CRAAACK! Snap! Snap! Snap! Crackkkle! Pow!

I jumped about a foot. Firecrackers were popping all around.

"Oh, my heart!" Grandma said. Then she laughed.

A red firetruck with red and gold paper decorations snorted slowly down the road. A lot of pretty girls were on the truck. They wore shiny red satin dresses. Some had long black hair, and some had brown and one had yellow. They smiled and waved and threw money into the street. I ran out to pick up a new penny. "Here, Grandma," I said, handing it to her. "This means you'll have lots of money in the New Year."

"I surely can use some of that, child." Grandma smiled and put the lucky penny in her purse. Then she rubbed me on the head. But where was the dragon?

A clang of cymbals announced the dragon.

"Grandma, look!"

The dragon's huge red, green, white and orange head stuck around the corner. His big white teeth shone in his wide open mouth. His big red eyes looked from side to side. Below his chin hung his long white beard.

"Look! look!" I yelled. The dragon raised his head high, then brought it down low; then he moved it from side to side. His eyes rolled some more. "He's looking for bad things to eat up, Grandma." I giggled excitedly and grabbed Grandma's coat sleeve. The cymbals crashed and clanged for the dragon to keep time with his many, many feet.

"Better watch out, child, you can be pretty bad sometimes." Quickly she tickled me around the middle and I jumped.

Now we could see that the dragon was moving along on a long, long, long row of legs. They all wore red socks, but each pair of legs had on a different kind of athletic shoe.

Thursday: Why does the dragon have so many different kinds of shoes?

"The Day the Dragon Danced" is a Kids' Reading Room Classic that first appeared Feb. 11-15, 2002. It has since been published as a book in 2006 by Shen's Books, Fremont, Calif. The story will be on The Times' website at latimes.com/kids.