Dragon healer, p.1
Dragon Healer, page 1
To Rob, Brett, Giuseppe, and Hannah— with many thanks for being on Team Olympus
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Penguin Young Readers Group
An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Text copyright © 2015 by Lucy Coats. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Brett Bean. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data is available.
ISBN 9780399539947
Version_1
Contents
DEDICATION
COPYRIGHT
TITLE PAGE
1. RIOT IN THE STABLES
2. THE PATENTED PYRO-PROTECTION KIT
3. THE BRASS BULLS
4. A DAY FULL OF DRAGONS
5. THE COLCHIAN DRAGON
6. STINKY OLYMPUS AGAIN
7. HEPHAESTUS AND HERMES
8. AN ERUPTION OF GODDESSES
9. THE CENTAUR HEALER
10. THE APPRENTICE HEALER
GLOSSARY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
CHAPTER 1
RIOT IN THE STABLES
Demon, son of the beast god, Pan, and proud new bearer of King Poseidon’s Order of Ocean, shot up and out of the clear green waters of Melanie’s spring.
“Urgh! Aggh! Pftha!” he spluttered, shaking his head wildly to get the liquid out of his ears as his lungs adjusted to the warm, sunny air of Olympus. He took a deep, clean-smelling breath and let out a sigh of relief. The air smelled of fragrant flowers and honey, just like it was supposed to. There was not a trace of stinky beast-poo odor, which meant that hopefully he wouldn’t be turned into a pile of smoking Demon-shaped charcoal by a crowd of annoyed goddesses. Not today, anyway.
Melanie the naiad, who was sitting on a mossy rock and combing her long blue hair, gave him a nasty look as he struggled out onto dry land, dripping, and trailing his magic silver medicine box behind him. It was covered in great globs of slimy silver seaweed.
“Finished messing up my nice clean spring with that horrid sea stuff, have you?” she snarled angrily.
Demon picked a couple of flapping flatfish out of his tunic and threw them back into the water.
“Yes,” he said, wondering why she sounded like a crazed Chimera. Melanie was normally nice to him. “I’m all finished, actually. Er, is anything wrong? You seem a little upset.” Melanie frowned and waved a hand toward the Stables of the Gods.
“Well, of course there’s something wrong. You’ve got to go and do something about those noisy beasts of yours, Demon. They’ve been bellowing and bawling ever since Hermes brought that nasty boy Autolykos up here. It’s no wonder I’m upset. I haven’t had a wink of sleep all week.” She yawned loudly, showing two perfect rows of pearly white teeth. As his ears finally popped back to normal, Demon heard a terrible racket coming from the Stables of the Gods. Now he knew exactly what Melanie meant. Without another word, he picked up his box and ran. What on earth was happening in there? It sounded as if every single beast was rioting and rumpusing out of control!
Inside the Stables, it was complete chaos. Almost every pen had a baaing, neighing, screeching, shrieking beast leaping up and down. A tall, dark-haired boy whirled around and around in the middle of the center aisle, waving a broom and banging on the bars.
“Leave me alone,” he shouted. “Shut UP, you awful, noisy creatures!”
Demon dumped the silver box on the floor, pulled out his father’s magical pipes, and blew a short, sharp blast. Immediately, there was silence.
“Who are YOU?” asked the boy, dropping his broom in mid-bang. “And how did you do that?”
“I’m Demon,” said Demon. “Son of Pan and official stable boy to the gods. And you must be Autolykos. What in the name of Hades’s handkerchiefs have you done to the poor things to make them act out like this?”
“Nothing,” said Autolykos sulkily. “I’ve fed and cleaned the stupid creatures. What more do they want?”
“Huh!” said the griffin loudly to Demon, clacking its sharp beak against the bars of its pen. “‘Nothing,’ he says, the lousy, lying thief! He’s only gone and stolen half the feathers from the winged horses’ wings so they can’t fly, AND he’s upset Doris, AND he’s dumped half the ambrosia cake down the poo chute!”
“Yes!” chorused the rest of the beasts. “He did!”
“Rotten robber!”
“Snackie stealer!”
“Feather pincher!”
“See?” said Autolykos. “Garble, garble, garble! On they go, whimpering and whining. I don’t know how you put up with it.”
“Stolen the winged horses’ feathers, eh?” said Demon grimly, stalking toward him as the noise levels rose again. “Tipped the ambrosia cake down the poo chute? Upset my poor Hydra?”
A purple tide of rage was creeping up from his toes. Nobody was allowed to treat his beasts like this! NOBODY!
“H-h-h-how? W-w-what do you mean? I-I-I never …”
“Oh yes you did,” said Demon, shouting to be heard over the racket. “What you hear as garble, I hear as words, so don’t try to deny it.”
“Oh, all RIGHT, then!” said Autolykos sullenly. “So what if I did? I only hit that idiot Hydra because it drooled all over the cake, and it was only a few stupid feathers I took, anyway, and—”
“And now my flying horses CAN’T FLY!” roared Demon. Even though Autolykos was bigger than him, Demon suddenly felt he had the strength of ten stable boys. He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and ran him out of the Stables, past Melanie’s spring, and all the way over to the Iris Express.
“Stop it! Leggo of me! Get off!” bawled Autolykos. But Demon was determined to get rid of him.
“One passenger for earth,” he yelled, pulling handfuls of fluffy horse feathers out of Autolykos’s tunic with his other hand as they went. “And don’t bother too much with the seat belts!”
“HEY!” shouted Autolykos. “Give those back! I could have sold them for a FORTUNE! They’re MINE!”
“Oh no they aren’t!” said Demon, shoving him onto the transparent wisp of rainbow. “I would hang on tight if I were you,” he added as the Iris Express gave an eye-watering lurch and whooshed downward. There was a sudden choked-off scream and some noisy retching, which trailed away into nothing. The Iris Express could be scary and sick-making if you had a weak stomach and no head for heights.
“Serves him right,” muttered Demon, picking up all the scattered feathers from the grass where they’d fallen and smoothing them out carefully. He trotted back to the Stables, grumbling to himself and vowing never to go away again.
“Why can’t the gods just leave me alone?” he said as he walked into the comforting musty, dusty, beasty smell of the place he now called home. “Every time one of them takes me away from my job, it all goes horribly wrong up here. First it’s Hades with poor sneezing Cerberus, then Poseidon with his itchy Hippocamps.” Demon sighed a huge sigh. When would he ever get five minutes’ peace?
The racket died down to a quiet grumble as he walked into the Stables and went down the aisles, petting and stroking all his beasts and hearing their stories about how awful Autolykos had been to them. A big bubble of anger built up in his stomach as he rubbed poor Doris the Hydra’s bruises. Why were people so awful to animals? He just didn’t understand it.
“Oy! Pan’s scrawny kid! Come over here and let me out,” came a snarky voice from the griffin’s pen, breaking into his thoughts. “I want a private word with you!”
Demon unlatched the pen and stalked out of the Stables, the griffin padding behind on its huge lion’s feet.
“What now?” he said. “Spit it out. That wretched Autolykos left me a lot to do, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Aaah!” The griffin sighed, stretching its wings in the bright sunlight and flapping them to get the dust out. “That’s better. I’ve missed being outside.” It looked at Demon shrewdly from one of its fierce orange eyes. “Now, what was it I wanted to say? Ah, yes! I believe you owe me a little something, Pan’s scrawny kid. A little something beginning with M and ending with T, with a tasty little E and A in the middle.”
Demon marched over to it, standing on tiptoe until he was nose to sharp, pointy beak with the great beast. “No. I. Do. NOT!” he growled. “The deal was that you and the Nemean Lion had to look after the Stables properly while I was away.” He gestured back through the doors at the mess of spoiled ambrosia, tipped-over poo barrows, wisps of golden sun hay, and fallen-over rakes that made the Stables look as if a small hurricane had blown through. “I don’t call THAT properly!”
“It’s not MY fault. Me and Lion were doing fine till Hermes brought that thieving oaf in,” said the griffin sulkily. “I had the ambrosia cake all locked away from Doris and everything. The whole place was spick-and-span and shining till Hermes came along and started meddling. That’s when it all st
Demon sighed, all the anger draining out of him. “I’m sorry he treated you all so badly,” he said, stroking the griffin’s rough lion pelt. “I’m sure you did your best. I’ll have a word with Hermes—see if he can’t smuggle up a few juicy steaks from earth or something. Now, we’d better get back and start fixing this mess. As far as I can see, it’s going to take all day to get it settled. But before I do any cleaning up, I must see if my box has something to stick the feathers back on the winged horses. They said they were desperate to fly again.”
The griffin batted Demon with a paw, making him fall flat on his face. “Good to have you back, Pan’s scrawny kid. And I’ll hold you to your promise about the juicy you-know-whats. If I don’t get something decent to eat soon, even your skinny carcass is going to start to look tasty!” A long pink tongue swiped his face. “Yum yum!” the griffin said, clacking its beak menacingly by his ear.
“Oh, shut up, Griffin,” said Demon, scrambling to his feet and dusting off his already filthy tunic. “You know I’d give you terrible indigestion. Now, where’s that box of mine?”
The magic silver medicine box was exactly where he’d left it, in the middle of the passage where he’d dropped it when he’d run into the Stables. He picked it up and went down the row of pens till he came to the winged-horse stalls. Oh, dear! They were a sorry sight. Their beautiful wings were half bald, their coats were dull, their tails were drooping, and even the little golden horns in the middle of their foreheads looked sad.
“Itchy-scratch?” said Keith, the boss horse, hopefully, presenting his left ear.
“Definitely,” said Demon. “But later. First, I need to get these feathers of yours fixed.”
CHAPTER 2
THE PATENTED PYRO-PROTECTION KIT
Demon was just peeling the bits of feather and icky-sticky stuff off his fingers after mending the horses’ wings when the carved-head alarm on the back wall of the Stables started to squawk.
“Incoming! Incoming! Double-flaming incoming!” it yelled. “Deploy pyro-protection kit! Deploy pyro-protection kit!” Demon had no idea what was happening. What kind of beast did the head mean when it said “double-flaming incoming”? And what was a pyro-protection kit? He looked around frantically.
“Where do I get a pyro-whatever kit?” he asked the griffin in a panicky voice as loud, angry moos and bellows came from the direction of the Iris Express.
“Hospital shed,” said the griffin. “Third drawer on the left. Hurry up, Pan’s scrawny kid. You haven’t got much time before those things burn down the whole of Olympus. I’m off to fetch the Fire Officer.” Flapping its wings frantically, the griffin took off.
Demon didn’t know what kind of beast “those things” were, and he didn’t have time to ask. Running faster than a speeding salamander, he raced over to the hospital shed, ripped open the third drawer on the left, and pulled out what looked like a floppy, silvery human body. It had a strange opening up the front, covered feet, and finger-shaped bits at the ends of the arms. Demon shook it out and turned it around. What was it? Was he supposed to wear it? If so, how did he get into it? He touched the small tag at the top of the opening. Was that a clue?
“Pull down on tag!” said a crackly voice. Demon jumped backward in fright. “Come on!” said the voice impatiently. “Hurry up!” So Demon pulled, fumbling slightly in his haste. The tag slid down smoothly, revealing two sets of sharp teeth on either side.
“Climb in,” said the voice. “And welcome to Hephaestus’s patented pyro-protection body kit. What is your fire situation level, please?”
“I don’t know!” said Demon, hurriedly stepping into the kit’s suit and pulling it up over his feet and legs. “But I need to get to the Iris Express, fast!” Immediately a hood flipped out and over his hair, and a clear mask sealed itself around his face as the tag shot upward, fastening the two sets of teeth together with a crunch.
“Pyro protection in place,” said the suit. “You may now proceed safely to the danger zone. Please breathe normally.” Demon was already running again as the rest of the silvery material molded itself tightly to his body. The angry bellows were getting louder, and there was an ominous cloud of smoke and sparks rising from above the Iris Express.
As Demon skidded to a halt, he saw several things all at once. First, there were several trees on fire, their big bunches of silvery-golden fruit bursting with big squelchy pops in the heat. Then there was the grass, which had huge, steaming scorch marks running across it. The main problem was obvious. Two enormous bulls with golden rings in their noses were roaring and rampaging about, snorting and spurting giant streams of fire out of their nostrils. Everything they touched burst into flames. Their brass hooves churned and pawed the ground, and their bodies were covered with deep cuts that bled bright red, smoking blood. Trusting that the pyro-protection kit would keep him safe, Demon darted forward through a wall of fire and grabbed the two nose rings. A gust of flame swept over him, but all he felt was a warm bath of sunlight.
“Whoa!” he shouted. “Calm down! I can fix your wounds, but you have to stop setting stuff on fire!” The two bulls took no notice. They both tossed their heads into the air at the same time, making Demon lose his grip and sending him flying, just missing a sharp horn by a whisker. “Oof!” he gasped as he landed flat on his back and rolled sideways into a patch of burning grass to dodge the flailing hooves. He reached for his Pan pipes, but they were trapped inside the pyro-protection kit.
“Get this thing off me! I need my pipes! Or a pocket?” he yelled, tearing helplessly at the shiny silver material. Immediately a bulge formed by his right hand.
“Pocket now operational,” said the suit.
As he grabbed the pipes and scrabbled them up to his mouth, the mask opened just enough for him to blow a short trill of notes. But for the very first time, his dad’s magical present failed him, and the beasts just kept on rampaging. By now, the fire was spreading everywhere, and shrieking nymphs were jumping out of trees and flowers and running toward the shining white buildings where the gods and goddesses lived. Demon blew the pipes again and again in a hundred different ways, trying to calm down the frantic, wounded beasts, but nothing worked. Just as he’d been tossed into the fires for about the twenty-fourth time, a thunderous shout came from behind him.
“Khalko! Kafto! Cease and desist, you wretched beasts!” It was the smith god, Hephaestus, Fire Officer of Olympus, with a crowd of automaton robots behind him. He walked through the flames, reached out two long, sooty arms, and seized both bulls by the tips of their horns. Then he clashed their heads together and kicked their brass hooves out from underneath them so that they crashed to the ground, their fire draining away to a dribble.
“Thanks, Heffy,” Demon groaned through his mask, rubbing his bruises as he got to his feet.
“No time for that,” said the smith god. “Go and fetch a double dose of saffron-crocus juice—the red kind—and bring it back here as quick as you can while I put out these fires. It’s the only thing that will save my bulls.” Demon didn’t argue. He limped as quickly as he could back to the hospital shed, grabbed the little glass bottle of red liquid from his stores, and limped back again. By the time he got there, Hephaestus had set five of his automaton robots to digging a firebreak, and was flailing at the remaining flames with a bristly fire broom in each hand. Khalko and Kafto were still lying on the ground, their terrible wounds smoking and bleeding onto the scorched earth, but now their eyes were closed and the flames had died completely. Demon kneeled down beside the bulls, his bruises forgotten. He hated to see any beast like this.
“Who did this to you?” he asked angrily. “Was it that wretched Heracles again?” But the bulls didn’t reply.
“Just treat their wounds with the saffron juice,” Hephaestus shouted as he batted out a spray of sparks. “They’ll be fine if you do that. I designed it especially for them!” Wondering what the smith god meant, Demon smoothed a drop of the medicine into every wound, staining the fingertips of the pyro-protection kit a bright red. Hephaestus had to give him a hand with turning each of the huge bodies over so he could do both sides. It took him a long time, but by the time he had finished, the wounds had all stopped smoking and were closing up nicely.
