Curled up in the farthest corner of the cage, half shrouded in darkness, was the biggest animal Elliot or Uchenna had ever seen. She—Mr. Mendizabal had called the herensuge she—was bigger than the professor’s plane, with greenish-brown scales so dark they were almost black and leathery brown wings folded up against her body.
The dragon was chained to the floor with iron shackles, and her head was held in place by a harness above a big stainless-steel vat that was built into the floor. A nozzle was spraying her face with a fine mist that smelled like a barnyard.
Even though the herensuge couldn’t turn her head, she found them with the corner of one of her bright yellow eyes. She began to thrash against her restraints.
“How do we get her out of there?” Uchenna asked.
“Uh, I’m suddenly not sure I want to . . . ,” Elliot muttered.
“Elliot!”
“Okay, okay! Then, let’s check the desk.” He hurried back to the desk and began pushing the papers around. “Maybe there’s a key somewhere.” But he found no key. “Or maybe they wrote down instructions to open the cage?” There was a notepad with handwritten notes on it. He picked it up and read the most recent note aloud. “‘Subject has not yet responded to olfactory stimuli. Must find something more appetizing to promote salivation.’”
“What does that mean?” Uchenna asked.
“They cannot figure out how to make the herensuge drool,” Professor Fauna said. “They haven’t found a food that’s delicious enough.”
“I bet we could make her drool,” Uchenna said. She patted the fish in her backpack.
Jersey was still whining at the dragon.
Elliot picked up other pieces of paper, looking for instructions to open the cage and free the herensuge.
Uchenna searched around the cage. “Hey, there’s a door to the cage over here!” Uchenna announced. “And it doesn’t have a keyhole. It has a keypad. For a code.”
“Show me,” Professor Fauna demanded. He strode over to where Uchenna was standing. Elliot gave up on the desk and came over to the door as well. The professor looked at the keypad. His fingers hesitated in the air. Then, he pushed the numbers 3-3-3-3. The lock clicked, and the door swung open.
The herensuge thrashed harder in her restraints.
Elliot and Uchenna stared at the professor.
“How . . . how did you know the Schmoke brothers’ passcode?” Elliot stammered.
“They have always used that code,” Professor Fauna said, sighing. “It is their father’s birthday. March third, 1933.”
“And how do you know that?” Uchenna demanded.
“Now is not the time—” the professor began.
But Elliot shot back, “I think now is the time!” The herensuge thrashed so hard that her steel restraints groaned. “We’re about to release a dragon, and you’ve been keeping secrets from us all along! What’s your connection with the Schmoke brothers? How do you know so much about them? Mr. Mendizabal’s brother said they came to him asking about the herensuge. How did they even know about it? What are you hiding from us, Professor?!”
Suddenly, the herensuge thrashed, and one of the restraints broke. It sounded like a sheet of metal tearing.
“Elliot!” he barked. “Now is not the time. Uchenna, may I have some fish, please? Otherwise, this dragon may be very angry and very hungry and very on the loose.”
Uchenna looked between a glowering Elliot and a desperate Professor Fauna. She hesitated.
She handed the professor the backpack. He unzipped one of the side pockets, withdrew a limp silver fish, and strode right up to the struggling herensuge. “Shh,” said the professor calmly. “Shhhhh. We are here to rescue you. And we’ve brought treats.”
The combination of the professor’s calm voice and the fragrance of the fish seemed to immediately relax the dragon. Professor Fauna waved the fish back and forth and continued to speak to her in a soft, singsongy pattern. “Yes, herensuge. You’re a good herensuge. Such a beautiful herensuge. Elliot, Uchenna, while she is looking at the fish, perhaps you can release her restraints?”
Elliot began to protest. “Is that really a good idea? Are you sure?” But Uchenna had already entered the dark cage. She crawled around the herensuge, found the steel pins that held the dragon’s shackles in place, and one by one she removed them. When she had finished, the professor tossed the fish to the herensuge. She opened her mouth to catch it, sending a spray of her saliva into the pan below her head.
As soon as the droplets touched the container’s steel surface, the sensors sputtered to life. Lights began to flash and the happy alarm of a successful experiment began to chime up and down the corridor.
“Uh-oh,” said the professor.
The herensuge growled.
He threw her another fish.
The alarm continued to sound.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Elliot, lead the way!” the professor commanded. He held a fish in front of the herensuge’s face. “Uchenna, grab Jersey! I will follow with the dragon!” He continued purring at her. “Nice herensuge . . . good herensuge . . . pretty herensuge.” He threw another fish to the dragon. She snapped it up in her enormous jaws. Her teeth looked like a hundred bone-white knives.
But as they were leaving the cage, something stopped them dead in their tracks.
“See, Milton?” Edmund Schmoke’s voice echoed down the tunnel. “I told you it would work.”
The children froze. Professor Fauna froze. The herensuge snapped at the fish in the professor’s hand. He released it quickly.
“Professor, throw a fish to the other side of the cage,” Uchenna said quietly. “Don’t let them see that the dragon’s loose. I don’t want them to hurt her.”
“How could they hurt her?” Elliot whispered. Though they had managed to kidnap her somehow. Maybe they had some terrible technology, like an electrode wand or a tranquilizer cannon or a . . . Elliot made himself stop thinking about it.
The professor did as Uchenna suggested. The herensuge lumbered after the fish, back into the shadows. At exactly that moment, the Schmoke brothers emerged into the cavernous laboratory.
Elliot, Uchenna, and Professor Fauna just stood there.
“Milton!” said Edmund, his toad-like face lighting up. “Look who it is!”
“Professor!” Milton exclaimed. “What a lovely surprise!”
Elliot and Uchenna looked at each other. Their stomachs felt empty, hollow.
“Hello, Edmund,” said Professor Fauna. “Hello, Milton.”
“And you’ve brought those children who broke into our greenhouse! All the way to the Basque Country! What trouble you’ve gone to!”
Professor Fauna tugged on his beard and did not reply.
“You know,” said Edmund, “we’ve never thanked you properly for all this. For teaching us about the herensuge and the Jersey Devil and all the other wonderful mythical creatures of the world.”
“Did you know that we’re on the verge of curing baldness, thanks to you?” Milton went on. “Not that we need such a cure . . . yet.” He adjusted the thinning hair on top of his shiny head. “But where would we be without your tutelage? Your guidance? Your mentorship?”
“Professor,” said Uchenna, not taking her eyes off the billionaire brothers, “what are they talking about?”
The Schmokes looked at her and smiled. Edmund said, “He hasn’t told you? What good friends we are?”
“We are not friends,” Professor Fauna said. But he didn’t sound convincing. He sounded miserable.
“Oh, don’t be ungenerous, Professor. We were very close friends at one point.” Edmund was coming closer to Uchenna and Elliot. Milton was just behind him, his expensive leather shoes crunch-crunching on the stone and gravel floor. Edmund was near enough that the children could smell fancy cologne wafting off his navy-blue suit. “We were very
close with the professor for many years, children.”
“Yes,” said Edmund, waddling into the shadow of his towering brother. “I imagine he’s very proud. We haven’t forgotten any of the lessons he taught us. We remember everything.”
“What are you talking about?” Uchenna shouted. Elliot was so afraid his fingers were quivering.
“Are you that stupid, children?” Edmund grinned. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? We were just like you, once. The two young assistants in Professor Fauna’s crazy Unicorn Rescue Society. We didn’t believe him when he first told us about it, of course. I imagine you didn’t, either. He does come off as quite insane, doesn’t he?”
Milton laughed. “Oh, he does, he certainly does. However, Professor Fauna is not insane. Foolish, yes. Naïve, absolutely. But not insane. You see, we were students of his at the prestigious Exmoor Boarding School for Young Gentlemen. He taught history and world cultures. We were promising students, I think.”
“Oh, very,” Edmund agreed. “He began to take us under his wing. To tell us about the creatures of myth and legend. And how he believed that they were real.”
“We humored him at first,” said Milton, “and laughed behind his back. But when he started showing us actual evidence of mythical creatures being real . . . well, that’s when things got more interesting.”
“We joined his little society,” Edmund went on. “Helped him with it for a while. We even still have the membership cards he made for us.” He pulled a small laminated slip from his wallet that said: EDMUND SCHMOKE, JUNIOR MEMBER in metallic ink, next to a drawing of a unicorn. Milton Schmoke displayed his as well.
“But we were just biding our time,” Edmund continued. “Waiting for the right moment. And then, that moment came. There was a dragon. Not this one—another one. It laid eggs of pure gold. Professor Fauna feared that its habitat was being destroyed by our father’s logging company. He enlisted us to help him save it—”
“But we didn’t help him, did we?” Milton cut in. “We made it look like we would help him. Instead, we captured the dragon, extracted as much gold from it as we could, and let our father go about his business deforesting the Croatian countryside.”
“BETRAYAL!” Professor Fauna suddenly shouted. Elliot and Uchenna jumped a foot. “BETRAYAL!” the professor cried again. His fists were shaking, his beard was trembling. He began stalking toward the Schmoke brothers. “I trusted you! I taught you everything I knew! To care for these animals! To protect them! To value their lives and their freedom! And you BETRAYED them! Not me! I don’t care that you betrayed me! No! It is the animals you have betrayed. For that, I will never forgive you!”
He was face-to-face with the Schmoke brothers now. He was as tall as Milton, but he looked more physically powerful, and his fury made him terrifying.
The Schmoke brothers tried to edge away from him. “We weren’t really looking for your forgiveness, Professor,” said Edmund.
“Yes,” Milton added, with a bravado belied by his cowering, “we’ve got too much money to need forgiveness.”
“BETRAYAL!” Professor Fauna shouted again. He had nearly backed the brothers up against their machinery. He snatched the laminated cards from their trembling hands as they scrambled to get out of his way. The professor raised the cards over his head and dramatically tore them into tiny pieces. At least, that’s what he tried to do. But the laminated plastic wouldn’t tear no matter how hard he pulled.
“BETRAYAL!” the professor bellowed. He grabbed a loose rock the size of a grapefruit from the cave floor. He placed the old membership cards on the nearest surface, which happened to be the control panel of the scientific equipment. He raised the rock above his head with both of his hands.
“Professor, don’t!” Elliot cried. He didn’t know what the machinery did, but he didn’t think smashing a rock against it was a great idea.
But the professor’s eyes were blazing and his lips were trembling, and he brought the rock down with all his might.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Professor Fauna’s rock smashed into the old membership cards, cracking the plastic laminate and splintering into the machine below them. He raised the rock above his head and slammed it down again. The console crunched under the force of his blow. He brought the rock down again and again, breaking the plastic cards into pieces, not seeming to notice that he was also smashing the buttons and switches. Dials started going crazy, whirring and spinning. Lights flashed.
“Stop!” Edmund Schmoke cried. “Professor, don’t do that!”
“Please!” Milton shrieked. “You’ll kill us all!”
“LEAVE! THE! ANIMALS! ALONE!” Professor Fauna shouted, smashing the machines with the stone.
Elliot and Uchenna gripped each other, and Jersey clung to them both.
A groaning came from the walls of the cavern and then the sound of an explosion, deep in the stone of the cave.
“That’s the hydraulic support system, Edmund!” Milton was saying. “The place won’t hold!”
“Darn it, I know that, Milton!” Edmund snapped. He dove at the professor and tried to pry him away from the machines, but the professor threw him to the floor. The fat billionaire gazed up at the professor in awe and terror.
The walls of the cavern began to shake.
“Oh no,” Uchenna whispered.
A stalactite came crashing down from the ceiling. In a distant corner, another fell. And another.
Then, they all heard an even more terrifying sound. The roar of a dragon.
The herensuge emerged from her cage. Her wings were spread wide. Her eyes looked wild with fear. She staggered this way and that.
“The dragon’s escaped!” Milton Schmoke shrieked. “The dragon’s escaped!”
“Oh, save us!” cried Edmund. “Save us!”
The dragon roared and beat her leathery wings as stones came crashing down all around her.
“She’s afraid!” Uchenna cried. “Professor, throw her a fish!”
The professor had finally dropped the stone. He stood, staring at the enraged dragon. “What have I done, children?” he said. “What have I done?”
A loud scraping was now coming from behind one of the stone walls. “What is that?” Edmund Schmoke wailed.
The backpack, with the dragon’s fish, lay on the floor. Elliot dove for it, opened it, and grabbed a handful of fish. He threw them at the dragon. She ignored them.
“That’s not good,” Elliot murmured.
The scratching behind the cavern wall grew louder. As if the stone was being torn away from within. Then, there was a thunderous crash.
A huge hole opened up in one of the cavern walls.
And standing in that hole was an enormous seven-headed dragon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Professor Fauna, Elliot, Uchenna, and the Schmoke brothers all froze. Their mouths hung open. Their eyes were wider than plates of pintxos.
The seven-headed dragon roared. Its central head was the largest, and its roar was the deepest. The six smaller heads all around it writhed and screamed in their own high-pitched bellows of rage.
“Professor,” Uchenna said, “I think the storm god Sugaar is real.”
“It would appear so,” Professor Fauna replied, as if in a trance.
The herensuge beat her wings and roared back at the seven-headed Sugaar. Sugaar stood on his hind legs and blew fire all around the cavern. The humans threw themselves to the ground—the fire rolling inches above their flattened bodies in a great exploding wave.
“Yow!” the Schmoke brothers screamed in unison. They reached up and grabbed their heads. They looked at each other. The hair on the tops of their heads had been singed to a crisp by the dragon’s fire. “NO!” they cried.
The herensuge and Sugaar stood, now both on their hind legs, and sized each other up. Sugaar blew flames into the air. The here
nsuge did the same.
The humans gaped in awe and terror.
And then, battle was joined.
Sugaar leaped at the herensuge. The herensuge rose and met him in the air. They tussled, the seven heads of Sugaar biting the herensuge’s neck and head and wings.
“They’re going to kill each other!” Uchenna cried.
“They’re going to kill us, too!” Elliot added.
“Now’s our chance!” hissed Milton. “Edmund, come on! Let’s go!”
The Schmoke brothers began crawling on their bellies toward the dark corridor that led back to the library, their scorched heads blackened and hairless. “Let’s get the guards!” Edmund was saying to Milton. “And send them back for all the dragons!”
“Come, children,” said the professor. “We must go, too. And quickly!” He got on his knees and pulled them after him, away from the battle of the dragons.
Fire was exploding from eight mouths. Wings were beating. Elliot and Uchenna followed the professor without taking their eyes off the dragon battle. Then, Uchenna exclaimed, “Oh! One of the heads came off!”
Professor Fauna turned to look.
It was true. One of Sugaar’s heads had become detached and now seemed to be crawling, of its own accord, down the herensuge’s back.
“What the . . . ?” Elliot whispered.
The herensuge and Sugaar continued wrestling, pushing each other back and forth, toward the cage and then away from it.
Another head came off Sugaar. And another. They flapped around on their own.
“What is going on?” Elliot marveled.
Uchenna said, “The dragons don’t really seem to be hurting each other. The heads just keep coming off and flying around.”
Indeed, as the members of the Unicorn Rescue Society watched, something amazing dawned on them.
“They’re not fighting,” said Elliot. “They’re playing.”