‘Are you friends?’ Millie asked Selina and Coco.
The pair smiled at each other and nodded. ‘We’ve mostly been in the same classes,’ Selina said, ‘since kindergarten.’
‘How lovely,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘Millie and I have been room mates since I started at our boarding school, and Sloane and Jacinta used to be room mates before Jacinta moved over to Caledonia Manor.’
‘Now I share with Caprice and it’s not nearly as much fun,’ Sloane said quietly, although Caprice’s radar ears still picked up on her name. The girl leaned over.
‘What did you say about me?’ she asked.
‘I was just telling Selina and Coco that we share a room back at school,’ Sloane said.
Caprice rolled her eyes. ‘She’s so messy. I’m always having to tidy up after her.’
The girl with the luxurious hair scoffed. ‘Don’t you have a maid?’
‘No, of course not,’ Sloane laughed.
‘But how do you get ready for school in the morning?’ The child looked positively bewildered.
‘Not everyone lives like you do, Felicity,’ Selina said.
Caprice and Susannah looked at one another, wondering what they were going to find when they got home.
‘Where does she live?’ Millie whispered, when the girls were no longer paying attention.
‘In a mansion,’ Selina said. ‘She invited the whole class to her birthday party last year and we went bowling in the basement, then had a karaoke disco in their very own nightclub. It had shiny disco balls and the dance floor lit up when your feet touched the different squares.’
‘Wow!’ Millie said, between bites of pork dumpling.
‘But please don’t expect that we have anything like that. My family lives in an apartment on the thirty-sixth floor and it’s very small,’ Selina said, almost apologetically. ‘We are going to be squeezed into my room like anchovies.’
Millie smiled. ‘We don’t care what sort of house you live in. We’re just happy to be here.’
‘It sounds as if the teachers made a good choice matching Felicity and Caprice,’ Sloane said. ‘But I feel sorry for Susannah.’
Coco bit her lip. All the things her mother had said came rushing back to her. ‘Sunny and I live in the hutongs,’ she said softly.
Alice-Miranda and Jacinta leaned forward, eager to hear more.
‘What’s that?’ Millie asked.
‘It means laneways. But there are houses too – they are called siheyuan. The hutongs are the oldest residential areas in the city,’ Coco explained.
‘That sounds fascinating,’ Alice-Miranda said. She couldn’t wait to get there.
Coco was about to say something when she looked up and spotted her parents enter the room. She excused herself from the table and ran towards them. Coco hugged her father and beckoned her parents to come and meet her new friends. ‘Mama, Baba, these are our guests, Alice-Miranda and Jacinta,’ she fizzed. ‘And this is Millie and Sloane. They are staying with Selina.’
Alice-Miranda slipped out of her chair and walked to shake the adults’ hands. ‘Hello, I’m Alice-Miranda Highton-Smith-Kennington-Jones. I’m so looking forward to our time together, and I hope to learn as much about your culture as possible and to, of course, improve my Mandarin.’
Lucille Wong studied the girl with the tiny mass of cascading chocolate curls.
‘It’s lovely to finally meet you both and thank you so much for having us to stay,’ Alice-Miranda finished, with a smile.
‘It is our pleasure to welcome you to Beijing,’ Bernard replied, charmed by the small girl. ‘We hope that you will enjoy it here.’
‘Jacinta is a gymnast,’ Coco said proudly. She looked at her mother and added, ‘She is even a national champion. Can she train with us? Please?’
‘But of course! It would be our honour,’ Bernard said with a huge smile.
Coco grabbed Jacinta’s hands and the two girls jumped up and down excitedly.
Shauna O’Reilly hurried over to greet the Wongs and asked them to join her and the other adults to have something to eat.
‘Your father’s like a muscle man,’ Millie said.
Coco giggled. ‘Both of my parents also perform and Baba has to be strong for the shows. We’re actually putting together a new act which will debut at the end of the week, and my grandparents are in it too.’
‘Are you serious?’ Jacinta breathed.
Alice-Miranda giggled to herself.
‘What are you laughing about?’ Coco frowned.
The child grinned. ‘I was just trying to picture Granny Valentina doing cartwheels in a sparkly leotard. Or Aunty Gee.’
‘Ha!’ Millie snorted. ‘Imagine Aunty Gee on a trapeze.’ Millie turned to Coco. ‘Your grandparents mustn’t be like any other grandparents we know.’
Coco paused for a moment. ‘I think you might be right.’
‘What will they be doing?’ Jacinta asked.
‘You’ll just have to wait and see,’ Coco said with a glint in her eye.
Jacinta could barely contain herself.
Alice-Miranda gazed out of the window as the van wound its way through the narrow streets towards the Wongs’ home. She and Jacinta were with Coco and her parents while another vehicle had come to pick up the boys and Sunny’s parents. In the back seat Coco was giving them a running commentary on the local area.
She pointed to a shopfront where lanterns danced in the breeze. ‘See that place there? Mrs Chan makes the best wontons in the whole city. Everyone loves her, not only because of her cooking but she tells the best jokes too.’
Alice-Miranda smiled. ‘What fun.’
A little further along the roadway the van stopped to let another vehicle go around some parked cars.
‘See that man there?’ Coco whispered. ‘He owns the laundry and he’s always picking his nose.’
Jacinta gagged. ‘Ew, that’s disgusting.’
‘Coco, I heard that,’ her mother chided from the front.
Coco frowned and hunkered down in her seat. ‘Well, he does,’ she whispered to the girls.
‘It’s true,’ Bernard laughed. ‘It’s a miracle the man still has a nose – he was picking it when I was a boy.’
The children laughed.
‘I wonder how Millie and Sloane are going,’ Alice-Miranda said.
‘Selina and her family are really nice. I’m sure they’ll have a great time,’ Coco said.
‘I’d like to be a fly on the wall with Caprice and Susannah at the moment,’ Jacinta said.
‘Were Felicity’s parents there tonight?’ Alice-Miranda asked. She thought she’d introduced herself to every one of the parents, but couldn’t recall meeting them.
Coco shook her head. ‘Oh, they never come to school. I’ve only seen her grandmother or her nannies.’
‘That’s awful, poor girl.’ Alice-Miranda frowned. ‘My mother and father wouldn’t have missed tonight for the world. They can’t wait for you to visit us next year.’
‘I hope I’ll be able to,’ Coco said, darting a quick glance at her parents. ‘It will depend on whether I can have some time off from the show. Anyway, I was surprised that Felicity was hosting at all. She’s not exactly the easiest person to get along with at school.’
Jacinta grinned. ‘Well, she might just have met her match in Caprice.’
Caprice and Susannah stretched out in the back of the gigantic car. It wasn’t a limousine as such, but it wasn’t an ordinary sedan either. In the back there were four enormous leather armchairs which swivelled so that the passengers could enjoy a panoramic view through the glass panels that made up the roof of the vehicle.
‘What sort of car is this?’ Caprice asked.
Felicity shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s one of Mama’s prototypes.’
Caprice and Susannah looked at one another.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ Felicity pushed a button and a small black box rose up from the centre of the floor. A lid flipped open, reveal
ing an array of coloured bottles.
‘What’s that?’ Caprice asked, leaning forward.
‘It’s a refrigerator for my after-school beverage,’ the girl replied. She pointed to a neon-orange bottle and in seconds a robotic arm reached out and unscrewed the lid, then passed it to Caprice.
The girl sniffed and felt some bubbles tickle her nose. She put the bottle to her lips and took a swig. ‘It’s like orange soda but bitter,’ she said to Susannah, who still looked dubious about the whole thing.
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Susannah asked.
Felicity looked at the girl as if she were mad. ‘Of course not. My mother and father were only allowed to have one child. And anyway, I’m perfect, so why would they want another?’
For a second Caprice didn’t know what to say. The girl was clearly full of her own importance. ‘Where were your parents tonight?’ she asked, not one for a tactful delivery. ‘My mother was hoping to meet them at the dinner.’
Venetia had been disappointed that she’d only got to meet Felicity’s grandmother, who had arrived at the very end of the meal. Venetia’s attempts at communication were met with a stony silence, but Miss O’Reilly assured the woman that the girls would be in good hands. The Fangs were one of the most prominent business families in China, and their daughter was shrouded in cotton wool, which was covered in bubble wrap with an outer layer of foam for good measure. Still, Venetia would have felt better if she’d at least met one of the parents.
‘Daddy is at his hotel and Mummy is at the factory in Shenzhen,’ the girl explained with a wave of her hand.
‘So your father owns a hotel?’ Caprice said.
‘Yes, it’s like a resort where adults go to play card games and relax,’ Felicity said as if the girls should have known it.
‘What sort of factory does your mother work at?’ Susannah asked.
Felicity flicked at a piece of lint on her uniform. ‘She is the founder and CEO of the Wangfang Motor Group.’
‘Does her company make cars?’ Caprice asked.
‘Gold star to the new girl,’ Felicity mocked. ‘Of course my mother’s company makes cars! Where do you think this one came from?’
The vehicle turned into a driveway, where a towering set of gilded gates slid back to reveal a garden to rival the Palace of Versailles. They drove along a tree-lined grove before the house came into view.
‘No way,’ Caprice breathed, her eyes on stalks as she tried to take it all in. ‘This is insane.’
‘Insane – doesn’t that mean crazy?’ Felicity said, her eyes narrowing.
‘I meant it in a good way,’ Caprice said. She hadn’t imagined they’d be staying in the modern Chinese version of Queen Georgiana’s palace.
‘Are your parents often away?’ Susannah asked, unable to take her eyes off the mansion ahead of them.
‘I suppose so,’ Felicity said. ‘But don’t worry, there are lots of people to take care of us.’
The car proceeded to an underground car park, and the girls were stunned to see at least fifty gleaming cars, each housed in a glass garage.
The car they were in stopped beneath a giant portico. A uniformed butler stepped forward to open the doors.
‘This is the butler,’ Felicity informed the girls. ‘There are also maids and two nannies. Plus, Chef and his team and three gardeners and the men who wash the cars and the security guards and the drivers.’ She paused. ‘There are probably others, but don’t ask me what anyone’s name is.’
‘You don’t know their names?’ Susannah was incredulous. ‘Isn’t that a bit … awkward?’ The girl couldn’t imagine not knowing the names of everyone at school and not just the teachers and the girls. Mr Charles and Mrs Howard and Mrs Smith weren’t just people who worked there. They were like family.
‘Why? I don’t talk to them,’ the girl replied with a shrug. ‘And you don’t need to either.’
The van pulled up outside a traditional entrance gate. On the other side was a line of trishaws – bicycles with a carriage for two on the back of them.
Bernard Wong walked up and spoke to several of the drivers. Within a couple of minutes the suitcases were loaded into the first trishaw and the children were sitting three abreast in another, while Mr and Mrs Wong hopped into a third vehicle.
‘Do you always go to your house this way?’ Alice-Miranda asked.
Coco shook her head. ‘We have electric motorbikes and bicycles and sometimes we walk, but Baba thought this would be more fun. It’s the traditional transport people used to travel through the hutongs in the olden days. Now they are more of a tourist attraction.’
Jacinta’s eyes widened as she took in their surroundings. At first glance, the laneway looked pretty, lined with sparkling lights and Chinese lanterns, but as the trishaw driver pushed on, the girl realised that there was a lot more than fairy lights within that outer wall. Some of the alleys were scattered with junk – there were discarded bicycles, twisted and bent, completely beyond repair, while in other sections there were building materials and bamboo scaffolding wrapped around the perimeter of some of the walls. There were even a few small cars wedged into the narrow laneways. This made the going difficult for the trishaw drivers, who, when they had a clear run, sped through the tight streets.
Alice-Miranda grinned as the vehicle rocked and rolled around every sharp corner. ‘What a way to travel,’ she marvelled.
They stopped alongside a whitewashed wall interrupted by a glossy red door. Beside it, a flourishing pot of orchids in full bloom brightened the space.
‘This is home,’ Coco said as she and the girls alighted the carriage. She pushed open the front door, which led straight into the rectangular courtyard with the pomegranate tree in the centre. A covered veranda ran around the perimeter with doors leading to who knew where. Alice-Miranda counted at least ten of them that she could see.
‘Oh wow!’ Jacinta gasped. ‘I imagined a siheyuan to resemble the Japanese ryokan we stayed in during our time in Tokyo, but this is different altogether.’
‘Nai Nai, Wai Po,’ Coco called out. ‘We’re home!’
A tiny old woman with grey hair and twinkly eyes shuffled out of one of the doors close by and nodded at the guests. ‘Wai Po,’ she said, pointing to herself.
Alice-Miranda dipped her head in return. ‘Ni hao, Wai Po.’
The woman giggled and, to the children’s surprise, leaned in and gave each of the girls a hug.
‘What is she doing, embarrassing herself like that?’ Lucille scoffed under her breath.
A sprightly older man and woman walked out of another room and greeted their guests in the courtyard. Alice-Miranda was mesmerised by the man’s triangular beard that reached all the way to his chest.
‘I am Lionel Wong and this is my wife, Winnie,’ the man said. ‘I suspect that you would be most comfortable calling us Mr and Mrs Wong.’
‘Thank you for inviting us to your home,’ Alice-Miranda said as she and Jacinta bowed.
‘Come, you must be tired and hungry after your big day of travelling,’ Winnie said with a smile.
‘We had dinner at school, Nai Nai,’ Coco reminded her.
‘Yes, but I have tea and cakes,’ the old woman said with a wink.
It wasn’t long before the group was seated at a large dining table. Cherry and Charles arrived with the boys and joined them and soon an animated conversation was in full flight. Despite some language difficulties every now and again, the children and adults seemed perfectly capable of making themselves understood to one another.
‘Where have you been on your travels so far?’ Lionel asked the children.
‘Hong Kong and Shanghai,’ Alice-Miranda replied. ‘I thought Hong Kong was especially beautiful with its steep mountains and the harbour.’
‘And Shanghai is modern and slick,’ Sep added.
Lionel nodded and stroked his beard. ‘Beijing is flat – that’s why we have such awful problems with the pollution, and we have many more old bu
ildings, but I think that is part of the charm – the buildings, not the smog.’
‘We saw the Circus of Golden Destiny perform while we were in Hong Kong,’ Jacinta said. She was dying to talk about the Wongs’ acrobatic troupe and find out more.
Lionel’s eyes lit up. ‘And what did you think?’
‘It was incredible. We met Summer Tan, who has the lead role in the production. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone as flexible as she is,’ Jacinta declared.
‘Well, you haven’t seen our Coco perform yet, so perhaps you will be in for a surprise,’ the old man said, grinning.
Coco’s face reddened. ‘I can’t believe that we would ever be as good as the performers in the Circus of Golden Destiny. And Summer is my idol. She is out of this world.’
‘Has everyone had enough tea and cake?’ Winnie motioned at the platter, which had been laden with sweet treats. A lot of them were similar to what the children ate at home, but there were moon cakes and egg tarts too.
‘I’m full,’ Lucas said, patting his stomach. ‘I’ll be getting a gut to rival my father’s if I don’t stop eating.’
‘It was lovely to meet him this evening,’ Charles said. ‘What an unexpected honour.’
Lucille looked at her brother-in-law, wondering who Lucas’s father was. She didn’t remember anything special about the man – only that he needed to lose a few pounds and he would look better without that awful beard.
‘It is special for your father to be spending this time with you,’ Cherry added.
‘Might we know who your father is?’ Lionel enquired, his curiosity piqued.
‘His name’s Lawrence Ridley,’ the boy replied.
Lucille spat her tea all over the table. ‘It is not!’
It was Lucas’s turn to blush. No matter how many times people reacted to such news, he’d never get used to it.
‘Uncle Lawrence is preparing for a role and he’s had to gain weight and look scruffy,’ Alice-Miranda explained. ‘I didn’t recognise him at first either and he’s married to my Aunt Charlotte.’
Alice-Miranda in China Page 14