Horse: Ping exhaled slowly, as if he’d broken so many hearts he didn’t know where to start.  ”Oh, where to start?” he said, aloud.  ”There’ve been so many!  I told you, everybody thinks I’m a looker!”

In truth, the first person Mulan had been smitten with was a boy on a neighboring farm, Fei Xiaohu, when she was ten; but she didn’t think that would make a good story for Ping to tell, and anyway Xiaohu was in her company.  She had been doing a good job of avoiding him so far - who knew if he would recognize her? - and announcing her youthful infatuation with him would not help.  She grinned at the asker and sidled away.

Alligator: “Three facts?  Um…” his bravado fading, the boy began to count them on his fingers as if it was hard to recall anything about himself just then.  ”Yī: I’ve never - um - had much training before I came to Wu Zhong.”  There, that much was obvious.  ”Èr, I miss my mama’s cooking.”  Nobody could tease him about that, because they all felt similarly.  ”And sān…” he lowered his voice.  ”I don’t think anybody will ever retrieve the arrow from that pole.”