Chinese Cinderella and the Secret Dragon Society (8 page)

‘Chinese people now have the choice of resistance or submission to the Japanese occupation of our country. Our society has chosen to resist, so China can become free and independent one day. This is our sacred mission.’

Grandma Wu handed me the second box marked
Wei Lai He
, Future Vision Box. This time there were no eyeholes, but a decorative lid, which I opened. The box was divided into two chambers. The larger contained a red robe, a hat and a pair of sandals. Inside the smaller compartment was a tattered book bound in red cloth. A bundle of sticks, neatly tied with a cord, was attached to the book’s spine.

‘It looks very old,’ I said.

‘This book was written over three thousand years ago,’ she said. ‘It is called the
Yi Jing
or Book of Changes. We Chinese believe that everything in the world changes with time. The only thing that does not change is that everything changes.’

‘I know about the
Yi Jing
’ I exclaimed. ‘At thebazaar this afternoon, the fortune-teller in the stall next to yours was fiddling with a bunch of sticks. I heard him tell a customer that the
Yi Jing
is a Book of Magic that can foretell everyone’s future!’

‘The
Yi Jing
is actually a Book of Wisdom,’ Grandma Wu said. ‘If I were to tell you that a mysterious stranger might visit you tonight, there is nothing you can do about his visit but wait. The stranger may or may not arrive. That is fate. Consulting the
Yi Jing
will not help in such an instance.’

‘But is it a Book of Magic?’ I asked.

‘Yes and no! There are times when we‘re uncertain as to what we should do, knowing that our fate hangs in the balance. But how do we know which is the right road and which the wrong? How do we make the correct choice? On those occasions, when we wish to decide our own future but are confused as to what to do, the
Yi Jing
can definitely be of help.’

‘Please may I read it now?’ I asked eagerly.

Grandma Wu smiled gently at the hunger in my eyes but her voice was firm. ‘It is not the right time yet, CC,’ she said. ‘When that time comes, I will tell you.’

I was desperate to open the book, but knew I had to be patient. I kept silent but couldn’t help wondering whether the boys had also looked into the two Vision Boxes at some point. If so, what had they seen? Had they been allowed to read the
Yi Jing
yet? What did it tell them about
their
future?

Waves of weariness suddenly swept over me and
I started to yawn. Soon everyone was yawning.

‘Catching, isn’t it?’ Grandma Wu said with a smile. ‘It’s been a long day. Especially for you, GG. This meeting is now over and you can all go to bed. Please blow out your candles. Even though there’s no school tomorrow because it’s Saturday, I expect to see the four of you downstairs in the kitchen at seven o‘clock sharp.’

6

Kung Fu

I woke to find a ray of light from a skylight on my face, and David standing over my bed. ‘Wake up, CC!’ His hair was tousled as usual, his eyes eager. ‘Everyone’s waiting for you.’

For a moment I couldn’t work out where I was. With a dull thud, I remembered the events of the previous day. Had all of that happened in just one day? What would Father be thinking as I hadn’t come home all night? I hadn’t told him about Big Aunt leaving for Nan Tian Island. Would he assume I was staying with her? But as I relived how he had thrown me out of the house, my fear was replaced by anger. David must have sensed my sombre mood, but he said nothing about it. ‘Hurry up! Grandma Wu wants you to get dressed and come downstairs as soon as possible!’ he urged as he left my room.

I dressed quickly in my school uniform, as I had nothing else to wear. Sam, Marat and David were already eating breakfast when I came to the table. They were dressed in identical dark blue cotton pants and black T-shirts. I apologized for being late and sat down at the place they had set for me between David and Sam. I was starving, and the simple breakfast of congee, boiled peanuts and salted duck egg tasted wonderful.

‘Where’s Grandma Wu?’ I asked between mouthfuls.

‘She’s watering her plants and feeding her pigeons,’ Marat said, scrutinizing a sheet of paper in front of him. ‘She’s given us our chores for the week. David and CC are to plan next week’s daily dinner menu, cook the meals and do the washing up. Sam and I have to do the laundry, water the plants, clean the toilets and sweep the rooms. Everybody helps to make lunch today.’

‘Oh, no!’ Sam groaned. ‘I’d much rather cook than clean toilets!’

‘I’ll help clean the toilets if you teach me how to cook!’ I suggested shyly. ‘Those dumplings last night were wonderful! What did you and Marat put in them?’

‘Minced chicken, ginger, scallions, water chestnuts and soya sauce,’ Sam said. ‘Nothing to it. Cooking’s easy!’

‘Never trust a skinny cook!’ said David, eyeing Sam’s slender frame and laughing. ‘Let’s stick to Grandma Wu’s schedule. I can show you how to cook, CC.’

‘Does that mean you won’t be helping me with the toilets?’ Sam asked me.

‘The truth is, I don’t know how to clean toilets either,’ I said, feeling useless and dejected. ‘We always had servants to do stuff like that. But I need to learn to clean toilets too. If you‘ll show me how, I‘ll do it for you.’

‘OK! That’s a deal!’

After we’d finished washing up, Grandma Wu called us into the courtyard. She lined us up according to our height: David, Marat, Sam and me. Then she handed me a piece of paper. On it was the poem from last night.

‘The boys already know this poem by heart,’ she said. ‘You need to learn it too, CC.’

The four of us chanted in unison: ‘We are members of the Dragon Society…’ until the end.

‘Now let’s show CC what you can do,’ Grandma Wu said to the boys.

They moved into position and started to stretch their limbs, turn somersaults, leapfrog over one another and dance on their toes while shadow-boxing in the air.

While they were warming up, Grandma Wu told me: ‘My purpose in teaching you kung fu is to give you inner courage and self-confidence. You will learn to climb walls like a lizard, swim like a dolphin and run through fire without burning. Most importantly, you will learn about focusing the direction of your
qi
(pronounced
chee
)
, the powerful life force that exists within all living things. Skill and power in kung fu come from channelling your
qi
and transforming it into movement and fluidity.
Qi
is the foundation of a person’s courage, will and perseverance.’

As I was pondering Grandma Wu’s words, she blew a whistle hanging around her neck. The boys stopped their exercises and raced to a bamboo pole that was leaning against a wall. Taking turns to hold the pole steady, they climbed to the top of the wall before jumping down and doing it all over again. Grandma Wu gradually decreased the angle between the pole and the wall. Finally, she removed the pole altogether. To my amazement I saw them scaling the wall like lizards, without the aid of anything but their bare hands and feet.

Next the three of them ran to an enormous barrel designed so that the water inside could drain only from a spout at the bottom. David climbed up the side of the barrel, all the way to its rim, followed by the others. Keeping their distance, the
boys began to run faster and faster along the rim.

‘The purpose of this drill is to walk quickly and lightly and to balance your weight against the weight of others,’ Grandma Wu said to me. ‘Now I will take out some of the water. The boys have been learning to balance not just when the barrel is full, but even when it’s empty and wobbly.’

I felt as if I were in a world of make-believe, surrounded by-kung-fu heroes from the fabled Shaolin Monastery and wandering warriors who had descended from Mount Liang.

‘We all need to move noiselessly in times of danger and to leave no footprints,’ Grandma Wu continued. ‘The boys also know how to leave misleading footprints. Let me show you.’

Grandma Wu whistled again and the boys leapt down from the top of the barrel. Their skin glistened with sweat, but they were not even breathing hard. I marvelled at their superb physical condition and wondered if I would ever be so fit.

Grandma Wu moved to a sandpit, which she covered with large, thin sheets of paper. One by one, the boys stepped on the surface and walked so lightly that there was not a single tear. Then she removed the paper and the boys practised walking sideways on the sand.

‘Walking sideways leaves tracks that confuse the
enemy,’ Grandma Wu explained to me. ‘It’s impossible to work out the direction of the footprints.’

The morning continued with the boys doing a series of exercises and drills: kicking, footwork, punches, knife-hand thrusts and speed drills. Sam and Marat then rehearsed separate routines and special techniques with David, in preparation for his big match the next day. I watched them rolling their bodies into balls, walking on their hands and knees like cats and tensing their stomach muscles while their abdomens were pounded. I began to copy them and Grandma Wu showed me a few simple movements to increase my flexibility.

The hours passed quickly and soon it was time for lunch. Marat washed and cooked the rice, Sam whipped the eggs, David chopped the vegetables and I boiled chicken bones in water to make soup. There was a lot of laughing and joking as we all pitched in. The boys teased me about my clumsy hands and I became more and more determined to catch up. When I found a recipe book on the kitchen bookshelf I tried to memorize the recipes for chicken soup as well as fried rice with eggs and vegetables.

While Grandma Wu was picking herbs and vegetables in the garden, I asked the boys if they had ever used their kung fu on a secret mission.

‘Our finest hour was that night when the three of us fought the two Russian thugs who were trying to kidnap Ivanov,’ Sam said, looking at Marat.

‘Who’s Ivanov?’

‘Ivanov is my big brother,’ Marat said. ‘He is seventeen years older than me.’ He hesitated and looked down at the floor. ‘I should tell you the whole story. Otherwise you won’t understand - it’s complicated.’

‘Russian thugs!’ I said. ‘Are you Russian?’

‘Our mother was Russian and our father Japanese. They both died of tuberculosis when I was three years old. We used to live in Harbin, a city up north in Manchuria…

‘Ivanov’s best friend in Harbin was a talented French Jewish pianist called Simon Kaske, whose father owned a lot of hotels and was very rich. Times were bad. When the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, some of the Russian refugees living there began to work for the Kempeitei, the Japanese Secret Police. The Russians would kidnap wealthy people for ransom and divide their loot with the Kempeitei. One of their victims was Simon Kaske. Simon’s father refused to pay the ransom, and Simon was killed.

‘My brother never, got over it. He was determined to find the killers. He discovered that they were members of the Russian Fascist Party. But
when he reported them to the French Consulate in Harbin, he didn’t know that the murderers were being protected by the Japanese.