Sunflower - Gen 1 Ch 5

Rose is such a serious little girl. She is serious when she defeats her brother at chess..

.... and when she plays tag with her dad...

....and especially when she is working on her schoolwork. Raven tries to help her out, but I think she helps him more than he helps her.

Even growing up is serious business for Rose!

Rose wanted a telescope for her birthday more than anything, so we scraped together the money somehow. She spends hours searching for stars. She even discovered a new planet!

Today I got a call from the military base. "Pack our stuff, Sunny! My commander is sending us to China again! Just the two of us!"
"But what about the kids?" I worried.
"They are both teenagers now, I think they are old enough to take care of themselves for a few weeks."
I reluctantly agreed that he was probably right.



This trip we were supposed to research something called "dragon armor." After discreetly asking around, we began our search in the various old ruins. I found some wonderful ancient statues...

... but no dragon armor.

Poor Max ran into some very hot situations..

... which left him gasping for breath. But still no dragon armor. I think the locals may be misleading us.

So Max came up with a new strategy. He would win the trust of his sparring teacher; maybe he could convince her to divulge the information. After a few days of lessons, he arrived at the academy ready to put his plan into action.


But when he returned to the hotel, Max was quiet. "Did you get the information?" I asked. He just shook is head slowly and stared off into space. Finally he started to talk.
"When I arrived at the academy, I heard a loud 'boom.' So I ran upstairs to see what had happened. There was my teacher, lying on the floor, and Death standing over her. No one else was around."

"She..she..turned into a ghost right in front of me. Then she looked at me, really sad-like. She was trying to say something. 'You will find your secret in the spring.' Then she just kind of melted away, into wispy cloud, and disappeared. What does that mean, Sunny? What is my secret? And why do I have to wait until springtime to find it?"
I decided that now was not a good time to remind Max that ghosts didn't talk to people. He was so upset. I convinced him to visit the meditation garden. Maybe a little meditation would help him forget.

Max returned from garden all excited. "I know what the secret is, Sunny! It just came to me while I was meditating! She knew what I was going to ask her; the secret is the dragon armor!"
I must have looked dubious, because he continued, "Don't look at me like that, I'm sure this is real. And the spring isn't the season, it's the hot spring up in the hills, I'm sure of it. We have to go check it out right now, we have to leave tomorrow!" Nothing would do but that we drive up to the hot spring in the middle of the night. I yawned sleepily.

When Max showed me the dragonfish he pulled out of the hot spring, my jaw dropped. How..what...?? Now I was unsure... did that ghost really speak to Max? And was there more to this meditation thing than I realized? Maybe my Max isn't as crazy as everyone thinks.

Now that Max's mission was complete, we could relax a little. It was our last night in China, so we played in the hot springs pool. Max can hold his breath waaay longer than I can!

We relaxed on the lounge chairs.

Then we returned to the hotel. The panoramic view from our balcony was lost on us.

We only had eyes for each other. And we celebrated our success the best way we know how.