But that was the last thing he was going to do! Kim hated this bus ride, he hated this school! He wanted to go back to the old one, where he knew people. The book he held shook a little, but he continued to use it as a screen. At least, while he looked as if he were reading, no one was going to guess how lonely he was each day. Reading made a good cover to hide the fact that he had no one to talk to, anyway.

A book for a screen. Screens—the old people in China had used screens to shut out demons. Sometimes dragons were carved or pictured on them to frighten the demons. He wished he might summon up a real Chinese dragon—the best kind. What would people say if, like a Taoist sorcerer, he came riding to school on one?

Dragons—but how could there be dragons in that old house? Kim thought of the few words he had caught clearly, puzzled over them. An idea sprang into his mind. What if he went there himself to see? But one did not enter an empty house, it was against the law.

Only, this house was going to be torn down soon, maybe even this week. So it was not breaking and entering—or was it? A dragon—dragons—those boys mentioned more than one in the house. Pictures or carvings, or maybe a screen. He had heard that the man who once lived there had traveled all over the world. It could well be that he had brought dragon pictures back from the East. And Kim wanted to know—he had to know!

Kim noted that when the bus let them off at the school Artie made no move to hurry away to where Greg Ross and his friends stood arguing over Saturday’s game. Rather, he stayed with Sig and the boy who called himself Ras, all three of them still talking excitedly together. Also, when they were able to ask for library passes in the homeroom period, Kim was not the only one who put up his hand. The three did the same for the first time he could remember.

He watched them in the library, as well as he could when he thought they would not guess that he was doing so. Sig and Ras appeared to know what they wanted. But Artie hesitated and then asked a question of the librarian. She seemed a little surprised and went to the catalog to turn over cards, leaving the drawer open a fraction when she went on to the shelves to pick out a book.