Zorfendorf Castle.

  “If we hurry,” said Khan, “we’ll get there before the wicked princess.”

  Julie made a face. “Princess? Ha! She doesn’t even deserve the name!”