"So I think," the dragon said, "my name is Dragon. Because that is what everyone called me."

"Dragon," Minli repeated, and she tried not to smile. "Well, I guess it's a good enough name. It will be easy for me to remember."

The dragon nodded, pleased to have found himself a name.

"So you were born from a painting!" Minli said, "That explains why you are so different from the dragons my father told me about."

"Your father knew other dragons?" the dragon asked eagerly. "I have never seen another dragon. I always thought if I could fly, I would finally see another like me."

"Um, well," Minli said, "I don't think my father ever knew any dragons. He just told stories about them. Most people think dragons are just in stories. You are the only dragon I've ever met."

"Oh," the dragon said sadly, "and I am not even a real dragon."

All this time, Minli had been cutting the twine ropes. At that very moment, Minli cut the last rope and rubbed the dragon's arm. "You're the only dragon I've ever met in real life," she said, "and you feel real to me. So, I think you're a real dragon. Or, at least, real enough. Anyway, if we're going to Never-Ending Mountain together, let's at least be real friends."

"Yes," Dragon agreed, and they both smiled.

CHAPTER 12.

The goldfish man turned around and smiled questioningly at Ma and Ba, who could do nothing but continue to stare. He was slender and small, which was perhaps why it was easy to mistake his footprints for Minli's. The dragging lines Ma had thought were from Minli's walking sticks led to his cart, and the bowls of goldfish caught the sifting beams from the sun, slivering it into flashing sparkles of light. The goldfish man's eyes also flashed, as he looked at Ma and Ba and their dust-covered clothes and haggard, tired faces.

"Can I help you?" he asked them.

"We were looking for our daughter," Ba stammered. "We are from the Village of Fruitless Mountain."

"You sold her a goldfish, and then," Ma sputtered, "and then she ran away to change our fortune."

"I see," the goldfish man said, and again, he looked at them - at Ma's tight, angry frown and Ba's careworn, worried face. "And you are going after her, to stop her?"

"Of course," Ba said. "We need to bring her home."

"Yes," Ma said. "She is acting crazy. Who knows what could happen to her?"

"She could succeed," the goldfish man said steadily. "She could find a way to change your fortune."

"She's trying to find Never-Ending Mountain!" Ma said. "Ask questions to the Old Man of the Moon! There is no way for her to succeed."

"Yes," Ba said, "it's impossible."

The goldfish man looked a third time at Ma and Ba, and this time they felt it. Under his gaze, Ma and Ba suddenly felt like freshly peeled oranges, and their words fell away from them. Inexplicably, they felt ashamed.

"Let me tell you a story," the goldfish man said.

THE STORY OF THE.

GOLDFISH MAN.

My grandmother, Lao Lao, was a famous fortune teller. People from far away villages would line up at our home, asking for lucky dates for weddings and predictions for their children. If she was ever wrong, we never heard of it.

But a week before my nineteenth birthday, we heard her moaning in her room. When we rushed to her, we found her sitting on the floor with her fortune-telling sticks spread around her. To my surprise, as soon as I entered the room, her piercing eyes fixed upon me.

"You," she said, "you will die next week on your birthday."

It was as if she had exploded a firecracker in the room. My parents and aunts and cousins burst into exclamations and wails. "It is true, it is true," my grandmother insisted, "I have checked and rechecked over and over again. And the sticks always say the same. Next week, on his nineteenth birthday, he will die. That is his fortune."

I could not believe it. How could this be? But my belief in my grandmother was unshakable; if she said so it must be true. I stood staring as my family created a storm around me. Finally I said with a mouth as dry as sand, "Lao Lao, isn't there anything I can do?"

"There is only one thing you can do," she said, "but it is doubtful it will work."

"I'll do it," I said.

"First," Lao Lao said, "we must get a bottle of the finest wine and make a box of sweets."

So Lao Lao went to the rich magistrate of the town and persuaded him to give her a bottle of his best wine. My mother and aunts hurried to the kitchen and prepared cakes, cookies, and sweetmeats with more care than ever before. Before the aromas of the delicacies were captured in our most ornate box, they floated in the air, causing all the neighborhood animals to whine at our door.

And then Lao Lao went to her room and began to read her fortune sticks. When she came out, she gave me the box of sweets and bottle of wine and sat me down.

"Listen to me carefully," she said, "you must do exactly as I say. Tomorrow morning, you must walk north of the village. Do not stop until the moon begins to appear in the sky. When it does, you will see a mountain before you, and at the foot of the mountain you will see an old man reading a book. Open the box of sweets and bottle of wine and set them by him, but do not say a word unless he speaks to you first. This is the only chance we have to change your fortune."

So the next morning, I followed her instructions and it was as she said. I walked all day and when the sun finally withdrew from the sky, there was a vast mountain in front of me whose tip seemed to touch the moon. Sitting cross-legged at the bottom was an old man, reading a giant book. The light from the moon seemed to make him glow silver. I opened the bottle of wine and box of sweets and quietly laid them next to him. Then I sat and waited.

The old man didn't notice me and continued to read. My mouth watered as the smell of the sweets drifted in the air, but I didn't move. But even though the old man was engrossed in his book, he must have smelled them as well because, without lifting his eyes from the page, he began to eat.

It was only when the bottle of wine was empty and he was eating the last cake that the old man lifted his head. He seemed surprised to see a half-eaten cake in his hand.

"I've been eating someone's food," he said to himself. He looked up and saw me sitting nearby. "You, boy, was this your food?"

"Yes," I said and I came closer as he beckoned.

"Well," he said to me, "what are you doing here?"

I told the old man my story while he rubbed his beard. When I finished, he said nothing but began to turn pages in his book. Finally, he nodded.

"Yes, it's true," the old man said. "You are only to live nineteen years."

And he turned the book toward me and in the moonlight, I read my name on the page. Next to my name was the number nineteen.

"Please," I couldn't help asking, "isn't there any way to change it?"

"Change it?" the old man asked, surprised at the thought. "Change the Book of Fortune?"

"Yes," I nodded.

"Well," the old man said, stroking his beard, "I am indebted to you for eating your food."

He took a paintbrush from his robe and studied the page. "Hmm," he said to himself, "maybe if... no... perhaps... Ah! Yes, this is how it can be done!"

And with a simple flick from his brush, he changed the nineteen to ninety-nine. "Good," he said to me. "You now have many more years of life. Live them well."

Then, he closed his book, stood up, and began to walk up the mountain, leaving me staring behind him. I sat there until he disappeared from sight and then turned around and went home.

The next week, on my birthday, there was a terrible typhoon. The wind howled as it never had before and a tree fell right on top of the roof of our house and crashed into my room, narrowly missing me. If it had fallen just a bit more to one side, I would have been easily killed. But as I climbed out of ruins of my room, I saw my grandmother's eyes staring into mine. Silently, she nodded. She did not need words to tell me what had happened. I knew my fortune had been changed.

"But for Minli to try to do that is different," Ba started. "She's trying to find Never-Ending Mountain... ask a question... she's just a small girl..."

"Perhaps," the goldfish man said, "you need to trust her."

"But," Ma said, "but what she wants is impossible."

"Impossible?" The goldfish man said, "Don't you see? Even fates written in the Book of Fortune can be changed. How can anything be impossible?"

Ma and Ba could find no words. His eyes and the hundreds of eyes of the goldfish behind him seemed to silently scold them. As they looked at the ground, the goldfish man shifted back his bag and turned toward his cart.

"Here, a gift," the goldfish man said, placing a bowl into Ba's shaking hands. The fish, the pale silver color of the moon, circled in the bowl. "Perhaps if you cannot trust that your daughter will find Never-Ending Mountain, you should trust that she will return home to you. Because that is not impossible. So, whether Minli brings it to you or not, I wish you good fortune."

And with a bow, the goldfish man walked away; his bowls of goldfish cast pieces of rainbows in the air, making him sparkle in the sun. Ma and Ba stood and watched him until he looked like a twinkling star in the distance.

CHAPTER 13.

After cutting the dragon free, Minli's knife was dull and the skin on her fingers and toes was wrinkled from being in the dragon's lake of tears for so long. She was also very thirsty.

The dragon offered to carry her to the freshwater stream. He knew the forest well. "You'll get there much faster," he said.

Minli was a little doubtful about riding the dragon. It was one thing to climb on top of him while he was half covered by water, but now on dry land she realized how large he really was. The dragon was long, as long as the street in front of Minli's house. If he stretched himself up on his arms and legs, he was as tall as a bird's nest in a tree, she realized. Even now, bending down for her, he was higher than her house.

But he bent his elbow for her like a step and with two hands, she boosted herself up and then climbed onto his back. The round ball on the dragon's head was the size of a small melon, just big enough for her to wrap two hands around, and she clutched it as the dragon began to move.

It was faster, but not much. The dragon was nimble, but his large body had to constantly maneuver around trees and rocks, so it was awkward going. The constant jerking made Minli feel like she was riding a huge water buffalo. As the dragon ducked underneath branches and swerved through trees, Minli understood why most dragons flew.

"Dragon," Minli asked suddenly, "how old are you?"

"Old?" the dragon said, and again it seemed a question he had never been asked. "I do not know."

"Well," Minli said, "how long have you been in this forest?"

The dragon thought hard. "A long time," he told her. "I remember when a bird flew from the sky and dropped a peach pit onto the ground. I watched that pit grow into a tree and the peaches fell from the tree and more trees grew from the pits of those peaches until it became the grove of peach trees that the monkeys have now taken over."

He is very old, Minli thought to herself, imagining the growth of the trees. Minli thought to herself, imagining the growth of the trees. Dragon must have been in this forest for a hundred years. Dragon must have been in this forest for a hundred years. And she felt a pang of pity as she imagined the dragon, alone, unable to fly, endlessly struggling between trees and branches. And she felt a pang of pity as she imagined the dragon, alone, unable to fly, endlessly struggling between trees and branches.

After picking up her things and drinking at the freshwater stream, Minli climbed back onto the dragon's back. She soon fell asleep, her head on the dragon's ball and her hand holding her rice bowl. Noticing she was asleep, the dragon moved slowly and quietly, even when the water from Minli's compa.s.s splashed and trickled down his nose.

It was only when a loud shrieking filled the forest that Minli woke. It was such a wild and harsh noise that she bolted up, her eyes wide open in fear.

"Do not worry," the dragon told her, "it is just the monkeys."

And it was the monkeys - even though the sun was dimming, Minli could still see the monkeys clamoring in the trees. Even though Minli could not count that many of them, their screaming made it sound as if there were thousands.

"We are getting close to the peach trees," the dragon told Minli, "and they are getting angry."

"Stop here," Minli said. She climbed off the dragon's back and she could still see the monkeys through leaves and branches, their bared teeth flashing.

"Those peach trees are exactly the direction we want to go," Minli said. "We have to get past the monkeys."

"I could still force my way through, but the monkeys would attack you," Dragon said. "I am not sure if we could get you through unharmed. Listen to them."

And the monkeys continued to scream. Minli covered her ears with her hands, but she could still hear them. It seemed like they were screeching, "Get away from here!! Ours! Ours! All ours!"

"You're right," Minli told the dragon. "They are not going to let us through."

"But you said that is the way to the Old Man of the Moon, though," said the dragon. "Correct?"

Minli nodded. The monkeys' shrieks were starting to sound like hysterical laughter, getting louder and louder like a volcano about to erupt. She looked from side to side but the monkeys seemed to be everywhere. There was no way around them.

"Then," the dragon asked, "what are we going to do?"

CHAPTER 14.

Minli and the dragon had sat in the clearing and made camp for the night. As the sun fell and the moon rose, the dragon showed her how he could make sparks by scratching his claws against a stone and they built a small campfire. As Minli and the dragon made no moves to go farther into the forest, the monkeys had quieted down. But they still watched.

"There are plenty of peaches for all," Dragon said. "Those monkeys do not have to be so greedy."

"Really?" Minli asked.

"Yes," Dragon said, "the monkeys are so foolish. They just want more and more even when they do not need it. I have seen them refuse to let go of rotten mushrooms and fight over piles of mud."

At those words, Minli sat up and her eyes flashed with quick thinking. Piles of mud. Suddenly, Minli remembered the two children fighting over their piles of mud as she had left her village. Instead of going inside for dinner, the children had clung to their pretend dishes of dirt. They were so foolish. Could the monkeys be that foolish? They were too selfish for trading or bribes. But maybe they were so greedy that they could be foolish enough to be tricked? Maybe if she... "I'm going to make rice," Minli said abruptly.

"Oh," the dragon said, "you must be hungry. Too bad we cannot get you some peaches."