Free The Dragon in the Driveway by Kate Klimo, John Shroades Page A

been, and we would know, wouldn’t we? Now, hold your tongues and go down on your knees before us!”
    Jesse and Daisy each went awkwardly down on one knee. The hobgoblins scrambled down onto both knees and put their foreheads to the ground. Daisy looked over and shook her head at Jesse. “No way,” she whispered.
    “As you were!” croaked the queen.
    Jesse and Daisy climbed to their feet again.
    “How do you do?” Jesse said politely.
    Daisy blurted, “If you’re a queen, what are you doing inside some dirty old root-ball?”
    The queen bellowed, “We have not given you permission to address us!”
    Daisy rolled her eyes and mimed zipping her lips.
    “But to answer the question, nevertheless,” said the queen, “which, we might add, is most astute, we are prisoners and this foul ball of fibrous cellulose is our jaily-waily.”
    “Jaily-waily?”
Jesse mouthed.
    Daisy had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling.
    “We find ourselves in a uniquely helpless, not to say hapless, situation,” the queen said huffily.
    Daisy and Jesse bobbed their heads in silent sympathy.
    After a pause, the queen snapped, “Oh, very well, you may address Her Eminence.”
    Jesse went first. “Did St. George put you—eh, Your Eminence—in there?” he asked.
    “Good guess!” she croaked. “So far we have one good question and one good guess. That’s a better score than most Upper Realmers could earn.”
    Daisy moved even closer to the ball and staredinto the riot of roots. Sure enough, in the very center of the root-ball, a hobgoblin squatted on her haunches. She looked just like her subjects, except that she was softer and rounder-looking, with big moss-green eyes (which really
were
magnificent!) and reddish hair with a bit of curl to it. Instead of the orange jumpsuit, she wore a robe decorated with tiny snail shells. Daisy had never thought of brown as being a pretty color for a garment, but this was the most beautiful hue of brown that Daisy had ever seen. It reminded her of fresh dirt with a hint of glittering mica in it.
    “Hey there, Your Royal Highness,” Daisy said softly.
    “That’s Royal
Lowness
to you,” the queen corrected snappishly.
    Jesse poked his nose into the roots next to Daisy and asked, “What’s wrong with
Highness
?”
    “
High-ness
,” said Her Majesty testily, “like
lightness
, is overrated by you Upper Realm types.”
    “I see,” said Jesse, having never thought of himself as an Upper Realm
type
. “I guess that makes sense … to a hobgoblin brain.”
    “How did St. George catch Your Lowness?” Daisy wanted to know.
    “He tricked us,” the queen said with a heavysigh. “Not that we didn’t, unfortunately, make it easy for him. He spun us that same old tired tale. ‘A treasure of untold vastness lies just beneath your hive.’ And to think that we fell for it! If we helped him find it, he promised to go halvsies. He led us here on a wild treasure chase and before you could say ‘Hob’s your uncle!’ we were stuck in here. Now the hive has no leader. Most of our subjects have fallen in line behind St. George … except for this small faithful band of rebels you see here.”
    The rebel hobgoblins grunted earthily and raised their mitts and torches in a show of unity.
    “St. George has the rest of them digging for the treasure,” the queen said. “Our hobbies, our rough little gems of the earth, are nothing but free labor to that villainous swine.”
    Jesse nodded. “We’ve seen your hobbies at work. Digging in the clearing … in the Deep Woods.”
    “Greedy rapscallion that he is, St. George wants the treasure all to himself. But we know, now that our hob head’s screwed back on tightly, that the treasure he seeks isn’t meant for the likes of him, or even for us. It belongs … to the
draggy-wagons.
”
    “The dragons, you mean?” said Jesse.
    Her Lowness nodded.
    “Well, it happens that the two of us are Dragon Keepers,” said Daisy.
    “Are you, now?” The