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Informationen zum Autor Kaza Kingsley Klappentext Debut author Kingsley takes readers into a land of danger and excitement. For Erec Rex! it is a place eerily familiar as he crosses from one world into another in search of his mother. As he tumbles headlong into mystery and danger! he learns he must compete in contests to defeat an evil king. The Dragon’s Eye CHAPTER ONE Mrs. Smith IT WAS EARLY, far too early to wake up in the summer, when Erec Ulysses Rex’s alarm clock went off. The thing paced on its tiny metal legs until it could not stand to wait anymore. Then it kicked a marble that hit Erec right in the cheek, just below his glass eye. Erec rubbed his face and moaned. He opened his good eye. His alarm clock was doing a kind of end-zone dance. It pirouetted toward a pen and booted it expertly into Erec’s ear. Erec groaned. The obnoxious thing would pounce on him if he didn’t get up fast. He could always throw it across the room, but it would only find its way back. And then tomorrow it would wake him even earlier. “Leave me alone. I told you I can sleep late. It’s summer.” As Erec pried his head from his pillow, something grabbed his mouth. It was his toothbrush, another annoying gift from his mother. It shook its brush head over Erec’s teeth, gripping his lips with its thin arms and legs. Erec almost choked. He yanked the toothbrush from his mouth, threw it on the floor, and watched it run from the room. Last night Erec had jammed the alarm clock in the back of a bathroom cabinet. He wondered if the toothbrush had helped it escape. Long ago, when they could afford such things, his mother had ordered these strange, lifelike objects from some store named Vulcan. As he grew up, he became used to these creatures and thought of them almost as pets. But his mother insisted on hiding them from visitors, who if they saw them might think they had completely gone crazy. It was the start of another bad day, in a bad week, in what Erec thought was a very bad year. His large family kept moving to smaller and smaller places, and growing poorer and poorer. In fact, they had moved nine times this year alone. That left hardly enough time to make friends, let alone say good-bye when he moved again. A few days ago, twelve-year-old Erec, his siblings, pets, and their adoptive mother, June O’Hara, moved into what the landlord called a “very modest apartment” in New York City. “Of course,” he added, “legally, this is too small for you all to live here.” Erec thought the landlord was being generous in his description. Rather than crowding on the couch with his brothers, Erec slept in a small closet with the washing machine. He hoped his mother didn’t find more strays—for that’s what they all were. All of the children in Erec’s family were . . . well, unique. Erec had a glass eye (which was really a sort of plastic). Eleven-year-old Nell needed a walker. Trevor, nine, rarely spoke. The thirteen-year-old twins, Danny and Sammy, were found alone and abandoned. And four-year-old Zoey could be more than a little wild. Erec was tall and thin with dark hair that was straight in front and wildly curly in the back. His glass eye did not quite match his blue one. But Erec had another problem, far worse than his odd hair and eye. It was something he called “cloudy thoughts.” Erec’s cloudy thoughts left him dizzy and hazy, like polluted clouds were spinning through his brain. They made his stomach leap into his throat and threaten to hold a Boston Tea Party, dumping its contents out while singing a war chant. But worst of all, once a cloudy thought popped into his head, it was like an order. It would g...
