Chapter 1 Page 1 excerpt

“Hurry Penny, or you’ll be late.”

Hurry? She had to zoom or become a snack for the hungry dragon. Penny Mason could just barely see over the edge of the giant teacup. She twisted the controls as she piloted the cup around ice cream cones as tall as redwoods. Up ahead Evan swooped and dove on a large white goose.

“Evan, watch your left. He’s banking that way.”

 They raced in front of a giant green and yellow dragon that puffed and blew out streams of bubbles as big as cars. She spun the controls, just missing a big, white feather and picked her next move.

She squeezed through a tight turn around a melting chocolate ice cream cone then swooped low, almost touching the tall grass in the field below.  Her hands sweated on the controls and she wiped them on the oversized, green tee shirt she wore as pajamas. That chocolate cone smelled delicious. The cones stood in a circle above the grassy field and looked so good she wanted to stop and take a lick.

The dragon was losing ground; she could no longer hear the screech of his scales as he flapped his giant wings. She’d easily outrun the beast on her last pass across the field. She veered her teacup hard to the right, away from Evan’s upsweeping left turn. Her thin, porcelain cup rattled in its saucer. The dragon hesitated, confused whether to follow her or Evan. He lost ground on both. Yes!

 “Penny, you have to get up now. It’s past seven-thirty. I’ve already called you twice.”

She caught her breath and shot a quick glance back over her shoulder. She blinked twice but the scene was the same. Mom stood on the back rim of the saucer. How did she stay on? She looked mad. “Uh-oh.”

“OK, Mom, I’m awake.”  How had Mom gotten onto the saucer?

The dragon roared again.  The deep sound rattled the cup in its saucer. Oh, no. The horrid screech-screech of scales scraped on scales. He’s too close. Maybe splitting away from Evan hadn’t worked.

“No, come on, Penny. Open your eyes and tell me how many fingers I’m holding up.”

Mom did this every day. It was her regular trick to get Penny to really wake up. She got out of bed and opened one eye. “Three fingers.” She closed it again. (continued)

LUCKY PENNY
Chapbook for Tweens excerpt page
Authors: Hill Kemp & Siena Kemp
eBook  ISBN 13:978-1-933090-63-4       Print ISBN 13:978-1-933090-87-0

Penny wants to get her friends, Angie and Jen, to like each other. But the problem they had in the third grade keeps them apart. Talking to them, organizing a bike run and finally, trying to win a playground design contest, Penny works hard to get them together. Lucky Penny is Hill Kemp's first book written with his grand daughter. Visit with Hill at www.capitoloffense.com 17,000 words, 88 page- PDF, FLIP, HTML, PRINT

This book is also available in print at Amazon.com.