A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE
When I was young, I had some fantastic imaginary friends – made-up folks and animals who seemed as real to me as the cat next door. The adventures we had together were awesome too, but not as exciting as Barbara Laban’s amazing tale where two cultures’ mythical and imaginary creatures combine in an all-action race against time!
BARRY CUNNINGHAM
Publisher
Chicken House
Contents
1 Shanghai – Over the Sea
2 Jia – Home
3 Nanhai – The Boy
4 Qiezei – Thief
5 Pengyou – Friend
6 Guaiwu – Monster
7 Daifu – Doctor
8 Long – Dragon
9 Simiao – Temple
10 Huozhede – Alive!
11 Gege – Big Brother
12 Xiao mao – Cat
13 Meikuang – The Mine
14 Jiejiude – Rescued
15 Yishujia – Artist
16 Guanyin
17 Zai yiqi – Together
EPILOGUE Zhongguo – China, the Middle Kingdom
What’s your invisible animal?
Copyright
For Stefan and our daughters
1 Shanghai – Over the Sea
Sienna’s invisible dog, Rufus, had fallen asleep on her lap.
‘Mmm, first class,’ the little spaniel murmured contentedly, before sinking his nose into Sienna’s legs. The dull roar of the plane’s engines had sent him to sleep, his long black floppy ears twitching as he dreamt.
Sienna stroked his fur. She was glad Rufus was with her. Her invisible friend had been by her side for as long as she could remember. Surprisingly, given he could be a little bad-tempered, Rufus had taken the news of the move from London to Shanghai pretty well.
Sienna had been less happy. ‘You can’t be serious, Dad. Why do we have to move to China? And why now? What about my school, and our home?’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ he replied. ‘If I want to keep my job, I have to go to China.’
They were both silent for a moment, then Dad hugged Sienna tightly. ‘I can’t stay here,’ he finally whispered.
Sienna wanted to cry, but she had held back her tears and breathed out heavily against Dad’s T-shirt. And what if I can’t go to China? she thought. But she hadn’t said it out loud. She didn’t want to make things even harder for her dad. Even though she was only twelve years old, she had learnt to be strong for him.
Now her dad was sitting next to her on the plane, working on his laptop. The small light above his seat was on. He took off his glasses briefly and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired and sad. Sienna gazed out of the window into the dark sky, Rufus licking her hand in his sleep. It was one of his little habits.
‘Stop it, Rufus, that tickles!’ she said with a smile.
Her dad looked across at her, tired and irritable. ‘Sienna, we’ve talked about this. You’re going to have to stop this nonsense.’
Rufus growled softly, suddenly awake. ‘Nonsense? Is that all I am? I can go if you want. But who will keep you company then, while your dad works and works and works?’
‘Shh, Rufus,’ Sienna whispered softly. ‘It’s hard for him to understand.’ Then, more loudly, she said, ‘It’s fine, Dad. I’ll be quiet now.’
‘You need some real friends,’ said her father with a frown. ‘You can’t keep up this rubbish about an invisible dog. What will people think if you go around talking to yourself? It needs to stop.’
Sienna’s dad used to make jokes about his daughter having an invisible friend. But now everything was different. Sienna sighed and closed her eyes. A moment later, she heard her dad tapping away on his keyboard.
Mum had always laughed when Rufus appeared. She couldn’t see or hear him, of course; only Sienna knew when her invisible friend was with her. But Sienna would translate the things Rufus said for her mother – well, most of them. She kept some comments to herself, such as, ‘Your mum should have her hair cut a little shorter, it would make her look younger!’
‘When I was small,’ her mum had told her once, ‘I had an invisible friend called Minka. She was a beautiful white cat. Only I could see her, just like only you can see Rufus. She wore a blue collar with a sparkly bell on it. She was very outspoken but she was my best friend. Sometimes, first thing in the morning, she would wake me by softly touching my face with her paws.’
Sienna would have liked to find out more about Minka, but Mum didn’t speak about her again. It was as if she was ashamed of her invisible friend. But Rufus had been with Sienna for ever, and she hoped he would never disappear from her life.
‘Oh, look. Shall we turn this little TV on? There might be a good movie to watch,’ came the voice from her lap. ‘And let’s order a couple of ice creams!’ continued Rufus bossily.
Sienna didn’t acknowledge him.
‘Oh, come on, they’re just waiting for you to order something!’
Sienna stared straight ahead. Rufus knew she wouldn’t want to annoy her father even more!
‘OK, well, ignore me then. See how far you get without me in China!’
And with that, Rufus disappeared. Sienna hoped he wouldn’t be angry for too long. She never knew where Rufus went when he disappeared, and he was always vague about it when she asked him. She suspected that he could travel anywhere he wanted, never being seen by anyone else. He certainly seemed to know a lot about the world and often talked of distant places and people.
Dad closed his laptop and looked over at her. His face softened. ‘You should sleep now, little one. When we land, it’ll be early morning in China, and you don’t want to miss your first day there.’ He put the laptop in his bag and tipped his seat back. ‘Goodnight, Sienna. Sweet dreams.’
Sienna wanted to sleep, but she missed the warm, reassuring presence of Rufus on her lap. Resting her head on her dad’s shoulder, she closed her eyes. Immediately she had a vision of her mum sitting beside her. She looked across, met Sienna’s eyes and smiled.
Sienna opened her eyes, startled. It had felt so real. So real that she wanted to be lying in Mum’s arms, touching her long blonde hair, so similar to her own hair. She could no longer hold back the tears …
Sienna didn’t know how she managed to get from the plane to the taxi. She hadn’t fallen asleep until the early morning light was shining through the plane’s windows. Before she had closed her eyes, she had just seen the first grey suburbs of the big city. The vast green hills gave way to houses and straight roads. Then the plane flew across the sea beside the city, and Sienna remembered that the words shang hai meant ‘over the sea’ in Chinese.
She only vaguely remembered waiting half-asleep at the baggage claim, then trudging outside, leaning heavily on Dad’s arm. In the taxi she immediately fell asleep again, and as she woke once more she felt as if she was still dreaming, even as she looked out of the car window.
It was grey and rainy outside. They turned on to a huge wide street with cars veering from one lane to another. Ancient buses jostled for position between fancy cars. Sienna watched the people at the roadside. Some were on their way to work. They carried briefcases, talked on their mobiles and seemed in a hurry.
But perched on the pavement there were also men smoking cigarettes and drinking from plastic cups. Some of them were lounging on large red-and-white-checked plastic bags. Their clothes looked old and worn. Her dad had told Sienna that the city was full of migrant workers, men who’d moved from the villages to the big cities trying to find work.
Sienna’s mum had spoken a lot about Shanghai. She’d told her about the new buildings that went up every day, and she had shown her many pictures of Chinese cities. Now Sienna saw for herself the glittering tow
ers, some of them endlessly stretching up into the sky. Passing cars and pedestrians were reflected in their facades.
The car was now travelling more slowly and took a turning into a narrow street. Suddenly everything looked older. Cables hung down from the walls at the backs of the elegant skyscrapers, and stretched between the tightly packed houses. Rows of small shops lined the streets.
Sienna would have liked to know what was written on the neon advertisements that hung over the shops, though she could recognize numbers, and sometimes an address – her mum had taught her some of the Chinese characters, which Sienna thought were so beautiful and delicate, like tiny paintings.
Their car passed by a small restaurant. Roasted ducks hung from hooks in the windows. In the entrance to the open door sat a boy, perhaps a year or so younger than Sienna. His dark hair was almost shoulder-length, a few strands hanging in his face.
When the car paused briefly, the boy’s eyes met Sienna’s. He smiled radiantly, as if he had been waiting for her. Sienna returned his smile shyly and lifted her hand to the window in greeting.
‘Ah, you’re awake, sweetheart,’ said Dad, smiling at her and putting his arm around her shoulder. ‘We’ll soon be at our apartment block. I hope you’ll like it. It’s where your mum lived when she stayed in Shanghai.’
The car finally stopped outside a tall, modern building and Sienna and her father stepped out of the car. Sienna held on tightly to her dad’s hand. The busy road was full of unfamiliar sounds and smells and she felt suddenly overwhelmed by it all. She imagined her mother here, her fair hair blowing in the wind. Mum had liked these new buildings, even though she was an expert on ancient Chinese works of art. Sienna felt comforted. She liked the feeling of following in her mother’s footsteps.
Entering the building’s lobby, the taxi driver carried their luggage into the lift before returning to his car. Sienna’s father then pressed the button to take them to the fifteenth floor.
2 Jia – Home
‘Dad, why do we have to live so high up?’ asked Sienna as the lift rushed them higher and higher. She was thinking of their old terraced house in London.
‘Most people live in tall buildings in this city,’ he replied. ‘And I’m sure you’ll like the view.’
Sienna wasn’t so sure. Heights always made her dizzy. Her dad seemed to have conveniently forgotten this!
When they left the lift they turned right down a corridor and soon came to a large, heavy wooden door. Dad rang the doorbell, and an artificial bird’s twitter could be heard. Sienna and Dad looked at each other in surprise, and couldn’t help laughing. They heard the sound of keys jangling and the latch lifting, then the door opened and a strange woman appeared in front of them.
Sienna’s first thought was that she was very tall for a Chinese woman, as she stood a head higher than Sienna, and everyone always said that Sienna was tall for her age. The woman’s skin was white, and she wore a lot of make-up. Instead of normal eyebrows she had two thin lines above her eyes. Her black hair was carefully styled in large curls. She was wearing a tightly fitted yellow dress.
The woman introduced herself in harshly accented English, giving a wide smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes: ‘My name is Ling,’ she said. ‘I am your housekeeper, and your new teacher. Welcome. You can call me Ling laoshi. It means “teacher Ling”. Come in.’
She nodded to Sienna’s dad, and Sienna realized they had spoken before. Then Ling called out something in Chinese and two young women hurried forward to help bring in the luggage.
Dad showed Sienna round the flat. It had a large living room with lots of drawings of Chinese letters on the walls. ‘That’s calligraphy,’ Dad said. ‘It’s considered an art in China.’
In the dining room there was a huge round wooden table that would seat at least twelve people. ‘You can invite all your new school friends round for dinner!’ Dad said with a wink. An aquarium, containing three large yellow and white koi, stood in the corner of the dining room. There were three bedrooms: one for Sienna, one for Dad and one for Ling, who obviously lived there too. The furnishings were sparse and reminded Sienna of functional hotel rooms she’d stayed in with her parents on holiday.
‘Who is Ling?’ Sienna whispered to her father, as they looked out of one of the large windows that framed each room in the apartment. ‘And why is she living here?’
‘Someone has to be here to take care of you, my dear,’ Dad explained, lowering his voice. ‘I’m going to be working a lot in this new job and Ling is an experienced housekeeper – she also speaks excellent English. She’ll look after you and help you to learn the Chinese language.’
Sienna frowned. Her first impressions of ‘Teacher Ling’ had not been good!
‘Actually, I should check in at my new office. Will you be OK here?’
Dad’s voice dragged Sienna out of her thoughts. She could see he looked worried. She was a bit nervous about him going, leaving her all alone, but she didn’t want to make him feel guilty. Where was Rufus when she needed him? There’d been no sign of her invisible friend for hours!
She swallowed and forced a smile. ‘Sure, I’ll be fine. I’ll start unpacking.’
Dad gave her a soft kiss on the forehead. ‘I’ll see you tonight. I’ll try not to be too late.’
After her father left, Sienna sat down on her new bed. It wasn’t very comfortable and there was only one small pillow. She sighed. Back home in London, her old bed was so soft it had been like sleeping in a cloud!
She went over to the window and looked out. They were so high up she felt quite dizzy. The city was covered with a large blanket of smog, but Sienna could still see tall buildings stretching as far as the horizon. The noise of the city was muffled by thick glass windows, which couldn’t be opened.
She began to unpack: a few books, two of her favourite teddies and her clothes. The room still looked a bit bare. The last thing she took out of her bag was a silver-coloured tin box. The metal felt cool in her hands.
Sienna swallowed, then opened the box. She wouldn’t read the letters or emails now; she would just look at the photo that was lying at the top of the box. She put it on her bedside table.
It was a photo from their last holiday as a family. Sienna and her mum and dad were standing in front of a roller coaster at an amusement park. Mum and Dad were kneeling beside her, looking up into the camera. Sienna was smiling and squinting into the sunlight. If she looked closely she could see Rufus in one of the cars on the roller coaster, his ears blowing back in the breeze. Only she could see that, of course. And perhaps only she had noticed that although her mum was trying to laugh, her eyes looked sad.
She remembered what had happened on her last birthday …
Sienna was lying awake in bed in the early hours of the morning. Rufus lay asleep at her feet, curled up and snoring softly.
At last she heard the longed-for sound: a key turning in the lock of the front door. Mum! She was supposed to have been home two days ago.
Then she heard her dad’s voice in the hall.
‘So, Kate, you finally decided to come back, then?’
‘I’m so sorry, Alan.’ Mum sounded tired and drained. ‘I had to postpone the return flight. You wouldn’t believe how complicated this project is.’
Sienna heard her dad snort sarcastically. ‘So complicated that you’ve forgotten everything else, apparently. That I have a job too. Or that we have a daughter who misses you so much that she’s been crying every night.’ His voice was getting louder and louder.
‘Please be quiet,’ whispered Mum. ‘I don’t want to wake her.’
But Dad didn’t stop. ‘Well, at least YOU’RE here now,’ he bellowed. ‘Because I’VE had enough!’ He disappeared into their bedroom.
Mum came into Sienna’s room. Seeing that she was awake, she took her gently into her arms. ‘Happy birthday,’ Mum whispered.
Her tears fell silently on to Sienna’s pillow.
The door opened. It was Ling. She hadn’t bothe
red to knock, Sienna noticed.
‘Come, eat,’ the housekeeper said shortly, and disappeared into the kitchen. Sienna looked quickly around her room and decided to put the tin box under her bed. She’d find a better place for it later.
In the kitchen there were two large plates on the table. On one lay cooked green leaves in a thick clear sauce: on the other, pieces of bone with meat on them.
‘Chinese spinach and chicken,’ explained Ling, in her heavily accented English. ‘You’ll be eating with chopsticks here. You know how to do that?’
Sienna nodded; Mum had taught her.
Ling took two blue-and-white porcelain bowls from a cupboard and filled them with rice from a rice cooker. She placed one in front of Sienna and gave her the chopsticks. ‘Lai, you may begin.’
Sienna tried to grab the vegetables first with her chopsticks. Thick viscous fluid, like glue, dripped from the huge leaf into her bowl. How was she supposed to get that into her mouth in one go?
She watched as Ling stuffed a large leaf into her orange-painted mouth with the chopsticks. Sienna had never liked spinach at home, but she forced herself to eat two leaves. She watched in fascination as Ling took a chicken bone between her chopsticks and chewed the meat from it.
Ling noticed Sienna staring at her. ‘You Western children don’t know how to eat real food. What you all like best is eating fast food. The softer the better.’
Sienna was taken aback. There was real hatred in Ling’s voice. She quickly looked back down at her bowl, afraid that staring at Ling would make her even more angry.
‘Anyway,’ continued Ling, ‘here you will eat properly. If you do not eat your meat and your vegetables, there’ll be nothing but rice. And you must always use the chopsticks. We’ll get started with your lessons after we’ve eaten.’
The rest of the meal continued in silence. Sienna tried to scoop the rice into her mouth with the chopsticks, holding the bowl tightly under her chin as she’d seen Ling do. She didn’t touch the chicken bones.
Her first lesson took place in the dining room. ‘From now on we will call this room the study room,’ said Ling. ‘It’s only a few weeks until you’ll be starting school. You need to spend the time learning the language of your new home.’
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