Moon Princess (2 page)

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

‘
D
ad, 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 bothered 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.'

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.