The Coiled Viper Page 5

  “But Sparr’s more powerful than ever now.”

  Holding the Moon Medallion in his hand, Galen shook his head. “By giving Sparr the Viper, Eric, by saving me, you made us stronger. And what makes us stronger makes Sparr weaker. Now, scoot up to your world. Just before we left, I set a charm on the town. No one will remember today. Except you, of course!”

  “Too bad the Ninns left Eric’s house a total disaster area,” said Neal.

  “For that,” said the wizard, “you will need an even more ancient technique.”

  “A cleaning spell?” said Julie. “You really need to teach us that one!”

  “Better than a spell,” said Galen, winking at Keeah and Max. “Old-fashioned hard work!”

  With a wave of his hand, Galen conjured a spinning circle of blue light. “Now, all aboard for Jaffa City. We must plan our next adventure!”

  “Plan on us being there, too!” said Eric.

  Keeah laughed as she stepped into the swirling light. “We wouldn’t have it any other way!”

  A moment later, the wizard, the spider troll, and the princess were gone.

  The three friends raced back up to Eric’s house, where they found his parents sitting at the kitchen table, dazed and wondering why there were mustard stains all over the basement.

  Eric laughed. “Mom, Dad, we’ll clean up the mess. But there’s something we need to do first.”

  He turned. Julie and Neal were smiling.

  “To the alley!” they said.

  Ten minutes later, the three friends stood between the brick walls at the entrance to Calibaz.

  Neal took the flute from his pocket and played Pikoo’s tune once more.

  The air barely rippled this time, but as long as it did they could see beyond the veil.

  “Oh, no,” said Julie.

  The tents were gone. The streets were gone. Everything was gone. Only scraps of fabric here and there and the trampled ground showed that anything had ever been there.

  The sea, as vast and stormy as before, rolled darkly all the way to the horizon.

  “Good-bye, Pikoo,” Eric whispered.

  Neal stopped playing, and the air went still. The alley was an alley once more.

  “Do you think we’ll ever see Calibaz again?” asked Julie. “Or Pikoo and his hoobah friends?”

  Eric imagined the hoobahs living unknown to everyone on the far side of the veil, playing their music, living in their colorful tents, hoping, waiting, dreaming. He wondered if their legend was just a legend or if it would really come true. Would a stranger lead them to this side to stay?

  “Maybe someday,” he said.

  “At least we have this cool souvenir,” said Neal, slipping the strange little flute into his pocket. “To remember what happened today.”

  Julie laughed. “As if we’ll ever forget the day Sparr came to town!”

  “Or the creepy way the Coiled Viper hissed at us,” added Neal.

  Eric shivered. “Or the moment when Sparr said the crown wasn’t for him.”

  The three friends stared at one another.

  “Come on,” said Neal. “Let’s clean up your closet. I have a feeling we’ll be using it again very soon!”

  Without another word, the three friends raced to Eric’s house to get to work.

  Eric Hinkle sat with his friends Julie and Neal at a table in the art room at school. He was rocking quietly in his chair. He was smiling.

  “Will you sit still?” said Neal, pushing a paintbrush across a piece of paper. “I have to paint your picture. But with all your wiggling, you’ll end up looking like a monkey!”

  “I can’t sit still,” said Eric.

  “At least take your gloves off,” said Julie, dipping her brush in a cup of water. “It’s cold out, but you’re inside now. Besides, Mrs. Michaels said we should paint. You’d better get started.”

  Eric looked down at his gloves and smiled again. “I can’t get started. Look at this.”

  He glanced around the room. The other kids were busy painting or talking quietly while their teacher strolled between the tables. Making sure no one was watching, Eric took the little cup of water in front of him, lifted it high overhead, and turned it upside down.

  “Eric — !” Julie shielded her picture.

  But the water didn’t splash out.

  Thwap! A small block of ice slid out of the cup and landed in his hand.

  “Whoa!” said Neal. “How did that happen?”

  Eric grinned. “I touched it. And that’s not all. Since I woke up yesterday, my wizard powers have been totally nuts. I think they’re getting stronger….”

  Wizard powers.

  That’s right. He was Eric Hinkle. Boy wizard.

  As Julie and Neal leaned toward him, their eyes wide, Eric recalled how he got his powers.

  He loved to remember the exact moment.

  It was in Droon, of course. Where else could such a magical thing happen?

  Droon was the fantastic world the three of them had discovered one day in his basement. It was a land of danger, mystery, and adventure.

  Droon was also a place of amazing friends. It was there that Princess Keeah, their best friend, had saved Eric from falling into a bottomless pit.

  Blam! She shot a blaze of blue wizard light.

  And suddenly he was safe.

  But that moment changed Eric’s life forever.

  Soon after, he discovered blue sparks shooting from his own fingertips. Then he began having visions of things that hadn’t happened yet. And strange words popped suddenly into his head.

  Magical words.

  At first, he thought it had all been a weird mistake. But the great old wizard Galen told him, “I do not believe you won the powers by accident. There is a greater purpose here.”

  Eric knew part of that purpose, of course.

  With magical powers, he could help Droon win its terrible battle against Lord Sparr.

  Sparr, the sorcerer. Sparr, the ruler of the Dark Lands. Sparr, the creator of the Coiled Viper, the Red Eye of Dawn, and the Golden Wasp. Sparr the weird, Sparr the creepy, Sparr the —

  “So come on already!” said Julie. “Tell us!”

  “Oh, sorry.” Eric took a deep breath. “Well, first of all, yesterday morning, I felt my hands getting really, really hot. A minute later, I pulled the bathroom door completely off its hinges!”

  Neal gave out a low whistle. “I’m pretty sure your dad will take that out of your allowance.”

  “No kidding,” said Eric. “Then, clearing the kitchen table last night, I broke three dishes —”

  Julie winced. “I hate the sound when dishes hit the floor!”

  “They didn’t hit the floor,” said Eric. “They hit the ceiling! That was just after I became my own personal microwave and zapped a slice of pizza to dust — right in my hand!”

  Neal blinked. “Pizza? What kind of pizza —?”

  “Never mind about that,” said Julie. “Eric, did your parents see anything?”

  He shook his head. “No. They just think I’m the king of klutziness.”

  Neal laughed. “Then maybe you can hang this in your palace —” He showed them his painting. Eric’s head was tiny but his eyes were huge.

  “Thanks a lot,” Eric said with a laugh. “But here’s the weirdest part of all. You know how I always shoot off blue sparks? Well …”

  Keeping his hands under the table, Eric carefully tugged his gloves off. The instant he did, bright silver sparks blazed from his fingertips and sprayed wildly to the floor. “Cool, huh?”

  “Silver sparks?” said Julie. “That’s new.”

  “New and way more powerful,” said Eric, tugging his gloves on and quickly painting a picture of Neal. “Even Keeah doesn’t have sparks like these. I feel as if I can do anything —”

  “Except maybe paint,” said Neal, looking at Eric’s paper. “Now I look like a monkey!”

  Mrs. Michaels tapped her desk. “Please finish up. Put your paintings on the b
ack table to dry.”

  Julie slid her watercolor kit and some paper into her pocket and went to the back of the art room. On a recent adventure in Droon, she had been scratched by a wingwolf and had gained the ability to fly and sometimes to change shape.

  “I thought flying was weird,” she said. “It’s a piece of cake compared to Eric’s new powers.”

  “Cake?” said Neal. “What kind of cake?”

  Eric laughed as he put his painting on the table. “I have to show Keeah what I can do. I sure wish we could go to Droon right now —”

  Kkkkk! A sudden crackle came over the school intercom, and a voice began to speak. “Due to the weather, school will be dismissed early. Buses will be called in five minutes!”

  Eric’s eyes became as huge as they were in Neal’s picture. “Weather? What’s going on?”

  Everyone rushed to a window overlooking the courtyard. The air outside was white. Thick squashy snowflakes were swirling everywhere.

  Neal gasped. “Holy cow, Eric, did you … ?”

  “No way!” He shook his head. “I didn’t do this! I couldn’t do this. Could I?”

  But his hands … his hands were blazing hot.

  Julie frowned. “Eric, this is weird. You wanted to go home, and now we can. If your powers did this, there’s only one way to find out —”

  Neal’s face broke into a wide grin. “To the bus, to Eric’s basement, and then … to Droon! That is, unless Eric zaps us with a hurricane!”

  “Cut it out!” said Eric as they raced out.

  Ten minutes later, the three friends tumbled off the bus and ran across the yard to Eric’s house.

  Already the kids on the street were laughing and shouting as they dragged their sleds and saucers into the spinning snow.

  “Looks like fun,” said Julie. “Makes you want to have a snowball fight, doesn’t it?”

  Eric nodded, then saw silver sparks spring from the seams in his gloves. “We can play later. Keeah needs to see this right away. Come on!”

  The friends tramped down to Eric’s basement. They pushed aside three large cartons blocking a door under the stairs.

  Inside was a small closet, empty except for a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling.

  They piled in. Neal closed the door behind them, and Julie pulled the light switch. Click.

  The room went dark, but only for an instant.

  Whoosh! The floor beneath them vanished, and in its place stood the top step of a staircase, shimmering in every color of the rainbow.

  “I hope we never have to stop doing this,” said Julie excitedly. “Droon is so awesome.”

  Eric couldn’t help but smile. He loved it, too.

  “Come on, people. To Droon!”

  The three friends started down the stairs together. Passing through a layer of thick clouds, they entered a blue-black sky dotted with stars.

  Icy cold air swept up around them, spinning powdery flakes of snow onto a forest below.

  “It looks like Eric made it snow here, too,” Neal said with a chuckle.

  In the distance were the twinkling lights of a vast city of turrets and towers.

  “Jaffa City,” said Julie. “Keeah’s hometown. These must be the Farne Woods under us. It’s all so magical. I’m glad I packed my watercolors.”

  Barely visible through the many fir and pine trees crowded below was a faint orange glow. It was coming from a small cabin built into the trees. As the kids got closer, they saw wisps of smoke drifting up from the stone chimney.

  “Keeah’s cottage,” said Eric. “I hope she’s in there.”

  They all remembered the first time they had seen Keeah’s house in the woods. She told them that she and her parents, King Zello and Queen Relna, had lived there when she was small.

  “I hear voices from inside,” said Neal.

  Eric felt his neck tingle. A soft whisper flitted through the upper branches and swirled down with the flakes.

  “It sounds like voices here, too,” he said.

  “It’s the wind,” said Julie. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Let’s get inside,” said Neal. “Whispers give me the chills. And I’m already cold enough!”

  With the snow falling more heavily around them, the three friends padded quickly to the cottage door.

  Eric lifted his hand to knock.

  Suddenly — wham! — the door came blasting open, and an enormous giant leaped out.

  A giant covered entirely in fur.

  A giant holding a long, sharp spear.

  A giant yelling, “Ahhhhh —”

  Text copyright © 2003 by Robert T. Abbott

  Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Scholastic Inc.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.

  SCHOLASTIC, LITTLE APPLE, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First printing, July 2003

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-41832-4

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.