Free Jane Vejjajiva by Unknown Page A

four trips a day downstairs to check the mail. Kati couldn’t help laughing because as the postal clerk had told her, letters to the British Isles took up to four days. Then again, who could say how keen the recipient would be to reply? Most importantly, Mother had left instructions that if there was no reply within seven days they were to return to the house on the water.
    Kati didn’t let the time pass only in waiting. She cajoled Uncle Kunn into taking her to the planetarium, to the science museum and finally to an astronomy camp organised by the university science faculty.
    What a shame that the city sky was so full of pollution that you couldn’t see the constellations. But Kati was content to simply study the night sky. It made her feel good and she promised herself that she would do it more often. The universe was so vast; what kind of power over it could puny little humans
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    possibly have? Gazing into the sky made you feel humble. It made your proudest ambitions dissolve into the ether, leaving only a little heart beating in a breast that tried its best to protect itself and find happiness where it could, not craving the impossible, not wanting things beyond its reach.
    Kati was too young to camp out overnight in the tent with the university students, but Uncle Kunn allowed her to spend the best part of the night with the other stargazers, returning home close to dawn.
    Kati fell asleep in the car and only woke when she was being carried up to bed. She pretended to be asleep and lay, not moving, on the bed while Aunt Da firmly tucked her in.
    ‘Tomorrow time’s up, right Da? Will she be sad if there’s no response?’
    ‘She probably will, but what can we do about it?’ Aunt Da stroked Kati’s hair. Her voice trembled. Kati was about to open her eyes and confess the truth when she heard Uncle Dong’s voice say, ‘Kati is Pat’s daughter. She’s not as fragile as we all think, you know. She is really doing very well. She certainly has all our love.’
    Uncle Dong had spoken words from Kati’s heart. Kati turned over and went to sleep in an instant.

The Old Thai House
    Leave the shadows of the past.
    Kati’s journey ended when the car stopped in front of the house on the water. This really was the end of her adventures in the big wide world, where she’d had to be a detective and unravel a mystery, just like in the books she’d read. Once, Mother had said that we were all like characters in a story who encountered various challenges, which, once passed, conferred a new depth of emotional experience and made you a fuller person for having experienced them. You looked at the world differently from then on. Mother liked to use ‘big words’ with Kati. They sounded good even though they were sometimes hard to understand, but at this moment Kati felt that she really had grown up a lot more.
    Grandma and Grandpa’s embrace was as warm and safe as Kati had remembered. There could be no happier place than home, and the house on the water was truly Kati’s home.
    The house had a long history stretching back to Kati’s great-grandfather. Grandpa had told her that once it was an old-fashioned Thai house – big, beautiful and spacious, renowned throughout the village. It had been carefully built and crafted, complete with a sleeping quarter, children’s quarters and a lofty hall for receiving guests, a kitchen and a long gallery in which to hang birdcages, all joined by an open verandah, shaded by big trees – mango, jackfruit and chempaka.
    With the passing of time, everything had deteriorated until the old Thai house had become shabby and dilapidated. Grandpa had used his savings to renovate it extensively, sparing no cost and reducing it to a single house where it was possible to live comfortably. The handiwork of the modern builders was not as good as the builders of old, but they had persevered and retained as many of the original features as possible: the ample slanting eaves and carved