The Palisadian-Post is running a selection of winning pieces from the 2022 Pacific Palisades Library Association’s Summer Creative Writing Contest, which featured the theme “Bouncing Back.” The following piece was penned by Ella, who was awarded first place in the third and fourth grade Jotters category.

‘Dragon Island’

After ten long days from the departure of Nigiri Press port, the captain started having trouble steering the ship as it collided with a powerful storm. He knew he was about to lose control and yelled to the girls, “jump overboard”. Splish, splash, splink, they all jumped in the cold salty water.

“Brr”, said Harper, “the water is cold”.

“I think I see an island ahead!” yelled Kira as she tiredly raised her hand to point to the speck of land she saw ahead. The girls gathered the little energy they had left and pushed themselves to keep going. After some time, they finally reached land. They could see lush green forests and the ocean looked sapphire blue against the white sand. As they started exploring, they noticed catastrophic prints in the soft green mossy ground. No known being could make such large prints.

“Ahh” yelled Zoe. Standing there was a ten-foot dragon with big red wings and a spiky midnight black tail.

“Guys, run!” yelled Kira. Crack, crunch, creek, the twigs and leaves went as they ran over the ground. The girls ran for their lives and quickly found themselves in a sunny field of pink flowers.

“Why isn’t it chasing us into this field?” asked Harper.

“Maybe it calmed down.” suggested Zoe.

“Skraffff” roared the dragon, as it stood on the edge of the field, not daring to come any closer.

“I just think it doesn’t like these flowers” exclaimed Kira.

The girls walked to the center of the field and dropped unconscious to the ground and fell fast asleep. When they woke up, it was midnight, the dragon was asleep. They knew it was their only chance to look for food. They snuck out of the field and found a crackling stream where they got to work trying to catch fish with their hands. The adventure was a success, each girl caught five halibut. As they snuck back into the field, they each left one fish near the dragon.

As the dragon roared a cute little yawn, it smelled the fresh fish next to itself and got excited. The girls carefully walked over encouraging it to eat. It nuzzled each girl and before they knew it the fish were gone, and a new friend was made.

Over the next five weeks the girls set to work on building three different tree houses to call their own.

“Bravo my friends,” said Kira.

“Our houses are finished” they chanted all together.

Zoe’s house was raw and rough, she went with a natural look. Harper’s house was emerald green and very smooth from being sanded with leaves. Kira’s house was bright pink, she used rose petals to color and sand her new house.

Time passed and the girls became great friends with their new dragon. They learned to ride it and play with it on the beach. But trouble was brewing, the dragon’s scales were getting duller, and it was getting weaker. Out of concern the girls started to investigate what was causing their friend to become sick. They found green gunk at the edge of the dragon’s water hole and Kira knew exactly what it was, it was ‘sprouts’, a freshwater poison molecule that usually comes from the waste products of sushi factories. Kira had completed a science project on this topic in her grade 3 class.

“The only way to get rid of sprouts is to get rid of their source.” Kira explained.

The girls decided to take turns riding the dragon to investigate the source of the poison. On the third day Zoe discovered the famous “Papa Nigiri” factory located on the north beach of Nigiri island, where she saw big barrels filled with fish waste ready to be dumped into the ocean.

Determined to stop the evil sushi chef from continuing to poison the water the girls came up with a plan. In the middle of the night Harper, Kira and Zoe were flown by their dragon friend to the city center of Nigiri Island. They snuck into the mayor’s house and left a message on his desk explaining what the evil sushi chef had been doing. They provided direction to where the barrels of waste were hidden and explained the harm that the poison was doing to all the animals on the surrounding island.

After a week of waiting, they finally noticed a big blue and yellow sign that said “closed permanently” on the factory doors. The chef had been arrested the day before and would never make another piece of sushi again. The girls cheered with happiness, the poisoning of the water had stopped, and the dragon’s health was bouncing back.

Time had come for the girls to head back home. After they packed up their things and strapped them to their friend’s back, they each whispered instructions into its large ears. They had agreed to come back to the island each summer to spend time together with their new special and secret friend.