Dragon Magic Read Online Free

tabletop. Of all the nerve!
    “Give me that!” Sig moved quickly. “That’s mine! What do you think you’re doing?”
    “Yours?” Ras grinned and Sig did not like that grin, nor the tone of his voice as he added, “Who gave it to you? Finders keepers.”
    “It’s mine!” Somehow getting that box into his own hands again seemed to Sig the most important thing in the world. But before he could grab it Ras snatched it away, so that a lot of the pieces inside sifted over the rim and fell out on the dusty tabletop. Their bright colors sparkled as if they really were jewel stones, so brilliantly they glowed.
    “Yours?” Ras repeated. “I don’t think so. I think you found it here and now you want to steal it. Yeah, steal it! It belongs to whoever owns this house, not to you. Isn’t that true now? You stole it, whitey. Just like your kind steal a lot of things. My brother, he’s got the right of it, whitey. Your kind aren’t any good.”
    Ras deliberately shook the box again and a sprinkling of pieces fell over its edge. Sig cried out and tried to jerk the box out of Ras’s hold, but the other boy eluded him easily. Then Sig threw away the flashlight and launched himself in a tackle. He was clumsy, but he brought Ras down and the other dropped the box to defend himself.
    Sig had been in fights before, but this was more real than any of those.
    It seemed as if Ras wanted to hurt, and Sig discovered that he wanted to hurt back. But, though they flailed at each other, few of the blows found their mark. However, Sig’s determined advance did herd Ras into the hall.
    Then that hot fury, which had been building in Sig ever since he had discovered the box missing, boiled over and he jumped at Ras in a blind rage.

    The other ran, as if something about Sig had suddenly frightened him so that he just wanted to get away. They crossed the hall, ran through the dark rooms. In the dining room Sig ran straight into a chair that Ras had pushed out in his path. He fell, and when he got to his feet again some of the anger was gone. But he still kept on. When he reached the kitchen Ras was already at the window, trying to get that stubborn pane up farther.
    Sig sprang and caught handfuls of jacket near the other’s shoulders.
    “No you don’t!” He tried to pull Ras back, though the boy held fast to the windowsill.
    Then, outside, there was a vivid stroke of lightning, as startling as if it had struck the old house. Ras let go his hold, frightened by that flash in his very face. Sig staggered back from the window, pulling him along.
    Ras jerked and pulled, wriggling free of Sig’s hold. But, as if he had been confused by the lightning, he now headed not back to the window but across the kitchen to the basement door. And he was gone through that before Sig could move.
    Sig sat up. When Ras had pulled free he had overbalanced and landed on the floor. The door banged shut behind Ras. Sig looked around the kitchen. He had to get the box and pick up all those pieces Ras had dropped on the table and floor. But if he left the kitchen Ras could get out and go and tell—or else he would start fighting again for the box.
    Sig got to his feet, sore in all those places which had hit the chair in the dining room. He limped to the table and began to push it across the dusty floor. It was big and heavy and hard to move, but at last he got it jammed against the basement door. Now Ras could just stay down there until he, Sig, was ready to let him out And he would make him promise some things first.
    Dimly Sig felt odd, as if this were not he, Sig Dortmund, who made such plans or did such things. As if something else or someone else had gotten into his body. But that was silly—it could not happen. No, he was Sig Dortmund, and he was going to get his box. It was his box! Then he would settle with Ras.
    He went back to the other room. His flashlight, still turned on, had rolled back against the wall, the light a path across the floor.