by Tom Nicoll
“Yeah?” I said, too absorbed in the story to bother looking down.
“What you reading?” said a childish voice.
“Oh, it’s the latest issue of Slug Man,” I replied.
“Any good?” asked the voice, which sounded like it had a Chinese accent.
“It’s amazing,” I said. “He’s about to fight his arch-enemy, The Salt Shaker.”
“Cool. I love comics. I mean, I haven’t actually read any, but they look awesome.”
“Help yourself,” I said, still not taking my eyes off the page but pointing towards the pile at the side of my bed.
“Don’t mind if I do. Thanks!”
“No worries,” I said.
I continued to read for a few seconds more, before it finally dawned on me. Slowly, I lowered the comic and looked towards the end of my bed.
Sitting there, reading a Captain Bin-Man comic with his dragon-like claws, was the dragon toy from the beansprout box.
Two things were clear to me:
The toy dragon was not a toy.
Whoever makes Panda Cottage’s fortune cookies had really raised their game this time.
COPYRIGHT
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2016
Text copyright © Tom Nicoll, 2016
Illustrations copyright © Sarah Horne, 2016
Author photograph © Kaye Nicoll, 2016
eSBN: 978-1-84715-746-1
The rights of Tom Nicoll and Sarah Horne to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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