Louise broke open the bag of beef jerky. The baby dragon had learned that new containers equaled new food. The little creature grasped the bag of beef jerky in one hand and with the other was stuffing pieces of the dried meat into its mouth as fast as it could chew. “Nom, nom, nom!”
“Good thing you got so many snacks,” Jillian said.
“We should give her a name.”
“We’re keeping her? What do we tell Mom and Dad?”
“We don’t have to tell them. We’ll keep her in our room. We could get a little aquarium for her when we’re at school.”
Jillian shook her head. “That’s not going to work. Sooner or later, they’re going to find out.”
“We just need to buy some time until we can figure out what to tell them. We can come up with some story about finding her in the subway or something.” It couldn’t be “buying,” because they’d try to make them take the dragon back to the mythical store. There was also the uneasy question of where they’d gotten the money to buy an exotic pet. “Think of it as a challenge.”
Jillian flopped onto her bed. “I never thought I’d get tired of lying.”
“We need to name her.”
“Let’s call her Greedy Gut.” Jillian patted the bed beside her. “Greedy Gut! Greedy Gut!”
The baby dragon stuck out its tongue and blew a raspberry.
“I don’t think she likes that name.”
So while the baby dragon polished off the beef jerky, they tried out names. They had named lots of characters in the past, but nothing alive with a personality that they couldn’t change at whim.
Louise felt like a name was floating on the edge of her awareness, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. “It should be something bright, and happy, and female.”
“Bossy.” Jillian got another raspberry for the suggestion. “She reminds me of some senile old grandmother.”
The name finally came within reach. “Joy. I think her name is Joy.” No raspberry. “See, she likes it.”
Jillian came to eye the baby dragon. “No, she’s just falling asleep now that all the food is gone. I think her name is Bottomless Pit.”
“Her name is Joy,” Louise repeated more firmly. “And you can’t blame her for being hungry; she hasn’t had anything to eat for hundreds of years.”
Jillian gasped. “Oh my God! Lou! What’s in the other eleven
“Oh no!” Louise leapt to the codex and quickly looked up the longest passage regarding the device. “Twelve loaded
“Eleven more like her?” Jillian eyed the baby dragon. “What would we do with twelve of them?”
Louise was amazed that Jillian even asked the question. “She’s obviously very intelligent. She might even be smarter than a human. It’s been — what — five minutes and she already knows three words of English.”
“‘Nom, nom, nom’ is not a word,” Jillian said.
“We need to get them out of the box!”
“What if the elves took the box? They were going to take three items.”
They hacked into the museum and checked the security monitors, but the box had always been screened from the cameras. There was no way of telling if the box was still there.
“They would have to tell France that the elves took the box.” Louise dove into the e-mail system to sift through the curator’s mailbox. Dated late Friday night was an e-mail to the curator at the Louvre explaining that the elves had asked for the return of the box. Not surprisingly, there was no answer until early Monday morning Eastern Standard Time — or normal business hours for Greenwich time — objecting and asking the AMNH not to allow the elves to take the box. The answer was short and simple: the elves had already returned to Elfhome with it.
The Louvre sent back a caustic answer that ended with, “Thankfully the EIA spared us the loss of the tiara.”
Jillian swore softly. “That’s right. The EIA told the French just to send the box.”
Louise checked on the other two items. They were both small pieces of jewelry, obviously worth a good deal in terms of gold and gems but otherwise insignificant. “These are decoys. If they just took the box, everyone would talk only about it, but with the obviously worthwhile items, the box isn’t interesting.”
“If they wanted it, does that mean they know what’s in it?”
“Dufae said he stole the box on Elfhome. Maybe he stole it from Sparrow.”
Joy had crawled into Louise’s lap and fallen asleep. She looked so cute asleep. She was sprawled on her back, front paws on her full tummy and one back leg twitching in time with her soft little snores. Louise stroked one finger over Joy’s buttery-soft hide. The baby dragon nuzzled into her palm with a small purr and then lapsed back into snores.
What was Sparrow going to do with the other eleven?
