Spotlight Tuesday! Acne, Asthma, and Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon - Excerpt - Giveaway!

Title: Acne, Asthma, and Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon

By: Rena Rocford 

Paperback: 230 pages

Published: November 23rd 2015 by Curiosity Quills Press

ISBN: 162007043X (ISBN13: 9781620070437)

Edition Language: English
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads Rating: ★★★.80
Amazon Rating: ★★★★1/2

Read My Review

Allyson fights acne, not trolls. As an inhaler-carrying member of the asthma society, she just wants to meet the father who turned her mother into a paranoid, move-across-the-nation freak. Now she’s trying to fit in at yet another school, but for the first time in her life, she has a best friend, Beth. When Allyson accidentally spits fire at kidnappers in the mall, she realizes why her father isn’t in the picture: she’s half dragon. Her acne? Emerging scales. Her asthma? The side effects of her dragon’s fire breath. Instead of freaking out, unflappable Beth reveals her own troll heritage and explains how things work with the supernatural creatures hiding within the modern world of smartphones and skyscrapers.

When trolls kidnap a unicorn, Beth gets blamed. Allyson is determined to prove Beth’s innocence and keep her friend off the unicorn chopping block. When they start looking for the kidnappers, they get a call from the last person they expect: Allyson’s father. He tries to warn them off, but he’s been put under a spell by the kidnappers to keep the victims from escaping. Nothing short of death can stop him. Now Allyson must choose between killing the father she’s always dreamed of, or letting her best friend die for a crime she didn’t commit.

Buy: Amazon |  Chapter.Indigo | Barnes & Noble | 

Seven Days Before efore I was close enough to be slathered in anti-acne cream, the kiosk lady had her bottle at the ready. Her eyes locked on me, the easy target. The stink of acid and rubbing alcohol told me the cream was fake. There was no magic bullet for acne; I’d already tried it all. The woman held out her hand in the hopes I might mimic her and extend my arm–this wasn’t my first rodeo. “The salts from the Dead Sea have natural healing properties. I guarantee you’ll see a difference immediately.” Her smile was as fake as the gold around her neck, and I would know. I could smell gold. My mother said I was crazy, but I could smell metals. Gold had a scent like butter. Silver smelled of rain in a forest. Fake gold smelled like burning bread, and this woman was covered in it. “No thanks.” I kept my hands firmly to my side. My friend, Beth stretched her lower lip in serious consideration. “Oh, but how do you know if you don’t try?” I punched her in the arm, but Beth was six-foot-three with a tendency to make refrigerators seem dainty; nothing I did was likely to make a dent in her. With the punch, I threw her a withering look, and Beth smiled, wagging her eyebrows. I gave the saleswoman my most pleasant smile. “Thank you, but no thank you.” Desperate for a sale, she reached for my arm. I grabbed her wrist before she could catch me and twisted her arm across her body. The motion smeared the fake Dead Seas salt across her sleeve. “I have sensitive skin.” Beth sputtered a laugh, but she walked to the nearest store window, making a show of examining the mannequin on the other side. I slipped away from the kiosk and joined her. “I like this jacket.” Beth squinted, sighing. “Then you should try it on.” “Ha! The clothes in this store never fit”–she pointed at her chest–“they’re always a little too optimistic.” Her golden ponytail bounced as she shook her shoulders suggestively. Beth was many things, but curvy in the right places wasn’t one of them. On the other hand, she could go pro-roller derby at the drop of a hat. Beth was like a force of nature, and she didn’t mind tussling with anyone dumb enough to get in her way. I was like a reject from a geisha convention. My hair was too straight and black for the Irish heritage of my mother, and my eyes were too green for my father’s Japanese heritage. I was caught in the middle. Half. Mutt. “How do you know if you don’t try it on?” “Honestly, Allyson, you sound like a school counselor. ‘How do you know you won’t enjoy fixing farming equipment unless you try?’” “I was mimicking you.” Beth arched her eyebrow at me. “Are you saying I sound like the school counselor?” Before I could respond, a guy our age came into earshot, watching Beth as he walked, even as he passed. His wide eyes tracked Beth like search beams in the fog. He craned his neck, but his legs kept moving forward, as if the two halves of his body weren’t on speaking terms. He smashed into a cardboard ad of a man giving a woman flowers. He fell, his legs tangling in the chain holding the two halves of the ad together. Beth ran to his side, pulling the cardboard off. “You okay?” He stared up at her, blinking, like he saw a miracle, not Beth. His lopsided face fit his crooked expression, as if he’d been beaten about the head but more solidly on one side. What he lacked in symmetry, he made up for in size, easily topping Beth’s six-foot-three by another head. He clearly outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds of lean muscle. His mouth moved, but no words came out. A half smile of disbelief bloomed on his face as he grabbed the cardboard ad and broke off the flowers still tangling his feet. He took a deep breath as if steeling himself or taking in the fresh scent of a new day. With a mumble, he thrust the cardboard flowers at Beth. The rest of the ad ended up in a pile of broken commercialism. “Uh, thank you.” Beth’s words sounded like a question, and we all stood there, waiting for the next minute to save us from the most awkward conversation on the planet. Scratch that. To be a conversation, he’d have to say something. Anything. “John, I told you to stay away from the–” another man said, stopping midstride when he saw his friend attempting to give Beth fake flowers. The new guy was nearly as tall as the first. Where John looked like he was lopsided through an unfortunate accident, the second man’s face was actually skewed. One brow was higher than the other, and his rock-breaking hands could have come from two different people. His patchwork appearance made him look like he spent more time working out one half of his body. He even stood with an off-kilter slump to his shoulders. He glared at Beth, then returned his gaze to his friend. “We don’t have time for anything fancy. Just bag the unicorns and get a move on,” he said, looking Beth up and down. A shiver of danger danced down my spine. I checked over my shoulder for something that looked like a unicorn, but saw nothing. Maybe unicorn was code for something. Oh crap, maybe it was code for kidnapping girls. Wasn’t that a problem in some places? People would kidnap girls and sell them as prostitutes. I hadn’t been in Albuquerque for that long, but I hadn’t heard of that being an issue here. Though, really, who advertised their neighborhood was a haven for sex traffickers? And these guys were big. My self-preservation alarms blared. In my mind, my gym teacher’s words came back to me in a way her name never would. When being attacked, we were supposed to yell fire because no one would come to the rescue if we yelled rape. I wasn’t much of a runner, so I prepped to yell fire. The sharp scent of gunmetal and copper reached my nose, kicking my heart into high gear. My breath rasped in my lungs. Not good. I had no reason to suspect them of anything, but big guy number two had the stance of someone used to resorting to physicality to get what he wanted. I cracked the scales at a whopping one hundred pounds, soaking wet. I wasn’t going to take anyone in a straight fight anytime soon. I scanned the mall; aside from a couple of shoppers beating a hasty retreat from the kiosk lady, there was no one. No cops. Not even rent-a-cops. And there was no one big enough to come to the rescue if these giants decided to drag us off. I grabbed Beth’s arm. “I sure hope we aren’t late meeting your overprotective boyfriend who just went to states in taekwondo.” I pulled her back a step, but she moved like a puppet, wooden and only half as believable. “What’s the hurry?” A third voice said from behind me. I froze. My stomach cramped and my chest tightened into the beginnings of a full-blown asthma attack. So much for running or yelling. “It looks like this pretty one is well on her way to getting a bonus,” the second lumpy man said. He turned to Beth. “What you got there, sweetie? A bit of gryphon? Some unicorn? I hear unicorn’s real common ‘round these parts.” Unicorn? Gryphon? How many code words could a bunch of kidnappers need? Beth’s face turned to ash. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You’re pretty young to be on the payroll,” the third man said. Beth’s panicked eyes darted between the men, but her weight shifted to the balls of her feet. Their faces froze in a confused mask, like they were trying to solve a math problem–something really complicated like two plus two. John stepped between Beth and the second guy. “I saw her first. I get the bonus.” “Yeah, well this one’s mine.” He grabbed my arm in his boulder-sized hand, twisting me around to face him. The grip crushed muscles, grinding them into the bone. He could break my arm without even trying. There was no way to break that hold, and I was no match for a three hundred pound bruiser. I took a breath to scream, but my lungs cramped shut as my heart continued to race. My chest burned. I needed to scream. I wasn’t going to be one of those kids on a milk carton. Air squeaked into my lungs, rasping through my shrinking trachea. It wasn’t enough, but I wasn’t going to magically stop having an asthma attack without my inhaler. He dragged me closer. This was it. I wasn’t going to get any more air than the feeble breath in my lungs now. Clenching every scrap of muscle in my body, I forced the air out. The debilitating tightness around my throat released, and the scream unfurled in all its blood-curdling glory. My throat burned with the force of my yell, and the noise raged between my teeth, vibrating like a chainsaw of sound. Orange flames streamed from my mouth like a fountain. The fire splashed into the huge man, engulfing him in an inferno. The whole world ground to a halt as a raging blaze poured out of my mouth. I gasped, and the fire stopped as quickly as it had come. Smoke stung my eyes, and my chest ached. The scent of burning hair filled the air. What was that? What the hell was that? I blinked, but this new freakish reality kept marching forward like a roller coaster. My hands jumped to my mouth, but there was nothing there but skin–shaky, clammy skin. It had to be a hoax, but no cameras looked down on us, just people blinking like owls. I breathed fire like a freaking dragon. Like a dragon! Fire! The soft crackle of flames brought me back to reality. I’d just spit flames at the man who could star in a McBeefcake commercial. Flames licked up through the remains of Mr. McBeefcake’s buzz cut. He scowled and let go of my arm, patting out the burning hairs on his head as if he extinguished fire from his scalp regularly. I just shot flaming death from my mouth. And my throat burned to prove it! But he wasn’t even fazed. The strong taste of ammonia filled my lungs. Was there some scary chemical in me now? How did this work? I touched my lips, but they weren’t burned. I ran my tongue across my teeth, but nothing seemed out of place, no burned out gaps where teeth used to be. Holy crap, I just breathed fire! Actual flames. Out of my mouth! McBeefcake patted his head in slow deliberate strikes to smother the oxygen from his burning skin. “I thought we’d taken care of all the dragons.” Flames caught lazily on a cardboard ad behind McBeefcake. He wasn’t burned. His hair burned, but he was undamaged. The blaze crept up the wall behind him, consuming the cardboard. Real flames–from my mouth! –so why wasn’t he screaming in pain? He was more worried about his hairdo than his face burning off. The alarms blared to life, startling everyone out of the tableau. Like the world had been on pause, the siren jumpstarted the crowd into motion. I spun, grabbed Beth’s arm, and bolted between the other two. “Run!” Other shoppers screamed. The crowd pushed for the doors, and the crush prevented anyone from getting there. I dragged Beth toward the fleeing shoppers. Smoke curled up through the second floor, and the chaos of flashing lights and screaming shoppers added to my disorientation. “Get her!” The words carried over the cacophony of the mob. Did they get their lines from Rent-a-Thug? Stop thinking, keep running, Allyson. We charged down the center of the mall avenue, avoiding the traffic at the obvious stores with exits. My feet pounded on the tile floors, but my lungs wouldn’t recover. I just couldn’t manage to draw a breath. The hallway spun, and I bounced off a pillar, only keeping my feet because I clung to Beth for dear life. I can’t have an asthma attack now! I’m running for my life!Sweet god of asthma relief, could we reschedule this for another day? Mechanically, I kept throwing my feet forward, one in front of the other, but the vertigo would drag me down soon. The constriction got worse, running up from my diaphragm right to my jaw. My gorge rose in the back of my throat, but I kept pounding past stores. The world spun, and I crashed into a trashcan. The decorative ironwork caught me in the stomach, threatening to spill my lunch into the trashcan right then. Beth kept running, dragging me along. After three more steps, my stomach had voted lunch off the island, but I pushed on. My breath squeaked into my lungs, and smoke filled my nose. If I could just get it over with, maybe I could run. A rock solid hand hit my shoulder, spinning me around. The whiplash sent me reeling, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I puked. Right on his shoes. He froze. Slowly, he tilted his head to look at his feet. The pile of puke smelled like ammonia, and lazy flames licked up from the stinking mass like the dying embers of a large campfire. He looked from his shoes to me and snarled. I smiled back. The world had already stopped spinning, and I felt one hundred percent better. His face turned red as his hands shook and he roared. Beth grabbed an autographed baseball bat off a nearby vendor’s table and smashed it into the guy’s teeth. The bat rang with a deep thunk-click. McBeefcake stumbled backwards, tripping into a kiosk of glass animals and chili peppers. He tilted over like a tree, landing butt first in the display case. Glass sprayed the walls, chunks skittering across the floor. He moaned from the ground, but stayed down. I scanned for his two cohorts, but they’d vanished into the mall. Where were the cops? “Come on!” Beth yelled over the blaring alarm. She dropped the bat on the table. We ducked into the nearest store with an outside exit and ran for the doors among the herds of people. When we burst outside, the cold air stole past my jacket. Wind swirled at my hair, and cable-thick locks flew in my face. Some people milled around the exit, but others fled to their cars. We cut through the crowd, keeping our eyes out for the big guys. Beth muttered and shook her head. We’d come out of the mall on the opposite side from where we lived. Without talking about it, we walked around the mall toward our apartments, clinging to the shadows as much as possible. When we were nearly to the road dividing the mall parking lot from the apartment complex, I stopped. “What the hell was that?” Beth shook her head, pointing at a nearby entrance to the mall, now swarming with escaping shoppers. She kept walking toward the pizza joint, the last establishment before the road. When we reached the drive-up window, Beth slipped behind the shrubs. They didn’t block any wind, but they seemed safer somehow. At least we couldn’t be seen easily. Between the bushes and the cinder block wall, stumps of dead trees waited, making our own private haven. Beth paced silently. I bent over at the waist and panted to catch my breath. Beth stopped but wouldn’t look at me. “You okay?” I asked. “It smelled me.” “It? I was pretty sure they were male.” Beth turned around. Escaped strands of hair from her ponytail floated on the dry wind. “They weren’t human. Not even part. Those were trolls.” My heart flip-flopped in my chest. Just bag the unicorns, he’d said. This couldn’t be real. I’d breathed fire. Real had a whole new meaning today. “What do you mean by trolls?” “Trolls, you know, live under a bridge, eat goats; trolls.” Beth raked her hands through her hair, but only managed to pull some strands free. “And what about you? Hasn’t your mom had ‘The Talk’ with you?” I snorted. “My mom has more secrets than the CIA. She did have the ‘please use a condom’ talk.” Beth shook her head. “Not condoms! You’re half freaking’ dragon, and you didn’t even know?” “Dragon? But how?” My questions boiled out of me. “How is that even possible? How could anyone be half fantasy creature, let alone fire breathing lizard?” She bent a branch, releasing it before it snapped. “You’re one of the Kin. You’re half or part creature of legend. I don’t know how that happened, but that’s what you are.” My questions rolled around inside my brain, never quite taking form. All I heard was not human, and my brain short-circuited. It was impossible. “How?” Beth shrugged. “Magic, for all I know. And your mom never told you?” “Nope.” I leaned against the trunk of one of the trunks. “That’s rude.” “What about other creatures? Are there phoenixes?–wait, would that phoenii?–but you know what I mean.” “I don’t really know what all is out there, only what I’ve run across. Unicorn, here and there, and, of course, trolls and dragon.” Unicorns. This was too much. I shook my head. “This is impossible.” “What’s impossible is that you didn’t know. How come you didn’t guess?” “I have asthma. In what doctor’s office is there a poster saying, ‘Have asthma? Talk to your doctor about a possible dragon heritage.’ I thought what everyone else thought. Dragons are in books and movies.” Beth grinned. “Rare, but real.” Then it hit me. “You knew?” “Are you kidding? Strength, smarts, lightning reflexes, you’re hard to miss. I just didn’t realize you were dragon. This could change everything.” “What everything? You haven’t told me anything. What the hell is going on? Who were those guys? How did you know they were trolls?” I stopped when I realized I was yelling. Rimmed in white, Beth’s green eyes glowed through the night. I’d never yelled at her. Sure, we’d only been friends for three months, but she was by far the best friend I’d ever had. And I’d collected more “best” friends than birthdays. Beth resumed pacing. “How did you know they were trolls?” I asked again. Her head twisted to the side like she was in pain. “I’m half.” “Half what?” “Half troll.” Her quiet words haunted her face. She stopped pacing and stood as far from me as the shrubs would allow. We said nothing for a small slice of forever. She fidgeted as I waited for whatever came next. “Well, aren’t you going to run or scream or something?” Beth asked. The idea of being half dragon had completely washed out the enormity of my best friend confessing she was half troll. It just didn’t seem possible. Beth wasn’t anything like the trolls from fairy tales. She was smart and pretty. And I’d seen her house, it was absolutely spotless. Beth was nothing like what trolls were supposed to be. But then again, those other trolls had smelled like aftershave and gunmetal, so clearly they bathed more regularly than Grimm would have me believe. I shook my head as a half-smile crept onto my face. “Seriously, you just attacked a troll to save me from who knows what fate, and you’re worried I’ll take off like some perfect little princess? I thought you knew me better than that, Beth Whitlocke.” The smile broke over Beth’s face. Relief flooded from her, and her whole body relaxed. “I just can’t believe you’re draconic.” “Draconian, more like.” Her bark of laughter filled our hiding place. “That’s funny, Drake.” Wind stole through the tree, and we both shivered. “Will they be back?” “I think we lost them.” Beth scanned the branches as if she could see through the dark, but when I looked, I saw nothing but police cruisers and fire trucks at the mall. “Maybe we should go into hiding or something.” I ran the conversation through my head again. They’d said she was young to be on the payroll. That meant they didn’t recognize her. Or me. “They didn’t know who you were. It was just really unlucky on our part. Right?” “I sure hope so.” Six Days Before fter a bout of terrible dreams involving Beth eating a live chicken before telling me not to worry about it, I woke up. My mouth tasted like the marching band had practiced on my tongue last night. But what did I expect after spitting fire, minty fresh breath? When I moved, everything creaked. Every muscle and joint hurt, especially my abs. Best ab work out ever? Well, there had to be an upside. The stench of my own breath would kill a skunk, so I wanted some perks. Well, perks besides the whole blasting flames in the face of troll kidnappers. And could I do it again? I stuffed that thought in a jar and went to the bathroom. The lights were on in the apartment, so I knew my mom was already up. To alleviate the pain of having only one bathroom and both of us getting ready at the same time, my mother did her hair at a mirror in her room. The shower was mine, but before I made it to the water, I brushed my teeth and gargled as much mouthwash as I could handle. The shower had miraculous healing properties, but rendered the bathroom mirror worthless. Though I didn’t need it to put on my makeup—no need for that horror show before breakfast. My pitch black hair was darker than midnight and, to my great disgrace, my face had more craters than the moon. Regular makeup was too frail for my needs. A face like mine needed more pancake than a waffle house. I ordered foundation from a theatrical company online. It came in a giant tub and disappeared faster than fresh baked cookies. But pancake needed perfectly dry air to keep from caking, so I popped open the door to let the steam out. “Leave us alone,” my mother said at the front door. Her voice drew all of my attention, and I peeked around the edge of the door. The bathroom was a short hallway away from the front room–and front door–of our apartment. She stood directly in front of the door, hands on her hips, and ready to repel any invaders. “It’s her birthday,” someone said on the other side of the door. I recognized the voice: My Aunt Aggy. “She’ll know something is up if you don’t let me talk to her.” Mom straightened. “She’ll just think you forgot. You’re not known for being around when we need you.” “You think she’s that dumb? She is related to me, you know. By blood.” “No, you can’t take her away. I’ve seen what happens to people in your family.” Ice formed around those words. They were fighting words. I had never met my father, and his sister made a special point to give me something on each birthday. Almost always, it was music and a statue of a dragon. I’d always had the feeling that she had a real thing for dragons. Turns out, nope, she was trying to tell me something. Which side of the family did I get the dragonish tendency to spit fireballs and identify metals by scent? “And you think you’re doing a better job running from everything?” Mom stood on the balls of her feet, leaning into the front door. Tension poured off her, and her whole body was poised to start a fight. “Go. Now. I will not tolerate this sort of behavior from you.” “Let me in or I’ll break down the door.” My mother leaned back and gave a haughty head shake. “Oh, now who’s the superior race? Resorting to violence at every turn?” An image of fire bursting from Aggy’s lips filled my mind. If I got my dragon blood from her, then she could toast my mother. I pushed the door all the way open and interrupted. “Mom, have you seen my–Aunt Aggy? What are you doing here?” I schooled my face into a look of surprise. “Your mother was just letting me in. Weren’t you, Cathy?” Instead of acknowledging the question, Mom grumbled something that sounded vaguely like “This isn’t over, Aggy.” My mother may have been four inches taller than Aggy, but my aunt cowered before no one. She hopped over the threshold with flare. “Well, how does it feel to be fifteen?” I twisted my waist-length black hair to squeeze more water out, dripping onto the linoleum. “Wet. How about you?” Her gaze softened to some faraway memory. “When I was fifteen, I learned to–” “What are you doing half naked?” Mom interrupted. “Go get dressed. Just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you can be late to school.” My eyes locked onto Aggy, and she gave me the you’d-better-do-what-your-mother-asks look. I nodded and practically ran back to my room. Maybe if I was quiet, they’d start fighting again. No luck. Even after my liberal application of makeup, by the time I got back to the front room in jeans, T-shirt, and boots, they were sitting at the kitchen table. Waiting there, they were the epitome of yin and yang. My mother’s climbing-the-corporate-ladder scarf was artfully pinned to her blouse, and her cup of coffee matched her pants. Her pale skin was powdered to within an inch of her life, and her bright red lipstick drew the perfect attention to the fact that she had red hair and blazing green eyes. She looked like a Gaelic goddess. Aggy straddled the chair, resting her hands on the back. Tied into a ponytail and braided, her black hair resembled jumper cables, and there was no makeup on her already tanned face. She wore a jacket that buttoned up the side, thick pants, and boots three sizes too big for her short stature–even shorter than me now! She could have been the star in a hard-hitting kung fu film. Wait, was kung fu Chinese or Japanese? Holes in my knowledge like that made me feel like a complete fraud when it came to my Japanese heritage. Aggy took the last sip of coffee, and dumped the cup back into its non-matching saucer. “Can I take you to school, then?” “I usually walk.” “Oh, well, in that case, here.” She dropped a notebook into my hands. She wrote music for fun, and sometimes, she gave me her songs. I flipped open the notebook to see. And there it was, a song scribbled out across the page. The notes plucked echoes through my mind, hinting at what it would sound like on my guitar, and my fingers itched to have the string beneath them. “No, you may not stay home and practice,” Mom said just as I started to hum. “But it’s my birthday! How often do I get to turn fifteen?” My mother drew a line through the air, cutting off all argument. “Absolutely not. You have an education to obtain.” I didn’t mutter about how moving in another six weeks would kill any attempts I had at sticking to an education. And since I’d had more schools than birthdays, one could argue that my education with the guitar was my most steady subject. I held up the music, but Aunt Aggy caught my eye and shook her head. I sighed. “Fine. I’ll just put it away.” I dashed back into my room and dropped the stack of music next to the four surviving dragon statues my aunt had gotten me on previous birthdays. Their blue, purple, green, and white scales winked back at me, and I hoped she’d gotten me another. I grabbed my backpack–untouched from yesterday–and headed for the door. I kissed the brass dragon hanging beside the doorway. Mom called it the Guardian. Its swirling tail gave it an expectant look, like the dragon wasn’t satisfied without a proper acknowledgement. The Guardian was the only thing my mother put a nail in the wall for. She’d risk losing the deposit for it. Maybe I got my dragon from Mom. More importantly, did they both know, or was one of them hiding a really big secret? Maybe that’s why Mom didn’t want Aggy around. Outside, I stood on the concrete landing and shrugged into my jacket. My aunt shut the door behind us. “It’s a bit chilly, isn’t it?” “It’s March in Albuquerque.” “March is warmer in California,” she said. “I wouldn’t know; Mom doesn’t like California. Too expensive.” “Too bad. I could keep a better eye on you there.” “I bet,” I said. Aggy arched an eyebrow, and I opened my mouth to ask her about my father. My throat caught. Two giant Harleys roared by on the street, and I chickened out as the buff, bearded men rode by in their leather vests. There were things no one talked about, and absent family members topped the list. Until last night, I’d thought we didn’t talk about my father because he was in the CIA, or something even more secretive, like Disney. Today, I wasn’t sure. And how stupid would I sound if I asked someone if my father was actually a dragon? And how awkward would that be if he wasn’t the dragon and it was my mom? More importantly, how did I get to that topic gracefully? Uh, hey, Aunt Aggy, accidentally fry any trolls lately? From the apartment complex, we ducked through big bus stop to the street. Four lanes of heavy traffic stood between the high school and me. We could jay walk, but the traffic was fast and thick, and my asthma kept me from being much of a sprinter. I always opted for the crosswalks. At the corner, Aunt Aggy grabbed my arm. “Hold on a sec, squirt.” She searched my face again. Heat rose in my cheeks. I tried to look away, but she caught my chin in her hands. Her eyes met mine, and I opened my mouth to ask her about last night. Then she nodded, and I snapped my mouth shut. “I’ve got a present for you–well, it’s sort of a present. I mean, it’s more like a birthright.” “Is it something from Dad?” She winced like I’d stabbed her but tried to recover, putting on a brave face. I felt a lot better not asking about the whole fire-breathing thing. She dumped a package into my hands, a lump heavy as a brick and wrapped in leather. “Not exactly.” “Should I open it here? You are coming to dinner aren’t you?” “Of course, kidlet. I wouldn’t miss it.” She looked over her shoulder at the bus stop. I followed her gaze to some big guys sitting on a bench waiting for the downtown bus. Were they trolls? I took a breath to ask her about the mall, but she pointed at the light. “Better hurry up.” Already the light had turned to the flashing red hand of doom, and I took off across the intersection. I made it to the boulevard before the light changed, stranding me on the island of cement. She’d tricked me into coming out in the street, and now I was stuck. And she hadn’t followed me out here. When I looked back to find her, she’d already disappeared. There weren’t that many people on the corner, but she could hide in a brightly lit room with nothing inside but her. I sighed in defeat. What good would it do to finish chasing her down if she was already gone? Still, she’d given me a lumpy package, and I turned it over in my hands as I finished crossing the street on the next light. Leather straps held the rumpled funnies section of a Sunday paper around the present. I untied the first one, but kept my back to the school, just in case someone saw and teased me about getting a gift from my aunt. Beth walked up next to me. “What’s that?” “A birthday present.” “You gonna open it?” I tore open the paper and freed the cheap knick-knack, a clear plastic lump encasing a fake sword. It looked like something I would have bought from Six Flags when I was ten. It was smaller than a lunch box. “What is that supposed to be?” Beth asked. “My birthday present.” I turned the sword-in-the-plastic-stone over in my hand. This had to be a joke. Aunt Aggy gave me awesome dragons, not tawdry, midway keepsakes. “Is that from your mother?” “My aunt.” “And she likes funny swords that look like soft serve?” Beth asked. I held the hunk of chunk up to the light. Sure enough, the sword blade curved back and forth in a ridiculous spiral, like someone had chopped the horn off a narwhal and stuck it on a Lord of the Rings prop. “It’s not her usual style.” “Well are you just gonna stare at it? We’ll be late.” I dumped the crummy sculpture into my backpack and followed Beth. At least today could only get better. The bell rang for lunch, and I prolonged packing my books into my backpack. I didn’t want to leave math class. Lunch was just a nice way of saying social gladiatorial event. Jed Peterson bumped into me, and my books spilled out onto the industrial classroom carpet. My homework fell out of my math book. I glared at him. “Sorry,” he said, but when he caught up to his friends at the front of the classroom, he snickered. “Try not to let her rub off on you. I hear pancake face is contagious,” his friend whispered. Either it was a mock whisper or I suddenly had super acute hearing. Great, I could add eavesdropping to my super powers. And I used fixative. My makeup wasn’t going anywhere. I mumbled something impolite and pushed through the door. Was I really half dragon? Was that what was going on? Was Beth trying to set me up for something? Could this be an elaborate hoax? A joke would explain why I’d never heard of anything like half-trolls. Some joke. But how did any potential pranksters make the fire? Either I hallucinated, or I spit actual fire onto an actual guy who didn’t mind having his hair burned off. Had my aunt really been hiding something this big for my entire life? And what about my mom? Did she know? How could she miss sleeping with a dragon? Or would you? Maybe he looked as human as I do? Wait. Would this mean Aunt Aggy was a dragon too? She looked totally human, but I guessed it wasn’t impossible. I couldn’t think without food in my stomach. I made my way to the lunchroom with the rest of the stragglers. The constant flow of people in and out kept the doors open, and I slipped inside between a girl balancing her nachos on top of a giant Snapple and a jock. I scanned the room, but already the line stretched to the back wall. Vending machine lunch for me. Slipping through the crowd, I made my way to the two machines stacked against the side wall: one for snacks, the other for soda. I got in line for candy and studied the selection. As the week wore on, the choices dwindled away. Today was Thursday; the selection was pathetic. No chips, no pop tarts, no donuts. But my birthday luck finally kicked in: one package of Skittles left. I could manage English if I could have a taste of the rainbow first. Sticking my dollar into the machine, I waited. It spit out my dollar. I fed it into the slot again. The machine protested and sent the dollar out. I rubbed the bill on the metal edge of the machine and tried not to listen to the fidgeting behind me. The world is completely unfair–I could spit fire, but the freaking vending machine wouldn’t take my dollar. “Here, I have an extra.” Steve June held a dollar out to me. His wavy black hair smelled like hickory and moss, reminding me of the forests in the northeast. My heart almost hit my ribcage. I nodded, too afraid I’d squeak if I said something. He handed me the dollar bill, and I handed him mine. I practically touched him! I fed the money into the slot and dialed the number for Skittles. “What’s taking so long?” Jed’s whiny tone rose above the dull roar of the cafeteria. “She eats so many Skittles, she has rainbows for brains.” Ed Harris laughed, and some of the other guys in line laughed with him. My face burned. I didn’t know what it was about Ed, but he hated me. My mom said it was a sign he liked me. Sometimes my mom was thick in the head. Steve hit Ed with a lazy back handed slap. “Shut up.” Come on, machine, go faster. Jed laughed louder than the rest. “She eats so many Skittles, if you pop her zits, they’re blue inside.” The boys all laughed. Forget the Skittles. I turned to leave. “Hey, Allyson, I think you’ve got Skittles under your face. No wonder you wear so much makeup. If my face were breaking out in a case of–” “Whoops.” Beth slammed her shoulder into Ed, who fell into Jed, dropping his soda to the ground. “Hey, watch where you’re going, ogre.” Jed brushed at his shirt. “I’m so sorry.” Beth’s voice was falsely sweet, ruining any actual attempt at an apology. “But sometimes I’m just so clumsy.” “You’d better watch it,” he said. “Or you’ll what? Tell Mrs. Alister?” Beth raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll go well.” “You’re a hippo, I swear.” Beth grabbed the front of his shirt and twisted her fist. “Surely you meant to say something else, perhaps an ox, or a gorilla, or anything that can run a touchdown, or twist your sorry little neck into a pretzel.” As she spoke, she pulled him closer to her face, which meant she lifted him off the ground, one handed. Yeah, Beth could scare a werewolf out of his hide. “What’s going on here?” Vice Principal Blanders rushed over. Beth set Jed down. “I was just straightening his shirt, Mr. Blanders.” “I’m sure, Miss Whitlocke. Move along, then.” Beth hurried to me. “Don’t listen to those rats.” “Hey, Skittles!” Ed yelled. I heard a rustling and spun on the spot. Before I’d come to a stop, I sensed something hurtling toward me and snatched it out of the air. Opening my hand, I revealed the projectile. He’d thrown my Skittles at my head. I looked up from my hand to the three boys still standing in the line. They all stared at me, their eyes rimmed in white. “Shit,” Jed whispered. “Mr. Harris!” Mr. Blander’s lips pinched into a tight circle at the indignity of such words. Ed’s eyes looked like golf balls. “Freak.” Steve kept staring at me, barely blinking. Then he nodded in agreement with the others. My blood turned cold. How could I have thought he was cute? Jerks. The world was full of jerks. “Ignore them.” Beth forcibly pushed me toward the exit. As we hit the doors, she grinned. “Why don’t you try out for the football team? What a receiver!” Dry wind pelted into me as we stepped outside. We cut across the courtyard to Mrs. Gunderson’s classroom, and slipped inside. Today’s journal topic was written on the chalkboard. Actual chalk; I swear, this place was in the Stone Age. Beth snorted at the board. “‘What mythical creature would you most like to be?’ Great, now I have to reminisce about that in English, too.” “It doesn’t sound so bad. What would you pick?” Beth stared at the chalkboard without seeing it. “A Pegasus.” “Why?” “Are you kidding? They’ve got everything, strength, speed…” She paused. “Grace. And they fly. It’s the triple threat of mythical creatures. You?” “I don’t know, maybe the dragon thing isn’t that bad. But what are the rest of them like? I wouldn’t want to live with a bunch of twits, even if they are superior warriors, fire breathing, wise beyond all measure…” I stopped when Beth raised an eyebrow. “What?” She checked the room to make sure we were still alone. “The point is to fantasize about something you’re not.” It was the first mention of last night between us all day. I held my breath, but Beth kept smiling at me. I rolled my eyes. “Well, what? Am I supposed to say kraken, or Minotaur or something? How about a unicorn, would that be corny enough for you? I could pick a My Little Pony while I’m at it.” Beth’s laughter rumbled across the room. Mrs. Gunderson came in through the door to the teacher’s rooms. “Oh, don’t mention the unicorns, they’re such jerks,” Beth said. “They sparkle like vampires, and think they’re saving the rest of the world from evil. Who do they think they are? Repressing ingrates incapable of–” “Ladies, is something wrong with your lunches?” Mrs. Gunderson asked.

Giveaway is opened internationally. Giveaway ends April 29th. The winner will be notifed 24 hours after giveaway ends, winner will have 48 hours to respond or new winner will be chosen. 

• Winner will get a Paperback copy of Acne, Asthma, and Other Signs You Might Be Half Dragon

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Like most mad scientists, Rena Rocford's early works were met with scorn and mockery, but she bided her time. After all, what did her fellow kindergarteners know about literature? Rena kept her writing on the mythical back burner as she pursued more logical goals. Today, crayons. Tomorrow, the world.

She spent years living as a normal, conducting experiments in shady laboratories, but always the stories returned. Admittedly, living as a muggle brought Rena some levels of success: a master's degree, a house and a family, but now the time is ripe for world domination, one book at a time. From her secret base in the wine country, Rena has enlisted the help of her cats, her loyal dogs, and her family―who can be relied upon to hide the launch codes at a moment's notice.

Connect: Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads |