seconds later, Li completed her actions and stood still. Nothing seemed to happen.
The Vampire King spoke. ‘Who are you? Are you going to fight with all of us on your own?’
‘I don’t really want to fight with you by myself. I’d prefer to wait for my army to arrive, and then we can have a formal battle; however, I do want these three young people alive. Give them to me, and I may let you live a bit longer—at least not kill you today.’ As Li spoke Liz could see her twisting the calligraphy pen behind her back, as if she was painting invisible pictures in the air.
The King and his vampires burst into loud laughter.
‘What you’ve just done is quite impressive, but unfortunately not good enough for me to hand the three over to you. Do you really think you are able to rescue them from all of my men?’ He stretched his arms to show how many monsters he had.
‘I have given you the choice; go ahead if this is what you want.’ Li Ping pointed her wooden stick at him. The Vampire King waved his hand, ordering the three vampires that Li had knocked down earlier to attack her.
Li never stopped twisting the calligraphy pen behind her back, even when the vampires were only metres away. The vampires came to a standstill, moving sidewards and positioning themselves in a half circle in front of her.
The Vampire King shouted, ‘Kill her!’ At the same time, he waved to another three vampires to kill the three.
Liz felt her stomach sink as the vampire on Li’s right slashed his razor-sharp claw at Li’s neck.
6
Tai Chi Teacher
Li barely moved; her upper body turned slightly and the vampire’s claw seemed to skip over her skin, while her wooden stick pierced his heart. The vampire let out a high-pitched scream, falling to the ground and twisting violently. In an instant he turned into a rotted corpse. The smell was so bad that everyone gagged. Liz almost vomited.
A split second later, the claw of the vampire on Li’s left almost stabbed her neck. Li twisted her body leftwards; and grabbed the vampire’s wrist, throwing him upwards. The vampire’s body flew high into the air and landed on the jagged remains of the branch where Li had broken off her wooden stick. It penetrated his heart, and this second corpse hung high in the tree. There was a sickening sound of rotten cloth tearing, and the corpse fell apart, bouncing and crashing to the ground.
Hesitating for a moment, the third vampire reached with both claws to grab Li’s neck. Li’s upper body bent backwards fast. The vampire’s claws clashed into each other centimetres above her eyes. Spearing her stick into the vampire’s chest, Li jerked her arm, knocking the third stinking corpse beside her feet.
In all this time, Liz did not see Li moved her feet at all; only her body moving, turning, twisting and bending as gracefully as a flower in the spring breeze.
The three vampires ordered to kill Liz and her friends hadn’t seen what happened to their fellows. Upon hearing shocked cries, they glanced around in time to see three piles of stinking dirt vanish into the ground.
The Vampire King turned to the bear monster who still sat beside the half-eaten kangaroo, and barked, ‘Monster King, send your monsters to kill her!’
Wiping his mouth with his bloody hand, the Monster King shook his huge bear head. ‘I don’t like to eat humans, not my cup of tea,’ he said, and went back to his kangaroo meat.
‘How dare you disobey! I’ll deal with you after I kill her.’ Furious, the Vampire King commanded twenty vampires to attack the woman, and ordered the three vampires to kill the three.
Waving their long sharp claws, with shrill screams, the three vampires rushed at Liz and her friends.
A golden cage suddenly appeared around the three; the vampires crashed into the cage and were knocked back high in the air. Liz and Henry cheered with excitement. Sue, who had covered her eyes, peered out to see what was happening. Liz thought she looked quite different; Henry looked a bit strange, too; but she had no time to have a closer look; her attention was taken up by the battle in front of her.
Moving like ghosts, the twenty vampires took the blink of an eye to cover the twenty-metre distance to Li, waving their broadswords, long knives, war axes, and other strange killing weapons, forming a circle around her. In the middle, holding only the wooden stick, Li Ping stood motionless.
It became so quiet that Liz heard her own heart beating.
Suddenly, Li threw her stick high in the air. From nowhere, a green sword appeared in her hand. It slashed the air once, twice, and, Liz saw the stick, still in mid-air, turn into a pile of wooden darts. Li hit the darts with her sword; as if she had set a bomb among them, they exploded, and shot whistling at the vampires around her. A few were killed instantly.
With ear piercing howls, the remaining vampires dashed at Li, but she stood motionless until the first vampire’s weapon was almost touching her skin.
What happened next was too fast for Liz to follow; but twenty seconds later, only two vampires still stood.
Pointing her green sword towards the bush behind Liz, Li shouted, ‘Ji!’
Liz spun round, and her eyes opened wide: hundreds of soldiers marched out of the bush towards the monsters. Their armour and weapons looked strange: old and foreign.
The bear monster gave a loud roar, grabbed his half-eaten kangaroo, and ran across the clearing towards the forest. Hot behind him, the animal headed monsters followed.
Looking at the vampires left around him, and then at the oncoming army, the Vampire King took out a black twisted stick; he shook it, and a grey spark shot at Li Ping. She ducked, but a spark tore a piece of cloth off her shoulder before hitting the vampire behind her. He caught on fire and exploded.
Leaping forward fast and ducking a second grey spark, A third grey spark bypassed Li’s chest by less than half a finger. Li pointed her sword at the Vampire King, shooting out two green beams, one onto his right shoulder and the other onto his wand. The Vampire King groaned, fell, dropped his broken wand, and sank into the sandy ground.
Li pointed her sword towards the ground and gazed at the vampire crowd. The vampires gave panicky whistles and backed away, soon disappearing into the bushes.
The black clouds overhead vanished and the bright warm sunlight beat down again.
As soon as the vampires disappeared, the golden cage around Liz and her friends vanished. Liz, Henry and Sue ran towards Li Ping. Dark green liquid seeped from the wound on her shoulder, and her face was very pale.
‘Are you all right?’ Liz asked.
Li sank to the ground and struggled into the lotus position, eyes closed and body motionless. Liz put her finger on her lips to indicate Henry and Sue should be quiet. The three waited in silence.
Half an hour later, the liquid leaking from Li Ping’s wound had turned pale pink. Li opened her eyes and took a cloth from her pocket. Her face was calm and relaxed, as if nothing had happened to her. Liz took the cloth and helped bandage the wound.
‘Wow, we had no idea how powerful you are,’ said Sue.
‘Oh man, you know how to fight,’ said Henry.
‘If the monsters had stayed a few more seconds, the tables would have turned,’ said Li.
‘But they didn’t,’ said Henry. ‘Wait a minute, where’s your army?’
Liz had completely forgotten the strange army. Now there was no sign of a single soldier; they had vanished into air.
‘Can you please explain what just happened?’ Liz asked her teacher, squatting back on her heels.
‘I know that you have millions of questions.’ Li looked at Liz, Henry and Sue in turn. ‘But for now, I have to go and do something about my injury. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow morning. Could you all please keep what just happened a secret? I’ll explain the reason to you later.’
Li rose gracefully, and in two swift steps disappeared.
If she had not still been able to see broken tree branches and kangaroo blood, Liz would have believed that what had happened was all in her imagination. She rose shakily, and the t
hree looked at each other in silence. At last Liz suggested that they try to find their way back to the picnic site. This time they found the lake foreshore easily.
‘Good, you’re back. For a moment, I thought we would be caught in a thunderstorm,’ Liz’s mother said.
‘Mum, did you hear any noises while we were away?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Oh, nothing, I thought I heard some noises while walking in the bush.’
‘It must be the birthday party on other side of the lake,’ her mum replied.
‘You could be right, Mum,’ Henry grinned at Liz secretly.
Liz didn’t know if she felt better or worse: why had nobody else heard anything?
7
Giant Panda
The alarm went off.
Turning the bedside light on, Liz glanced at her clock. Time to go jogging, but she was sure she had turned the alarm off last night. Murmuring to herself that she wanted to sleep just a bit more, she reached to turn the light off. There was something different on her bedside table.
Liz made a bleary inspection: beside her open half-read book was her fairy clock, a glass of water and her old teddy bear; behind the glass of water at the corner, she found what had caught her eye earlier, a paper crane.
She stretched her arm and picked it up.
It was a cute paper crane, like those Liz had learnt to make in her Japanese classes, but subtle differences told her that this was a Chinese version; only someone familiar with both Chinese and Japanese paper folding arts could tell the difference.
Who put it there? Sue? She had lived in Tokyo for many years when she was little, while her parents taught English there. She was able to speak fluent Japanese, and knew how to make those famous Japanese paper cranes. But since Liz had already decided this was a Chinese one, it couldn’t be her.
Staring at the delicate little crane on her palm, Liz thought she saw it move. She blinked and peered closer: the crane stood up and, with its legs pushing against Liz’s palm, launched itself into air.
She watched it fly around her head. Gliding in beautiful smooth curves, it descended towards her. Hurriedly she put her hands together to form a landing platform. It alighted gently and cocked its head, staring at her, then collapsed and unfolded, turning itself into a note written in Chinese characters. Li wanted to meet her in their secret hideout in Kings Park.
How did Li Ping know about that? Liz had never told her about it. Still, if Li Ping could do magic to defeat monsters, she could know anything she wanted to know. Liz thought some more: she had remembered to turn off her alarm last night, and Li Ping had used her magic to turn the alarm on and put the paper crane on her bedside table.
Liz dressed, and went downstairs as quietly as possible; she didn’t want to disturb anybody else in the house, but in the living area, she was surprised to find her parents already up. Her mother was reading a magazine. As she walked past, Liz glanced at the photos: Japanese gardens covered with little oval pebbles. Liz grinned to herself; she could not wait to see what the future backyard would look like: native Australia bush, the organic vegetable patch, and a Japanese garden.
The large anti-mine protest photo on the front page of the newspaper her father was reading reminded her—during today’s lunchtime, all high school students in the state were going to protest in front of Parliament House.
‘Are you going to attend the protest today?’ her father asked.
‘Yes, we all are,’ Liz replied.
Henry came downstairs. ‘Why are you up so early? I thought you didn’t want to jog today.’
‘I couldn’t sleep, so I decided I might as well.’
‘Would you like me to join you?’ Henry gave her a meaningful look.
She stared at Henry, wondering if he was also invited to the meeting with Li Ping. His expression was a bit strange. He turned a bit towards the kitchen so their parents couldn’t see his hand; a