Meanwhile, a few hundred miles north in Wellington, Li sat on the back doorstep of the Chinese Embassy and fumed. She had been yelling so loudly her throat was sore. How dare they think they could up and go to another planet and dump her in a boarding school! They had promised her a fancy party back in Shanghai for her 16th birthday and they wouldn’t be back in time. All her friends had already said they were coming. Her parents had missed so many of her birthdays over the years as they shuffled from one diplomatic post to another but they had promised not to miss this birthday. But not only that, alternatively, why couldn’t she go with them?
That would be equally acceptable. She would settle for that.
Bella looked out at her daughter and sighed. Where had that stubborn, pig-headed, determined personality come from? And such a volume from such a very small body. Certainly her personality had not come from her nor her logical, tactful, reasonable husband. If only Li had some of his personality. Li could not be reasoned with. She was so angry she couldn’t think logically.
But Bella was wrong. Li was perfectly capable of logical thought and was planning and scheming at a prodigious rate. The results of that thinking were about to cause some significant problems for Bella.