The Return of the Dragon

“Zachary! Sarah Emily!”

Twelve-year-old Hannah dashed up the stairs, shouting for her younger brother and sister. Zachary — who was almost eleven — and Sarah Emily, who was nine, were sitting on the floor in Zachary’s room, playing Monopoly. Zachary had just made a shrewd bargain involving Atlantic Avenue and the Electric Company, when they heard Hannah’s voice.

“We’re in here!” Sarah Emily called.

The door flew open and Hannah burst in. Her brown eyes were bright and her cheeks pink with excitement.

“Something wonderful has happened!” she exclaimed. “Mother just told me. She and Dad are going to Europe during our spring vacation.”

“Europe!” said Sarah Emily. She peered at Hannah owlishly through her thick spectacles.

“Are we going too?” asked Zachary.

“It’s even better,” said Hannah. “We’re going to Aunt Mehitabel’s house on Lonely Island. And this time Aunt Mehitabel is coming with us.”

Zachary let out a whoop of glee. Hannah sank down on the bed, shoving aside a pile of computer manuals and the scattered pieces of Zachary’s latest model rocket. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“There’s an International Whale Conference in London,” she said. “Father is going to give a speech there. Mother is going with him, and after the meeting, they’re going to take a vacation by themselves. A second honeymoon. But they’re worried that we’re going to feel bad if they go without us.”

“I’d rather go to the island,” Sarah Emily said.

“So would I,” said Hannah. Her eyes turned toward the map of Lonely Island that hung on the wall above Zachary’s bed. “I can’t wait to get back to Drake’s Hill and see —”

“
Shh!
” Zachary said. He reached across the Monopoly board, upsetting Sarah Emily’s two fortress-like hotels on Park Place, and grabbed Hannah’s ankle. “We promised to keep him
secret
and
safe,
remember? We shouldn’t even say his name out loud.”

“I don’t see why not,” Hannah said.

“There’s nobody around,” Sarah Emily said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Zachary said darkly. “We have to get into the habit. Spies could be anywhere.”

“Well, not
here,
” Hannah said.

“That’s the thing about spies,” Zachary said ominously. “They show up where you least expect them.”

Zachary had been reading a book about secret agents who carried tiny cameras the size of gumdrops and had microphones that could pick up whispered conversations half a mile away.

“We should come up with some kind of code name for him, so we can talk without anybody knowing what’s going on. We could just call him F, like Aunt Mehitabel does in her letters.”

“It’s been so long,” Sarah Emily said. “Sometimes I’m almost afraid that we dreamed the whole thing.”

Hannah stretched out her hand. In the center of her palm glittered a tiny pinprick of gold.

“Just look at your hand,” she said.

Zachary and Sarah Emily glanced down at their hands, where identical golden flecks gleamed.

Then Zachary quickly closed his fist, hiding the mysterious golden spark from sight.

“
Secret,
” he said.

The next weeks dragged by. It seemed as if vacation would never come. Then, just a week before leaving, an unexpected letter arrived from Aunt Mehitabel, written in swooping handwriting in lavender ink.

“Oh, no,” said Mother as she read it. “This is dreadful news.”

“What’s happened?” asked Hannah anxiously.

“Aunt Mehitabel won’t be able to go to the island with you after all,” Mother said. “She’s had a fall and has broken her ankle. She’s all right, she says, but she will be laid up for several weeks while it heals. She’s terribly disappointed. There’s a letter enclosed for you children.”

She handed the children an envelope and hurried away to the telephone. The letter was addressed to Hannah, Zachary, and Sarah Emily. It was sealed with emerald-green sealing wax and was marked
PRIVATE
.

“Open it,” Sarah Emily said, tugging on Hannah’s arm.

Hannah broke the seal, tore the envelope open, and pulled out a single folded sheet of paper:

“Oh, how awful,” said Hannah.

“Poor Aunt Mehitabel,” said Sarah Emily.

Mother bustled back into the room, shaking her head. She gave the children a rueful smile. “She fell out of a tree, bird watching,” she said. “Why Aunt Mehitabel thought she could climb a tree at her age, with her arthritis . . . But she’s going to be fine. And you children will have a lovely time with Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”

Mr. and Mrs. Jones were the only people who lived on Lonely Island. They looked after Aunt Mehitabel’s house. Mr. Jones went back and forth to the mainland to fetch mail and groceries in his boat, the
Martha,
and Mrs. Jones was a wonderful cook.

“I hope she’s made doughnuts,” said Zachary longingly.

“Oatmeal cookies,” said Sarah Emily promptly.

“I hope you’ll find something to do on the island besides eat,” Mother said worriedly. “It’s still chilly there this time of year. It’s much too cold to swim.”

“Don’t worry,” said Hannah. “We’ll find plenty to do.”

Mother and Father took the children to Chadwick, Maine, to meet Mr. Jones before leaving themselves for the airport in Boston. Mr. Jones was waiting on the wharf when they arrived.

He had red cheeks and a bushy gray beard that made him look a little bit like Santa Claus. The children flung themselves on him.

“How is Mrs. Jones?”

“Do you still have Buster?”

Buster was the Joneses’ cat, a fat gray tabby.

“Can I run the
Martha
?” That was Zachary.

There were last-minute instructions from Mother and Father and hugs all around. Then the children and Mr. Jones climbed into the boat, and Zachary cast off. They watched, waving, as their parents grew smaller in the distance. Sarah Emily sniffled.

“I hate goodbyes,” she said.

“Me, I never think of it as ‘goodbye,’” Mr. Jones said. “I think of it as ‘until we meet again.’ And look, there she is ahead of you. There’s Lonely Island.”

The children leaned forward, eager for their first glimpse of Aunt Mehitabel’s house.

“I see it!” Sarah Emily shouted. “There’s the weathervane!”

The familiar house came slowly into view, an old gray Victorian with a wide veranda, tall tower, and widow’s walk, topped with a whirling metal weathervane shaped like a ship under full sail. Mrs. Jones was waiting for them at the open front door. She hugged each of the children in turn and told them all how much they’d grown, even Sarah Emily, who was convinced that she hadn’t grown at all.

“You know which bedrooms are yours,” Mrs. Jones declared. “Scoot up and get settled.”

The children paused on the way upstairs to peek into Aunt Mehitabel’s front parlor. It was just as they remembered. The windows were hung with green velvet curtains, and one wall was covered by a Chinese lacquer cabinet, with gold trees painted on its doors. There were straight-backed chairs with needlepoint seat covers, tiny end tables with spindly legs, a stool made out of an elephant’s foot, and a horsehair sofa that always reminded the children of a stuffed walrus.

“There’s the telescope, Zachary,” said Sarah Emily. Zachary loved the telescope, which had belonged to the sea captain who originally built Aunt Mehitabel’s house.

“There’s your favorite, Hannah,” teased Zachary, pointing at the elephant’s-foot stool.

Hannah made a horrible face.

“I hate that thing,” she said. “It has
toes.
But I love everything else. It feels just like home.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” said Sarah Emily. “It’s as if we’d never been away.”

Later, after the clothes were unpacked and put in drawers, and the empty suitcases were shoved under beds, they gathered in the kitchen. As they munched Mrs. Jones’s oatmeal cookies and drank steaming mugs of cocoa, they heard all the latest news of the island.

“We heard about your auntie’s busted ankle,” Mr. Jones said. “She was right sorry not to be here with you while your folks are off in London.”

“Mother says she’s doing fine,” said Hannah. “She just won’t be able to walk around for quite a while.”

“A real shame,” said Mrs. Jones.

“I’m sorry she’s not here, too,” said Mr. Jones. “We’ve had a bit of excitement here. Visitors. We haven’t met them yet, but their boat is anchored up off the north end of the island. Near that pile of rocks you youngsters are all so fond of. Drake’s Hill.”

“It’s probably perfectly all right,” Hannah said later, as the children met in Zachary’s room before going to bed. “Just fishermen or something. Nobody could possibly know about —”

“Careful,” Zachary said warningly.

“About F,” Hannah finished.

“His cave isn’t easy to find,” said Sarah Emily. “Nobody could find it, could they? Unless they knew right where to look?”