and leapt onto the back of the soldier nearest her, kicking and punching. Then she felt herself lifted off and held in a strong grasp.
‘Please let him go. We‘re on our way home.’ Fred spoke calmly.
‘Let him go? He’s under arrest for assaulting a NSF soldier,’ one of soldiers said, wiping blood from his mouth.
‘I didn’t assault anybody. You grabbed me and pushed me first,’ Henry shouted, spitting red dust out of his mouth, and tried to punch the soldier. Fred grabbed him with his free hand and hauled him away.
‘Stop it!’ Fred told him. He turned to the officer in charge of the soldiers. ‘Please let him go, and I guarantee that I’ll take him and the rest of my group away without any more trouble.’
‘Release him,’ the officer barked. ‘And now you lot get out of here!’
Fred led the twins to the bus, and gathered up the rest of the EPP members. Henry wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘If Li had taught me combat Tai Chi they never would have got me.’
‘Just as well, then,’ said Liz tartly. Henry gave her a dirty look and headed for the back of the bus, where Sue was already sitting. Fred started the engine. ‘What was Professor Smith doing here?’ she asked him.
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t get to speak to him, but someone said he tried to kill himself and the soldiers stopped him.’
‘My God!’ Liz was shocked. Professor Smith must have been really upset about something to go that far. She hoped that he hadn’t done it in front of the news cameras, or there would have to be a lot of explaining to anxious parents when she got home. She sat in silence all the way, wondering what, if anything, they had accomplished.
3
Birthday
Liz and Henry arrived home just before dinnertime. Her dad had spent the whole day preparing the meal, and Sue was invited to have dinner with them.
‘Liz, thanks for leaving us the note; otherwise, I’d’ve had no idea where you were,’ Liz’s mother said.
‘I’m sorry, Mum…’
‘It’s all right this time, but next time when you embark on such a big adventure, I’d like to know beforehand.’
‘I promise.’
Liz felt enormous relief that her mother didn’t ask what happened at Wave Rock. She tried to justify her action because of the urgency of the event, but deep down she knew that she should have got permission from her parents first; after all, she and Henry were only fourteen. She promised herself that she would not be so thoughtless again.
Liz and Sue went upstairs to clean up.
‘Sue, I’m sorry you have to endure tonight’s dinner. You know you could say no and I wouldn’t be offended at all.’
‘It’s not a problem. I enjoy your dad’s spicy dishes; they’re a good change from my mother’s cooking.’
‘I don’t mind Dad’s cooking so much as the ye olde China stuff that goes with it, all the Tao wisdom and ancient folk tales and stuff. I wish he would be more Australian.’
‘Well, I like your dad. He’s sort of… quaint. And I like those stories. They always seem to mean something more, just under the surface out of sight.’
Liz groaned. ‘Well, you’re welcome to them. Would you like to use the bathroom first, then we’ll go down and listen to the tale of the old man or the young girl and the horse or the chicken or the river, and eat moo shoo pork or something.’
Sue poked her tongue out at her on her way to the shower.
‘Honey, these dishes smell wonderful!’ Liz’s mum announced as the family gathered around the table later that evening.
‘Be honest, Dad’s cooking has been quite good and consistent recently,’ said Henry.
‘They look so colourful,’ said Sue. They picked up their chopsticks and dug in.
‘This fish fragrant pork is the best you ever cooked,’ Henry commented around a mouthful of the spicy pork dish. ‘I like the aroma of the mixed but still distinguishable flavours of chilli, garlic, ginger, and spring onions, not to mention the melt-in-your-mouth meat strings.’
‘Enough professional comment from you,’ his mother said.
‘I like this tofu dish, but I wish that you hadn’t put beef mince in so I wouldn’t have to separate it from the tofu every time,’ said Liz. She caught Sue grinning at her and smiled back. ‘But it is delicious anyway. Thanks, Dad.’
Afterwards, in the living room, Liz and Henry unwrapped their birthday presents. Last of all was one from their father. He gave Liz a small rectangular package and Henry a large rectangular one. From the shape of Henry’s package, Liz guessed that it was books. Probably more Tao wisdom, she thought, like the ones they had got last year. Each twin still had them, untouched, on the bookshelves in their bedrooms.
Henry pretended to be surprised when he opened his package. It was a book about Chinese philosophy. He thanked his father, and put the books on the coffee table. Liz wondered if her poor father realised that they had never, and would never, read the books he gave to them. She felt a little guilty, and decided to put more effort into being surprised and delighted by his gift. She opened the package carefully, trying not to tear the paper, and uncovered a dark green silk-covered box. She hugged her father. ‘Thanks, Dad. It’s beautiful!’
‘Aren’t you going to open it? Or do you just love the box?’
Liz felt her face burn. ‘Dad, I know there’s a Chinese calligraphy pen inside. I really like it. I do. I promise I’ll use it to write some Chinese characters, maybe for your birthday or Chinese New Year.’
‘Sue, could you please help me?’ Liz’s mum and Sue went to the kitchen.
Her father blinked and smiled at her, and Liz, remorseful, opened the lid. As expected, she found a traditional Chinese calligraphy pen inside: but it was not quite as expected. In fact, it looked very strange. Although she was no expert on pens, Liz immediately recognised that this was not a product of the ‘Made in China’ variety. Firstly, the ring binding the brush inside the shaft was not plastic, but some kind of bone. Secondly, at the end of the shaft, was a black ball, a most unusual item, made of a dark stone engraved with a Yin-Yang sign. The pen’s shaft was a reddish wood and, judging by the scars, had been well used. And finally, the brush hairs were loose, unlike the hairs of new pens that were always glued tightly together into a sharp point.
‘It’s quite unusual. Where did you get it from?’ she asked.
‘I got it from...’
The lights suddenly went off.
Liz’s mum and Sue came back in holding a cake each and singing ‘Happy birthday’; fourteen candles on each cake made the room quite bright.
While Liz looked at the floor thinking about the strange calligraphy pen and Henry danced about, impatient to get a slice. ‘Make a wish,’ said Sue, and Henry closed his eyes and blew his candles out with gusto.
‘I bet I know what you wished for,’ Sue said when everyone was settled with a piece of cake. ‘You want to be a martial arts master, Henry, and you, Liz…’
Liz interrupted. ‘Well, I’m definitely not becoming a fashion model. I know what you’re going to say, but this time you’re wrong.’ Liz turned to her father. ‘Dad, tell us where you got this pen from.’ She explained about the pen to her mother and Sue.
‘I wanted to give you a surprise.’ Her father drank some of his green tea. ‘You might expect it to be a new pen, but you would never guess that I bought it at the swap meet this morning. Ha, I tricked you.’
Liz sometimes wondered if her father would grow up.
‘Let me have a look.’ Her mum picked up the pen. ‘The Tai Chi ball looks very cute. What‘s the writing on it?’
‘It’s a famous Chinese idiom, and can be translated as “the magic pen can paint a flower blossom’”,’ said Liz’s father. ‘Have you heard another famous pen-related idiom, “forming a full bamboo in your heart before you paint it”?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Sue said, ‘but I’d like to hear about it.’
Liz put down her empty plate, picked up Henry’s book, and pretended
to read. None of her father’s words registered in her mind; they were just a long series of blurred, meaningless noises that finally and thankfully came to an end.
‘Wow, that’s interesting,’ said Henry. ‘Can I have a look at the pen?’ he grabbed for it, and it fell out of the box onto the tiles. The shaft split, and a beam of light flashed from the crack as if there was a diamond inside.
Liz bent and picked up her broken gift.
‘I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean to break it,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll get you another one, Liz.’
‘It’s very old. Maybe it’s time for it to be broken anyway,’ her father said.
Liz turned it over in her hands. ‘Look! There’s another layer underneath.’
Everyone moved closer. Henry snatched the pen out of Liz’s hands. ‘The layer underneath looks a bit yellowish,’ he said, and used his thumbnail to push the crack wider apart.
‘Don’t! Be careful!’ exclaimed Liz, but suddenly the shaft broke into pieces like a pile of burned paper ashes.
‘Whoops! Wow, look what we’ve got here.’ Henry brushed off fragments of the old shaft. The shaft underneath looked like bamboo, yellow with black patches.
‘Let me have a look!’ Their father suddenly became very excited. He stared at the bamboo shaft intensely. ‘This must be teardrop bamboo.’
‘What’s that?’ Sue asked.
Even before her father spoke, Liz knew another Chinese story was on its way. ‘It is an ancient fairytale. After their emperor father died, two beautiful princesses wept in a bamboo forest; their tears dropped on the bamboo, staining them in beautiful patterns. People have called it teardrop bamboo ever since.’
‘It’s a beautiful story,’ said Sue.
‘I don’t like these kinds of Chinese fairytales, always sad and depressing,’ said Liz’s mum.
Good on you, Mum, always direct telling Dad what your thoughts are. Still, Liz thought, I wish I could be as kind as Sue. I wish I could enjoy Dad’s stories. But they are sad—or pointless—or both. Often both.
‘That’s part of Chinese culture, Mum. You should know that after living with Dad for the last twenty years. I just wonder if there’s another layer underneath the brush hairs.’ Henry pulled the brush hairs jokingly. To everyone’s amazement, a layer came out.
‘What kind of hair is this?’
The brush hairs were different from usual. Liz knew that wool, horsetail, rabbit or wolf hairs were used in brushes, but these were much thicker. Besides, they were dark blue.
Her father touched the brush hairs with a gentle finger. ‘According to legend, the Yellow Emperor of China received a Dragon Whisker Pen from the Four Sea Dragon King at his coronation.’ He mumbled softly as he spoke, as if his words were surfacing from long lost memories.
‘Well, that’s not much help; we all know that dragons don’t exist,’ said Liz.
‘Has anybody managed to prove God exists? Lighten up, Liz, it’s just a fairy tale,’ said Henry.
Liz took her pen off him before he could think of something else to do to it, and put it back in its box. Behind her, her father turned the TV on. It was a newsbreak.
‘IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change) has just released a report establishing a link between human activities and global warming. Experts say that if we do not reduce greenhouse pollution significantly in the next ten years, it may be too late …’
Henry snidely commented, ‘We know that already, don’t we?’
‘Shush, Henry, listen.’ But the newsreader had moved on to the next item.
‘An explosion at Wave Rock this afternoon has left several people dead….’
The three of them stared at the screen in shock. Soldiers with arms in slings were carrying stretchers; ambulances raced along the dirt road, sirens screaming; people milled helplessly, looking lost and frightened. ‘The shock has left many people disoriented and confused. Many say they saw monsters escaping from the