For Evie, our baby dragon
The Mountain
Mountains always have secrets.
And this one had more than most. Tall and majestic, with jagged peaks that punctured the sky, it appeared unknowable and immovable.
And yet, if you were to watch it, and not just glance at it – really watch it – it would sometimes appear to be breathing.
If you stared long enough, you’d start to think that it was a different mountain altogether.
One person had been watching this mountain for a very, very long time.
And he had decided it was time for the mountain to show him its secrets.
Deep within the mountain, a great creature stirred in its sleep. Its eyes rolled back in its head, and its wings jerked wide open. It suddenly sat up straight, trying to remember what it had seen in the nightmare.
Darkness. All it saw was darkness and desolation.
The creature shuddered and closed its eyes, trying to go back to sleep.
It had been waiting for something, for someone, for a long time. It could wait longer.
Arrival
Billy Chan was certain of two things. He had great hair and he was the best surfer in the 11–14 age bracket in all of California.
He did not think either of those things were going to help him in his current situation. He was by himself. On a train platform. Somewhere in middle-of-nowhere China. The train ride had felt like for ever. He didn’t even know what time it was. He reached into his pocket and gripped his lucky seashell. At least he had a small piece of home with him.
All around him were huge mountains wrapped in green foliage, climbing to dizzying heights. Even the Hong Kong skyscrapers he’d seen just a few days ago would have looked tiny here.
The only indication of exactly where in China he might be was written in peeling, faded yellow Chinese characters above the station doorway. Chinese characters that Billy couldn’t read.
He really, really hoped he was in the right place.
Billy looked around, trying to find the staff for the summer camp he was going to. The summer camp his parents were forcing him to go to so he could ‘improve his Mandarin’ and ‘learn more about his Chinese heritage’. Even though what Billy wanted to do all summer was go surfing with his friends.
He did not see any camp staff. The only people nearby were two old Chinese women playing mahjong on a rickety table, cackling as they swirled the green tiles around.
‘Hello?’ he called out. ‘Ni hao?’
One of the old women looked up and waved him towards the tiny station.
Billy nodded his thanks and went inside, dragging his suitcase behind him.
Billy’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the dimness inside the station after the blisteringly bright sun outside. He breathed a sigh of relief. Clustered around the room were about a dozen kids his age.
A slightly older Chinese boy with slicked-back black hair sauntered over, holding a clipboard. He looked Billy up and down, and appeared distinctly unimpressed.
‘You must be Billy Chan,’ he said.
Billy nodded.
The boy sighed deeply, as if meeting Billy was the most annoying thing that had happened to him all day. ‘Finally,’ he said. ‘It took you long enough to get here.’
Billy flushed. He was already off to a terrible start. ‘Well, this place is a really long way away from California. And my train was delayed…’
‘Ni shuo putonghua ma?’ the boy interrupted, his eyebrow raised.
Billy paused. He understood the boy was asking him if he spoke Mandarin, and he realized he said this as a challenge.
‘Yi dian dian,’ he replied, being careful to get his pronunciation right of the phrase meaning ‘a little bit’.
The older boy frowned. ‘I guess you’re not as Chinese as your name suggests, Billy Chan.’
Billy was used to this. Used to people trying to figure out where he was from. He knew what the boy wanted to know. ‘My dad is Chinese. From Hong Kong. And my mom is white,’ he explained. ‘My parents sent me to this camp to improve my Mandarin.’ He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He still hadn’t forgiven his parents for making him spend his whole summer at a language culture camp in China. He looked at the other kids, who seemed to have gathered round them. ‘That’s why we’re all here, right?’
The responding nods and smiles made him feel slightly reassured.
‘Whatever,’ said the older boy, sounding bored.
‘And who are you?’ said Billy, summoning as much confidence in his voice as he could muster.
The boy looked down his nose at Billy. ‘I’m JJ. My grandfather runs the camp.’
‘Got it, boss,’ said Billy, hoping JJ would pick up on his sarcasm. Billy made a note to avoid him at all costs.
Just then, a wizened old Chinese man with a long white beard burst into the station, moving quickly, considering his age. He looked ancient, as if he’d stepped out of the past.
‘Welcome, everyone! I’m the head of the camp. It is a pleasure to meet you all. You can call me Jin laoshi.’
A short girl with long blonde hair, almost to her waist, shot her hand up in the air. ‘As in “Gold Teacher”?’ She had a southern accent. Billy thought she must be from somewhere like Alabama.
The old man laughed. ‘Yes! I can tell someone already knows a bit of Mandarin.’
Billy wished he had remembered that laoshi meant teacher. It was one of the first things he’d learned at Chinese school back home in San Francisco. He was hit by a wave of worry that everyone here was going to be better than he was. And, to make things worse, the other students might expect him to be really good just because he was part-Chinese. It didn’t matter that his dad’s side of the family was from Hong Kong and they spoke Cantonese, a different dialect of Chinese. He
