Free Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah Page B

by my brother’s blows I found immense consolation in the knowledge that PLT was staying right by me. I picked up my bird lovingly and for a moment seemed to see my grief reflected in her round dark eyes.
    Back in my room I busied myself getting some grains of rice and water for PLT. It was still early and Aunt Baba hadn’t come home from the bank. PLT waddled about, busily pecking the floor, now and then coming over to look at me. ‘Apart from Aunt Baba, you’re the only one who’s always here for me; the only one who understands. Are you reminding me that I promised you a tasty worm yesterday?’ I asked in the coaxing tone I reserved for my pet. PLT looked back wistfully with her round eyes, which resembled two black gum‐drops. I felt sure she understood every word. ‘I bet you wish you could talk and tell me all sorts of things,’ I said to my pet. ‘Though Second Brother robbed you of your worm, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll just have to go downstairs and get you another. Wait here!’
    I returned to the garden. Jackie was now wide awake and pacing the ground aggressively. Back and forth. Back and forth. He had awakened from his nap in a bad mood and was growling at me. With his long, pointed ears, triangular eyes, prominent jaws and sharp teeth, he resembled a ferocious wolf more than ever. I was quite fearful as I started to dig up a patch of earth at the foot of the magnolia tree.
    Jackie fidgeted, pawed the ground, and started to bark at me. I could see the tail end of a worm burrowing rapidly beneath a clump of roots. Though I knew I had incurred Jackie’s displeasure in some way, I was reluctant to leave empty‐handed. Keeping one eye on the worm, I half turned towards Jackie, who was baring his teeth in a most menacing manner. Tentatively, I stretched out my left hand to calm him while clutching the spoon in my right. Suddenly, Jackie lunged at me and sank his teeth into my outstretched left wrist.
    Abandoning my spoon, I hurried away. PLT greeted me expectantly at the door but I rushed past into the bathroom to wash away the blood trickling down my left arm. Footsteps sounded from the landing. Aunt Baba had finally come home from the bank.
    ‘What happened to you?’ she asked in alarm, and something in her voice made the tears well up in my eyes. Baba hurried over and held out her arms, rocked me back and forth, dried my tears and asked, ‘Are you hurt? Is it bad?’ She wiped away the blood, washed my wrist, dressed the wound with mercurochrome, cotton‐wool and a small bandage. She then walked over and locked our bedroom door, followed and watched by PLT every step of the way. She seated me on my bed and smoothed my hair. ‘It’s better not to mention any of this at dinner tonight unless you are asked directly,’ she advised. ‘Jackie is their pet. Don’t make any waves. I tell you what. Let’s open my safe‐deposit box and take a look. That’ll make us both feel much better.’
    Aunt Baba rummaged through a pile of folded towels in her cupboard, underneath which she had hidden her safe‐deposit box. She unlocked it with the key on the gold chain she wore around her neck. This was where she kept her scanty collection of precious jewels, some American dollar bills, a sheaf of yellowed letters, and all my report cards, from kindergarten to the most recent.
    We gazed first at those reports written in French from St Joseph’s kindergarten in Tianjin; then the ones for the first and second grades written in Chinese from Sheng Xin Primary School in Shanghai. Even PLT stopped her wandering to sit contentedly at our feet, looking up occasionally as if wishing to participate.
    ‘See this one?’ Aunt Baba exclaimed with pride. ‘Six years old, all of first grade and already tops in Chinese, English and arithmetic. At this rate nobody going to university can have a better foundation. When you get to be twelve you should sit for the examination to enter McTyeire where your Grand Aunt