In the Shadow of Goll Read online

  “That was so nuts!” said Neal. “Eric, what was in your head? You spilled all our secrets!”

  “Until Nelag unspilled them,” said Julie. “Thanks, Nelag. You were awesome.”

  Nelag bowed. “I’m told that a lot.”

  Eric led them across several streets and finally into his yard. “I was having a vision. I was in a very strange lair. Someone made me tell them all about Sparr.”

  He paused on his back steps and remembered the growing purple cloud. “Guys, the person warned me and said that we’d be challenged today. I think Droon is going to be very weird. We need to be ready.”

  “Nelag, is that why you came for us?” asked Julie.

  Nelag held up four fingers again. “Sorry. I only had two things to tell you. For the rest, we have to go to Droon!”

  Eric slipped through his back door, stepped into the kitchen, and listened. “All clear.”

  The four friends dashed straight to the basement. They pulled a stack of boxes away from a door underneath the stairs and entered a small closet. Nelag stepped in backward.

  With a quick click, Julie turned off the light. The closet went dark for an instant, then blazed in a glow of rainbow light. A long curving staircase shone brilliantly below.

  “What would our friends do if they knew that Droon really was real?” asked Neal.

  “Same thing I do every time the stairs appear,” said Julie. “Freak out!”

  Laughing despite his uneasiness, Eric took the first step down the stairs, then another and another. Together he and his friends descended through the clouds. They soon saw the silvery walls and colored domes of Jaffa City, the seaside capital of Droon.

  Neal tugged a small square of blue cloth from his pocket. When it blossomed into a large, puffy turban, he slipped it on. “Zabilac, First Genie of the Dove, makes an official declaration — adventure, here we come!”

  “Except that adventure seems to be coming for us,” said Nelag. “Here’s some water.”

  They turned to see a giant black wave barreling across the sea straight toward the city.

  “That’s not some water!” said Eric. “That’s all of it! That wave is a hundred feet tall!”

  “And it’s coming right for us!” yelled Julie.

  “It’s a wave of death!” Neal cried. “Run!”

  “I have a better idea!” said Nelag. “Let’s hum! Brum-dum-de-dum, a wizard’s life for me —” He sat down abruptly on the stairs.

  Tripping over him in a mad heap, the children plummeted from the stairs just as the giant wave crashed down.

  Text copyright © 2006 by Tony Abbott.

  Illustrations copyright © 2006 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 2006

  Cover art by Tim Jessell

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-41841-6

  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.