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I WOKE UP IN UTAH BY THE IRRITATING SOUND OF A PLANE LANDING. I had red chair marks all over my face. I growled at nothing in particular and sat up. America was uglier than I imagined, I thought as I stared out the foggy window. Bast stretched and yawned. "I was just getting into the heat of the most wonderful dream I've had in centuries." The other passengers stared at her in disbelief and confusion. I glared at them until they went back to their own lives. Bast seemed unaware of anything outside her grooming session which caused even more stares that even my super glare couldn't get rid of.

Bast stood up and turned to me. "Well, Sadie. This is it." She wrapped me in a tight embrace that left me breathless. "Take care, my kitten-I mean, my child." She ran off the plane and lept into the air.

I walked unsteadily down of the accursed plane that had made me dizzy. I stared up at the place where she had vanished. No sign of her. I found myself wandering around the airport aimlessly when I was forced awake by a crisp, business voice that cut into my vague thoughts like a knife.

"Sadie Kane? I am here to escort you to Miss Ruth Diane Dash. Come with me." A tall woman with a clean tight black business outfit, clipboard clutched in her hand and a disapproving glare complete with pursed lips and slanted eyebrows. I followed her to a long, sleek, black limousine parked a few meters away. As I got into the sweet-smelling stretch car, I thought back to my first experience of riding in a limo. It was a few years back on my 13th birthday. My friends and I were being chased by two crazed gods of vultures and baboons who were inhabiting my grandparents. We were saved by a dear friend, Bes, the ugly dwarf god who saved us with the sight of him in a Speedo-which did not improve his image. We escaped in a cramped, absolutely filthy, dirt-encrusted limousine that sank a few minutes later. This limo was quite the opposite, which pleased me. I sat down and sighed, kicking up my feet.

"Um… if you do that, you might ruin the leather."

That was when I noticed the girl sitting next to me.

"Ack!" I jumped 300 feet in the air. O.K., maybe not 300 feet, but enough to hit my poor tender head on the underside of the carpeted roof. [Happy, Carter?]

Her skin was like Carter's, but lighter. She had purple hair with pink highlights much like myself, but a little more extreme. She was wearing a purple sweater decorated with a giant pink and purple six pointed star covering most of her light blue jeans. Her shoes were the ugliest brown a pair of shoes could be. Still, she was fairly pretty. Not as much as myself, of course.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Why-?" I screamed. "What is that?" I pointed to a moving purple and green something inside the girl's bag. She had the dignity to blush.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, while pulling the thing out of her bag. I screamed again. It was-it was-,

"A baby dragon." The girl said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She flushed even more on her dark cheeks. "This is Spike, my assistant librarian."

"Oh, is this the chap that ruined Ruth Diane's letter?" I asked innocently, though I knew the answer.

"Yes," she admitted, blushing even more, if that was possible.

The Spike chap bowed his head in what in thought at first was shame until I realized he was laughing. I rolled my eyes. I would spend the rest of the trip with an overly blushing Hispanic girl I didn't even know her name, and a giggling baby dragon. I sighed. It could be worse, I thought. I could be being chased by a giant bloodthirsty, axe-wielding, maniac of a parakeet.