Chapter 7

7 The Book Butterflies began to beat their wings. The leaves rustled, filling the air with their papery smell. The mixed-up letters on the tree started to quiver. Then, one by one, they peeled off the leaves and the branches. Suddenly the sky was full

of strange letters—a whole book's worth! The letters quivered in the air. The Book Butterflies looked puzzled. "The words should have settled on the pages of The Forest Book. They must have a spell on them!" said the red butterfly. "Of course! That's why we can't read the writing!" exclaimed the blue butterfly. Mei and her friends studied the mysterious letters hanging in the air above them. Mei was

desperate to undo the spell so she could read all the Magic Forest's secrets. Usually reading was the last thing Mei wanted to do. But she wanted to read this book more than anything in the world! Mom would be proud, she thought. Mei flapped her wings and rose into the air. She reached out and touched the strange letters. They swayed like branches in the wind. Mei started rearranging the letters closest to her, turning them the right way up and trying them in a different order to make words. It was fun, hovering in the air and rearranging letters. Like playing Scrabble, but in the sky! Soon the three Dragon Girls were flying around, calling out ideas and bumping into one another to reach different letters. But whenever they switched around the order of the letters—or turned them the right way up—the letters simply jumped back to where they'd been. Mei was feeling very frustrated. "Argh!" she roared, letting out a puff of ruby-colored smoke

and flopping onto the grass below for a break. "It's no good." "Look!" Quinn gasped. The word FOREST hung in the air. "You did that!" Aisha whooped. "I did?" Mei was confused. "Well, your roar did," Quinn explained. "When that puff of smoke touched the letters, they changed."

"Quick, do it again!" Aisha said, her brown eyes flashing. Mei shot into the air, fizzing with energy again. She took a deep breath and roared loudly. Sure enough, when her ruby smoke flowed across the letters, they moved around into words she could read: Welcome to The Forest Book! Come, my reader, please take a look. Inside are all our secrets true… But the rest of the words were still enchanted. This was going to take a lot of roaring if each roar only worked on a few lines! Unless… "Guys, what if it's not my roar that breaks the spell," Mei said to her friends. "But rather, our roars that do? On the count of three, let's do our biggest roars ever. Okay?" Aisha and Quinn nodded, as Mei shouted, "One, two, THREE!" The Treasure Dragons rose high into the air and roared as one. The sound was so powerful, it

swayed the trees and made the air shimmer. Red, green, and blue flames swirled in a glorious twist of light that got brighter as it spun closer to Mei. Then… Wham! The wall of light and sound slammed against Mei, knocking her sideways. Suddenly, she was spinning through the air. She couldn't tell up from down. What is happening? Where are the others? Mei tried to open her eyes, but the flashes of light blinded her. Her vision cleared just in time to see The Forest Book… tumbling through the air! Mei reached out to grab it, but instead crashed into the tree at the edge of the cliff. Mei was dizzy from the crash, and her wings felt all crumpled. Then she saw something terrible: The Forest Book was tumbling over the cliff's edge. There's a river down there! There was NO WAY she was going to let the book be destroyed. Mei flapped with all her might and rose into the air. The Forest Book had already disappeared from