The Awakening of the Dragon's Garden

The Awakening of the Dragon's Garden

1. Mei Lee

Mei Lee's eyes were open, but she really wasn't sure she was awake. How could she be when she was seeing two tiny mice standing side by side on the covers at the foot of her bed? Not only that, they were both wearing frilly pink party dresses with lots of lace and bows.

This had to be a dream and she was still asleep. When she started to close her eyes, two squeaky voices called out,

"Get up, Mei Lee, make no fuss,

The dragon calls. You must come with us."

Mei Lee smiled. Silly mice she thought. As if I'd go anywhere with them. She began to snuggle back under the covers. "Go away," she murmured. "I'm sleeping and you're just a dream."

At that, the mice raced across the bed, sprang onto the dresser and began to push a small glass cat toward the edge.

Mei Lee jumped out of bed just in time to catch the cat before it smashed on the floor. Angrily she stomped over to her desk and stashed the figure safely away in a drawer. When she turned back, the mice had vanished. "Good riddance," she muttered.

"Now I can get back to sleep."

But then a troublesome thought snuck into her head. How could she go back to sleep if she was dreaming? Might she really be awake?

No

No way.

There were no talking mice. This was just a dream, just a silly little dream. And in her dream, she was going to get back into bed, pull up her covers, close her eyes and fall back asleep. Then she could wake up for real in the morning.

But just then she heard squeaky little voices calling out again.

"Now that you're up, get dressed fast.

The minutes are just flying past."

Mei Lee looked around. The mice had moved to the windowsill, their tiny ears and whiskers glowing silver in the moonlight.

She scowled. "No! I'm not coming with you. My precious glass cat is safe and I can beat you to anything else in this room. So just go away." She folded her arms and glared at them.

The two mice glanced at each other, shrugged their tiny shoulders, then took off in different directions. One headed for the family photo on the night table, the other for the perfume bottle on the dresser.

Mei Lee quickly realized she couldn't protect both of them. "All right," she hissed. "I'll go with you. Just give me a chance to get dressed."

And so, a few minutes later, two small mice and one medium-sized girl snuck out of the ground floor bedroom window. Beneath a huge silver moon they ran silently through the garden, past the drowsing blossoms, out through the back gate and into the dark lane that ran behind the house.

Before long they reached the edge of town. A tall pagoda loomed, casting long shadows in the moonlight. Wind chimes tinkled on the gentle night breeze. Mei Lee was surprised to see a gleaming path that skirted around the pagoda and led into the forest beyond. In the darkness of the trees the path seemed to glow brighter.

Mei Lee hesitated. She had never gone far into Endless Forest, and had never gone in on her own. She had heard scary stories of bears and tigers that lurked in the shadows, ready to pounce on silly little children.

It had occurred to Mei Lee that the stories might have been made up to keep children from wandering off into the forest and getting themselves lost. She knew it went on a long way. A map on her classroom wall showed the forest going far beyond the next town. In fact, it spread through the foothills and partly up into the mountains. Now that she thought about it, she had never heard of adults going far into the forest, not even for hunting. And they never went in at night. Strange that she had not wondered about that before.