In the Ice Caves of Krog

by Tony Abbott

Swish-swish-swish!

  Eric Hinkle darted across his friend Neal’s patio. He stopped to see if anyone was watching.

  “No way,” he chuckled. “No one’s up yet!”

  He stepped onto a lawn chair. Then he braced one leg on the ledge of a window and pulled himself up.

  “The things I do for Droon!”

  He hooked one heel over the low roof and dragged himself onto the shingles.

  “Almost there!” he huffed.

  From the moment he had jumped out of bed that morning, Eric knew he had to tell Neal his dream. He couldn’t wait until everyone was up. He had to go right then.

  And there it was, ten feet away.

  Neal’s bedroom window.

  Eric grinned as he edged across the roof.

  Droon was the secret world he and Neal and their friend Julie had found under the basement of his house. When they had dreams about Droon, it meant they were being called to go back.

  Droon was a vast land of diamond valleys, floating cities, deep forests, and castles of snow.

  It was the home of strange creatures — the six-legged pilkas, the pillow-shaped Lumpies, the friendly fire frogs, and the Bangledorn monkeys.

  Mostly, though, Droon was a place of great people. Eric, Julie, and Neal’s best friend there was Keeah, a princess with amazing powers. Magical old Galen was probably the greatest wizard ever known. Max was a friendly, orange-haired, eight-legged spider troll.

  Droon was awesome.

  But it was a land in trouble, too.

  On one side of the world were the Dark Lands of Lord Sparr, a sorcerer as wicked as Galen was good. And there were Ninns, lots and lots of Ninns, Sparr’s klutzy red warriors.

  There was Kano, a fiery palace; Plud, Sparr’s forbidden fortress; and under the Serpent Sea, the mysterious caves of a witch named Demither.

  Eric would never forget those caves.

  It was deep in Demither’s Doom Gate that a jewel called the Red Eye of Dawn was imprisoned. While battling Om, the whispering evil spirit of the Eye, Keeah had saved Eric’s life by zapping him with her magic. From that moment on, Eric had his own powers.

  It seemed like forever since then, but he had actually counted the days. Eric had been a wizard for exactly one hundred and eighty-seven days.

  Eric glanced at his hands.

  Zzzz! Silver sparks sprinkled from the tips of his fingers. Practicing what Keeah had told him, he flicked his hand once, and the sparks vanished.

  That sort of magic was powerful, but he needed to learn to use his other powers, too. Sometimes he had visions and could hear things no one else could. He had also learned to speak silently to his friends.

  Droon had changed Julie, too. Though she didn’t have as many magical powers as Eric, on one adventure she had gained the ability to fly!

  Tweee! A robin flitted across Neal’s roof and vanished into the branches of a tree, chirping its early morning song.

  “Right,” said Eric. “The reason I’m here. Get ready, Neal. Here comes your wake-up call!”

  He braced himself outside the window. Seeing that it was unlocked, he carefully slid his hands under the sash and pulled.

  Fooom! The window flew up suddenly. Eric jerked backward. He grabbed for the sash, missed, slipped on the shingles, and fell.

  Right off the roof.

  “Helllllllp!” he cried. “Someone — whoa!”

  At that instant, two arms slid around him and lifted him up —all the way back to the roof!

  “What? Who? How —”

  “Lucky I flew here when I did!”

  When he opened his eyes, he was teetering back and forth next to his friend. “Julie!”

  She grinned, then shrugged. “At your service.”

  Eric’s heart was pounding like a drum. “Holy cow, thanks, Julie. I had this incredible dream and I needed to tell Neal —”

  “Me, too!” she said. “I flew to your room first, but it was empty. I figured you were here.”

  “Yeah, trying to smush myself!” said Eric.

  Laughing, Julie edged to the window. “Time for Neal to wake up. And we’ll be his alarm clock!”

  The two friends carefully climbed through the window. Neal lay asleep in his bed, buried in blankets and smiling a big smile.

  Eric laughed quietly. “He must be dreaming.”

  “He’s drooling, too,” whispered Julie. “So I guess there’s food involved. Hey, Neal — BRRINNG!”

  “Whoa, Mom, I’m coming! Wha —” Neal burst upright, jumped out of bed, and stood wobbling on the floor. He was completely dressed. “What? Who’s there? Huh?”

  “Neal, wake up. It’s us,” said Eric. Sleepily, Neal blinked, finally recognizing his friends. “Oh, man, I dreamed I was playing basketball with a globe of Droon when a bell rang. I thought it meant breakfast was ready.”

  “We all dreamed of Droon,” said Julie. “But, Neal, I have to ask, why do you sleep in your clothes?”

  He glanced at his T-shirt and jeans. “So I can get to breakfast faster, of course!”

  Eric laughed. “We can get to Droon faster, too. Let’s go.”

  Grinning, Neal opened his bedroom door, looked both ways, then quietly led his friends down the stairs to the living room and out the back door.

  As Julie led them across Neal’s patio, Eric breathed in the morning air once more.

  Having magical powers was great, he thought, but going on an adventure with his friends was really the best part about Droon.

  “So tell me your dreams,” said Neal as they made their way across his yard.

  Chuckling, Eric leaped over a row of bushes. “Mine was all about you. First, you were on a throne in a palace with a giant crown on your head.”

  Neal nodded. “This is a good thing. I don’t know my hat size, but maybe crowns are one-size-fits-all. Go on.”

  “You looked out at a huge crowd,” said Eric. “Then you held up some crusty old scroll. You frowned at it as if it were a math test.”

  Julie laughed as they sped through Eric’s yard. “I know that look. Neal’s face wrinkles into a knot!”

  “It’s all those numbers,” said Neal, shivering. “Math is full of them.”

  “Finally, you nodded and everybody got really quiet,” said Eric. “Then you spoke.”

  Neal stopped. “Really? What did I say?” “Pointing at the scroll, you said … ‘I’ll have the Droonburger!’”

  Neal burst into laughter as Eric opened his back door. “A menu dream. I love those!”

  Together, the three friends climbed down to Eric’s basement and pushed away two big cartons blocking a small closet door under the stairs.

  Piling into the closet, they shut the door, turned off the light, and waited.

  Not for long.

  Whooosh! The gray floor vanished beneath their feet, and they were standing on top of a staircase shining in every color of the rainbow.

  A staircase leading to the land of Droon.

  Warm air drifted up from below. It was filled with all the smells of early summer. Birds cooed and chirped gentle songs of morning.

  “Guys,” murmured Eric. “I have a feeling that today is going to be a great day.”

  Julie nodded. “Droon adventures are so cool.”

  “Yeah,” Neal agreed. “And I hope our dreams come true, too. I’m planning to order fries with mine —”

  But as the friends rushed down the stairs, the birds seemed to stop singing all at once. The breezes stilled. The air went strangely quiet.

  Julie slowed to a stop. She looked around. “I guess maybe it’s time I told you guys my dream. It wasn’t exactly like yours.”

  “What was it about?” asked Eric. Rough voices yelled in the distance. Then came the flap of wings and a low growling sound.

  Julie gulped. “We were on the stairs….”

  Suddenly, the pink clouds parted and the air darkened with a swarm of flying lizards called groggles.

  Kaww! Kaww! they shrieked. On the back of each gr
oggle was a fierce red warrior.

  “Ninns!” said Julie. “My dream was about — Ninns!”

  “Now you tell us?!” cried Eric.

  Thwang-thwang-thwang! A volley of fiery arrows burst across the sky.

  “This is not a good thing!” cried Neal. The Ninns shot another round of flying arrows, and the three best friends tumbled down the rainbow stairs.

  Text copyright © 2003 by Robert T. Abbott

  Illustrations copyright © 2003 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, October 2003

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-41833-1

  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.