Green Read Online Free Page B

momentarily silent, glaring at each other.
    "It's so hot in here," I moaned. My head throbbed from its second fall to the floor, and the air felt like lava in my lungs. "Can't you just take me home?"
    The leprechauns glanced at me, then resumed their argument, debating furiously about doors and dogs and doughnuts. Nothing they said made sense anymore. And although I was still afraid, my eyes wouldn't stay open. Maybe it was more magic from their binding gold, or maybe it was the normal result of being concussed and abducted, but I felt myself drifting and then I was gone, sucked into the bottomless depths of a velvety green darkness.
    33
    Chapter 3
    I was awakened by a jolt that shuddered through my bones.
    "Hie!" a voice cried out. "Pull!"
    I struggled to open my eyes, but my lids were still so heavy I could barely manage a slit. The sunshine had been snuffed out, replaced by a dim green glow.
    Muffled voices floated back to me on a whiff of pipe smoke.
    "... desperate glad to have her with us at last, but I hope she bucks up soon, because there never was a set o' tests like this. To pit her against the Scarlets ..."
    34
    "Aye, but Wee Kylie! What match is a lad for a lass? If she's an ounce o' Maureen in her, she'll prevail. The council knows how to run a trial."
    "Would I be disloyal enough to suggest they don't? But this one's not off to a grand start...."
    Balthazar and Maxwell were deep in yet another conversation that made no sense. The air surrounding us now was cool and damp. Water dripped nearby, a slow pinging plop. I forced my eyes open at last.
    I was lying propped on my back in a pile of fresh-cut grass mounded on a flat wagon. The wagon was a little bigger than a cot, with a low wooden railing around three sides and wheels like four extra-wide bicycle tires. At the forward ends of the railing, green lanterns hung from pegs, casting their strange glow over a team of six shaggy dogs the size of Labrador retrievers. They were pulling me through a long, dark cave, its low ceiling dripping from dirty crags to a muddy floor below.
    "Hie!" the voice I had wakened to called again, urging the dogs on through the mud.
    The team's paws made sucking sounds as they struggled to pull the cart forward. Their hind ends scrabbled and bunched, stretching their harnesses tight. The wagon jolted again, lurching forward as the muck released it and we rolled out onto hard stone. I bounced awkwardly in the grass. Then, slowly, I sat up.
    35
    Balthazar and Maxwell were riding bareback on the pair of dogs nearest me. Caspar and a fourth leprechaun were riding the lead pair. Judging by my surroundings, I'd been asleep for a long time.
    "Where are you taking me?" I asked. My voice echoed loudly, shaky and scared.
    Balthazar turned on his shaggy mount, straddling it backward to face me. "Look who's awake!" he said cheerfully, knocking spent tobacco out of his pipe. "Fizz! Here's your chance to say hello."
    The new leprechaun sprang to his feet on his trotting dog's back, riding like a circus performer. "Lilybet Green! At last!" he said, bowing down to his boots. "I am your humble brother and dog skipper, Fizz."
    He was so obviously pleased to meet me that it seemed wrong to be rude. "Um ... hi," I returned.
    Fizz straightened up, beaming. Then, with an easy leap, he spun in the air and landed restraddling his mount, catching its ears like reins.
    Fizz could totally roll on the balance beam , I thought, temporarily distracted.
    Balthazar leaned toward me over his dog's tail. "First ride in a dog cart, Lil?"
    "That isn't obvious?" I retorted, feeling no obligation to be polite to Balthazar. I rubbed my wrists where he'd tied them, only then realizing that the binding gold was gone.
    36
    My heart revved faster. There was nothing to keep me from running away!
    Nothing except total darkness. Beyond the glow of the cart's green lanterns, the cave we were rolling through was pitch-black and seemingly endless. The thought of running through it