Red Phoenix

the house. He gestured to me. ‘Now you.’
    ‘You told me that was the most useless move in the entire suite,’ I said. ‘While you’re in the air, your opponent has plenty of time to set themselves up to hit you hard when you land.’
    ‘It’s not a practical move by itself,’ John said, tying his hair back. ‘It’s a base for working with more complicated stuff.’
    ‘Oh, okay.’ I did the same thing; I stood a couple of metres away, ran to the wall, took a couple of strides up the wall, flipped, and landed on my feet.
    Jennifer’s family all stared at me with awe.
    ‘Spectacular but useless,’ I said with a shrug.
    John waved for me to move back. He turned so that he was nearly parallel to the house. He readied himself, then ran to it, took a few steps along the side of the house, and flipped off.
    ‘Harder,’ he said. ‘You have to remain sideways on the house. More than that I can’t do right now; you’ll have to do the rest without demonstration. Give it a try.’ He raised his hand. ‘Wait. Jade, move away from the Blacks and transform, we may need you.’
    ‘My Lord.’ Jade moved away from Jennifer and Leonard. ‘Don’t worry, I’m perfectly harmless,’ she said with a small smile.
    She transformed into her dragon form: three metres long, gleaming green, with gold claws and fins behind her legs, and a gleaming gold fin on her tail.
    Jennifer gasped and her eyes went wide. She went completely stiff. Jade stood very still and waited for her to get over it, her green eyes glowing.
    ‘Are you okay, Jen?’ I said.
    Leonard moved closer to Jennifer and put his arm around her. He spoke quietly in her ear. She nodded.
    ‘Okay, let’s see you do it, Emma,’ Leonard said.
    Jade positioned herself under me. I was glad that she was there.
    I ran as fast as I could at the wall and attempted similar momentum to the flip. I managed about two steps along the house, but I was losing it. I was falling off. The ground somersaulted to meet me and I readied myself to hit, but Jade was there and she caught me easily with her front legs.
    She tipped me gently onto my feet and I nodded to her. She smiled her dragon smile, all gleaming gold teeth.
    ‘You have more gold teeth than a little old Chinese lady,’ I said quietly.
    ‘I am a little old Chinese lady,’ she said.
    I turned back to the wall and faced it appraisingly. ‘What did I do wrong, John? Not enough momentum?’
    ‘That’s right,’ he said, sounding pleased. ‘Give it a little more of a push. Hit the house hard. Try to push it over.’
    ‘Please don’t push my house over, Emma,’ Leonard said.
    I laughed. ‘I’ll try not to.’
    I made another run at it, really pushing myself. I hit the house very hard; I could feel the force through myfeet, enough to crack the brickwork. I took three strides along the side of the house. When I felt myself coming away I flung myself off it, somersaulted, and landed lightly on my feet. I quickly checked the brickwork to make sure that I hadn’t damaged the wall but it seemed to be all right.
    ‘Perfect,’ John said. ‘Now let’s add energy.’ He gestured for me to approach him. Jade came as well.
    ‘That was really cool, Daddy,’ Simone said behind me. ‘Can I try that too?’
    Simone and Andrew were watching me with Michael behind them.
    ‘You can’t do things like that yet, Simone,’ John said. ‘Your bones are too soft, you’d hurt them. You can do this sort of stuff when you’re bigger.’
    ‘Oh, okay,’ Simone said. ‘Can we go to Andrew’s room to look at his cars?’
    ‘I wanna show Simone my cars,’ Andrew said.
    ‘Sure, go.’ I nodded to Michael and he followed.
    Leo rose to go with them.
    ‘Stay, Leo. Rest,’ I said.
    He grimaced impatiently. He actually opened his mouth to argue with me, speech impediment or not.
    ‘You need to rest, Leo,’ John said gently. ‘You are still recovering.’
    Leo looked from John to me and then nodded sadly and sat. He was still very weak from the blood loss.
    ‘Why does the other boy follow her around everywhere?’ Jennifer said.
    ‘He’s guarding her, Jen,’ I said. ‘She could be attacked any time. She needs someone next to her to defend her every minute of the day.’
    Jennifer watched them go back to the house. ‘The front door’s locked, Emma. Nothing can get in.’
    ‘They won’t come in the front door,’ I said. ‘Remember how Jade came here?’
    Jennifer’s face was unreadable.
    ‘Right,’ John said