The First Page
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From The Dragon in Cripple Creek, CO
Harry Abrams / Amulet, Spring 2010
middle grade novel
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Here’s the first page, which is the prologue:
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This is nothing but the truth—I swear it on Ye’s golden snout.
The Washington Post called it a “New American Tall Tale”. It is not a tall tale, like Pecos Bill or Paul Bunyan. They grew out of yarn spinning that passed from jaw to jaw in barrooms or around campfires. This actually happened, and the story’s all mine. (So are its lies, I should add.) As for being new—dragons, gold and greed are as old as the hills. It was greed that triggered the first gold rush. It was greed that triggered the second, though all the reports blame me.
The Kansas City Star dubbed my story a “Western Fairy Tale”. Western I’ll grant, but it’s part Eastern too, and has no fairies, and no one lives happily ever after.
But I’m not telling this to set the journalists straight. You can tell the truth and still not be believed. No, I’m telling it for one reason alone. One person alone. I’m telling it for my mother: if she hears me through her dreams, she’ll know.
—Kat (Katrina) Graham
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Here’s an excerpt:
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Friday night in Cripple Creek, Colorado is a two-step back in time, with rowdies and honky-tonk and amber light spilling into the streets. Throw in a few mobscenities, as my brother, Dillon, puts it, and it becomes the Wild West.
That’s when we checked in. The Empire Hotel had vacancies, though you wouldn’t know it by the human logjam in the lobby. We’d been on the road since heaven knows what hellish hour, after slouching (as opposed to sleeping) in the car at a restless (as opposed to rest) stop, right in the middle of truckers’ night out.
While Dillon and Dad were waiting in line, I crouched behind a couch in the lounge, shaking a pair of dice. They were my own pair of dice, and came in handy at times like these.
Handy, as in small cash gain.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!” I murmured. I murmured it seriously enough for it to sound real, as though the roll would be strictly chance. “Seven! Seven … c’mon …”
I tossed the dice across the red and gold carpet and against the base trim of the wall. One was a six—I expected that. The other—
Yes! A one. I grinned at the kid next to me, who was down on his knees by my side. And down on his luck. So far, I had collected three dollars from him—two ones, two quarters, four dimes and a nickel—OK, he was a nickel short, but I had let it slide.
I stuck out my hand, palm up.
“I only have a five,” he said. “I’m not giving you that.”
“You will.”
It was his turn to roll. But first, he popped up to peer over the couch he’d been sitting on some moments before, looking fitful and bored. Not one to miss an opportunity, I had approached him and grinned, flashing my gold-capped tooth. “Got any money?”
“What’s it to you?” he’d said, his eyes round as nickels.
I showed him my dice and explained the rules. “I call and roll—if I call it right, you pay me a dollar. You call and roll—if you call it wrong, you pay me a dollar.”
“So, no matter what,” he said, protruding his lower lip, “I pay you a dollar.”
“Let me finish. If I call it wrong, you keep your dollar. If you call it right—”
“You give me a dollar!”
“OK,” I said, cooperatively. “Fair enough.”
The game was going well.
“All clear,” he said, dropping back behind the couch. He cupped the dice loosely. “C’mon! Twelve … twelve …” He rolled … there was the six—
There was another six. “Twelve!” he said, and I wondered if he was catching on.
“All right,” I told him. I pulled out the coins he’d given me and let them fall through my fingers.
“Hey,” he whined, picking them up.
“This is what you gave me for a dollar. Ninety-five cents.”
He blinked at me.
“I’m being generous,” I went on. “You still owe me a dollar. A whole dollar.”
He slumped, resigned to the deal.
My turn. So far, it was working better than I’d thought. I could always, or nearly always, count on one die coming up a six. All I had to do was guess on the other one. More often than not, I got it right. How long it took for my opponent to suspect was the only risk involved.
That and Dad catching me.
“Nine,” I said confidently, and rolled.
Eight. A six and a two.
“Ha!” said the kid, and stuck out his hand.
“Nope. You keep your dollar, remember?”
He frowned, cocking his head.
“Hurry,” I said. “We don’t have all night.”
He snatched up the dice, pretended to spit on them, and said, “Four!”
I smiled to myself: so he wasn’t catching on after all. He rolled. Four it was: two twos. Leaning over, I adjusted my glasses and inspected the dice.
“It was a four!” he challenged. “Like I said!”
“I know.” I spun one die around—the black spot was still intact. I fingered the other one …
“Hand it over,” he said, his nostrils flaring.
“Now we’re even,” I explained. “You owed me one.”
His frown returned. Doubt was ticking away in his head. Maybe I’d underestimated him. Maybe it was time to quit. I picked up the dice and plunged them into my pocket. I felt the money there. I’d never make godzillions at this game, but two dollars were better than nothing.
And I knew what nothing was.
The kid finally said, “How do the rules go?”
As luck would have it, Dad called out my name. I jumped up. He and Dillon were standing beyond a spittoon and some potted ferns. Dad hadn’t seen me yet, but Dillon had, good brother. He doesn’t miss a thing.
“Kat,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The kid said to me, “Wait a minute!”
“Here, Dad!” I said, scrambling over the couch.
“Wait! It’s not fair!” The kid started pulling my shoe, the one with the floppy sole.
Dad looked in our direction. A few hotel guests looked in our direction. A walrus of a woman draped in fur and holding a little dog looked in our direction.
“Lucas!” she bellowed.
Lucas—no wonder he hadn’t told me his name—let go of my shoe. I tumbled off the couch, got to my feet and, with Lucas trotting behind, went to Dillon and Dad.
Lucas went to the woman, who apparently was his mom, and said, “I gave her some money to fix her old shoe.”
“What!” I blurted.
The woman patted his head. “Good boy!” To us she said proudly, “He’ll make a great philanthropist.”
“He’ll make a great liar,” I said, tugging Dad’s arm for us to go. The woman blinked at me from behind her tortoiseshell glasses, uncomprehending, while her silky little dog, who wore a gold and jeweled collar that read, “Duchess”, yip-yipped.
“Katrina,” said Dad, as he headed us toward the stairs, “what were you doing behind that couch?”
“I know what she was doing,” said Dillon.
I glared arrows and other projectiles at him.
“Did he give you money?” asked Dad.
“Not exactly.”
“Katrina, we’re not beggars. We’re not subject to charity—”
“Somebody’s got to make money in this family, haven’t they?” I said it loud enough to put Dad on the spot, which wasn’t difficult, considering he’d been developing a complex for a long, long time, and considering several ears were aimed our direction.
“Hush!” he said.
Up the stairs we went.