Tiger's Quest by Colleen Houck Read Free Book Online Page A

meet you too.”
    Li dipped his finger into a simmering pot, and she picked up a wooden spoon and smacked him lightly across the knuckles. Then she chastised him in Mandarin.
    He laughed while she clucked her tongue fondly. “See you later, Grandma.” I caught her smiling proudly at him as we turned the corner.
    I followed him to the dining room. All the furniture had been moved to the side to make space for the large dining table, which had been extended with four leaves. Huddled around the table was a group of Asian boys who were having a heated discussion about the placement of tiles on the game board. Li walked me over to the group.
    “Hey, guys. This is Kelsey. She’s going to be playing with us tonight.”
    One guy waggled his eyebrows, “Alright, Li!”
    “No wonder he took so long.”
    “You’re lucky that Wen bought the expansion kit.”
    There were other various mutterings and some chair shifting. I thought I caught one quiet comment about bringing a girl to the party, but I couldn’t tell who was talking. After a few moments, everybody settled down to begin the game.
    Li sat next to me and guided me through the game process. At first, I never knew if it was a wise decision to trade wheat for brick or ore for sheep, but I could always look to Li for help. After a few turns, I started to feel confident enough to hold my own. I changed two of my settlements for cities, and all the boys groaned.
    Near the end of the game, it was obvious that the final point was going to be a race between a boy named Shen and me. He ribbed me good-naturedly about how he was so close that I’d never make it. I put down a sheep, an ore, and a wheat and bought a development card. It was a bonus point, the last one of the game.
    “I win!”
    The boys grumbled about beginner’s luck and made a big show of counting all my points one more time just to make sure my count was accurate. I was surprised to learn that hours had gone by. My stomach growled to remind me.
    Li stood up and stretched. “Time to eat.”
    His grandmother had set out a delicious buffet for us. The boys piled their plates full of fried rice, pot stickers, steamed pork dumplings, vegetable stir fry, and miniature shrimp egg rolls. Li grabbed sodas for both of us, and we sat down in the living room.
    He expertly picked up his pork dumpling with chopsticks, and said, “So tell me about you, Kelsey. Something besides wushu. What did you do this summer?”
    “Oh, that. I umm . . . worked in India as an intern.”
    “Wow! That’s amazing! What did you do?”
    “Mostly cataloging and keeping records of ruins, art, and historical stuff. What about you? What did
you
do this summer?” I turned the question on him, eager to get the spotlight off of India.
    “I worked for Grandfather in the studio mostly. I’m trying to save up for medical school. I got my undergraduate degree from PSU in biology.”
    I quickly did the math, which didn’t seem to add up. “How old are you, Li?”
    He grinned. “Twenty-two. I took a lot of classes and went to summer school too. Actually, all the gamers are in college. Meii is majoring in chemistry, Shen is studying computer engineering, Wen has graduated and is working on his master’s in statistical analysis, and then there’s me in medicine.”
    “You guys sure are . . . goal-oriented.”
    “What about you? What’s your major, Kelsey?”
    “International studies with a minor in art history. Right now I’m studying India,” I said, popping another dumpling in my mouth. “But maybe I should switch to wushu to get rid of all these calories.”
    Li laughed and took my plate. We wandered back to the game room, and I stopped to look at a picture of Li and his grandfather Chuck. They were holding three trophies each.
    “Wow, so the studio won all of those?”
    Li peered at the picture and flushed. “No, those are all mine. I won them in a martial arts tournament.”
    I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “I didn’t know you