Dragonbreath #8

by Ursula Vernon

  “Took you long enough,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “You think I can afford to leave the fridge open for hours? I’m air-conditioning the entire house this way!”

  “Great-Granddad!” Danny sat up. “The baku! It was huge—it had claws—and the Wasp—”

  “Well, they do that,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. He reached out and helped Suki step down from the refrigerator portal, then slammed the door. “And I’ve been dying for a sandwich this entire time,” he added, opening the door again to reveal a perfectly ordinary refrigerator.

  “Is Wendell okay?” asked Suki. “We squashed the eggs! And is the baku okay? The Wasp didn’t hurt it?”

  “I think the baku’s fine,” said Danny dryly. He pointed.

  On the floor, curled up against Wendell’s side, the baku was fast asleep.

  “So, um,” said Suki a few minutes later as they waited at the bus stop. Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath had kicked them out, saying that he needed a nap after that sandwich.

  “Um,” said Wendell. He stared at his feet. “I hope you guys didn’t . . . err . . . see anything too weird in there. . . .”

  “There was plenty of weird stuff,” said Danny. “I didn’t know a grasshopper jumped in your eye when you were little!”

  “Unnnnggh!” Wendell shuddered. “All those little legs, and it was RIGHT THERE. . . .”

  Danny snickered. He was tempted to tell Wendell about the books about Suki, but maybe not while the salamander was standing right there.

  “I think that’s my bus,” said Suki, looking up. “Ah . . . well . . . Wendell, you know, if we can both get to Danny’s great-grandfather’s place, maybe we could . . . um . . .”

  “We could hang out sometime,” said Wendell. “Yeah. I’d like that. Um.”

  Danny rolled his eyes.

  The bus pulled up. “Thanks for your help, Suki,” said Danny. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I would never have figured out the card catalog, for one thing.”

  “Sure,” said Suki. She looked at Wendell. Wendell looked at her.

  “Um,” said Wendell. “You, uh. Saved me. I, uh . . . I mean . . . if you ever . . . um . . .”

  She ran up the little steps into the bus. It let out of a hiss of brakes and drove away.

  “I saved you too,” said Danny.

  “I’m not kissing you.”

  “Wendell’s got a girrrrrlfriend,” said Danny, delighted.

  “Shut up.”

  “Besides,” said Danny. “You know I think Suki’s cool. And now you practically have to be her boyfriend.”

  “I do?”

  “Sure!” Danny waved his hands. “She’s been in your subconscious! She even called you her boyfriend while we were in there! Now she’s . . . the girl of your dreams!”

  Wendell groaned. “I will destroy you twice.”

  A bus appeared in the distance. The iguana fidgeted.

  After a moment, he said, “Did she really call me her boyfriend?”

  Danny rolled his eyes again.

  “You know,” he said, after a minute, as the bus rolled closer, “we have brunch at my house every Saturday. Without bran waffles.”

  “Really?” asked Wendell, sounding almost as hopeful as he had about being Suki’s boyfriend.

  “Really,” said Danny, and waited for the bus to come and pick them up and take them away to another adventure.

  And if Danny doesn’t find out who—or what—has been stealing dentures and lawn ornaments, his crabby granddad will come and live with him. In. His. Room.

  But even mutant thieves don’t stand a chance when Danny, his nerdy friend Wendell, and their friend-who-is-a-girl Christiana are on the case

  *Anything you accidentally break while trying to do something else entirely—for example, accidentally shooting an arrow through the window of a police car into the upholstery while trying to knock down a pair of underwear that you were using as a kite and which got lodged in some power lines—is collateral damage.

  *The surprise is even more tofu!

  *Danny’s parents could have testified that once Danny fell asleep, nothing short of bombs going off would wake him up again.