In this friendly little fantasy, three different seekers pursue a lost dragon. And this isn’t just any dragon--her name is Wycca, and she’s a wyvern, the most catlike of the species. Wycca belongs to Gideon, a busy twelfth-century wizard. When he finds that she has wandered through a bolt-hole into the future, he sighs, packs up his magic implements and his familiars--Ignus the flame and the two-headed snake he calls Ouroboros--and steps into the mysterious opening to emerge in twenty-first century Boston. There he meets Iain Merlin O’Shea, the Wizard of Harvard Square, who takes him home and explains the magic of technology while they search for the lost wyvern. Other seekers are also abroad: Kobold, Gideon’s half-brother and arch enemy, wants to capture Wycca to turn her against her master; he has brought along an assistant demon, Febrys, who in her uncomfortable disguise as a human woman finds that cloven hooves are not compatible with high heels. Caught between these two magical forces is twelve-year-old Theodora, or Dodo, who yearns for the black wyvern card to complete her set and gain her admittance to the Wyvernkeeper’s Circle that meets in the local bookstore. To complicate matters, Wycca is with egg, and when she has nested and hatched her chick, there are two wyverns on the loose in Boston in this fast-moving tale that will entertain younger fantasy readers. (Ages 10 to 14) --Patty Campbell

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7-Wycca, a small dragon called a wyvern, is looking for the perfect place to lay her egg when she stumbles into a bolt-hole that transports her from 13th-century England to 21st-century Boston. Although she is quite unbothered by this change in locale and proceeds to lay her egg, her wizard Gideon needs to find her fast, before the evil wizard Kobold and his demon can locate her and use her against him. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Theodora, an avid fan of a game called Wizards & Wyverns, finds a magical card and unwittingly summons Wycca's hatchling, which draws all the other magical folk to her, as well. The delight of this fantasy lies in the interactions of the well-drawn characters and in the fluid, skillful writing. The attempts of Gideon and his 21st-century wizard ally, the pompous but good-hearted Professor Merlin of Harvard University, to work traditional magic using modern materials are entertaining, as is Wycca's preoccupation with obtaining chocolate, her newfound addiction. Theodora's part in the plot is a bit forced, as are some of the circumstances and characters surrounding her, and there are a great many coincidences, including a plethora of modern-day wizards who are always right where they need to be. Those quibbles aside, this is a charming fantasy that will appeal to fans of Diana Wynne Jones. An extra bonus is Rayyan's artwork that heads each chapter, depicting the wyvern egg and the hatchling that emerges from it.Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public LibraryCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. When Wycca, a wyvern mother-to-be, enters a magical bolt-hole in another place and time in search of a hidden nesting place, her master, Gideon, a thirteenth-century wizard, follows and finds himself in a confusing twenty-first-century Boston. His archrival, Kobold, follows, too, hoping to locate the wyvern, who can be used as a powerful weapon against Gideon if she falls into enemy hands. At the same time, 11-year-old Bostonian Theodora Oglethorpe is facing a boring summer with the housekeeper, Mikko, while her widower father is on an expedition and her two best friends are away. Theodora, who has long aspired to join Wyvernkeeper's Circle, finds the wyvern hatchling and becomes embroiled in the battle between Gideon and Kobold for possession of Wycca. With likable characters, and laced with plenty of humor and adventure, Downer's fantasy will have solid appeal for young genre fans. Sally Estes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Poor Theodora Oglethorpe! Her biologist father has gone off to explore the jungles of Laos without her, her two best friends are away on vacation, and a long, hot, lonely Boston summer is all she has to look forward to. Poor Gideon! Wycca, his pet wyvern, has disappeared through a magic hole in time in search of a place to lay her egg. Kobold, Gideon's rival wizard, wants nothing more than to capture Wycca and turn her against her master. In a desperate attempt to rescue Wycca from Kobold's evil clutches, Gideon follows her through the magic hole...and finds himself transported from his castle in thirteenth-century England to the terrifyingly modern world of Boston, Massachusetts, in the year 2002. Little does Gideon know that what he needs most in order to find his wyvern is stuck to the bottom of Theodora's shoe. And little does Theodora know that Gideon is the reason why her summer vacation has begun to seem a whole lot more interesting...

Card catalog description
When a thirteenth-century wizard confronts twenty-first century Boston while seeking his pet dragon, he is followed by a rival wizard and a very unhappy demon, but eleven-year-old Theodora Oglethorpe may hold the secret to setting everything right.

About the Author
Ann Downer grew up in Manila and Bangkok in the late 1960s and read many mysteries...until she discovered the rich and wonderful world of fantasy. Returning to her native Virginia, she began to spend afternoons at the local library reading all the fantasy she could get her hands on. Soon she was inspired to begin a fantasy novel of her own, and so began her career as a fantasy author. She has written The Spellkey, The Glass Salamander, and The Books of the Keepers. Ms. Downer combines her writing with a full-time career as a science editor at a university press. She lives with her husband, their son, and a large marmalade cat in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter I: A Rabbit Hole through Time Like a cat that hides under the barn to have her kittens, a wyvern mother-to-be likes a nice, private spot to lay her egg. Wycca had inspected several chambers around the castle and rejected them all. This one was unpleasantly hot, that one, drafty; this one smelled of mildew, that one was too close to the privies; and yet another was next to the bedchamber of the king's steward, who snored. Wycca sighed. It was all very trying to a wyvern in a delicate predicament. She shifted on her perch on the castle ramparts, doing her best to look inconspicuous while she enjoyed her afternoon bask in the sun. The courtiers in the garden below were gathered around a lute player by the fountain and didn't seem to notice the extra gargoyle high overhead. Wycca flexed her claws and began to give herself a leisurely manicure, cat fashion. She fit in well among the ramparts, being about the size of the stone gargoyle waterspouts. She was a small, four-legged dragon with a neat, slender head and an eagle's beak. No matter what old bestiaries and modern dictionaries have to say on the matter, wyverns do have forelimbs as well as hindlimbs, and a set of powerful, membranous flapping wings, like those of a bat. Wyverns are the most catlike of the dragons in their agility, intelligence, temperament, and vanity, and like a cat, Wycca had slitted, feline eyes, retractable claws, and a deep, melodious purr. This morning's nest-hunting had begun promisingly. Hidden behind a tapestry at the back of the queen's chapel, Wycca had discovered a small chest full of prayer books half eaten by bookworms. Their pages would make a fine, soft nest, and the little chapel itself was warm, dry, quiet, and unused, the humans having long ago abandoned it to mice and bats. She had been happily planning the lining of the nest -- fresh cobwebs, down from young owls, perhaps a few golden hairs from the princess's hairbrush -- when the men came in and began to haul out the broken furniture. The old king had recently remarried, and his new queen was young, French, and devout. Someone had remembered the neglected chapel. It was to be swept out, given a fresh coat of whitewash, and fumigated. The promising chest was the first thing to go on the bonfire. Wycca hid in the choir loft and watched the monks' beautifully carved pews turn to smoke. She would have to start her search all over again. There was an easier way. Her master, Gideon, was the king's own wizard, and his chambers were warm and dry and quiet. Gideon knew she was about to lay an egg. He had placed a folding screen around her favorite sleeping place and now gave her a dose of swan-liver oil after dinner. It would have been simple to shred a cushion or two, line the heap with a few mouse whiskers and moth wings, and be done with it. But Wycca had her dignity. Nests were not provided. They had to be sought with difficulty, discovered by cleverness, and kept hidden from everyone -- especially wizards. Even her own wizard. The sun went behind a cloud, signaling that basking time had come to an end. Wycca bestirred herself. The egg made her ungainly, and Wycca could feel it shift as she struggled to her feet. She was overcome by a powerful urge, to dig, to tear something up -- she had to make her nest. But where? She fled (if you can call a swift waddle fleeing) to the back of the garden by the crumbling wall that was all that remained of a much older castle, leveled in a long-ago siege. She was venting some of her nest-building urges on the ground, clawing out a deep wallow among the melons, when she found it. At first she thought she had dug through to the wall, but it wasn't stone. It wasn't earth, either, or fire or ice or air, or any other substance she knew -- except one. Wycca sat back on her haunches and snorted in surprise. It felt like magic. Her master's magic was kept tightly corked in bottles and jars, to be let out only when the moon was waning and the wind was out of the right quarter, and then only in small amounts, ground up in a mortar with barley wine and ashes until it was the right strength for repelling demons or fetching wyverns. But this magic had never known the inside of a jar. It was wild and strong and willful. It yawned suddenly, so that it was bigger than the largest melon, bigger than Wycca. The center of it wavered like summer heat on tiled rooftops, only cool and silver and humming faintly. It pulled at her, like the tug of the moon on the sea. Suddenly, Wycca knew where she would build her nest. She stretched out her neck slowly until the very tip of her beak broke the surface of the shimmering wildness. There was a ripple and a sound like a harp string being plucked, and in that heartbeat Wycca was instantly and completely Elsewhere. There was nothing in the melon patch but some tangled melon vines and a spot of darker, clawed earth. When Wycca didn't show up for dinner, Gideon didn't think much of it. It was her habit to dawdle when he called, so that her appearance, when she finally made it, would seem like her own idea. After all, she seemed to say, curling up on the rug before the fire, only dogs and other witless creatures came when you whistled. But when it began to grow dark and she still had not returned, Gideon began to worry. He hoped the silly creature hadn't gotten wedged into a tight spot somewhere down in the crypt -- or, worse, the dungeon. But most of all, he hoped no one had taken her. Even a fetched wyvern -- one summoned by spellcraft and given a golden collar and a Name -- is still a magical creature. Wycca could be a powerful weapon against her wizard if she fell into the hands of his enemies. Someone like Kobold, for instance. Gideon and Kobold had grown up together, and when they turned sixteen, they had been apprenticed to the king's wizard. Both young men had won favor at court, and when the old wizard had retired to the country to raise bees, both of them vied for the coveted position of Sorcerer Royal. In the end, the king awarded Gideon the title and the wand, and Kobold had to hire himself out as an itinerant wizard, riding a circuit between various third earls and aging warlords. Unfortunately, Kobold had a lot of time left over to nurse his grudge and to sharpen his skills at summoning the minor demons. These he sent to the castle to spy on Gideon. If Wycca was missing, Gideon thought to himself, Kobold would learn about it soon enough. And if he could find a way to wreak his revenge, he would. Gideon threw on his cloak and went out to look for Wycca. He started by checking all her favorite hiding places. She wasn't drinking buttermilk in the dairy or napping beside the fire in the laundry, where the linens were hung to dry. She wasn't hunting frogs among the lilies in the moat or teasing the high-strung falcons in their mews. She wasn't taking a dust bath on the jousting grounds. He was lying flat on his stomach trying to get a good look under the dovecote when he heard a honeyed voice say, "Have you lost something, Gideon?" He wriggled out from under the dovecote, brushing off feathers and petrified pigeon droppings. Standing beside the dovecote was Febrys, lady-in-waiting to the queen and one of Kobold's demon spies. She was wearing a gown of blue-and-silver brocade. Febrys was fair of face and would have been beautiful had she not been so unnaturally pale: the pale hair that showed beneath the linen of her headdress was closer to white than gold, and her eyes were like clouds reflected in water. The twilight on the silver brocade made her look more eerie still, as though Kobold had fashioned her out of cold moonlight and dust. Which he probably had, Gideon thought. "I thought I saw a fox slip under the pigeon coop," he said. She looked him up and down like an owl eyeing a mouse. "A fox? But why not send your wyvern after it? Why begrime yourself when she could save you the trouble?" Her voice dripped with sweetness, but it reminded Gideon of the honey the palace cook used to cover the taste of meat that was rotten. He laughed and Febrys took a startled step backward. Laughter is a powerful charm against demons. "Send a wyvern after a fox? That would raise an awful clamor, and something tells me our new queen wouldn't care to have her evening prayers disrupted in such a noisy fashion. In any case, there was no fox -- I merely fancied I saw one. But you can see for yourself." He waved an arm toward the dovecote. Febrys wrinkled her nose. "Of course I take you at your word, Gideon." She turned and walked away across the courtyard. Gideon looked after her. He knew he had not deceived her. She would go straight to Kobold. There was no time to lose. He started back to his rooms. The apparatus required to fetch a wyvern was elaborate and would take one wizard working alone most of the night to set up, but if he worked steadily, all would be ready by the hour just before dawn, when fetching spells are most effective. He took a shortcut through the vegetable garden, and it was then that he saw the unearthly glimmer coming from the melon patch. Gideon felt his heart sink. There was no mistaking it: the talon marks in the earth were Wycca's. And there was no mistaking the hazy ring of oily light, shimmering and humming faintly like a spinning top. Gideon sat down among the melons with a groan. Wycca had gone through a bolt-hole, a kind of magical rabbit-hole through Time, into some other Where -- and, what was much worse, some other When. He had started to put his hand through the bolt-hole when he stopped himself. It was no use rushing after her unprepared. He went back to his chambers and spent an hour putting his crucibles and books away under lock and spell. Wycca couldn't have chosen a more inconvenient moment to run away. He was supposed to judge the flight trials of the rising class of yearling dragons, settle a long-running dispute between humans and some trolls about mining rights, host a lavish banquet for visiting dignitaries from the dwarves, and preside over the new session of the Guild's high court. He hardly had any time at all to pursue his own studies in demon genealogy or perfect the new universal antidote. The last batch of the stuff had rendered the king's food taster weightless for a week. Gideon now understood why his predecessor had retired to the country to tend bees. On a high shelf lay coiled a two-headed snake and beside it, under a bell jar, a cool blue flame that burned without air or fuel. These were Gideon's familiars, the Worm Ouroboros, as old as Time, and Ignus, an intelligent, biddable Fire. Gideon paused in packing his satchel. He lifted the glass bell and held out an empty coin purse, making a soft clucking sound. Ignus flowed off the shelf and into the coin purse. Gideon snapped it shut and placed it in his pocket. Then he held out his arm for Ouroboros. The snake slid along his master's arm, arranging himself in coils underneath the sleeve of Gideon's tunic. There was a small hole in the seam where the sleeve was attached, and from this the snake could look out. The wizard's last task was to compose a note to the king explaining his sudden absence. He spoiled two sheets of foolscap before he hit on a likely excuse: a summons to attend an emergency convocation of the Guild of Adepts in the Wizardly Arts. He supposed Kobold would see through it, but by then Gideon hoped he would be back, with Wycca in tow, in time to head off any attempt to overthrow him as Sorcerer Royal. Gideon deftly folded the note into the form of a dove, said a few words over it in Wizard's Latin, and watched the paper bird wing its way to the castle and into the king's chamber window. He gave the cage of newts their freedom and left out a saucer of buttermilk, just in case Wycca hadn't gone through the bolt-hole after all. "Lock up," he told the door, and, as the bolt obediently slid to, the wizard shouldered his satchel and made his way back to the melon patch. Copyright © 2003 by Ann Downer

ANNOTATION

When a thirteenth-century wizard confronts twenty-first century Boston while seeking his pet dragon, he is followed by a rival wizard and a very unhappy demon, but eleven-year-old Theodora Oglethorpe may hold the secret to setting everything right.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Poor Theodora Oglethorpe! Her biologist father has gone off to explore the jungles of Laos without her, her best friends are away on vacation, and a long, hot, lonely Boston summer is all she has to look forward to.

Poor Gideon! Wycca, his pet wyvern, has disappeared through a magic hole in time in search of a place to lay her egg. Kobold, Gideon's wizard rival, wants nothing more than to get his hands on Wycca. In a desperate attempt to rescue Wycca from Kobold's evil clutches, Gideon follows her through the magic hole ... and finds himself transported from thirteenth-century England to the terrifyingly modern world of Boston, Massachusetts, in the twenty-first century.

Soon Theodora's involved with a chocoholic baby wyvern, a mysterious wyvern playing card, a couple of desperate wizards -- and the summer vacation of her life!

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

A wayward dragon finds her way into the 21st century and her wizard owner follows her through time, enlisting the help of a girl and a modern wizard. PW said that the author "fashions a witty fantasy from several plot lines that come together into a satisfying denouement." Ages 8-12. (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Joy A. Girgis

The story opens with Wycca, a small cat-like dragon called a wyvern, searching for a place to nest and lay her egg. She discovers a small magical hole and climbs into it. Transported to a different time and place, Wycca's owner, a 13th-century wizard named Gideon, becomes worried and goes looking for her. He finds the hole and leaves to pack. The hole transports Gideon from his own time in England to 21st-century Boston. Gideon hurries to locate Wycca, because if he does not, his archenemy, Kobold, and Kobold's demon, Febrys, will find Wycca and use her against him. A third character, Theodora, an 11-year-old girl from the 21st-century who thrives on a game called Wizards & Wyverns, finds a black wyvern card to finish her collection so that she will be able to join the club. Wycca's egg soon hatches. All the while, Gideon and a 21st-century wizard, Merlin, who also works as a professor at Harvard University, use a more modern style of magic to find the wyverns. This book's language and compelling plot engage the reader. Its use of magic and technology cause the reader to become absorbed in the story of Wycca's incredible journey. I enjoyed every aspect of this book because of the interesting combination of mythological creatures and present-day life. 2003, Antheneum Books For Young Readers/Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division, Ages 10 to 14.

School Library Journal

Gr 4-7-Wycca, a small dragon called a wyvern, is looking for the perfect place to lay her egg when she stumbles into a bolt-hole that transports her from 13th-century England to 21st-century Boston. Although she is quite unbothered by this change in locale and proceeds to lay her egg, her wizard Gideon needs to find her fast, before the evil wizard Kobold and his demon can locate her and use her against him. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Theodora, an avid fan of a game called Wizards & Wyverns, finds a magical card and unwittingly summons Wycca's hatchling, which draws all the other magical folk to her, as well. The delight of this fantasy lies in the interactions of the well-drawn characters and in the fluid, skillful writing. The attempts of Gideon and his 21st-century wizard ally, the pompous but good-hearted Professor Merlin of Harvard University, to work traditional magic using modern materials are entertaining, as is Wycca's preoccupation with obtaining chocolate, her newfound addiction. Theodora's part in the plot is a bit forced, as are some of the circumstances and characters surrounding her, and there are a great many coincidences, including a plethora of modern-day wizards who are always right where they need to be. Those quibbles aside, this is a charming fantasy that will appeal to fans of Diana Wynne Jones. An extra bonus is Rayyan's artwork that heads each chapter, depicting the wyvern egg and the hatchling that emerges from it.-Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews