Ning shrugged. ‘I hate all this memorising for exams. And for parents’ day I’ve got to dress up like a cat and do a stupid dance, and I’m so much bigger than the other girls.’
Mr Shen stifled a smile, but then spoke more firmly. ‘What will you become if you can’t pass exams?’
‘Rock star,’ Ning said.
‘I didn’t know you played an instrument.’
Ning felt like she’d been caught out. ‘I don’t … I mean, I’ll be a singer or something.’
Mr Shen had briefly seemed, if not exactly cool, then at least more relaxed than most older teachers. But he now gave Ning a stern look.
‘You must be careful,’ Mr Shen began. ‘I can see from how you dress that you take in many western influences, from television and music. But in the West there is lax discipline. If you try and play the rebel here, the school board will classify you as mentally defective. You will be sent to reform school and your parents get no say in the matter.
‘I worked in one of those places when I was a student teacher, and believe me they’re tough. I saw boys arrive, swaggering like gods. But their heads were shaved, they were given no heat or blankets in winter and their diet was reduced to cold broth. Their spirits were broken most effectively.’
Ning had heard fifty versions of this lecture. She’d spent her early childhood in an orphanage and four years at an elite sporting academy. Monotonous days at Lower School Eighteen drained her sprit, but it was far from the worst place she’d been.
‘I know what I don’t want to do with my life, but I don’t really know what I do want,’ Ning said thoughtfully.
She looked at Mr Shen, hoping for wisdom, but he felt he’d absolved all responsibility with his lecture, and now his mind was focused on scoffing noodles and the afternoon concert.
6. FACE
Ning sat on a stool behind a privacy curtain. She was dressed in a cat costume: black leotard and leggings, with a pointy-eared hat on the floor between her unshod feet. Her boots and regular clothes were in a mound on the floor, and there were identically dressed but smaller girls on all sides, shrill with pre-show nerves.
Ning grabbed her boot and tipped out the mobile she’d dropped inside for safe keeping. It was against the rules to call during school time, but she was desperate to get in touch with her stepfather.
It wasn’t unusual that he hadn’t replied. He’d often fly out of the province on business, or spend a day at one of his discount stores in the countryside, where mobile reception could be poor. But she’d also left messages with her father’s secretary, who’d never previously failed to return a call.
Dandong was a rapidly growing city. Services sometimes crashed under the strain, and Ning suspected a fault with the telephone network. But she was getting anxious because she’d been kicked out of the dormitory and had nowhere to go when the parents’ day show ended.
Ning’s step-parents lived twenty kilometres out of the city. No buses went out that far. She barely had enough money for a taxi and drivers were always reluctant to drive so far out. And even if she did make it home, she didn’t have a house key. Her stepfather would still be at work, the housekeeper would have finished for the day and the chances of her stepmother being awake were no better than fifty-fifty.
Daiyu straddled piles of clothes, heading towards Ning. ‘They’ll take your phone if they see you,’ she warned.
‘Am I speaking to you?’ Ning snapped.
Daiyu seemed thrilled to be a cat. Her slim body suited a leotard, she kept swinging the stuffed tail sewn to her bum, while her face was thick with eyeliner, lipgloss, glitter spray and nylon whiskers.
‘I don’t care if you’re speaking to me or not,’ Daiyu said, tilting her head and cracking a sarcastic smile. ‘But everyone else has had their make-up done. Mrs Feng is waiting for you. So you can either go and have make-up like a normal person, or you can make one of your big scenes. I don’t care either way.’
Ning dropped her phone back into her boot and almost tripped on her swinging tail as she stood. Her own costume was back at the dormitory and rather than letting Ning out to retrieve it, her teacher made her wear a spare cat suit that was far too small. The leg and ankle cuffs stopped at least ten centimetres off the mark. Ning was getting pinched under the armpits and had a horrible feeling that the arse wouldn’t withstand too much prancing about on stage.
The classroom had been divided with a curtain so that the girls could change in privacy, but getting made up involved a trip to the other side. As Ning pushed through the drapes the boys in her class erupted with laughter.
‘It’s Catzilla!’ one shouted.
‘Freak of nature,’ said another, while Qiang made boom-boom noises as if Ning was shaking the floor.
The most annoying part was that while the girls had to dress up like idiots, the boys were doing a basketball display in the tracksuits that they wore for PE.
‘Go home and screw your mothers,’ Ning said, as she booted the classroom door. ‘I wouldn’t mind but I’m better at basketball than any of you.’
‘Meow!’ one wag said.
Mrs Feng was a professional make-up artist, and the mother of a girl in another class. She’d set up at a folding table, parked beside the rows of lockers in the broad hallway that ran through the centre of the school. The space was deserted, but the sound of little kids singing wafted from the parents’ day show taking place in the main hall.
‘I don’t want too much gunk,’ Ning said, as she sat on a stool. ‘That stuff makes me itchy.’
‘You must be Ning,’ Mrs Feng said.
Ning liked the way that Mrs Feng pronounced her name like some strange and terrible disease, but joy was short-lived because Mrs Feng switched on a powerful make-up lamp and began applying foundation with a cotton wool pad.
‘What’s that?’ Ning asked, as her torturer homed in on her nose with a brush and a small metal tube.
‘Look up! Up at the ceiling,’ Mrs Feng ordered. ‘It’s glue for your whiskers. Don’t tug them or they’ll fall off.’
It took three minutes to complete the look, with copious quantities of lipstick and eyeshadow, but Ning drew the line at glitter spray.
‘Enough,’ she said firmly, before standing up and heading back towards the classroom.
Qiang and a couple of other boys were out in the corridor and began to laugh. As Ning walked towards the classroom the trio made boom-boom noises, but everyone except Qiang backed into the classroom when she got close.
‘Let me in the door, turd,’ Ning said, as Qiang blocked her way.
Half a dozen other lads stood inside the half-opened door, giggling like idiots.
‘If I hit you, you won’t like it,’ Ning warned.
Qiang laughed. ‘I’ll not be defeated by a mere cat!’ he shouted dramatically.
Ning was keen to get back inside and check her phone, so she made a quick swoop and flicked the end of Qiang’s nose. A roar of laughter erupted as Qiang stumbled backwards, shocked by Ning’s speed. When Qiang realised that his mates now laughed at him rather than Ning, he lashed out with a Karate kick.
Ning intercepted the flying leg. With her thumbnail digging painfully into Qiang’s ankle, Ning stepped backwards, making him hop helplessly after her.
‘Let me go, you elephant!’ Qiang demanded.
Ning wanted to humiliate rather than hurt and spotted an opportunity at the end of the hallway. After making Qiang hop a little farther, she twisted his foot so that he buckled with pain. Rather than letting Qiang bang his head on the ground, Ning grabbed him under the armpit, then wrapped her other arm around his waist, crushing the wind from his chest as she tossed him effortlessly on to her shoulder.
With Qiang’s head hanging behind Ning’s back and his feet kicking in front of her, Ning walked past a startled Mrs Feng to a huge rectangular waste bin planted in the doorway of the school cafeteria.
‘You reek,’ Ning complained. ‘Have you ever washed that tracksuit?’
Aft
er backing up to the overflowing tub, Ning dropped Qiang head first into apple cores, drink cartons, disposable chopsticks and half-squeezed sachets of soy sauce.
While Qiang thrashed about, buried from head to thighs and desperate to climb out, a dozen boys raced down the hallway towards them, followed by a smaller group of cats.
Ning worried that the boys might attack, but they seemed content to stand back, laughing hysterically as Qiang kicked air and moaned. He was desperate to escape but only managed to rustle garbage and work his way deeper. Two girls who’d also suffered Qiang’s jokes thanked Ning for getting revenge.
‘What is this outrage?’ Mr Ma roared as he stormed across the deserted canteen towards the dustbin.
Ma was the school’s deputy head and several kids at the rear of the crowd bolted for their classroom as soon as they heard his voice.
‘Where is your class teacher?’ Ma demanded. ‘Who is responsible for this?’
‘It was Fu Ning,’ Daiyu announced.
If Daiyu had been within range, Ning would have punched her out.
‘Well, who’d have guessed that?’ Mr Ma said, as he grabbed Qiang’s ankles and picked him out of the bin.
There was laughter as Qiang was planted on his feet, with bits of food stuck in his hair, plus greasy smears and plastic wrappings stuck to his tracksuit.
‘I’ll wipe your smiles off,’ Qiang roared to the other boys, before looking over his back and discovering a chopstick spearing his buttock.
Mr Ma stood in front of Ning. He crouched low and yelled in her face. ‘You’ve already been in trouble for lateness today. Go and sit outside my office. You will be dealt with after the performance.’
But Mrs Feng came to Ning’s defence. ‘Why punish her?’ she asked furiously. ‘Those boys have been ruthlessly teasing girls all afternoon. Their teacher comes and goes, but he does nothing to halt it.’
Mr Ma wasn’t used to being dressed down in front of his pupils.
‘Well,’ he said, shaking with anger as he picked a boy at random. ‘You, find the nurse and bring her here to deal with Qiang. The rest, get back to your classroom. Sit still at your desks in the formal position. I expect silence until the time for your performance.’
Ning gave Mrs Feng a respectful bow, before following her classmates back to their room. The better behaved kids had never been shouted at by the deputy head before, and none dared laugh as the girls dived back behind the curtain and the boys sat at desks, with straight backs, hands crossed on the tables in front of them and feet tucked beneath their chair.
‘One sound,’ Mr Ma roared, as he glowered at the class.
‘Fu Ning?’ a woman shouted, as she barged in, clouting Mr Ma with the classroom door. ‘Is this room twenty-six?’
Ning couldn’t see over the dividing curtain, but the appalling scouse-accented Chinese could only come from her stepmother.
Ingrid Fu was originally from Bootle in Merseyside. She had freckled skin and curly red hair down her back. Dandong was a city of eight hundred thousand, but it was off the tourist trail and Westerners were a rare sight.
‘Ning babes, you in here?’ Ingrid yelled, switching to English.
Ning felt sure the embarrassment her stepmother was about to cause would more than cancel any cred she’d gained by dumping Qiang in the giant food bin.
‘Hello, mother,’ Ning said, respectful and nervous as she stood up. ‘I didn’t know you were coming to parents’ day.’
‘Parents’ you what?’ Ingrid asked, as she ducked through the curtain and banged her thigh on a desk. ‘Oww, ya fecker! I never knew boys and girls were separated over here. It’s like a Jew wedding.’
Even kids who hadn’t paid attention in English class could work out that Ingrid was drunk.
‘It’s only when we get changed,’ Ning explained, as her face burned. ‘Why are you here?’
‘You’re all dressed as bloody cats,’ Ingrid noted, gold bangles on her wrists clattering as she glanced about. ‘Is it the school play today or something? That costume goes right up your crack, it looks terrible.’
Ning spoke slowly, hoping to get through Ingrid’s thick skull. ‘WHY – ARE – YOU – HERE?’ she shouted.
Ingrid’s head snapped sideways, but her eyeballs took a second to catch up. ‘Honey, we’ve got to get out of here. Grab all your shit, yeah?’
‘Is this about the messages I left Dad?’ Ning asked. ‘I said I needed to be picked up after school, not right now.’
Ingrid gasped with frustration and waved her hand in front of her face. ‘Can’t be explaining like war and bloody peace or something. I need yous to come with us. Urgent, like.’
Mr Ma spoke in stilted English. ‘Ning, Mrs Fu, perhaps you can talk in the corridor without disturbing the other pupils?’
Ning was fine with this if it at least meant she wasn’t shown up in front of everyone. Out in the corridor, Ning was caught by surprise as Ingrid shoved her back against the wall.
‘Your dad’s in trouble,’ Ingrid explained. ‘You and I have to skedaddle, pronto.’
Ning felt a shot of adrenalin. ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Too complicated to explain here. But we’ve always been all right, you and me, haven’t we? I mean, I know I’m not exactly perfect mother material, but you trust me, don’t you?’
Ning decided that Ingrid’s description of their relationship sounded about right. She wasn’t the kind of parent who tucked you in when you were sick, or baked a cake for your birthday, but they’d always got along and sometimes even had a laugh together.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Sure, I guess,’ Ning said.
‘Then you’ve got to come with me, right now. I can’t wait around, they’ll be looking for me as well.’
Ning was baffled. ‘Who’d come looking for you?’
‘Can’t wait around,’ Ingrid said. ‘Come or don’t come. No messin’.’
Ning watched as her stepmother started a drunken walk down the hallway towards the school’s main exit, then stopped and turned back.
‘I’m dressed as a cat,’ Ning shouted. ‘Can’t I at least go back and grab my clothes?
‘No messin’,’ Ingrid repeated. ‘I promised Chaoxiang I’d take you with me, but I can’t wait around.’
Ning looked anxiously back towards her classroom, wondering if she could make a dash for her clothes, boots and phone. But the school exit was less than fifty metres away. There was a chance she’d lose Ingrid and a chance Mr Ma would hold her up by asking for an explanation.
‘Wait,’ Ning shouted, as she raced after her stepmother with her tail swinging from side to side.
7. RIDE
‘So you’re with me?’ Ingrid said, as Ning raced across the car park.
A black 760Li was parked at an angle just inside the school gates, blocking off half a dozen parking bays. It was the biggest BMW you can get and this one was pimped up, with tinted windows and matt black alloys.
Ning expected Ingrid’s driver to step out and open the rear doors, but as she closed in she noticed the driver’s side mirror dangling from insulated wires, and a scrape stretching from the front wing to a busted rear light.
‘Where’s Wei?’ Ning asked anxiously, as Ingrid climbed into the driver’s seat.
‘Busy,’ Ingrid said. ‘Get in.’
Ning hesitated, but Ingrid had made it clear she wouldn’t hang about.
‘Can you even drive?’ Ning asked, as she pressed the button that closed the rear door and lunged for a seatbelt.
‘I was doing handbrake turns in nicked Fiestas before you were born, girl,’ Ingrid said.
She looked backwards over her shoulder, preparing to reverse out of Lower School Eighteen into the busy main road. Ning clicked her seatbelt on, glimpsing a shopping channel on the headrest TV as Ingrid hit the gas.
The BMW shot forward, ploughing into a parked Honda, with enough force to smash its front headlight and push it sideways into the much newer Volkswagen parked next d
oor. The huge BMW suffered no more damage, but Ning was tempted to jump out while she had the chance.
‘I guess that’s not reverse,’ Ingrid said, as car alarms chorused.
‘Are you sure you can drive?’ Ning asked.
‘That’s my second accident today,’ Ingrid said. ‘Third time lucky, eh?’
Ingrid found the reverse selector. The light down the street was red, so they backed into two empty lanes, before Ingrid selected drive and floored the accelerator.
‘Christ, this has got some poke!’ Ingrid said, as they reached eighty KPH within four seconds, then braked back to nearer twenty-five as they caught the traffic.
After a red light, a right-hand turn and a steep climb up an on-ramp they were on the six-lane Shendan Highway, heading west out of Dandong. Ning realised they were heading home, and calmed down enough to ask a rational question.
‘You said Dad was in trouble. Why don’t we go to the police?’
‘Cos it’s the cops that bloody well nicked him.’
‘But Dad’s not a crook,’ Ning said. ‘They’ll sort it out. We should go to the police station where he’s being held and ask to speak to someone.’
Ingrid looked flustered as she used her fingers to comb strands of hair off her face. ‘Sweetheart, it’s complex. Your father’s a businessman. Sometimes in business, you have to bend rules to get things done.’
‘Pay-offs,’ Ning said.
‘Exactly.’
Ning understood pay-offs well enough. She’d been born in a peasant village, which meant she was only eligible for a country school. To get into a more prestigious and better funded city school, her stepfather had handed an envelope fattened with hundred-yuan notes to an education authority official.
‘I don’t get all the ins and outs,’ Ingrid said, as she switched lanes to pass a truck stacked with steel I-beams. ‘I think there was an edict from Beijing. A crackdown. Corrupt officials and businessmen are getting rounded up and your dad is caught in the net.’
Ning felt scared. Anti-corruption slogans had been appearing all over Dandong, promising three years’ hard labour for those caught.