THE dragon curved from one side of the street to the other, but he still didn't dance.
Gradually his legs started working together. He jumped on one side, then the other. Clang, clang, boom, boom went the cymbals and drum. It was almost a dance. The dragon's long body rippled up and down like bright sunset waves. He bounced back and forth with the drums. His front feet turned to one side, then to the other. He raised his huge head to all the people. He waved his pointed tail in the air. He rolled his huge eyes and showed his huge teeth. His mouth was big enough to swallow the sun. The dragon was dancing.
"Now, isn't that something." Grandma laughed as she bounced back and forth too.
"See, Grandma, see, he's following the sun."
"Sun, hah? That fancy red ball thing that man's holding on a stick is the sun?"
Grandma and I followed the dragon as he wiggled and danced all the way down the block and around the corner. The dragon danced right into a parking lot and stopped. Then out stepped my daddy and Mr. Chu, who owns the grocery store on the corner, and Mr. Johnson, who has the barbershop, and Mr. Feng, who owns the video store, and Mr. Gonzalez, who teaches fifth grade at our school, and Dr. Ito, who fixes my teeth. They all wore yellow satin suits and red socks and athletic shoes. They took out the poles they had used to hold up the dragon.
"The dragon didn't dance together so well at first," I said.
"That's all right, sugar," said Grandma, "they did pretty good for just starting out. It takes a while to learn to dance together."
I ran to Daddy, and he stooped down and hugged me. Grandma came up behind me and smiled at everyone. "Happy New Year," she said. "\o7Gung hay fat choy\f7."
\o7Attend Chinatown's Golden Dragon Parade and Lunar New Year Festival, Feb. 24 and 25 at Old Chinatown Plaza, 930 N. Broadway, Los Angeles. For more information, go to www.chinatownla.com.
\f7
"The Day the Dragon Danced" is a Kids' Reading Room Classic that first appeared Feb. 11-15, 2002. It was published as a book by Shen's Books, in Fremont, Calif., in 2006. It will be on The Times' website at latimes.com/kids.
