The final school bell rang with a loud brrriing! Mei immediately raced Leo and her other friends all the way to the edge of the grassy playground. By the tall chain-link fence, a quiet old street vendor waited patiently.
He tipped his frayed bamboo hat forward silently. Reaching through a gap in the fence, the vendor held out a thick, crumbling, gold-painted card. Mei stepped ahead of her friends to accept the mysterious gift.
The very second Mei's fingers brushed the rough paper, a blinding swirl of red sparks exploded into the air. A magical wind scooped everyone up, violently spinning the playground into a blurry vortex of bright colors.
The dizzying, sparkling wind finally faded away to absolute silence. Before them stood a majestic ancient cobblestone bridge, towering over a fast, wildly rushing blue river.
Crash! A gigantic wise dragon angrily uncoiled from the churning river rapids below, its wet emerald scales gleaming against the twilight. "To go home, show me a bridge that cannot fall," the dragon rumbled, heavily shaking the heavy stones.
Leo dashed down to the slippery riverbank and hastily stacked heavy, loose river stones on top of each other. Splat! The forceful rushing water instantly knocked the gray rocks down into the muddy current.
Mei frowned slowly, scuffing her shoe against the slick cobblestones in frustration. She stared directly down at the endlessly rushing water below. Solving an ancient riddle completely on her own definitely was not going to work.
Down below the bridge, two friends tried rapidly weaving stiff green bamboo reeds together over the water. Pop! Snap! The thick reeds shattered instantly under the intense pressure of the violent wind and endless current.
The river continually roared louder, heavily splashing freezing water right onto Mei's dirty sneakers. She examined the shattered green bamboo shards, then looked over at her shivering friends. Mei marched right into the exact center of the huddled group.
"Hold hands!" Mei shouted, fighting over the impossibly loud, howling wind. She tightly hooked onto Leo's sleeve on one side and latched onto the rest of her friends, sharply pulling everyone into a strong human chain.
The giant dragon chuckled, blowing a famously warm, pleasantly cedar-scented gust of air over their deeply intertwined hands. "A strong bridge of friendship," the creature rumbled deeply. The mysterious ancient card inside Mei's pocket immediately erupted in a blinding golden light.
Thump. Mei hit the perfectly familiar schoolyard grass, the dull hum of loud city traffic immediately returning to her ringing ears. She pulled out the card to discover a beautiful new painting of six kids standing shoulder-to-shoulder, and gave Leo a massive, triumphant high-five.
