Chapter 4. Nutmeg Kake
The next morning, the four Dragons still-in-training lined up before the temple entrance to meet their new student.
"Where d'you reckon he'll be from?" Clay asked aloud.
"Probably Australia," Kimiko said flatly.
"Why Australia?"
"Because we already have someone from every other continent except Antarctica and Australia."
"Uh, what about, like, Europe and Africa?" asked Raimundo.
Kimiko shifted her weight. She'd forgotten that Europe and Asia were considered different continents.
"Well, I kind of counted Jermaine as Africa."
"Jermaine was from New York City," Omi reminded her, a little puzzled. "Jermaine's great, great, great grandparents were probably from New York City!"
"Oh, never mind," Kimiko sighed. Then, she added after a thought, "Maybe he will be a she?"
"Just what we need," Raimundo whined. "Another annoying girl hogging the bathroom."
"Hi there!" a voice suddenly piped up. "Are you Clay, Kimiko, Raimundo, and Omi?"
The Dragons looked down at an exciting little girl standing before them.
"How did you…?" Raimundo began to wonder, as none of them had seen her approach.
"I'm Meg," she said, holding out her hand to shake with Omi.
"Hello, Meg. Pleased to meet you. May I comment on your hair?"
"You certainly may!"
"I find it most bewildering!"
Meg, nearly thirteen years old, had bright red dreadlocks sprouting in all directions. She was between Kimiko and Rai in height, but she had a strong build. She wore a pair of bright green goggles with a black X in each eye up on her forehead to keep her dreads out of her face. She had a yellow short-sleeve shirt with random, light blue stripes flying across it in every direction. A pair of solid gray Capri's lasted until her knees before revealing bright, blue and orange striped stockings with yellow, black, and white sneakers. If one could pry one's eyes from her clothing, Meg was a cute kid, if not a little bit over-active.
"Thank you," Meg chimed back.
To make an uninteresting series of introductions short, Meg was off bouncing about the temple in her spring-loaded sneakers in a matter of minutes. The four monks followed her, a bit hesitantly, in an attempt to offer her a tour of the temple.
"Um, perhaps you would like us to show you around?" Omi suggested, scurrying after her in vain as she hopped freely from place to place.
"Oh, no, but thanks anyway," Meg replied. "I think I can find my way around," she said as she took an extra tall bounce straight into the air and got a view of the temple rooftops.
"Well, then, maybe we should go meet Master Fung?" Omi tried.
"Now, wait up, Omi," Raimundo interrupted. "We're the Xiaolin Masters now! Master Fung said he wasn't going to intervene."
"Yes, you are quite right, Raimundo," Omi said with a sharp now. "Meg Kate, come down here, please. I am the leader here, so I think we should begin by…"
"What? Who made you the leader?" Kimiko interrupted.
"Why, I have always been the leader," Omi explained flatly. "I am the most skilled, of course."
"I thought we were all supposed to be of equal skill, Omi, now that we're Dragons," Rai replied with his usual attitude.
To not even Meg's surprise, an argument broke out among the four dragons.
Meg stood by and watched for a moment with a small, silly grin, amused by the evident incompatibility of her new masters.
"But we don't even know her skill level yet!"
"We don't even know what her element is!"
"There are no other elements! Duh!"
"Stop it! Listen to me! I know what we should do!"
"You don't know anything! You can't even speak straight!"
"No offence, but I don't think you're exactly the right personality to train a new, impressionable monk."
"How're the four of us supposed to train one little monk?"
"Amazingly well!"
And so fourth.
Eventually, Meg piped up once she felt the bickering had gone on long enough.
"Excuse me, Monkie Masters!" she sang out. "They sent me a schedule, you know! You don't have to figure out any of that stuff!"
Meg held up a sheet of blue paper with what looked vaguely like a school schedule printed on it. The four Dragons fell silent and, after a short pause to pass glances around, Clay approached Meg to inspect her weekly routine.
Sunday- Training with Omi
Monday- Training with Kimiko
Tuesday- Training with Clay
Wednesday- Training with Raimundo
Thursday- Training with Omi and Clay
Friday- Training with Kimiko and Raimundo
Saturday- Training with All Four
So, because it was Wednesday, it was Raimundo's duty to break the ice and start Meg off at the temple. In the meantime, the others sat to the side to watch and silently scrutinize, naturally.
"Do I have to wear those funny bathrobes you guys wear?" Meg asked not long after she and Rai entered the training yard.
"Yeah, eventually," Rai replied casually. "Now, just so we're not teaching you old tricks, I want you to tell me everything you already know."
Meg cocked her head to the side.
"Okay. In 1898, the Boxer Rebellion in Beijing led to the Boxer Protocol, which allowed ruling European powers to maintain a military within their sphere of influence in China, which ended up bringing about reforms in the early 20th century around World War One…"
"Whoa, whoa, hold up," Rai stopped her. "I meant, like, everything you know about fighting, girl, not the history of China! What did you learn before you came here?"
Meg rolled her head back in a long 'Oooh' of comprehension.
"Well," she said briskly, "I never exactly learned any of your Old School Martial Art Techniques, or anything like that. What I did…well, it's hard to explain…I'm kind of self-taught..."
"Just show me, then," said Rai, taking on a prepared stance with his hands up. "Go on, try to hit me."
Meg giggled and started to bounce a little on her wild sneakers.
"Okie Dokie! You asked for it!"
She jumped straight up build some energy and called out something the others didn't quite understand. Then, before Rai knew what had happened, Meg hit the ground and shot off like a loose rubber ball. She ricocheted off pillars, off walls, off a tree, and was soon zipping around so quickly that she knocked a shingle off a roof that no one realized she'd even gone near. She was literally just a streak of bright red, green, yellow, blue, and orange. And, just like a rampant rubber ball, she went flying straight at Rai and knocked him to the ground by curling up and hurling into his gut.
"My kidneys!" Rai moaned, incapacitated on the ground for a brief moment.
"That was out of control!" Kimiko exclaimed from the sidelines. "How did you do that?"
"She was whippin' aroun' like a horse's tail in swarm of flies!" Clay added.
Meg shrugged and giggled, kicking back one heel. She had come to a remarkably sudden stop after zipping around like a pinball.
"It's my element," she said secretively.
"What's your element? The power of A.D.H.D?" Rai asked, irritated, as he got back to his feet.
"Nope! Guess again!"
The monks sighed, each feeling a little degraded by the prospect.
"As much as you clearly want to play games," Omi began, "I think it would be better if you just told us your element as so we can get along with your training sooner."
Meg sighed and put her weight on one hip, but she still seemed quite amused.
"Aw, shucks, you guys! We've got all the time in the world. We aren't exactly in a rush."
"You'd be surprised at how often our moving quickly has determined the fate of the planet," Rai said with thick sarcasm. "But, I know what you mean. I remember when we used to think that way."
Kimiko laughed a little.
"Yeah, remember the time we used the Shard of Lightning to pause time so we could get all our chores done in, like, three seconds?"
Kim suddenly snapped her fingers in realization.
"Oh, Meg! You must have the element of Light!" she exclaimed.
Meg snapped her fingers back and pointed at Kim with a broad grin.
"Dead on! Super smat!"
Omi titled his head in wonder at this new slang.
"What is this "smat" you mention?" he asked.
"Oh, I collect slang and accents from all over the world," Meg explained. "Smat means Smart in Boston."
"Oh boy," Clay muttered. "Now Omi can rip up sayings from all over the place!"
Because they presently decided that it really wasn't necessary for Meg to begin training that day, the five were about to take some time off to just get to know Meg. However, Dojo the real dragon appeared in the knick of bad timing to tell them another Shen Gong Wu had revealed itself.
"Ooh, a Geico© Gecko!" Meg laughed when she saw Dojo.
Dojo stared blankly for a moment.
"That's a new one." He quickly promptly to the Wu at hand. "Hurry up and hop on, kids! You can look at the scroll on the way," Dojo told them as he transformed in a whirl of smoke into a massive dragon. Meg easily bounced up after the others and, as Dojo took to the sky, Kimiko took a moment to voice a certain opinion.
"Dojo, you really can't call us 'kids' anymore. Meg is the only kid here now."
"Hey, I'm just over fifteen hundred years old, and you're just over fifteen! For the rest of your lives, I'll consider you kids," Dojo snapped over his shoulder.
"But, we are Dragons of our elements now," Clay added with a grin. "Technically, we could travel around without Dojo if we wanted to."
"What?" Dojo cried out. "Replace me? You can't replace me! You need me to find the Wu!"
"Actually, Clay's right," said Kimiko. "We could just use technology to detect the Wu, and we could fly there ourselves with our new Xiaolin Dragon abilities."
"Real nice!" Dojo growled, rolling his eyes. "After everything I've done for you little ingrates…"
"But we won't replace you, Dojo," Omi said, patting the dragon's side reassuringly.
"Because we don't want to do all the work of traveling ourselves," added Rai.
Meg, who made Kimiko look tamed and boring in her wildly colorful array and red dreadlocks, was studying the Sacred Scroll in utter confusion.
"So, what does this "Green Thoughts" thingy do?"