The Race to Doobesh Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: Eyes of the Spy

  2: On (and Off) Firefrog Mountain

  3: Follow the … What?

  4: Some Kind of Dragon

  5: A Tour of Bleakwold

  6: Welcome to My Cave

  7: At the Forge

  8: Ride the … What?

  9: The Great Race

  10: A Lot to Do

  The Adventure Continues …

  Also Available

  Copyright

  “That was incredibly awesome!”

  “Awesomely incredible!”

  “Plus, extremely cool.”

  Eric Hinkle and his friends Julie Rubin and Neal Kroger stumbled a little as they made their way out of the dark and into the bright, sunlit lobby of the movie theater.

  “The most amazing part,” said Neal, squinting at the light, then slipping on a pair of sunglasses, “was that elf guy with the dark spectacles and the funny name —”

  “Sneaky!” said Julie. “I loved his green boots.”

  Neal grinned. “I loved when he put on his elf glasses and did all that incredible action stuff. I could do that —”

  “The wizard was very cool, too,” said Eric. “It was amazing the way his magic freed the trolls.”

  The lobby was full of people, some lining up for the next showing of the movie, others still straggling out of the dark theater.

  Julie sighed. “Remember when the princess said that every adventure is a journey and every journey is an adventure? How fabulous was that?”

  Eric couldn’t help but smile. The movie they had just seen was fabulous. It was full of adventure and action and magical special effects.

  But it wasn’t as fabulous as their real lives.

  Their real lives in Droon, that is.

  Droon was a world of wizards and sorcerers, of strange creatures, gleaming cities, misty islands, and endless seas. It was a realm of magic and adventure the three friends had discovered one day beneath Eric’s basement. Since then, they had gone to Droon many times, descending an enchanted staircase that connected the two worlds.

  On their very first journey to Droon, they had met Keeah, a real princess who turned out to be a wizard just learning her powers. She had become their best Droon friend. Together with Keeah, an old wizard named Galen, who was now on a long journey, and a friendly spider troll named Max, Eric and his friends had helped Droon battle its enemies many times. Eric and Julie had even gained magical powers. Julie could fly, and Eric was turning into a full-fledged wizard himself.

  As he looked around the lobby, Eric saw some other classmates from school. He waved to them. He knew that if he ever told any of them about Droon, it would sound made up. It would sound like a movie.

  But he, Neal, and Julie wouldn’t tell anyone. Long ago, Galen had told them that Droon was a secret they had to protect. If anyone in the Upper World ever found out about it, there was no telling what strange things might happen.

  “Okay, guys,” said Julie, checking her watch. “My mom expects us in five minutes. We’ll have supper at my house.”

  “Supper in five minutes?” said Neal. “Perfect. That leaves just enough time.”

  “Time for what?” asked Julie.

  “To get a snack, of course,” said Neal.

  Eric chuckled. “Neal, you’re supposed to get popcorn going into the movie, not when you come out.”

  Neal shrugged and trotted off to the food counter. “Call me a rebel….”

  Shaking their heads, Eric and Julie followed their friend and waited while he stood in line.

  “Eric,” whispered Julie, “did the sorcerer in the movie remind you of anyone?”

  “Of course,” he said in a low voice. “Lord Sparr. Before.”

  Right. Lord Sparr. Before.

  Sparr was a sorcerer. Always dressed in black, he had real purple fins growing behind his ears. As long as the children had known Sparr, he had been trying to take over all of Droon for himself.

  Until now.

  Not long ago, on the creepy Isle of Mists, Sparr had used a spell to wake up Emperor Ko from his charmed sleep. Ko had been the terrible leader of the dark and frightening beasts of Goll. He had kidnapped Sparr from the Upper World when Sparr was only an infant and brought him up in Droon’s Dark Lands. For years, Sparr’s goal had been to wake the sleeping emperor. Together, the two powerful sorcerers would be impossible to beat.

  But when Sparr woke up Emperor Ko and brought him into modern Droon, something unbelievable had happened. In the middle of the spell, Sparr himself had been zapped back into a boy.

  Lord Sparr was now … Kid Sparr!

  And after being Droon’s enemy for ages, Sparr was now helping Keeah to stop Emperor Ko’s plans. On their first adventure together, Kid Sparr had even saved Eric’s life!

  Eric still couldn’t believe it. “With Sparr on our side now,” he whispered, “things in Droon sure are strange.”

  “Uh, they’re a little strange here, too,” said Julie, making a face. “Is Neal really talking to his food?”

  Eric turned to see his friend staring down into a jumbo container of popcorn.

  “Could you say that again, please?” asked Neal.

  Julie and Eric quickly pulled Neal to a corner of the crowded lobby. There, they bent their heads to the popcorn, too. As they listened, they heard a faint but very clear voice whispering from the buttery kernels. It was saying the same thing over and over.

  Find … the … dragon!

  Neal peered around the lobby through his dark glasses. “I don’t think there are any dragons here.”

  “Not here,” said Eric. “That voice is from Droon. It must be.”

  He glanced through the lobby doors to the late afternoon sky outside. Barely visible over the library across the street was the outline of a nearly full, silver moon.

  He said what they were all thinking.

  “Could the voice be talking about the moon dragon?” he whispered. “You know, Gethwing?”

  They all knew about Gethwing.

  Eric, Neal, and Julie had crossed paths with the creature once already. Strange and terrifying, Gethwing was a four-winged, powerful dragon and the right-hand beast of Emperor Ko. He had taken care of young Sparr when the boy was growing up in Ko’s palace.

  Find … the … dragon! the voice repeated.

  Eric felt himself tense up. Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck tickled. His heart began to pound. As he carefully scanned the crowds lining up for the next movie, he said, “It feels like someone —”

  “Is watching us?” said Julie, lowering her voice. She, too, glanced around.

  “A spy?” said Neal. “There was a spy in the movie. That fishy-looking creature.”

  “I felt it yesterday, too,” said Eric. “I’ve been wondering whether somebody in the big house on my street heard us talking about … you-know-where.”

  “Somebody might think it’s weird that we’re listening to popcorn, too,” said Julie. “Either way, we have to go to you-know-where right now. If someone is watching us, we need to throw them off our trail. We need to be sneaky —”

  “Sneaky?” Neal grinned. “I love when you call me that!”

  Finishing his popcorn and tossing the box into a container by the doors, Neal darted out of the lobby to Main Street. He crouched low, glanced both ways, then scampered behind the nearest mailbox, leaped over a bench, and dashed into the park. “Forward, elves!” he called back.

  Laughing, Julie and Eric ran after him.

  Zipping past the library, they headed down a side street, sprinted in front of the pizza place, and dodged behind the supermarket into a neighborhood of houses.

  Weaving across front yards and along dri
veways, they were out of breath when they finally reached Eric’s back door.

  “There was probably an easier way to get here,” said Julie. “But I guess adventure heroes never take the easy way!”

  As they tumbled through Eric’s back door and into the kitchen, Julie and Neal peeked out the window into the backyard.

  “No one,” said Julie. “I think we lost him.”

  Neal nodded, then grumbled. “I think I lost my sunglasses, too.”

  “We’ll hunt for them later,” said Eric. “For now, let’s go find a dragon!”

  The three friends tramped down the basement stairs. Nearly hidden under the staircase was a small door blocked by large cartons. The kids quickly pushed the cartons aside, opened the door, and piled into a tiny closet.

  “Ready to find a dragon?” asked Eric.

  “Ready,” said Julie.

  Neal nodded. “I guess I’d rather find a dragon than have a dragon find us!”

  Eric closed the door and gave a tug on the string of the ceiling light. It clicked off, and the little room was dark for a second. Then it wasn’t.

  Whooosh! The floor became the top step of a glittering staircase, curving away from the house. Descending through the clouds, the kids entered a bright, warm afternoon. The sun shone over a wide blue sea and on the fluffy bushes and squat green buildings of a small village clinging to the top of a mountain. The village was surrounded by a wall.

  “Firefrog Mountain!” said Neal. “We’ve been here before.”

  Firefrog Mountain was the home of the green-flamed animals known as firefrogs. They watched over creatures and people who had made trouble in Droon.

  The kids leaped off the steps and onto a narrow path snaking up the mountainside toward the village at the top. At the same moment, a creature came barreling down the path toward them.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” it cried.

  “Oh, my gosh!” said Julie. “A … a … dragon!”

  It was a dragon, all right. But as it came closer, the friends could see that it wasn’t the frightening moon dragon they had feared. This dragon was plump and squat, with spiky brown skin, a thick tail, and two small wings. It was wearing an apron covered in fruit stains and there was a puffy chef’s hat on its knobby head.

  “It’s Jabbo!” said Eric. “The pie maker!”

  “Jabbo, stop!” called Neal.

  A humble pie maker in the Upper World, Jabbo had once come upon an ancient spell and used it to try to take over Droon. After the kids had helped stop him, Galen had sent him here, to Firefrog Mountain.

  When the little dragon saw the children now, he screamed, turned, and hustled right back to the village. “No more pie!” he growled. “No more anything! Jabbo is done! Jabbo is escaping! Good-bye!”

  Flapping his small wings as fast as he could, and jumping with all his strength, Jabbo bounced over the village wall and disappeared.

  “Come on!” said Eric. Together the three friends scrambled up the path and helped one another over the wall. “After him!”

  “After him?” chirped a voice. “We’re already after him!”

  Fwish! An eight-legged spider troll swung down from the wall on a string of silky thread and plopped into the street next to the children.

  “Max!” said Julie.

  “And Keeah, too!” said Max, his orange hair standing on end.

  Just then, Keeah rushed into the street, her blond hair flying. She was followed by a dozen squealing frogs, their skin blazing with cool green flames.

  “I’m glad you came,” she said to the children as they joined in the chase. “Jabbo escaped from his little house this morning. He claimed his kitchen was haunted —”

  “Haunted,” repeated Max. “By a ghostly voice.”

  Julie blinked. “We heard a voice! It told us to ‘find the dragon’ —”

  “Finding him is not catching him!” came a shout. “Everyone, this way!”

  A figure in a long black cloak dropped down from a nearby rooftop into an open square. It was a boy about their age, with fins growing behind his ears.

  It was Sparr.

  “Follow me, if you want to catch Jabbo.” He dashed across the square to the far side. Everyone followed him into a narrow passage between two buildings. Running ahead to the next corner, he slowed and then stopped, holding up his hand to the others, and said, “Careful …”

  As they listened for sounds, Sparr turned slightly. “Eric, I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Hey, me, too,” Eric whispered. “And listen … thanks again for saving me last time. I’m really sorry I didn’t trust you at first.”

  Sparr smiled. “When I think about who I became, I wouldn’t trust me, either.”

  Eric glanced back at his friends. It was still hard to think of their greatest enemy helping them. But he felt that Sparr really was trying to be different. He knew that with the boy on their side, at least, they might actually make a difference in Droon.

  Sparr on their side. It felt good.

  Weird, but good.

  “Watch out!” cried a firefrog. “Heads up!”

  Suddenly — whooooosh! whooooosh! whooooosh! — the air was full of flying pie plates. One spun past Neal’s ear and nearly struck Julie. Another slammed against the wall behind them and clattered to the cobblestones in the square, while a third flew at the firefrogs, scattering them.

  “Jabbo will never be caught!” the pie maker yelled, leaning down from a balcony overhead. In a flash, he scrambled from roof to roof all the way to the far side of the square, dropped onto an awning, then bounced up and over the village wall again.

  “He’s outside again!” said Keeah. “Eric, Sparr, with me. Max, Neal, the wall. Julie —”

  “I’ll fly!” she said. With a quick flutter of her arms, Julie launched herself over the buildings to a narrow ledge just outside the village wall. When Eric, Keeah, and Sparr came bounding over the high wall, they found her hovering above the ledge just as Jabbo came hustling down.

  Julie crossed her arms. “Stop right there, mister!”

  “Ohh!” growled the chubby little dragon. He spun around on his knobby heels, but Keeah was blocking the way. Neal and Max, together with the firefrogs, were crowded along the wall looking down at him.

  “We have you now, Jabbo,” said Keeah. “Time to go back to your little house before you hurt yourself —”

  “Never!” the little dragon said, wobbling on the ledge. His eyes were full of fear. “Jabbo won’t go back until he goes away. The ghostly voice! It’s haunting poor Jabbo!”

  Eric frowned. “Whose voice is it?”

  “Someone who likes to whisper over and over,” the little dragon grumbled. “And over and over he says the same thing. ‘Find the gate … find the gate.’ Find the gate?! This is Firefrog Mountain. There aren’t any gates —”

  Suddenly — squawkkkk! — the clouds above them tore open, and two giant winged creatures swooped down. Covered with ragged gray feathers, they had long beaks, clawed arms, and burning red eyes.

  “Beasts!” hissed Sparr. “I know those two. They work for Ko —”

  Before anyone could stop them, the beasts dived for Jabbo, clutched him between them, and shot back into the sky, cawing and shrieking.

  “Help me!” Jabbo called back. “Never mind voices — let Jabbo bake pies again!”

  But the beasts disappeared into the clouds with him. In a flash, they were gone.

  The firefrogs gasped.

  The children stared up at the sky.

  “We found the dragon,” said Julie. “Then we lost him … to the beasts!”

  “Why did the beasts take Jabbo?” asked Neal. “Do they have a thing for pies?”

  Sparr shook his head. “No. I know I don’t remember everything about my life with Ko, but beast language is one thing I’ll never forget. Those two are taking Jabbo far away. They’re taking him to Doobesh.”

  Max shivered. “Doobesh? The Ruby Orb of Doobesh stole me away once!”

  Th
e kids had never been to Doobesh, but they had all heard of it. It was a strange city of towers and turrets in the southernmost part of Droon, on the edge of Ko’s Dark Lands.

  “But why are they taking Jabbo there?” asked Eric, still searching the sky.

  Everyone turned to Sparr. Rubbing his forehead, he sighed, then spoke.

  “Doobesh is one of the five Magic Cities in Droon,” he said. “For ages, it’s been the center of stealing and trading in magic, a gathering place of thieves and pirates. And now — I guess — of beasts, too. But why they are taking Jabbo there, I don’t know.”

  Julie frowned. “Well, the voice told us to find the dragon. Then it told Jabbo to find the gate. Maybe this is like a treasure hunt. If Jabbo is going to Doobesh, maybe the gate is there, too.”

  “And maybe the voice is, too,” added Neal.

  Keeah gazed at the empty sky. “Then let’s find out. I say we go to Doobesh, and we go the fastest way I know. Everyone ready? Hang on —”

  With a swift motion, the princess twirled her hands high, and a bright blue wind spun instantly around the six friends, lifting them into the open air. Waving to the firefrogs, they flew up and away over the Sea of Droon.

  To the Magic City of Doobesh.

  The blue light sparkled like glitter stirred quickly in a glass of water.

  As the children spun faster and faster, the lakes, rivers, and deserts of Droon passed beneath them and vanished into the distance.

  “Hold tight!” said Neal. “It’s a long way down there.”

  “I won’t let go,” said Max. “Don’t you let go!”

  When, finally, the spinning slowed, a city of golden turrets, purple towers, green roofs, and high orange walls came into view.

  “There it is,” said Sparr. “Doobesh.”

  The city was perched in the middle of sandy plains surrounded by clusters of big-leafed palm trees. As the kids descended through the air, they saw many streets of low, crooked buildings. Arching over the streets were bridges covered by flowering vines. In a large central square, before a building that looked like a palace, stood a fountain bubbling brightly with crystal-clear water.

  Julie breathed in. “For a dangerous magical city, Doobesh sure is beautiful.”