Undercover - In China - Book 7

Part 15 - Let's Go

Licia washed and dried my hair and then gave Miguel and me chop sticks lessons. 

 'The important thing, is to keep the ends the same length.' She demonstrated by pushing the tips against her bowl before handing them to me. I had to keep looking in the mirror at the stranger with black hair and black eyebrows. Luckily I did not have a beard to dye. Weird.

'Pay attention,' Licia ordered. I rested one chop stick on the end of my third finger and grasped it between the base of my thumb and the first finger as Licia demonstrated. I held the second chop stick between the tips of my thumb and the first two fingers as if I was holding a pencil.

'I really don't see how I can eat sandwiches with these,' Miguel said doubtfully.

Licia looked exasperated, 'You have to cut the sandwich into bite-sized pieces first, you joker.'

I grinned at her. 'These chopsticks are too blunt. I could never cut a sandwich with them.' 

 We finally decided to fill our bags with toothbrushes, sweaters, clean socks, underwear, soap and toilet paper. Miguel said he would bring a pocket knife, strike-anywhere matches, a length of light nylon rope and a few tools like a locking pliers.

Licia and I spent the next hour poring over Yonnie and Treeka's map of central China while Miguel sat at the computer studying Google Earth satellite images of Jingzhou province, the area between the Han and the Long (Yangste) rivers northwest of Wuhan. 

 'Wuhan is a modern industrial city,' Licia said looking over his shoulder. 'On Treeka's map it's shown as Xiacou. Where's Xiangyang?' 

 'Follow the Han river up to that loop,' Miguel pointed out as he zoomed in. There's a rectangular shape outlined by a moat. That must be the old city wall marked on Treeka's map.' 

 'In that case, Xinye should be to the north,' Licia said. 'I can see it on Treeka's map but it is not shown on the satellite map.'

'I found Jiangling,' Miguel announced. 'It's just north of the Long river not far from the new Three Gorges dam.'

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When I got home, I found Grandma and Emma upstairs. 'What have you done to your hair?' Grandma demanded. 'You look dreadful.'

Emma was a little more sympathetic. 'Oh, I did like your beautiful blond hair. Why did you dye it black?'

I told them that I had died my hair for a part in the school play. 

And then I selected some spare clothes and the stuff I was taking to China. I didn't feel like eating supper, but I forced myself to eat some of Emma's shepherd's pie while telling myself nothing could go wrong but I felt queasy all day.

Beryl came back later, and her first words were, 'Oh, my god. What happened to your hair? I hardly recognized you.'

Her reaction did nothing to help my apprehension that our latest adventure might be dangerous, and the feeling got worse on Saturday. This was the first time we had departed through the electric bookcase intentionally. And I didn't feel good about it.

Licia, Miguel and I arrived at Silverwood School early, and we double checked our clothes and equipment. We had never been so prepared before, but I was still worried we had forgotten something important.

Then we sat in Dr Zhang's office nervously waiting for Yonnie and Treeka, who, in the event, were no-shows. 

 Mandia increased our heart rate with a warning. 'Five minutes to zero time, my dears. It took me oodles of time to calculate this blooming place/time link. I hope you guys are ready. 20:09 EST. time to go. Ha, ha. Time. Get it?'

We ran to the front of the electric bookcase. The musical warning tone from the bookcase started the count-down. Two minutes to go and we looked at each other. 'We can't wait any longer,' I said hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. 

 Licia and Miguel nodded dumbly, and we walked as slowly as we could to the electric bookcase hoping that Yonnie and Treeka would show up at the last minute on Licia's cell phone. We waited in front of the electric bookcase until the one-minute warning sound when I said, 'We can't wait forever. Let's go.' 

 We stepped into the scintillating blue light.