The Lost Dragon

 Jackhammers pounded the sidewalk. The city workers had taken down most of the China Gate. I scanned the flatbed trailer for the lion statues but noticed only the golden pagoda arch.

“Where are they?” Kyle asked.

I ventured near the barricade for a closer look, but a worker in an orange vest waved me off.

“You’ll have to take a detour,” she said. “The street’s closed for the morning.”

“What happened to the stone lions?”

“Oh, we’ve already taken them to storage.”

Before I could find out where, the worker hurried into the street and directed traffic away from the construction site. Our only way of sending Zhu home was heading to a warehouse. I jogged to Kyle.

“They took the statues to storage. I say we follow the flatbed trailer when they take the arch away.”

Kyle glanced over his shoulder. “How long do you think we’ll have before Animal Control finds us?”

“I don’t know.”

Zhu asked, “What will they do if they find me?”

“They’re not going to catch you,” I said, glancing at the darkening clouds overhead.

Kyle grabbed my arm. “Do we need the China Gate stone lions or will any Chinese statue work?”

“I don’t know. Do you know where we might find another stone lion?”

He shook his head. “No, but I’ll bet we could find out there.” He pointed down the street at the downtown library.

I beamed. “Great idea.”

He tapped his skull. “Not just a place to hang baseball caps.”

We sprinted to the library. I didn’t know how to find the information we needed, but I was pretty sure the librarians would know. I found one wearing a black T-shirt with “Information Ninja” on the front.

“Hi, can you help us? We’re trying to find Chinese lions in Edmonton. ”

The young man smiled at me, “Sure, let’s see what we can find.” He led us to a computer terminal and typed at the keyboard. The screen brought up an image of lions at the China Gate.

Kyle shook his head. “We know about those ones.”

“Hmm. I remember a magazine article from a few months ago. Let me see if I can locate it.” He headed upstairs. Newspapers hung from wooden racks and magazines filled the shelves along the back wall. The librarian scanned the shelves and grabbed a magazine. He flipped to the middle.

“Ah, yes. I was right. The Chinese Garden has stone lions.”

Kyle cocked his head to one side. “Where is that?”

“In the river valley. About three blocks from here. I’ll give you the directions.”

I grinned. “Thanks.”

The librarian wrote down the directions on a slip of paper. I thanked him and headed out of the building. I skidded to a halt at the doorway. The Animal Control van rolled down the street. They had found us.