Chapter 5

5 Quinn and her friends left the Beat Badgers to their dance party and flew deeper into the forest. They weaved through the tree trunks, swooping under fallen logs and over smaller shrubs. "We've found the violin already!" Aisha called in a singsong voice. "Should we take it straight

back to the vault?" Quinn shook her head as she swerved around an especially big tree trunk. "We need to find the strings and the bow first. If we return the violin like this, I have a feeling it won't have the same power." "That sounds right," Mei called from behind, zigzagging her way closer to Quinn. "It's like a car without an engine. Maybe we can just replace those parts, though?" Quinn scrunched up her snout. "I don't suppose there are any music shops around here!" she joked. While they were flying, Quinn had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched. They were in a part of the forest where the trees grew densely. Not much sunlight made it through the trees, so it was hard to see and even harder to weave between the tall trunks. But every now and again, from the corner of her eye, Quinn thought she saw something move.

And now the buzzing, staticky sound she had heard when she first arrived was back. It was getting louder, too. "Be careful," she called softly to Mei and Aisha, who flew alongside her. "I think there might be Shadow Spr—!" Before she could finish, a gray shape whooshed across her face and pulled the rest of her sentence right out of her mouth!

"Hey! Stop th—" she started to say, but once again, a Shadow Sprite darted over and tugged her words away. Her heart began to pound, and it wasn't from the flying. The Shadow Sprites were stealing her voice! She looked over at her friends to see if they had seen what happened. She could tell from their wide eyes that they had. The Dragon Girls flew closer to one another, keeping up their speed and speaking in the faintest of whispers. "If we stay quiet," Mei said, "then they can't steal our words." Aisha made a face. "I guess so, at least until we figure out a way to beat them." Quinn nodded as she tilted to one side to get through a narrow gap between two trees. She hated having her words snatched out of her mouth! It was better if she kept her words inside, where they were safe. She felt something wispy and shadowy brush past her.

That's right, Dragon Girl. Just stay quiet. No one wants to hear you anyway! Suddenly, Quinn stopped feeling scared. Now she just felt really, really mad! Sure, Quinn was the quietest of the Treasure Dragon Girls. And sure, she was shy to speak up or perform on her own in front of others. But when Quinn had something to say, it was important. She deserved to be loud when she wanted to be! That was why she had chosen the trumpet as her instrument. It was her way of speaking up. And in the Magic Forest, her roar was like her built-in trumpet. She loved how it felt when she filled the air with the sound of roaring. She loved knowing that creatures for miles and miles could hear her. Roaring was her way of letting everyone know that although she was quiet, she could be really, really loud when it was important to be really, really loud. There was no way that she was going to let some awful Shadow Sprites silence her!

Quinn turned to her friends and mouthed, "On the count of three, let's roar our loudest roars." Mei frowned and mouthed back, "Is that a good idea? Isn't that what the sprites want us to do, so they can steal our roars?" "Maybe," Quinn mouthed. "But they are just puny shadows. We are dragons! If we all roar together, we'll blast them away." Huge grins appeared on Mei's and Aisha's faces as they continued to speed through the forest. They were ready for action! "One, two, three…" The Dragon Girls roared so loudly that the leaves on the trees blew back with the force. The group roar filled the air, and the sky lit up with streaks of ruby red, sapphire blue, and jade green. Caught up in the middle of the swirling colors were gray smears of shadow, tumbling over and over like lost socks in a whirlpool. The shadows got smaller and smaller until they disappeared completely. Quinn felt like she could roar forever.