Sienna felt like crying. She’d been hoping to explore the city – now it seemed like she was going to be stuck here every day! But at least she did already know a number of Chinese characters.
‘Look, this character is called jia.’ ‘It shows a pig under a roof, which means “home”,’ Mum had told her.
‘Please can we have a pig under our roof too?’ Sienna begged.
Mum laughed. ‘An invisible dog, now a pig – how many more pets do you want?’
Mum could not only read and write Chinese but she was also an expert on Chinese art and history. That had been her job. She and Dad had met each other in China when they’d both been working out there.
Ling put some textbooks in front of Sienna, opened one to the first exercise, and handed her a pen. ‘Get started,’ she said.
Sienna took the pen hesitantly and tried her best to do the work. Each page showed a different Chinese character. Below the character were thirty empty boxes. She had to copy the character over and over again into the empty boxes.
‘Teacher Ling’ didn’t explain anything. Most of the time she was busy working on her fingernails, filing them into sharp points and then painting them bright red. Sometimes her phone would ring and she’d leave Sienna alone in the room while she answered it.
Sienna soon grew bored with this writing exercise!
And so the first few days passed by in Sienna’s new home. Dad went to work every morning and didn’t get home until Sienna was in bed. Sienna badly wanted to tell her dad how horrible the housekeeper was, but she didn’t want to add to his problems. He always looked so tired.
During the day a cook, Lihua, and a cleaning lady, Shufang – the two young women who had helped them with their luggage – were also in the flat. They barely spoke to Sienna, although they often smiled kindly at her when Ling wasn’t looking. Ling left the house regularly, always leaving Sienna with work to do. As soon as she was gone, Sienna would stop working and look out of the windows, trying to get a sense of her new city.
Although she hated being stuck in the apartment, she was actually quite content being on her own. In London she had a few school friends, but nobody she had been especially close to. She had been happy to be by herself and had spent hours reading books or playing cards. If she ever felt lonely, she had Rufus for company. Often Sienna and Rufus would tell each other stories: exciting adventures set in distant lands. But all of that had belonged to another time. Mum had still been with them then.
Now everything was different … now Sienna was in a distant land.
In the country where her mother had disappeared.
3 Nanhai – The Boy
Exactly four months ago, Sienna’s mother had called from China for the last time. Since then there had been no trace of her.
It took Sienna and her dad a while to realize she was gone. First Mum missed her goodnight phone call two days in a row, but that wasn’t unusual, because by the time Sienna went to bed in England it was already early morning in China, and Mum worked funny hours. She hadn’t replied to Dad’s messages either, but that had happened before – sometimes Mum worked in places without phones or internet.
Dad hadn’t been worried until he spoke to the receptionist at her hotel, who hadn’t seen Sienna’s mother in days. Even Mum’s employers couldn’t help: Mum often didn’t report on her projects for weeks so they hadn’t heard from her either. Soon Dad was spending all day on the phone. He spoke to the police, the British embassy and the authorities in the province of Henan, where Mum had last been working. But nobody knew where she was. Finally, Dad left Sienna at her aunt’s and flew out to China.
When he returned, several weeks later, everything was different. He spoke of the search and of the efforts that had been made to find Mum. He looked like he was trying very hard to be calm. The last time she had been seen had been four weeks ago, when she’d left the hotel in the morning. Mum had worked in several temples in the province, so Dad had spoken to people there too. They had seen Mum around, but not for some time. No one had any idea where she could be.
‘Sienna, the authorities have called off the search for your mother. They think—’
But Sienna couldn’t bear to hear the end of her father’s sentence, and she had run to her room, slamming the door hard behind her.
Dad didn’t want to talk to Sienna about her mum. Instead he’d sent her for counselling to ‘work things through’. It seemed to Sienna though that the counsellor just wanted her to accept that her mother was dead. Even though she couldn’t accept this, she agreed they needed to look to the future now. It seemed to be what everyone wanted to hear, and after she told them this, she didn’t have to go to any more sessions.
Sienna secretly believed though that her father also thought her mum was still alive. Dad had said they’d moved to China for his work. But perhaps he hoped they’d be able to find Sienna’s mum and bring her home.
It was very early in the morning. Sienna could hear the noise from the street even through the soundproof windows.
She hadn’t seen Rufus for days. She wasn’t really worried about him, as he did sometimes disappear for days on end, but she missed him. She hoped he was OK – Sienna didn’t like to think of him lost or scared in Shanghai, on his own! But she had a funny feeling he was nearby. She couldn’t put it into words: it was just something she felt deep inside her.
She made a decision: if Rufus wouldn’t come to her, then she would just have to go out and find him! Pulling on jeans and a hoodie, she crept out of her bedroom.
The flat was silent, apart from the sound of Ling’s snores echoing from her room. Sienna quietly opened the heavy front door of the flat. The air conditioning blew ice-cold on her bare feet. In the stairwell it was even colder than in the flat. Where was Rufus?
Suddenly the lift rumbled. Sienna gave a start. What would happen if Ling caught her? She’d forbidden Sienna to leave the flat by herself. She shuddered as she imagined Ling pulling her back into the flat with her sharp fingernails. The lift noise stopped; she could hear voices on a different floor.
Trembling, she pressed the button to summon the lift. Soon Sienna was whizzing downwards. The door opened and she stepped out into the entrance hall. With its marble walls and heavy chandeliers it looked like a hotel lobby down here. To Sienna’s relief, she couldn’t see anyone around. But as she started to creep past the small porter’s lodge, she heard a familiar yawn.
Rufus!
Peering into the porter’s lodge, Sienna saw her dear friend lounging on a chair. The porter was nowhere to be seen.
‘Well, well, who have we here?’ cried the dog sarcastically.
‘Oh, Rufus, I’m so pleased to see you! Where have you been?’ cried Sienna, gathering Rufus in her arms and inhaling his familiar scent. She hugged him tightly. ‘Please don’t leave me alone any more. Dad’s always away and there’s this horrible woman in the flat, who’s supposed to be taking care of me. She wants me to learn Chinese all day …’
Rufus squirmed indignantly in Sienna’s arms until she loosened her grip on him. He leapt back on to the chair and stretched. ‘Fascinating as all that is, princess, I have something to tell you. Now, as you know, I am a sensitive soul and I have had terrible jet lag. That means I’m tired during the day and wide awake at night, or something like that. Anyway, during the times I have been awake – not wanting to wake you from your deep slumbers – I have been exploring.’
‘You’ve been out in the city?’ cried Sienna, envious of her friend’s freedom. ‘What did you see, where exactly have you been?’
‘Well, I have been exploring the neighbourhood and finding out some things you might find interesting …’ Rufus paused dramatically and gazed into the distance.
Sienna sighed. There was no hurrying Rufus when he was in this mood. Looking out into the early morning, she saw that it was still dark outside. The rain ran down the glass door in thick drops, and colourful advertising signs were reflected in the puddles in front of the entra
nce.
‘Do you remember the boy?’ Rufus continued. ‘The boy you saw outside the restaurant, when you were on your way here in the car on that first day?’
Sienna frowned. ‘But you weren’t in the car with me! How do you know who I saw?’
Rufus raised an eyebrow at her. ‘There are so many things you don’t understand, princess. Just because you do not see me doesn’t mean I’m not with you. Or at least nearby. Anyway, I saw the boy and I spotted something special about him.’
Sienna turned away from the window. ‘What do you mean, “something special”?’
But before Rufus could elaborate, the lift door opened. The figure that stepped into the lobby was wearing a red dressing gown decorated with flowers. Small, brightly coloured tassels hung from the sleeves and hem. There were lilac high-heeled slippers on her feet, and her head was made huge by the many curlers in her hair, sticking up in all directions.
It was Ling. She stormed over to Sienna, looking like an angry monster. ‘What do you think you’re doing leaving the flat?’ she hissed, towering over Sienna and her invisible dog, who had promptly disappeared. Ling pulled Sienna back into the lift. No sooner had the door closed than she said, with a threatening look, ‘I make the rules here … and I’ll show you what happens when you break them.’
Without Rufus, Sienna felt lonelier than ever before. And what had her invisible friend been about to tell Sienna before Ling had arrived … ?
***
Ling made good her threat. She removed all possible distractions from the ‘study’. The TV, computer, radio, magazines – even the Chinese ones – all the books, and even the two old armchairs that had been shipped over from their living room in England.
‘Too comfortable, it gives you an excuse to be lazy!’ she hissed in Sienna’s ear as Shufang, the cleaner, pulled the chairs into the hallway. The only things that remained were the large dining table with its heavily lacquered chairs, and two wooden painted calligraphies on the walls.
Breakfast with Ling was the worst part of the day. There was rice soup with dry meat, and when Sienna couldn’t eat it, thinking longingly of the choice of cereals and toast she would eat back at home in London, Ling would say triumphantly, ‘Too good to eat a decent meal, are we? Just wait until your stomach’s rumbling.’
Unfortunately, Ling was right – as soon as Sienna was sitting in the study with her textbooks, she longed for lunchtime, even if she knew it would just be stringy meat and vegetables and rice again.
Every day she had to learn new Chinese characters. How to write them, how to pronounce them, what they meant. As Sienna swotted up on character after character, she felt like her former life in London had been nothing but a dream. Now she had nowhere to go, and no one to talk to.
Rufus visited her only on very rare occasions. Most of the time he was somewhere else, although he never told Sienna any details about exactly where he’d been. And he seemed reluctant to share any more information about the boy in the restaurant, or what he had meant by ‘something special’. After a while, Sienna almost forgot about it.
One day, when Sienna knew Rufus was about to disappear again, she asked him where he was going.
‘Oh, I’m just out and about,’ he said. ‘Getting to know the country and its people, seeing what’s going on. You should get out more often, you know.’
‘Very funny!’ cried Sienna. ‘I’m locked up most of the time, in case you hadn’t noticed?’
‘Where there’s a will, princess, there’s a way. It seems to me you actually prefer being on your own,’ said Rufus, and then he was gone.
Maybe he was right. The longer Sienna stayed in the flat, the more she got used to not going outside. Her dad, who she barely saw these days, had asked Ling to take Sienna out to some places of interest. But Ling had been quick to put a stop to that. ‘The little one needs to settle in first,’ she’d said. ‘It’s noisy and dirty outside, and there are criminals lurking everywhere on the streets. There’s no reason for her to leave this flat!’
Instead, whenever she wasn’t learning characters or practising her Mandarin, Sienna would lie on her bed, looking out of the windows and dreaming of her mum – or reading printouts of her mum’s emails, which she kept in the tin box under the bed, always storing them safely away afterwards.
The day after her talk with Rufus though, when her dad was home at a reasonable time, she asked him if she could go out to the shops with Lihua. Although Ling wasn’t pleased about it, Dad thought this was a great idea, and now Sienna would be allowed to go with the cook to the market twice a week, and into the little shop at the end of their street.
That night, Sienna couldn’t sleep – the half-moon was bright and the city alive with electric light, spilling in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She flicked on her bedside lamp and pulled out the box. She opened the lid and shook the entire contents on to the sheets. Letters, photos, pressed flowers … all the things Mum had sent to her from China fell into her lap. The printed-out emails, which were folded up in the box, were the only things Sienna had to pull out.
She picked up one of the pictures. She hadn’t studied it as much as the others because her mum was behind the camera. It showed a brown car from the side, a young Chinese man waving from the driving seat. He was wearing a white shirt, his hair was blowing across his forehead and he had a beaming smile. Our new driver, Mum had written in the border. In the back of the car sat a Chinese woman. Only her profile was visible, framed by carefully styled curls of hair.
Sienna froze. It was Ling!
Ling had known her mother!
A terrible chill ran through Sienna’s whole body as she studied the image closely. She tried to be sensible and think clearly. It was a silhouette through the window of a car – it could be anyone. But it certainly looked like Ling …
She heard footsteps in the hall and froze. The housekeeper would kill her if she found her awake at this hour! She shoved the photos and letters back in the box under the bed, flicked off the light and shut her eyes.
Her bedroom door opened, and Sienna peeked through half-closed eyes, her heart thumping. But it was Dad. He slipped quietly into her room and sat on the chair beside her bed.
Sienna lay with her eyes closed, enjoying her dad being near her. He held her hand gently. Her breathing slowed and, despite all her questions and fears, she began to feel safe and relaxed.
She drifted off to sleep. She knew she reminded her dad of Mum. Was she the reason why he worked such long hours, why he was never home?
When she woke up, later, he was gone. But today was the day she was going to leave the flat for the first time! She pulled on her shoes for her trip to the market with Lihua, already relieved to spend an hour or two away from Ling. She studied the photo of the car again before going downstairs, and though she couldn’t be certain it was the housekeeper in the back seat, she had a horrible feeling in her stomach. What if Ling had known her mother? Could she have had something to do with her disappearance?
Sienna shook the thought away.
As soon as they turned out of their small alley on to the main road she found the street swarming with people and cars. The air was humid and sticky, and she felt rather overwhelmed by the noise and the crowds after the days spent shut away.
The boy Sienna had seen from the taxi window when she first arrived often sat in front of the entrance to the restaurant with the ducks hanging up in the window. He always wore the same jeans, and a T-shirt with a picture of a Chinese temple on the front. He had a kind, gentle face but often stared at Sienna very intently if she came out of the apartment, which made her feel nervous and curious at the same time. Sometimes Sienna thought the boy might be waiting outside the restaurant just to look for her.
But he wasn’t outside today. As Lihua stopped at the vegetable stall next door, Sienna peered through the restaurant windows. The boy was wiping up the plastic tables. Sienna thought again about Rufus’s words about him being ‘something special’. What had
he meant? She thought she saw a flicker of fire above the boy’s head – a little flash of light. She blinked. Strange. Sunlight reflecting from a passing car, perhaps.
‘Come on,’ said Lihua in Chinese, patting Sienna’s shoulder. ‘We’ve got lots to buy today – not long until the Moon Festival now!’
Sienna would have liked to talk to the boy, but she was afraid Lihua might tell Ling, and that she would stop Sienna’s trips outside. Instead, she quietly raised her hand in passing and waved to him as they walked away. He returned the gesture.
Next weekend Dad was at home, working on the computer while Sienna watched TV. He sat down beside her and gave her hair a quick stroke.
‘What do you say to the two of us going for something to eat?’
Sienna jumped at the chance to spend some time with her dad. ‘Yes, please! Maybe we can go to the restaurant opposite?’
‘Really?’ her dad asked in surprise. ‘The old cookshop? Well, if that’s what you want, then at least we won’t have to battle through the traffic.’
They put on their shoes and took the lift down. But, to Sienna’s disappointment, the boy wasn’t sitting outside the restaurant today. An old man with white hair and not many teeth looked up in surprise as the two foreigners came into his restaurant.
Dad tried to exchange a few words with the man, but he couldn’t understand the dialect in which he spoke. Sienna knew her father spoke good Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, but the old people in Shanghai communicated almost exclusively in Shanghai hua – Shanghainese.
The man pointed to the menu, a few photos on the wall. Sienna and her father ordered fried noodles and sat down on plastic stools as the man disappeared through a saloon door into the kitchen.
‘Sienna, there’s something I need to tell you,’ Dad began hesitantly. ‘I know the move hasn’t been easy for you, and that I’m working a lot at the moment …’
Moon Princess Page 2
