What had Kim been doing these past days since he had moved here, gone to the new school? When he had felt lost and alone he had made it the school’s fault for being too big, too full of strangers, his parents’ fault for moving—everyone’s but his own. No one was going to hunt him out, beg him, Kim Stevens, to be a friend. He could continue to walk in error, believing he was right, as Ma Su had done—or he could follow the path of the Slumbering Dragon.

Chuko had used his wits and taken triumph out of defeat. There were different ways to face the future: like Chuko, like Ma Su. And now he knew which he would try. Suddenly, for a moment or two he was Mu-Ti again, folding his hands together in a way which seemed right and proper, bowing his head respectfully to the yellow dragon.

“A thousand, thousand thanks, Great and Noble One,” he said in the Hong Kong speech he had not used for a long time now. “That you have kindly shown this unworthy one the rightful path is a great honor. May this one continue to walk in it hereafter.” For the second time he bowed to the dragon as Chin Mu-Ti would have done.

Then he took his book bag and started out of the dusky room. How long had he lived in that dream? An hour—two? Mother would be worried. Kim had seen her watching him with that shadow in her eyes these past days. She and Father both had asked him about school, how he liked it. And several times Mother had suggested that he ask home some school friends as he used to bring James Fong and Sam Lewis. He had not known just how to answer without letting her guess how he hated it all. Now, as Chuko Liang had done, he would face fear. And though he did not play the lute or sing in the face of the enemy, he would do what he could.

Kim ran through the dark rooms, climbed out the kitchen window, shutting it behind him. Then he halted on the porch. The puzzle! If someone was coming to clear out the house what about the puzzle? It would be taken away!

Yet he did not want to go back alone to get it. Sig, Ras, and Artie—they all had a part of it. He ought to talk to them first, ask what should be done. Suppose he stopped at Sig’s house, they might still be there—