The Three Wishes
Diocesan Girls’ Junior School, Chong Yan Ying, Fiction: Group 2
A
s the luminous sun beat down mercilessly on the Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi Desert,
the hills seemed to shoot blood-red flames into the sky. Three weary travellers, Tyler,
Ho and Wang trudged down the slopes of the famous archaeological site and into
its crimson basin. Tyler was a famous American archaeologist, Ho was a Beijing
paleontologist and Wang was a local Gobi Desert guide. They kept walking until they arrived
at their destination when suddenly, Wang stumbled onto two cracked, round and sun-scorched
objects. Wang wondered, “What are these?” as she bent down to scrape away the crust around the
eggs. When she had finished digging, she gasped and her eyes became as round as saucers. They
were two dinosaur eggs! Without a second thought, she cradled the precious eggs in her arms and
sprinted towards Tyler and Ho. “Look, I’ve-,” However, it was too late – Wang had tripped over a
rock and fallen down. She almost got a heart attack when she saw that the two eggs had shattered
into a million pieces. When Tyler and Ho rushed over to help her, Wang sobbed and told them the
whole story as they listened with horrified expressions. Although the scientists were angry with
Wang for being clumsy, they still tried to comfort her. Afterwards, they settled onto a flat piece
of sandstone, and the sultry air and the lullaby of the nearby sand dunes made them as drowsy as
drunken people.
Just as the three were about to doze off, a shroud of mist enveloped them and a chilling
wind blew. Out of the mist, two figures loomed above them. Instantly, Tyler and Ho grabbed
their guns and Wang grasped her walking stick. “Who-Who are you? Wh-What do you want?”
Although Tyler was a brave man, this scared him to the bone. “I told you, Yu, this wasn’t a good
way to introduce ourselves,” a lady-like voice muttered. The mist cleared and floating above the
fragments of the dinosaur eggs were two dinosaur-dragons – that is, creatures with the heads of
Triceratops and the bodies of Chinese dragons.
They turned to face the people. “I am Lan,” voiced a blue dinosaur-dragon, the one with the
lady-like voice. “I am Yu,” boomed the other one in green, in a deep voice. “I, emperor of all the
dinosaur-dragons, thank you for freeing my sister, Lan, and I from our prison created by the evil
sand god Sha. In return, we will fulfill two of your wishes.” Tyler was a greedy and selfish person
who wanted to earn more money by discovering fossils. Before the others could protest, he had
blurted out, “Lead us to a fossil ground!” Ho murmured, “I wish there were a forest barrier at the
edge of the Gobi Desert to keep out the sand blowing into China.” Wang wished for an oasis near
her isolated village, for the villagers and weary travellers. Yu nodded, “Very well. But remember,
only two wishes will be granted, and the person whose wish is not granted will stumble upon
misfortune.” Suddenly, he and Lan disappeared. Everyone shuddered at this warning.
The next day, Ho found a dried-up swamp bed littered with dinosaur bones. She called to the
others and Tyler immediately ran to the edge to start digging. Suddenly, Wang and Ho, who were
far from Tyler, felt strong winds billow around them and saw a huge sand hurricane form out of
nowhere. It swept across the sandy plain and headed straight toward Tyler. Wang and Ho called to
Tyler to get away, but Tyler thought they were just pulling his leg. In fact, Yu and Lan who were
looking down from the heavens had gotten help from the wind god Feng to conjure up a sand
hurricane to hit Tyler. Ho and Wang shouted for Tyler to get back to the camp, but thinking of the
