The Joy Luck Club Book 2, The Twenty-six Malignant Gates

A mother tells her little girl not to ride her bicycle around the corner. She says that the girl will fall--it is written in a Chinese book called The Twenty-six Malignant Gates. The girl complains, and when her mother will not tell her what the twenty-six possible bad things are, she gets on her bike and rides away so angrily that she falls down before she even reaches the corner.