I Grew My Boobs in China by Savannah Grace

the remaining strap. In one clean, quick motion, I slammed my fists together and heard the click. I couldn’t help but squeal with delight. It was actually just a bit thrilling! Mom is so lucky. If it weren’t for me, she’d have fallen out that window five times over by now, open or not! Safely secured, I checked on Bree, who was being tossed about crazily and laughing out loud. We braced ourselves against the next huge bash before resuming our chatter about the American guy. We’d been watching him bounce wildly around in his bed.
    “How can he possibly sleep?” I whispered to Bree, who was trying desperately not to howl. “I swear he’s going to fall out!”
    We kept a keen eye on Mr. Kent as we rode the road’s tidal waves. In one particularly massive collision, he was abruptly ejected from his bed, just as we’d predicted! His long, blond hair seemed to linger in slow motion in mid-air before he landed with a loud thud. We face-planted our heads into our pillows to stifle snorts of laughter. Stumbling sleepily from the floor, he clambered back into his top bunk, this time finding his belt and securing himself in for the rest of the night.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 11
    A Moment in Time
     
     
     
     
    The mattress beneath me rumbled from the engine as the tires grabbed the dewy pavement. My eyes slowly blinked open. It had to have been about four-thirty in the morning. The sun had not quite risen, but it was gently making itself known. The view was hazy so I drowsily clenched my hands into fists and rubbed my eyes, wrists twisting back and forth. Reopening them, nothing had changed. I was unable to tell if I was awake or still dreaming as my previous world collided with what I saw through the eerie morning fog.
    Images dripping with mystery and wonder flew by. The earth swelled up into monstrous snails that had lain petrified for so long that vegetation had found refuge on their backs. Mist swirled around the base of the lush mounds of earth, wandering magically and timelessly above the fields of rice and around the ankles of water buffalo hauling wooden ploughs. Small silhouettes of men with loose shirts and conical straw hats trailed behind their gentle beasts of burden.
    The night had whisked me into another dimension completely. There was no trace of the city’s technology or machinery here. The land lay undiscovered, as if it were reserved for dinosaurs to nest and graze amidst its beauty. I felt I could dream endlessly in this modern-day time capsule where birds were taking flight, suspended between earth and sky with outstretched wings. This is going to be my very own Never Ending Story, I thought , but if it looks anything like this, I may never want to leave.
    As the sun came up, the silhouettes in the smoky charcoal painting were transformed into a vivid masterpiece etched in brilliant shades of green. Foot trails skipped deviously through the fields. The keepers of this land tromped barefoot through the sticky mud, pant legs rolled up to their knees as the fields of rice began to glow from the reflection in the water pools.
    The beauty of the scene before me caught me completely off guard, and goose bumps worked their way up and down my arms. Till now, I had assumed that my angst about this trip would manifest itself in the form of something terrible or shocking, like the sky falling down on me. Instead, in my half-asleep state, something within me awakened, and I felt the most calming form of peace imaginable. For just an instant, I let go and peered curiously through that doorway of exciting possibilities, but it was one I was not yet ready to step through. I lost it just as quickly as it had appeared, but a tiny seed of joyful anticipation was planted before I fell back to sleep.
     
     

 
     
    Chapter 12
    Reality Check
     
     
     
     
    “Well, so long! And have a good trip,” Kent said as he walked away with what looked like a hint of a limp. As he was swallowed up by the throngs in the