Allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Other Tourist Attractions

by Lenore Look

  Silence.

  My dad was fast asleep. All the dudes in my family fall asleep just like that. And they stay asleep. Except for me. I’m on high alert all the time.

  And anyone on high alert could see that we needed our oxygen masks and floatation devices, for sure! (I had watched the emergency video.)

  So I pushed the call button for help.

  Nothing.

  I pushed my dad’s call button for help.

  It lit up.

  I pushed my dad.

  Nothing.

  I pushed him again.

  Nothing.

  Worse, nothing came out of my mouth. My screams were all in my head.

  That’s the thing with me. When I’m all freaked out, I can’t make a sound. I can’t speak, I can’t grunt, I can’t howl, I can’t even cry. I’m as silent as air in a can.

  But my dad’s red call button was not.

  It chimed for help every time I pushed it.

  So I pushed it eight sqillion times.

  my dad was so busted.

  I’d never seen a federal air marshal before, but I’ve seen one now. TWO, to be exact.

  An air marshal, as everyone knows, is a plainclothes officer who flies in planes to keep an eye on things, just in case. Usually, you’d never know they’re on board. They blend in. They look like regular passengers.

  How my dad explained pushing his call button like a maniac during a storm with no cabin service, I have no idea. The marshals took him in the back to question him in private.

  My poor dad.

  But poor me too, when my dad came back to his seat.

  “Wherefore art thou such a jumpy, multilayered, overdressed, bootless button pusher?” my dad said. The expression on his face said that if I so much as looked at the call button again, I’d have another thing coming, and it wouldn’t be the nice lady or the not-so-nice air marshals.

  “Son,” my dad said firmly. “We have another thirteen hours on the flight. I would strongly suggest …”

  Thirteen hours???!!! Isn’t that a bad-luck number?

  Whatever else my dad said, I have no idea.

  How were we ever going to survive thirteen hours of bad luck???

  That night I had a super-duper scary dream. I dreamt that I got on a plane with emergency exits and oxygen masks and toilets that could suck you into outer space and woke up in a foreign movie with no subtitles.

  “Ni hao,” my dad said.

  “Wo hao,” said Anibelly.

  “Ni eh ma?” my mom asked.

  “Wo hen eh!” Calvin said.

  They sounded like a real Chinese family speaking real Chinese in a real Chinese restaurant. I’ve always wanted to do that! So I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Worse, we were sitting around with a bunch of relatives who sounded like they’d all been to Chinese school.

  Then they all started eating with chopsticks, even Anibelly. She was never good with chopsticks, but now she looked like she’d been born with ’em! When did she learn to use chopsticks like that???

  I’m allergic to chopsticks.

  I wasn’t eating at all.

  The only other person who couldn’t use chopsticks was the tuna. And she’s a baby.

  It didn’t look good.

  For me.

  I tossed.

  I turned.

  I wrestled with an alien.

  I hung on for dear life from a UFO.

  I turned into a dim sum.

  “Alvin,” said a voice from above.

  Chopsticks pinched me and pulled me from my steam-basket grave.

  The chopsticks of God. I was sure of it.

  I blinked.

  My dad blinked back.

  I love seeing my dad. I can be freaking out, but as soon as I see my dad, I’m okay.

  “Son,” he said.

  “Dad?”

  “You were having a bad dream,” he whispered.

  I nodded. I clutched my blanket. My dad clutched me.

  I love it when he does that. I love it more than Legos.

  “I dreamt you were speaking in Chinese,” I said. “I dreamt everyone was speaking in Chinese. Everyone but me.”

  My dad chuckled.

  “You were a real Chinese dude!” I said. “There were no pictures on the menu!”

  “Hmmm,” said my dad.

  “I also dreamt that I was in an airplane with emergency exits and oxygen masks and hungry toilets, for a longlonglong time,” I said. “We were all going to die and no one knew it on account of everyone was watching movies and not paying attention, except for me—I was the only one keeping an eye on things and I needed to make a parachute, fast!”

  Silence.

  “Is that why you were tying Claire’s blankets together?” my dad asked.

  I looked down. I was still clutching a little baby blanket.

  How did my dad know what happened in my dream?

  My eyes grew big and round.

  And when my eyes are like that, I can see a lot of things.

  My room was kind of strange.

  Everyone was asleep. Normally, it’s only me and Calvin in my room. But this was not normal. Even the Chilean sea bass, who sleeps in my mom and dad’s room in a special bed called a bass-in-net (on account of that’s what she is), was in my room.

  Calvin was there in his usual place, but Lucy, my dog, was not. Instead, Anibelly was there, curled next to my mom.

  It was really strange.

  Come to think of it, it didn’t look like my room at all.

  Or did it?

  I rubbed my eyes.

  I clutched my blanket.

  Huh? Was this my blanket?

  “Dad?”

  “Son,” he said, breathing heavily.

  “Am I still dreaming?”

  “You have jet lag,” my dad said. “It’s not time to get up yet.”

  “What’s a jet leg?” I asked, grabbing my leg. “Is that a disease?”

  “Jet lag is …,” my dad said. ZZZZzzzzzz.

  “Dad!” I said. “Why does my room look so funny?”

  “It’s not your room, son,” my dad said.

  “It’s not?”

  “We’re at our relatives’,” my dad said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “No.”

  “It was a long flight,” my dad said. “I wish I didn’t remember either.”

  A long flight?

  Relatives?

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  “Dad, where are we???” I asked again.

  “Beijing,” said my sleepy dad.

  “You mean Back Bay?” I asked.

  My dad breathed in.

  My dad breathed out.

  My dad’s like that in the mornings. He sputters like an old car starting up on a cold day. Lots of exhaust, but going nowhere.

  “No,” my dad said. “Beijing. The … the capital of …”

  ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

  “Of what?” I cried.

  “China.”

  CHINA???

  “We’re all exhausted,” my dad said. “You nodded off during dinner last night. We’ll go on a tour when we get up.”

  But I was up.

  “You mean we’re not in Concord anymore???” I asked.

  I popped out of bed and hurried to the window.

  Eeeeeeeeek!

  I was up in the sky like a bird! It was gray and foggy. Buildings below looked like toy houses. Cars looked like ants.

  “THIS IS CHINA?”

  I did not feel well.

  I have acrophobia.

  “Shhh,” said my dad. “You’ll wake the baby.”

  “IS THIS REALLY CHINA??? BUT IT LOOKS SO NORMAL. NOTHING’S UPSIDE DOWN!!!”

  “Wah!” cried the bass-in-net. “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

  the worst thing about being in China was everything.

  The baby was howling.

  The toilet was crying.

  Anibelly was singing “Lalalalalalala” an
d dancing along with the stars on Chinese TV.

  She was the only one in a good mood.

  My dad looked like a used tea bag.

  My mom looked like loose tea leaves.

  And Calvin was grumpy grumpy grumpy.

  “You’re the first person to land in China and not know it,” Calvin said. “It’s a good thing you’re not named Marco Polo.”

  Calvin is very smart, but he wasn’t born that way. He has to read everything. When he’s not reading a book, he’s reading something on the Internet. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know anything about anyone, especially famous explorers like Marco Polo, Xuanzang, Zheng He and Fa Xian.

  “You’re like a piece of luggage,” Calvin said. “Excess luggage.”

  He was grumpy that the sturgeon woke him up with her crying on account of I woke her up with my screaming. And Calvin loves to sleep.

  “You don’t pay attention,” Calvin continued. “You’re never going to be a brave explorer like me. You don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know where you’ve been, and you don’t know where you are.”

  I knew where we were.

  We were in our relatives’ house on the thirty-second floor!

  The air was unbreatheable. You had to stand next to the air-purifying machine, or else!

  The water was undrinkable. You couldn’t brush your teeth with it. You couldn’t have ice cubes.

  You had to use bottled water. Or boiled water.

  But you still had to shower.

  And you had to keep your mouth shut tight while showering, or else!

  This is what it’s like on the other side of the world, ten sqillion miles from home, in the birthplace of more than a billion people (alive), and the burial place of an army of creepy clay soldiers (dead), and where EARTHQUAKES happen all the time.

  Worse, I had to meet the relatives. They all knew me, but I didn’t know them. How does that always happen?

  First there’s Aiyi. She’s my mom’s sister. She’s from New York. Maybe I’ve seen her before and maybe I haven’t. It’s hard to say. She’s very nice.

  Then there’s Uncle Jonathan. He doesn’t look Chinese at all. He looks plain. But he speaks better Chinese than anyone. He’s a gentleman, like my dad, you can tell.

  Then there are my cousins.

  Katie. She’s Calvin’s age. They were friends just like that.

  And Bean Sprout. She’s about the same size as Anibelly. She’s a girl. And girls, as everyone knows, are annoying.

  “AlvinAlvinAlvinAlvinAlvin,” she sang as she hip-hopped. “AlvinAlvinAlvinAlvin.”

  Shimmy, shimmy.

  Shake, shake.

  Ooh. Why do I always get the girl???

  She was worse than Anibelly!

  “You are my sunshine, AlvinAlvin,” she rapped. “My only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray!”

  The skies were gray, all right.

  I thought my Chinese relatives were going to be real Chinese who spoke only Chinese and didn’t know any English. At least, they were like that in my dream. I was really disappointed.

  Breakfast was not what I had expected either.

  It was not breakfast.

  It was dinner.

  There were noodles—fat noodles, flat noodles, skinny noodles, fried noodles. Plain rice. Fried rice. Congee. Green beans. Red pepper. Yellow squash. Pumpkin soup. Meat kebabs. Hot dogs. Steamed buns. Steamed soy milk. Salted duck eggs. Salted fish. Potstickers. Tofu.

  “Our maid prepared a typical Chinese breakfast to welcome you,” Aiyi said.

  “Everything looks delicious,” my mom said.

  “Everything is scrumptious,” Uncle Jonathan said. “The Chinese eat big breakfasts. You’d better get used to it.”

  “I’m already used to it,” Calvin said, piling it on.

  “It’s the perfect start to a busy day of sightseeing,” my dad added. He piled it on too.

  Everyone filled their plates except me.

  “Oh, Alvin,” my mom said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  I blinked.

  My sad reflection blinked back at me from the plate.

  “I don’t think he wants to have dinner for breakfast,” Katie said helpfully. “I was like that when I first moved to Beijing.”

  “Not me!” Bean Sprout chirped. “I love dinnerfast!”

  “I’ve always wanted to eat dinner for breakfast too,” Calvin said, digging in. He was no longer in a grumpy mood.

  But I was.

  I like breakfast food for breakfast. And dinner food for dinner.

  This was completely upside down!

  “Alvin,” my mom said, “if you try it, you’ll like it.”

  I didn’t want to try it.

  I crossed my arms.

  I hoped to die.

  Well, maybe not that. If I died in a foreign country, I’d have to go home in a body bag. And body bags go in luggage class, where there’s no food service.

  Grrrrrrrr went my stomach.

  Urrrrrrrr went my liver.

  But I said nothing.

  What do you say when there’s so much food but nothing to eat?

  “Son,” my dad said firmly, “you’re forgetting your manners.”

  But how do you remember your manners when you’re thirty-two floors above the ground on the other side of the world, where the meals are upside down?

  And everyone is staring at you?

  My mouth opened, but instead of saying “I’m sorry there’s nothing good to eat”—Nothing. Came. Out.

  My tongue turned to ice.

  My words permafrosted to my teeth.

  “Oh no!” Anibelly gasped.

  “He’s allergic to China,” Calvin explained. “He can’t talk when he’s all freaked out about something.”

  “Oh, Alvin,” my mom said. She put her arms around me. She looked very worried.

  “We need to be able to hear you in a crowd, son,” my dad said. “You could get lost and we won’t even know it.”

  Lost?

  In a crowd of more than a billion?

  “Maybe he can wear a GPS tracking device,” Calvin said. “Like a prisoner.”

  “Or a leash, like Lucy!” said Anibelly.

  “I’ve got just the thing for you!” Bean Sprout said. She jumped up and dashed into her room. Then she hurried back with a bunch of orange hats in her arms.

  “You won’t get lost if you wear one of these,” Bean Sprout said, passing out destruction-orange hats to everyone—everyone, that is, except me. Mine she slapped on my head.

  “All the tourists wear them,” she said happily. “All the tour guides carry a little flag.” She pulled out a little yellow flag. It did not match our orange caps.

  “I’m going to be your tour guide!” Bean Sprout said. “Just follow me. If you wander off, I’ll be able to spot you right away!”

  “What a wonderful idea,” my mom said.

  “Perfect,” said my dad.

  Bean Sprout smiled. “AlvinAlvinAlvin,” she sang as she circled the table in her funny hip-hop. “AlvinAlvinAlvin.”

  “Lalalalalalala,” sang Anibelly, joining her. “Lalalalalalala.”

  Then everyone started talking all at once.

  No one said anything more about my manners.

  No one remembered that I didn’t have any breakfast.

  No one that is, except me.

  Grrrrrrrrrr went my stomach again.

  Urrrrrrrrrr went my liver.

  What’s worse than an empty stomach on a cold winter’s day?

  I looked at my freaked-out reflection in the plate.

  An ugly orange hat, that’s what!!!

  sightseeing in beijing is harder than it looks.

  First, you have to check the AQI (Air Quality Index) online. It measures the amount of tiny particles in the air that can creep deep into your lungs and make you sick. Any reading over 300 is “hazardous” and everyone is warned to stay indoors. The index tops at 500. Today’s reading was 655!

  Second
, you need to put together your PDK.

  The first thing in your PDK should be the air-purifying machine.

  But the problem with the air-purifying machine was that it was bigger than my PDK. Much bigger.

  Lucky for me, it was on wheels, and I was pushing it out the door when my dad pushed it back in. It was obvious we needed to take one with us. The air outside looked like dirty bathwater!

  “Residents in Beijing say that smoking a cigarette is safer than breathing the air,” Calvin said, reading from his book Anyone Can Speak Chinese, which not only teaches you how to speak Chinese, but also tells you all about China. Calvin had been reading it nonstop for weeks.

  “Not to worry,” Uncle Jonathan said. “We’ve learned to schedule our activities around the pollution. Instead of going to the Forbidden City today, we’ll drive out to the Great Wall. There’s less pollution out there.”

  “Hooray!” said Katie. “A Great Wall day is a great day!”

  “AlvinAlvin,” Bean Sprout sang. “You’ll love the Great Wall. It’s so, so tall. And after you climb it, you can buy a souvenir!”

  “I already love it,” Calvin said. “And I’m planning to buy a T-shirt that says ‘I Climbed the Great Wall.’ ”

  “I want to buy something too!” Anibelly said.

  “And I’m looking forward to taking some good pictures,” my mom said.

  Not me. I didn’t want to go anywhere—not if I had to get into an elevator first.

  There were thirty-two floors between me and the ground, which meant that it was a terrible way to die if the cables broke and the elevator plunged into a free fall.

  So my dad and I took the stairs. No problem. For me. For my dad, there were some issues. His knees are on their last legs. By the time we got to the bottom, he needed new knees and hips, and a new attitude, for sure. He was so cranky!

  Then there was the traffic.

  The driver’s name was Pan. He obeyed all the signals. He didn’t hit any pedestrians. He was very calm. He does nothing but drive everyone around every day, Aiyi explained. It’s his job. He’s a native Beijinger, so he knows all the streets. He can read the Chinese street signs. He speaks only Mandarin.

  And he knew his way to the Great Wall at Mutianyu without a GPS, even though it was two hours away.