The silken thread, p.1
The Silken Thread, page 1
About the Book
Moonie lives in Melbourne and dreams of designing dresses for movie stars. Eight thousand kilometres away, on Chongming Island in China, peasant boy Little Dipper cares for the silkworms on his family’s farm and hopes to learn English.
Aided by a magical silk cocoon, Little Dipper first visits Moonie on the day her beloved MaMi goes away. Neither knows how or why they are connected, but their bond grows each time he returns.
Will the silken threads of friendship be enough to help Moonie bring MaMi home, or to save Little Dipper from the troublesome ghosts who stand between him and his dream of learning English?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Praise
Also by Gabrielle Wang
Imprint
Powered by Penguin
This book is dedicated to my mum and dad, who gave me the ability to imagine, and the strength and determination to never give up.
In memory of Steve Clavey, 1953–2024
CHAPTER ONE
Moonie
The Strange Appearance
Melbourne, 1932
The first time the no face boy comes is the day Ma Mi goes away. He is more like a shadow. Maybe it is because my eyes are red and swollen, but he doesn’t have a nose, eyes or a mouth, just a sketchy blank face as if an artist is painting a portrait and hasn’t decided what their subject looks like yet. His bare, skinny legs poke out of frayed half-mast trousers, which are hitched up with a piece of rope around his waist. He is a poor boy, that much I can tell. But there are no fingers or toes on him . . . not yet anyway.
De Di says that Ma Mi isn’t well, that she needs rest. That’s all he tells us. He doesn’t say where they are sending her or when she is coming back. It is like she is a package being sent away to the never-never.
Although Ma Mi has a fiery temper, she giggles a lot, like a little girl. When she was ten years old back in her village in China, her front tooth had to be extracted because she fell over and broke it. Ma Mi felt so self-conscious after that. Whenever she laughs, she covers her mouth with her hand. Even though she got a false tooth when she came to Melbourne to marry De Di, the habit stuck. I love that about Ma Mi, how she can be a mother while, at the same time, still have that child lying just beneath her skin.
Over the past few months though, the corners of her mouth have turned in the opposite direction to a smile as if they are pulled down with lead weights. I never asked her what was wrong. When you’re a kid, it’s not something you think about. But I wish I had. I wish I had told her how much I love her.
This morning I watched the car that took Ma Mi away slowly drive down Grattan Street. It looked like a shiny grey slug. Then, before the car turned the corner, Ma Mi looked back through the rear window. I raised my hand to wave, but her eyes were blank and staring like the eyes of the dead fish De Di brings home from the market. A cold fear seized me as I wondered if we would ever see our darling Ma Mi again.
The boy hovers around the bedroom, wanting to touch things. He puts a fingerless hand out and quickly pulls it back, like he is scared he might burn himself.
I am writing a letter to Ma Mi, writing down the things I wish I’d said to her face to face. It’s always easier to say heart things in letters.
Stella, my older sister, is doing her homework. Stella’s thirteen. I’m twelve. She’s an A+ student and good at just about everything, especially at pretending to be a goody-goody. But she’s not a very nice person. She’s loud and bossy and also annoyingly neat. Everything has to be just right. It’s hard sharing a room together because I like to make a big mess, especially when I’m drawing or sewing. I need to spread my imagination around me like colourful little islands.
Together with our younger brother, Floppy, Stella and I go to Rathdowne Street Primary School. I’m lucky because I’m in ‘Rural School’, which is a special class for pupils from Grade one through to Grade eight. It’s to train student teachers who will go to the countryside to teach when they graduate. They sit at the back of the class and watch our teacher, Miss Carroll, who is the best, most excellent teacher in the whole world. She has taught me since I was six and my work is often in her Honour Book. Miss Carroll makes the most boring subjects interesting. I like her a lot. Once she told us that if you want to be good at something, you have to practise every day. I never forgot that. So that’s what I do. I always carry a pencil and tiny drawing pad around with me. Whenever I see something that makes me stop to wonder, I make a quick sketch of it.
When the no face boy comes, Stella is sprawled on her side of the bed we share, calculating how many trillions of ants it would take to circle the world. She enjoys thinking about weird things like that. I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye and when I look up, the boy is peering over her shoulder. Just another ghost, I think. Every night, Mary, Tinker and Boo, three children who used to live in our house, sit at the end of our bed chatting away to each other like little sparrows sitting along a fence. They told me they died when a runaway horse and cart ran them over as they were crossing the street on their way to school. But this ghost feels different somehow. Even though he is not fully formed, he feels more real than Mary, Tinker and Boo ever do.
‘Hello, you,’ I say to him.
‘Moonie!’ Stella barks. ‘Can’t you see I’m concentrating on something really important!’
It’s as if Stella’s words have clumped together in one big sticky mass of tar because the boy falls backwards like he’s been punched in the stomach.
Stella’s scientific mind doesn’t have the ability to see ghosts, so she thinks I am talking to her, just to be annoying. She thinks the world revolves around Stella Chen.
‘I was talking to the boy —’ I begin to say.
‘Oh, grow up, Moonie!’ Stella huffs. ‘Aren’t you too old to have imaginary friends?’ She taps the end of her pencil against her front teeth. Then goes back to counting her ants.
I look around for the no face boy, but he has vanished, probably scared off by my sister’s ferocious temper.
A spider’s gossamer thread hangs from the ceiling, dancing in our drafty room.
I can’t stop thinking about the boy. Who is he? Where does he come from? And most importantly, why is he here?
CHAPTER TWO
Little Dipper
The Day the Music Died
Chongming Island, China
‘Little Tian, it is too high!’ I yelled at my little sister, who was climbing up to a nest cradled in the topmost branches of the old mulberry tree on that fateful day two years ago.
‘Mama and Baba birds have not come back to their babies,’ she called down to me. ‘They will starve to death.’
‘The parents will come back. They are out looking for food. The branches are not strong enough to hold your weight,’ I said.
‘I am small. I am light. Watch me, Ge Ge. Watch how fast I can climb. Tian means sky. I will climb up into the sky.’
I needed a way to distract her. But once my little sister had something on her mind, only two people could change that. Not me, or Mama, or Nai Nai. Baba and First Brother were the ones she listened to. I kept telling myself not to worry, that Little Tian was a good climber, even better than me. We both knew the tree so well. It had always been like an old friend whose arms are strong and sturdy and reliable. But we had never climbed as high as this nest before.
Little Tian was three quarters of the way up.
‘Stop now!’ I commanded.
It was the wrong thing to say. It only made her more determined than ever. LongMa looked up, blades of grass sticking to her wet nose, and bellowed a warning. Her muscles twitched along her flank. Long means dragon; ma means horse. I named her after the mythical creature who has the body of a horse, and wings and scales of a dragon. Did our magical water buffalo know what was going to happen before it happened?
‘There are four fluffy babies. Their eyes are huge. Ge Ge, you have to come!’
Suddenly there was a screech and frantic flapping of wings.
‘Get away! Go! Ow!’ cried Little Tian, flailing her arms about as the angry parents fluttered around her head.
I watched Little Tian fall. I could not breathe. I could not move. It was as if I was trapped inside a silk cocoon.
Little Tian tried to grab hold of a branch but missed, then she reached for another. Every time her body bounced off a limb, she cried out in pain.
Then suddenly the screaming stopped and all I heard was the sound of breaking branches as she plummeted to the ground.
My legs moved fast. I quickly positioned myself at the bottom of the tree, arms outstretched ready to catch her.
Little Tian landed on top of me, knocking me over. I lay on the ground dazed for an instant, then rolled her gently off me onto her back.
There was a long gash across her forehead and cuts and grazes all over her body. One arm was at a strange angle as though it had been put on backwards. Worst of all, she was lying so still, with her eyes closed.
‘Little Tian,’ I said, brushing a wet strand of hair from her face. I put my ear to her chest. She was still breathing. ‘Please . . . Little Tian . . . Wake up . . .’
There was a Chinese herbal doctor in Silk Town, a little more than an hour away. If I could get Little Tian home, leave her with Mama, then I could run for help, I thought.
She opened her eyes. I was so relieved. I cupped her face with my hands. ‘I am going to lift you onto LongMa’s back and take you home,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Little Tian in a whisper. ‘Great-grandfather is going to take me. He is waiting there. See?’ Her eyes looked at something over my shoulder.
I glanced around but there was nothing there. ‘It will be all right,’ I said as I put my arms around her and tried to lift her. Little Tian was skinny but she was a lot heavier than I thought she would be. She groaned in pain.
I looked at our farmhouse, small in the distance. It would take me eight minutes if I ran really fast. But I did not want to leave Little Tian here all alone.
LongMa lowered her head and breathed gently in my ear.
‘I am going to get Baba,’ I said, putting my hand on Little Tian’s cheek. It felt so cold. ‘LongMa will watch over you until I get back.’
Then I got to my feet and ran. I ran like I was being chased by the Taotie, a terrifying beast with eyes under its armpits, a human face and tiger teeth. I did not need to look out for stones and potholes that might make me stumble; my bare feet knew exactly where to step. All the way, I kept chanting, Guan Yin, merciful goddess of suffering, please look after our Little Tian.
We buried Little Tian on the small hill beside Great-Grandfather, Great-Grandmother and Grandfather, where there is a view all around.
Those nights when I took LongMa out alone to graze on the Marshlands, I did not play my bamboo flute. Without Little Tian’s pure song and her small body next to mine, my heart felt empty and hollow.
Four weeks after we buried my little sister, a tiny light like a star came dancing across the water of the marsh. I felt a small hand slip into mine and her soft lilting voice say, ‘I came back, Ge Ge. I came back for you.’
It was Little Tian, Little Tian who will be six years old forever.
Just after she died, time seemed as elastic as an earthworm. Sometimes a day would seem like a week, sometimes a day would feel like an hour.
That was two years ago. Now it is 1932.
I cannot see Little Tian with my eyes but I feel the shape of her. In her fingers she holds a silkworm cocoon. It has a soft golden glow like the sunset over the Marshlands after a clear day. ‘This one is special,’ she says. ‘Silkmother told me that it is magic.’
‘Who is Silkmother?’ I ask.
‘She is Canmu, Goddess of Silk.’
The moment I touch the cocoon everything goes dark like the moon is blocking the sun.
I hear her words grow fainter and fainter as if I am leaving them behind in some far distant place.
I am in a dream, a very strange dream. And there is a girl.
CHAPTER THREE
Moonie
The Neverland
I was born in Melbourne at number 15 Lygon Street, Carlton, opposite the Trades Hall. When I was a baby, we moved around the corner to 23 Grattan Street, a two-storey house that is even older than Granny. It’s as dark as a coal mine inside – well, not really, I think coal mines are pitch black, but it’s pretty dark except for Ma Mi and De Di’s bedroom, which is upstairs at the front. Oh, and the Good Room downstairs which is both light and airy.
We are luckier than most families though. We own our house. Many men don’t have money to pay rent or buy food for their wives and children because they lost their jobs. Lots of people live in lodging houses. Some are so poor they have to sleep out on the street or in the park with newspapers for blankets and a mound of earth or a rock for a pillow. Every day someone comes knocking on our front door begging for food. Ma Mi and De Di always give a loaf of bread or vegetables. We are in a time the grown-ups call the Depression. De Di says the whole planet is in a Depression, not just Australia. I don’t understand what it means really. All I know is it’s about the economy, which is about money, which runs everything in the world. But it can also ruin everything. De Di sells bananas, oranges and tomatoes at the Victoria Market. He gets the bananas from Queensland and the tomatoes and oranges from South Australia and sells them to shops. Although we don’t have a lot of money, our lives are still much better than lots of others’. For one thing, De Di can’t lose his job because he’s his own boss. For another, people always need to eat.
There are three bedrooms upstairs. De Di, Ma Mi and Baby John sleep in one room. Baby John is three years old and still sleeps in a cot. I’m sure that’s why he’s so small. Jack Plunkett, a boy in my class at school, told me that he was out fishing on the Yarra River and caught a two-foot-long goldfish. That’s huge for a goldfish! He said, once upon a time that fish used to be tiny, swimming around in a glass bowl on a table in someone’s house. As soon as it was released into the river though, it grew into a giant because there were no walls to stop its growth. I don’t know if the story is true because Jack Plunkett is well known for fibbing and exaggerating. But it makes sense, don’t you think? Sometimes I wonder if the same thing happens to our imaginations. If you don’t use it and set it free, then it stays small like that goldfish in a glass bowl.
The second bedroom at the back of the house is where Stella, me and Floppy sleep. Floppy, which is short for Philip, is seven. He wants to be a pilot or a mountain climber because he likes being up high. When it’s just us kids at home, he often walks around without touching the ground, which is not hard to do because our house is crammed full of stuff. I’m embarrassed to invite friends home. There are boxes piled upon boxes on every flat surface. Squat wooden banana boxes, old orange boxes, thin cardboard boxes of letters, tattered boxes of old clothes, of wool and cloth and buttons and zips and underwear. Ma Mi never throws anything out. She has a box problem. Is that why she was sent away?
One afternoon I found Floppy up on the roof. He’d climbed out of Granny’s bedroom window and shimmied up the drainpipe. Ma Mi calls him her little monkey. If she had known, she would have had a fit. Stella and I yelled at him to come down, which he did when a magpie started swooping him. Thank you, maggie, for saving our Floppy.
Next to our room is Granny’s bedroom. Granny is De Di’s mother. Like us, De Di was born in Australia. Ma Mi and Granny only speak Cantonese, which is a dialect of Chinese. When I first went to school, I couldn’t speak English. I learned quickly though and was often put in the naughty corner for being a chatterbox. Since Ma Mi can’t speak English, she always takes me shopping with her. I even chose the Good Couch in the Good Room, which we bought at Myer Emporium in the city. That was before the Depression started when I was nine years old. Ma Mi has always trusted my taste in fabric. She says I have a talent for colour. It’s been a week since Ma Mi went away. How different life is now.
