Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

"Do I? You almost had me going. Dad already left for work, Mom went to her painting group. We could pull this off."

"Better hurry. There’s nobody here to drive you if you miss the bus."

Seth snatched his backpack and headed for the door.

"Don’t just leave your junk on the table!" Kendra called.

"Could you grab it for me? I let you have the best part of the cereal."

"You’re such a pest!"

Seth walked out the door. He still felt frustrated that Kendra had foiled his plans for a gold-funded Christmas. All of that work–hauling the batteries to Fablehaven to trade with the satyrs, collecting his payment from the nipsies, returning only part of the gold to Grandpa before sneaking the rest out–had gone to waste. Then again, he could still set aside a little gold and pretend to return it all the next time they visited Fablehaven. But with Kendra around, who knew when he could find a chance to convert gold into cash undetected?

His sister had sure been acting odd this morning. He had walked in on her. smelling the decorative soap in the bathroom. Not just taking a whiff–she had been cupping the lavender rosebuds in her hands and inhaling with her eyes closed. And he knew from experience that consuming three huge bowls of sweet cereal would lead to a serious stomachache. Kendra normally ate a smallish, healthy breakfast. Furthermore, what was with her comment about ditching? Even as a joke, that was out of character. He wished she hadn’t planted the idea of skipping school in his brain. The possibilities were attractive.

When Seth saw the yellow bus lumber around a corner down the street, he hustled to the bus stop, taking care not to slip and fall with an audience watching. He arrived just in time, and his thoughts turned to horsing around with his friends.

* * *

As he descended the bus steps after school, Seth felt as though an enormous weight had been taken from his shoulders. Winter break was nothing compared to summer, but it was still long enough to pretend that school would never happen again. Walking to his house, he kicked chunks from the crusty snowbanks, scattering an icy spray with each impact. He found the front door locked. Mom had mentioned that she might be off running errands. He took out his key and let himself inside.

In the kitchen, Seth foraged for snacks in the cupboards. They were out of the best stuff, so he settled for Doritos and chocolate milk. After the snack, he plopped down in front of the TV and flipped through the channels, but of course nothing was on but talk shows and worse. He hung in there for some time, skipping around, hoping variety might substitute for quality, but eventually he surrendered. When he turned off the TV in despair, inspiration struck.

Mom was gone. Dad was at work. And for perhaps the last time in a while, Kendra was absent. He knew that she occasionally received letters from Gavin. Back in October, while hunting for the Journal of Secrets, Seth had found two notes buried in her sock drawer. Each had contained all sorts of awesome information about dragons. But then Kendra had chosen a new hiding place. He was sure that she had received more letters, but he had not recently found an opportunity to search thoroughly.

Hurrying up the stairs, Seth felt exhilarated and a little guilty. He trotted to Kendra’s room and peeked between her bookshelf and the wall. Nothing. She used to keep the Journal of Secrets there. Like the letters, she had apparently moved it to a less obvious spot.

He started opening drawers, pawing carefully through the neatly folded clothes inside. Part of him wished he could accelerate the search by dumping her junk on the floor and kicking over furniture, but obviously it was crucial that he leave no evidence of his intrusion. Why did his sister have so many drawers, so many clothes? As the process began to feel painfully slow, he started to reassess how badly he cared about seeing the letters.

He went to the center of the room, hands on his hips, eyes scanning high and low. Kendra was no moron. Where might she have chosen to hide the letters? Where was a really tricky spot? Maybe she had taped them under her desk? Nope, nothing there. Inside the vent in the wall? Not there either. Between the pages of her mammoth dictionary? No dice.

Seth began working his way through her closet. Inside a shoebox? Inside a shoe? On a shelf? Behind and beneath some sweaters on a high shelf, he found the Journal of Secrets and the umite candle stub.

He was surprised that she still kept something so important in a fairly obvious place. He would have hidden it behind the insulation in the attic or somewhere else truly out of the way.

Unbeknownst to Kendra, Seth had found the Journal of Secrets before. He had lit the umite candle, pondered the undecipherable symbols, realized he would never know what the book said without her to translate, and carefully replaced it behind her bookcase.

Seth flipped open the journal, in case she had stashed the letters inside. Nope, just blank pages. He considered hiding the journal in a different spot to demonstrate that she needed to keep it in a smarter place. The exercise would serve as a reproachful object lesson. But of course if he did that, his sister would know he had been snooping around her room, which would only lead to trouble.

And then, without warning, Kendra entered the room.

Seth stood frozen, his eyes dropping from his sister to the journal in his hands. What was she doing home? She should be at the day care for another hour!

"What are you doing?" Kendra accused sharply.

Seth tried to appear calm while he struggled to recover from the surprise and devise a plausible response. Meeting his sister’s stern gaze, he resisted the urge to try to conceal the journal. It was too late. She had seen it. "I wanted to make sure you’d hidden the journal in a safe place."

"You have no right to come in here and go through my stuff," she stated flatly.

"I wasn’t hurting anything. I was just bored." He held up the journal. "You didn’t hide it very well."

Kendra’s clenched fists quivered at her sides. When she spoke, she sounded barely in control. "Don’t try to pretend you’re my watchdog. For starters, Seth, you need to admit that what you did was wrong. You can’t pretend that this was okay."

"I was invading your privacy," he admitted. She relaxed a tad. "Was that right or wrong?"

"Wrong to get caught."

Her face reddened. For a moment it looked like she would charge him. Seth was startled by the extent of her reaction. "Have you done this before?" she asked, voice strained.

Seth knew he should placate her. But when people got this mad at him, even if they were right, it made him feel belligerent. "Would you believe that the first time I ever snuck into your room happened to be the one day you came home early? Talk about terrible luck!"