Read an Excerpt
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright
Cold As Ice
A Rare Disease
To The Bus!
Extinguished
The Magical Refrigerator
The Expedition Begins
Over The Edge
Iceworms And Fiery Birds
When Iceworms Get Mad . . .
Run!
Worm Food
Hatched
Sparks and Eggshells
Herbert
Mama Wendell
Baby Phoenix Lizard
Fiery Puke
Glow Worms
Worm Teamwork
Fire And Burps
Love And Glasses
The Fire-Breathing Dragon Goes Home
About the Author
Danny woke up and immediately wished he hadn’t.
He’d been dreaming about snow and ice, and when he woke up, it seemed like part of the dream had come with him. There was a frozen knot in his chest that radiated cold.
He pulled the blankets back and poked himself in the chest. His skin felt clammy. The coldness in his chest didn’t budge.
“That’s weird . . .” said Danny out loud.
He tried to breathe fire. Not a lot of fire—large parts of his room were flammable!—but just a little to get his blood moving.
Nothing happened.
Normally when he was cold, it was easier to breathe fire. He’d had great luck with holding a bag of frozen peas under his chin, although his mom had made him stop because he kept thawing out the peas.
He took a deep breath and thought about things that made him mad—video games that ate your saved game so you had to replay for hours. Big Eddy the school bully. People being mean to animals.
When he exhaled, he breathed frost into the room.
“Whoa,” he said.
He slid out of bed and went downstairs.
His father was sitting in the kitchen, reading a book and drinking coffee. He looked up, surprised.
“You’re up early, sport. What’s wrong?”
His father frowned. “Are you sick?”
“I might be?” said Danny. This didn’t feel like having a fever. It was more like he’d eaten ice cream too fast and chilled his stomach, except instead of warming up, his stomach had gone on to chill his heart and his lungs and his liver and all the other wibbly bits that go into a small dragon’s anatomy.
(Danny’s father was a “sympathy vomiter,” which meant that if someone threw up anywhere near him, Danny’s dad would immediately run for the bathroom. Whenever Danny came home sick from school, his father hid in the bedroom until they established that it was a fever and not food poisoning. Danny found the whole thing sort of funny, if tragic.)
“Nah,” said Danny. “I’m not queasy. I’m just cold.”
Danny’s father felt his forehead. “You feel cold. I don’t know. I wish your mom were here . . . She’ll be back Thursday.”
Danny nodded.
“You want to stay home from school?”
“Okay,” said Danny, who was not going to turn down a chance to stay home from school. “I’ll go back to bed.”
“You do that,” said his father. As Danny climbed up the stairs to his bedroom, his father called, “You’re not allowed to die until Thursday! Your mom will yell at me!”
Danny grinned, despite the cold, and went back to bed.
He slept for most of the day, and when he woke up, the cold feeling was worse.
His throat felt a bit like when he’d eaten a cough drop and then inhaled deeply, except that it didn’t taste like mint. The air hitting the back of his throat was like frost.
It was sort of neat, except for being half-frozen.
He piled blankets on top of himself, and then more blankets, and then a few more. It didn’t seem to help. The cold was coming from inside him, not from the air.
He was just thinking of going in search of more blankets when the door opened.
“Wendell!” said Danny happily, sitting up. His best friend, Wendell the iguana, came in, followed by Christiana the crested lizard. “Christiana! What are you guys doing here?”
“We brought you your homework,” said Wendell. “Your dad says you’re sick.”
“Whoa,” said Christiana. “That sounds serious.” She frowned at Danny. “I don’t really understand the mechanism that lets you breathe fire—I’d probably have to dissect you to figure that out—”
“I’m not that sick!”
“—but that sounds like some kind of weird dragon problem to me.” She leaned against the door frame. “Have you asked any dragons?”
“I asked my dad,” said Danny. “But he’s not really good with medical stuff. I mean, he’ll get a headache and Mom will be all ‘Did you take some aspirin?’ and he’s all ‘No, I didn’t,’ and she’ll be all ‘Why not?’ and he’ll be like ‘I dunno . . .’ and—”
“I don’t think there are any,” Danny admitted. “We’re sort of endangered, and also the total secrecy thing.”
“Makes it hard to go to medical school,” said Wendell. “What about your granddad? He knows all kinds of stuff. He got that awful wasp out of my dreams that time.”
“That’s a great idea!” said Danny. He draped himself in blankets and led the procession downstairs to the phone.
The phone rang eighteen times, which was pretty normal for Danny’s grandfather. Then it was picked up and Danny heard: “Eh? What? Is this thing on?”
“IT’S ME, GREAT-GRANDDAD!” yelled Danny into the receiver.
“Eh? You’re not my granddad! My granddad was swallowed by the Great Toad of Prosperity and became immortal, for all the good it does him inside a toad. Unless you mean my granddad on my mother’s side—”
“NO!” yelled Danny. “You’re MY great-granddad! It’s Danny!”
“Oh, right, right. How are you, boy?”
He explained—loudly—the strange cold sensation he’d been feeling.
“Now that’s interesting . . .”
“He says it’s interesting,” said Danny to Wendell and Christiana.
“Good interesting?” asked Wendell. “Or ‘Wow, you’ve got a disease so rare that they’re going to name it after you’ interesting?”
“That’d be kind of neat,” said Danny. “Danny’s Reverse Fever! I’ll be famous!”
“I always figured you’d end up in a medical textbook one way or another . . .” muttered Christiana.
“I think so,” said Danny. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt, it’s just weird.”
“Come out and see me,” said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. “It could be serious, and if it is, there’s no time to lose.” He considered. “And bring that little friend of yours out too. Wanda, was it?”
“Wendell . . .” said Danny, but his great-grandfather had already hung up the phone.
“Are you sure you want to come with me?” asked Danny as they left the house. He’d written a note to his dad saying that he was going to Great-Granddad’s house and that Wendell and Christiana were with him.
“I don’t really mind being called Wanda,” said Wendell. “I’m kind of used to it. And I like your great-granddad.”
“It’s not that,” said Danny. “It’s . . . well . . . I’m sick. Sort of. Aren’t you afraid you’ll catch it?”
