DRAGON GIRLAn Interactive, Forks-of-Life Adventure

BY V.S. CHIN

Royal Fireworks PressUnionville, NY

Copyright © 2009, Royal Fireworks Publishing Co., Inc.All rights reserved.

Royal Fireworks PressFirst Avenue, PO Box 399Unionville, NY 10988-0399(845) 726-4444FAX: (845) 726-3824email: mail@rfwp.comwebsite: rfwp.com

ISBN: 978-0-88092-xxx-x Library BindingISBN: 978-0-88092-xxx-x Paperback

Printed and bound in the United States of America using vegetable-based inks on acid-free, recycled paper and environmentally-friendly cover coat-ings by the Royal Fireworks Printing Co. of Unionville, New York.

Table of Contents

DRAGON GIRL is not your typical cover-to-cover read. Once you get beyond Chapter 3, your journey through this book will be dictated by the decisions you make. One wrong move and your quest may end prematurely. If you would like to leave a breadcrumb trail, fill in the chapter numbers below as you proceed so that, if you make a wrong move, you can easily backtrack to the last chapter you were reading and try, try again. I would wish you luck but you will need more than just luck to see you through to a successful conclusion.

V.S. Chin

1 Just Go Back Where You Came From 1

2 Where’s Belle? 13

3 Who Goes There? 30

____ ‘A’ 35

____ A Homemade Pair of Stilts 36

____ AAAAAAAAGH 40

____ Ba-Bump 42

____ Belle 45

____ Bow Wow 50

____ Click 57

____ Cockle Doodle Doo 66

____ Don’t Come Any Closer 69

____ Don’t Leave Me 71

____ ‘G’ 73

____ Give It to Me 74

____ Give Me an ‘R’ 76

____ Have You Ever Been to a Bullfight? 77

____ Hey, It’s Me 79

____ How About a ‘G’ 80

____ How About a Trade? 81

____ How Much Do You Weigh? 84

____ I Am the Archer 86

____ I Believe You Two Know One Another 93

____ I See It 98

____ I Should Banish You Here and Now 103

____ I Want to Go Home 107

____ I’d Like to Buy an ‘A’ 108

____ I’d Like to Buy an ‘O’ 109

____ I’ll Be a Shish Kabob 110

____ I’ll Get Stretch Marks 115

____ I’ll Scream 118

____ I’ll Take an ‘N’ 119

____ I’m Not a Puppet You Can Jerk Around 120

____ Is There a ‘D’? 123

____ Isn’t That Pretty 124

____ It’s Pretty Sharp 125

____ I’ve Been Tricked 127

____ Jesus Take the Wheel 129

____ Just a Little Higher 133

____ Let’s Just Shut Up and Climb 136

____ Mmmmmm 144

____ Nice Try 145

____ ‘O’ 147

____ Pfffft 148

____ ‘R’ 151

____ Rats 152

____ Run for Your Life 162

____ Schquiick 164

____ Skreek 169

____ Snort 171

____ Splat 177

____ Take It 179

____ Take That 180

____ That’s Some Tree 182

____ The Repairs are Permanent 184

____ There Is an Order to Everything 185

____ They’re All Around Us 191

____ They’re Yummy 193

____ Thwack 194

____ Welcome to the Far Reaches 196

____ We’ve Got a Bridge to Cross 198

____ What Now? 201

____ Whoosh 202

____ Why Don’t Pigs Play With Monkeys? 203

____ Why Don’t You Stand Over There 204

____ You Exhibit Much Wisdom 207

____ You Leave My Sister Alone 214

____ You Stole My Dinner 219

____ You Win 223

____ You Would Steal From Me 224

____ You’re On 225

1

Just Go Back Where You Came From“Just go back where you came from!” Jane hollered as she

slammed closed her bedroom door. Throwing herself on her bed, she hugged Teddy to her tightly.

“Everything was perfect before she showed up,” Jane whis-pered to Teddy, but the stuffed bear only gazed at her blankly. She could see herself reflected in the bear’s glassy eyes, her blonde bangs spilling across her forehead, her freckled nose sniffling back a tear. “It’s just not fair.”

And it wasn’t fair. Two years ago Jane had been the center of the universe. As an only child, she had basked in the undi-vided attention and love of her parents. But shortly after she turned nine, Jane’s world had turned upside down.

“Jane, come meet your new baby sister—Belle,” her mom had said. Peering around her father’s leg, Jane recalled seeing a strange sight. Not a bouncing newborn baby but a little girl of about four years of age. A little girl with straight blue-black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and tiny mushroom nose. A little girl who promptly reached over and grabbed Jane’s Malibu Barbie and began whacking the doll’s head on the coffee ta-ble.

“Isn’t that sweet?” cooed Jane’s mom. “She’s making her-self right at home!”

Jane’s mouth had dropped open. This couldn’t be happen-ing. I mean, okay, this wasn’t a total surprise—Mom and Dad had hinted that a new addition to the family was on the way. As in “Jane, as soon as the paperwork comes through, you’re going to be a big sister!” But up till then, Jane had always got-ten what she wanted. And what she had wanted was to remain an only child, not like Ruthanne and Jeremy and Nicky, the three siblings from down the street who scrabbled like junk-yard dogs for a scrap of their parents’ love and attention.

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DRAGON GIRL

For the first time in Jane’s memory, her wishes had been thwarted. And it was not a good feeling. In the blink of an eye, her world had turned upside down. She had gone from starring attraction to stand-in, seemingly relegated to the back stage of her own family play.

Since that fateful day, Jane’s life had become one of con-trasts. There were, of course, the obvious contrasts—where Jane was blonde and blue-eyed, Belle had dark hair and brown eyes. Whereas Jane had been born and raised in Marietta, Georgia, in the good old US of A, Belle was from China, which according to Grandpa Jake was on the whole other side of the world. And whereas Jane spoke English, Belle spoke…well, for the first few weeks, Jane didn’t know what Belle spoke because she was silent as a mouse.

But that golden silence hadn’t lasted long. One morn-ing, while Jane sat at the kitchen table wondering which was worse, being stared at across the kitchen table by Belle or go-ing to school, Belle suddenly opened her mouth and, calm as a cucumber, said “Jane.”

Jane’s spoon clattered back into her cereal bowl, spraying milk across her pajama top. Belle seemed to find this hilarious. Laughing, she smacked her spoon into her own cereal bowl over and over, spurting milk everywhere. And each time the spoon went splat in the milk, she shouted “Jane! Jane! Jane!”

Much like the voice now on the other side of the door. “Jane. Janey? Jay-hayney!”

“Oh no,” muttered Jane, knowing from experience that Belle’s hiccupping was a sure sign that Niagara Falls was about to begin.

Jane stomped to the door and threw it open. Squelching the overwhelming urge to yell “LEAVE ME ALONE!” in Belle’s face, she pushed past the pesky six-year-old.

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Just Go Back Where You Came From

“Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look,” Jane muttered to herself as she bulldozed past, but the words were like a mag-net drawing her eyes to Belle’s upturned face. “Oh, no,” she groaned, as she saw Belle’s grief-stricken face instantly trans-form into one of unfeigned delight.

“Oh, Janey!” cried Belle happily, grabbing her big sister’s hand. “Come see what I did at school today!”

“Do I have to?” Jane growled.

Belle laughed as she tugged Jane down the hallway. “You’re so funny, Janey!” she said.

“Yeah. Ha, ha,” Jane replied sourly, but allowed herself to be steered into Belle’s bedroom.

“Look! There’s Mommy and Daddy. And there’s our house. And that’s you and me!” Jane found herself looking at a surprisingly detailed illustration. Mom and Dad stood holding hands and smiling. Behind them stood their house, complete with green shutters, brick exterior, and wrap-around porch. Off to the side stood Jane and Belle, also holding hands. Even in the picture, Belle seemed to gaze adoringly at Jane.

Jane had to grudgingly admit that it was a great drawing, far better than what Jane could have done at the same age, or even now for that matter—and Jane was practically twelve. Which served as yet another painful example of the colossal contrasts between the two girls.

Everything came easily to Belle. She was a naturally gift-ed artist. She was smart. She was neat. In short, she was everything Jane wasn’t.

Belle absorbed knowledge like a sponge. Within days of uttering Jane’s name for the first time, she was chattering up a storm in English. In fact, once she started, you couldn’t shut her up. She kept pointing at everything and yelling out its name—“TABLE! LAMP! CHAIR! BOOGER!”

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DRAGON GIRL

Jane, on the other hand, was like a drenched mop—knowl-edge wasn’t absorbed so much as pushed around in a soppy mess. Two years into Chinese language lessons—a weekly family affair designed “to help Belle maintain her roots”—Jane still couldn’t string a coherent sentence together.

But then, why should she have to learn Chinese anyway? This was America, not China! It was like taking a fish, throw-ing it in a tree, then expecting all the birds to go from “tweet, tweet” to “glub, glub.” It didn’t make any sense.

Nor did the transformation Jane saw in her parents. The Chinese language lessons were just the tip of the iceberg. Next had come some enthusiastic experimentation with Chi-nese cuisine that almost burned down the kitchen. Then strange figurines started appearing all over the house—creepy old men with flowing white beards and enormous heads; fat, laughing men with elongated ear lobes; a multicolored dragon with bulging eyes and leering tongue. And then there was her mom’s dubious change of wardrobe—a too-tight silk dress and hair pinned up by chopsticks—that on first glance had Jane wondering why the hostess of the Panda Inn restaurant was standing in her living room. It was as if Jane’s parents were shrugging off their perfectly fine bird feathers in order to grow fish scales and gills.

The worst part about it all was that her parents didn’t even seem to know that they were changing. “Remember when we used to wake up late on Saturdays and go to IHOP for break-fast?” Jane had once asked.

“Hmmm?” her mom had responded distractedly. “IHOP? When did we ever go there? How disgusting—all that grease. No. For brunch, we’ll have some nice sharks fin dumplings and turnip cakes.” Yep, things definitely were not the way they used to be.

“Janey, what do you think of my picture?” asked Belle, bringing Jane back to the present.

5

Just Go Back Where You Came From

“Why’re we holding hands?”

“’Cause we’re sisters,” Belle answered matter-of-factly, looking up at Jane with liquid, puppy-dog eyes.

More than anything else, Jane hated that look—the look that said “I’d give anything to be like you;” “I absolutely idol-ize you;” “You’re the best.” Because, as quick as Belle was to catch on to everything else, the one thing she seemed perfectly oblivious to was that Jane simply could not stand Belle. The girls were like polarized magnets—the closer Belle tried to get to Jane, the more Jane pulled away.

Which is exactly what Jane did now. “We are NOT sis-ters!” she yelled, throwing Belle’s picture spitefully to the floor. The drawing, however, failed to cooperate, performing an acrobatic loop-di-loop before settling like a hat on top of Belle’s panda-shaped backpack. The panda seemed to frown at Jane.

Knowing she was acting childishly, which only enraged her more, Jane lashed out at the panda-pack, hauling back and kicking it as hard as she could with her foot.

“OWWWW!!!” she screamed as her foot connected with what felt like a concrete block. “WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN THERE, ROCKS????”

“What in heaven’s name is going on in here?” asked the girls’ mom. Breathless from dashing up the stairs, Melissa Gordan, a tiny bird-like woman, stood in the doorway and tried to take in the situation. By now both girls were crying. One was hopping mad; the other sat in the corner rocking back and forth.

“I think I broke my foot!” howled Jane. “And it’s all Belle’s fault!”

“How could it be Belle’s fault?” her mom asked as she en-tered the room and knelt down in front of the two girls. “Jane, stop jumping around so I can see your foot.”

6

DRAGON GIRL

Sniffling, Jane balanced on one foot so her mother could remove her tennis shoe. Sure enough, her big toe had turned a bright, angry red.

“What on earth did you hit your toe on?”

“Belle’s stupid backpack!” Jane pointed to the middle of the floor where the panda-pack had been sitting. But there was nothing there.

“Oh Jane, stop exaggerating. How could you have hurt yourself on an empty backpack?”

“Empty?” Jane swiveled her head around to see what her mother was talking about. There in the corner sat Belle, hug-ging the panda-pack to her tightly, so tightly that the panda’s head flopped limply over her arm. Even upside down, the panda seemed to glare menacingly at Jane.

“But...”

“Belle, it’s okay, Sweetheart,” said their mom. “Jane didn’t mean to hurt Pandy.”

Hurt Pandy? Jane thought to herself as she fought back tears of pain. What about my toe? What’s a broken toe feel like, anyway? Jane wondered as she hobbled over to Belle’s dresser for something to lean on.

In the mirror, she could see her mom comforting Belle. The panda-pack now lay slumped on the floor, dejected-look-ing and deflated, and obviously empty. How was that possi-ble? thought Jane. She clearly recalled seeing it sitting solidly in the middle of Belle’s floor, its round, puffy head and fluffy, black and white body making it an inviting target for Jane’s frustration. Had she somehow missed the backpack and con-nected with a wall? A bed post? The desk? Not unless Jane had legs like a giraffe.

Jane returned her angry gaze to the offending bear. Strange, she thought, those eyes seem to be staring right at me. A little

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Just Go Back Where You Came From

unnerved, Jane limped over to Belle’s bed. The panda’s eyes seemed to track her progress across the room and, out of the corner of her eye, Jane could have sworn she saw the panda blink.

Now genuinely alarmed, Jane rushed the last few steps to the relative safety of her sister’s bed, only to stub her injured toe against the bed frame. Yelping, she hopped a hasty retreat out of Belle’s room, down the hallway, and into the sanctuary of her own bedroom. Still crying, she wiped her tears away on Teddy before recalling what had sent her fleeing from Belle’s room. Impulsively, she flung Teddy away from her.

“Now what’s the problem?” rumbled a voice from the doorway.

Jane jumped at the unexpected voice. Jane’s dad stood with arms folded across his broad chest. Gordon Gordan was a large man, a very large man, which had proven helpful when growing up with a name like Gordon Gordan. But looks could be deceiving—though built like a professional football player, Gordon Gordan was a gentle giant.

“Daddy!” Jane cried, and jumped up and ran into his pro-tective arms.

“What’s this?” her dad asked. “You haven’t called me ‘Daddy’ in years. Is everything okay?”

“Mmmnnf,” Jane replied into her father’s shirt.

“Look, Baby Girl, I know things are hard for you,” her father said to her softly. “But you’re a big girl now and, more importantly, you’re a big sister now. You’ve got to start grow-ing up and acting your age. All right?” Safe in her father’s arms, it was easy to believe that everything was okay, that nothing bad had or ever could happen to her, and that what-ever she had imagined in Belle’s room was exactly that—her imagination.

8

DRAGON GIRL

Even so, in the coming days, Jane made sure to stay well clear of Belle’s panda-pack. Not that that was hard to do, given that Belle and Pandy were practically inseparable, and wherever Belle was, Jane chose not to be—whenever she had a choice, that is.

“Jane Gordan, you are getting in that van whether you like it or not!” yelled Jane’s mom.

Jane opened her mouth to protest, but a raised eyebrow from her father froze the words in her mouth.

“Really, Jane, I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Jane’s mother continued ranting. “You know it’s Chinese New Year, and we always go out to tea on New Years.”

Not always! Jane wanted to shout in reply. Not before You Know Who showed up. As if on cue, You Know Who’s face suddenly appeared in the passenger car window.

“Come on Janey, or we’ll miss the show!” encouraged Belle.

The “show” this year was the same as each of the previous years, but that didn’t seem to bother Belle, who was so excited Jane was sure she would pee in her pants. It began with a kung fu demonstration set to the deep, primal beat of a drum whose every boom-butty-boom-boom reverberated up through the soles of Jane’s feet and through her entire body. The drum beats hammered at Jane’s stubborn resolve to appear unmoved by the excitement around her.

With a last impassioned “AAAAAIEE!” the martial art-ists relinquished the floor (or in this case, a roped-off area of parking lot in front of The Great Mall of China) to a brightly colored, bulging-eyed, and mouth-snapping lion. The lion danced in time to the drumbeats, running foward and rearing up on its hind legs during the drum crescendos, then crashing back down and retreating to the clash of cymbals. Forwards, then backwards. Forwards, then backwards.

9

Just Go Back Where You Came From

Then the tempo of the music changed. The lion turned its massive head to the left (clash!). Then to the right (clash!). Then left (clash!), then right (clash!), faster and faster. All the while, the lion moved closer to the crowd, snapping its mas-sive jaws in time to the cymbals, until with a final percussive CLASH! the lion ended up just inches from Jane.

The sudden silence was deafening, and for a moment, no one moved, including Jane, whose field of vision had been re-duced to flaring black and red nostrils and a leering red mouth fringed with tufts of white hair. As if offended by Jane’s lack of response, the lion snapped its jaws closed. So close was Jane to the lion that the white hairs tickled her face in passing. Jane recoiled instinctively.

The crowd of mostly Asian onlookers erupted in laughter and applause, while the lion waggled its head in triumph be-fore prancing off to the sounds of renewed drumbeats. But instead of turning their attention back to the lion, most of the spectators seemed to still be pointing and laughing at Jane.

Jane felt her face turn red. Even her parents were grinning at her, while Belle (of course) was jumping up and down and crowing “Janey! Janey! Janey!” Jane wanted to crawl under a rock.

The rest of the day didn’t get any better. First came a frus-trating battle with chopsticks that resulted in a lot of mess and little actual nourishment. Then the ever-dreaded “let’s dress up Jane and Belle in matching outfits” suggestion. There was no point resisting. Even Gordon could only shrug his shoul-ders apologetically at his daughter, as if to say, “I love you, but I value my own neck too much to stick it out for you.”

Belle (of course) thought it was a fantastic idea. Taking hold of Jane’s hand, she tugged her over to a vendor’s booth that had been set up in the common area of the mall as part of the New Year’s festivities. Manning the booth was a wiz-ened old woman. At the girls’ approach, the woman broke into

10

DRAGON GIRL

a smile, which only served to accentuate the many wrinkles scoring her weathered face.

“Ni hao, ni hao!” she cackled delightedly. “Hello, hello! Welcome!”

“Ni hao!” Belle chirruped back.

“Many things for you see. Very good quality. Look. Buy!”

By this time, the girls’ parents had arrived. “Oh, Gordon, look at this? Isn’t it just beautiful!” Melissa exclaimed over an enormous egg intricately painted with garden scenes of Chi-nese women in silk robes carrying parasols.

“This very old,” the vendor said helpfully. “Made from dragon egg. Very rare.”

“Dragon’s egg?” Melissa responded dubiously as she took in the rest of the booth, which was filled with typical tourist fodder.

“Wow, look at this!” Everyone’s heads turned to Belle, who was petting a giant stuffed panda bear that was almost as big as she was. “He looks just like Pandy!” and, in case any-one disagreed, turned around to show off her pandapack. The pack, which gazed blankly back at everyone with a strange Mona Lisa-like smile on its face, was obviously empty, but that didn’t stop Belle from wearing it around everywhere. Jane shook her head—How could she have been so silly as to think there was anything sinister about that goofy panda backpack?

“Oh, you have back-of-pack panda,” said the vendor. “You buy from me last year, yes? It work good for you?”

“Oh yes, he’s wonderful! He’s my best friend. Aren’t you, Pandy?” answered Belle. “Except for Jane,” she added quick-ly. “Jane’s my best people friend!”

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Just Go Back Where You Came From

“Isn’t that nice, Jane? That was a very sweet thing to say, Belle,” said Melissa. Jane covered up the need to respond by pretending to pull lint off her coat. “Belle, why don’t you come over here and pick out something special for you and Jane,” the girls’ mother suggested, pointing toward some racks of clothes.

After much rummaging, Belle triumphantly held up her trophy find—matching white sweatshirts featuring dragons with gold-sequined scales and glassy red eyes. It was the most hideous article of clothing Jane had ever seen.

Jane drew breath to protest, but a look from her father stilled her. Fine, thought Jane, but there’s no way they’re go-ing to get me to wear that thing, she vowed as Belle happily stowed the newly purchased tops in her panda-pack.

Only once they were back in the van and heading home did Jane start perking up. Because out of the corner of her eye she noticed Belle strapped snuggly to her seat, with the black straps of her backpack still encircling each shoulder. Which meant she was still wearing the stupid pandypack. Which in turn meant there was no way the bulky sweatshirts could be packed inside of it.

The bag must have fallen out at some point! Jane imag-ined it lying abandoned in the parking lot, probably being run over by countless tires. She knew she should speak up. She knew Belle would be devastated once they got home and real-ized what had happened. She couldn’t wait!

Back at home, however, Belle was her usual annoying self, following Jane around like a lost puppy, all the while toting the empty panda-pack around on her back. Jane wanted to yell at her “Take that dumb thing off your back and open it!” But that would entail acknowledging Belle’s presence, which would only encourage her to pester Jane further.

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DRAGON GIRL

Finally, Jane couldn’t take it any more. “I’m going over to Ruthanne’s,” she yelled as she charged out the door. She heard her mother respond but didn’t slow down. Behind her, she heard the door shut a second time, then the sound of pat-tering feet.

“Janey, wait for me!” Belle cried.

Jane sped up, but Belle somehow managed to keep pace. Jane ran until she thought her lungs would burst, but she could still hear Belle behind her. She finally gasped to a stop and, out of breath and patience, rounded on her tormentor. “STOP FOLLOWING ME!” she screamed.

“But I...”

“But nothing! You’re always hanging around me and I’m sick and tired of it!” Now that she’d loosened her tongue, Jane found she couldn’t stop. “You don’t belong here and you never will! I wish you would just go back where you came from!”

By now Belle was (of course) crying. But this time, Jane was too angry to care.

“Wha- wha- why do you keep…keep saying that?” Belle managed to get out between hiccoughs.

“Because this isn’t your home! This isn’t even your coun-try! You’re from China—that’s where you belong!”

“But…but…I don’t even know where that is!”

“Just find a hole that’s deep enough and you can dig the rest of the way there!” Jane retorted. “Now LEAVE ME ALONE!” and with that, Jane spun on her heels and marched off to Ruthanne’s house—alone.