Quest for the King (4 page)

"Oh, they're easy, Dad. You forget that Lisa and I went up them
three times. An' it's only a year ago!"

"Don't forget, whenever the path divides keep taking the left fork.
Will you see the Choi boys?"

"They're both in Canada, Dad-at university "

"Goodness, how time flies! By the way, make sure you have jackets
or heavy sweaters. The wind will be strong, and you'll need something
warm once you get there." It seemed to them all that they must have
dreamed his sternness.

"Sure, Dad."

An hour later the four children found themselves walking the Hong
Kong streets again. For the Friesens the crowded sidewalks represent ed the excitement of visiting old haunts. In contrast, Mary was seeing
Hong Kong streets for the first time. Since her arrival, her contact with
the city and its inhabitants had been confined to the view from hotel
windows and taxis.

All four children seemed older than they really were, having spent
years in Anthropos in dangerous adventures. But the years in that
other world of Anthropos passed in moments in our time, so the
children were older on the inside than you would think from the
outside. As a result, their parents often gave them far more freedom
and trust than other children would have received.

It was no longer raining, but the skies were gray and a strong wind
was blowing. They found themselves struggling to stay together as
they dodged and pushed their way along the crowded sidewalk on
Nathan Road. Car engines honked and traffic roared. You could hear
snatches of conversation in a dozen languages. Out of the corners of
their eyes they caught sight of store windows where haughty clothes
props displayed the latest fashions, others where jewelry sparkled
dazzlingly under bright lights, and still other little places where money
could be changed. Soon they were plunging down a long stairway that
opened up to a surprisingly spacious (but horrendously crowded) underground station. They bought plastic multi journey tickets.

Kurt had decided to take Mary under his wing, and was walking
beside her. "You push the plastic ticket into the slot at the turnstile,"
he told her, "and it pops up again at another opening. It's mostly
Hong Kong people rather than ex-pats who use the undergroundtourists are often too scared-or too picky. We like it because it gets
you where you want to go real fast."

Mary looked a little scared. Toronto had not prepared her for the
Hong Kong experience, and Winnipeg, where she had lived with
Uncle John, had no underground railway at all. Wesley, Kurt and Lisa
were in their element. Here everyone moved to an inner rhythm of
rush, rush, rush. Like ants, the hurrying crowds seemed to know exactly where they were going and what they wanted to do. Uniformed
school children (many of them younger than any of the children) hurried past them. No one waited for you to make up your mind.

Mary followed Kurt to the turnstile and inserted her ticket. The
machine snatched it from her fingers, and flicked it up from another
opening. Kurt was waiting beyond the turnstile. "Grab your ticket and
come through." Then they hurried forward. "When you leave the
system you'll have to go through another turnstile, and the machine
will light up and show you how much money you still have in the
ticket."

Lisa and Wesley waited for them to catch up, and soon they stood
behind a crowd of people that stretched the full length of the platform, four or five deep. And more people were soon crowding behind
them.

"All these people will never get in," Mary said.

"You'd be surprised!" Lisa laughed.

When the train arrived they found themselves being pushed forward toward mechanically opening doors, straining past people who
were as anxious to get out of the train as the rest were to get in. It
seemed to the children that they were almost lifted and carried into
the train, where they eventually grabbed steel posts so they could
plant their feet and keep their balance. As the train began to move
each of them turned to locate the rest. "Did Mary get on?"

"She was with Kurt. Oh, there she is!" Lisa grinned at Wesley.

"Wes says to get off at Jordan, 'cos we can go down to a lower level
and get on an empty train there," Lisa called to Mary. "We would
normally change at the station after Jordan, but we'll have a seat that
way."

The posters that lined the station wall were gliding rapidly backward, and the next moment the tunnel swallowed them. Two stations
later they struggled to leave the train against people who were trying
to get in. Somehow they managed to alight and to regroup on the
platform.

"You like this?" Mary was bewildered.

The other three children grinned at her. "It's not always as bad as
that," Lisa said. "But even when it's crowded it can be fun."

They descended another stairway to find an almost empty train
standing beside the platform. Five minutes later it began to move.

Their destination was Shah Tin, and they eventually arrived there
on a regular, above-ground electric train. But the station was inside
a large shopping complex-an arrangement that further bewildered
Mary. "It's not just arriving in the middle of the shopping center, it's
all the people. Is all Hong Kong as crowded as this?"

"Pretty well," Wesley replied. "That's one reason we like to see the
other side of Hong Kong-the trails on the mainland, and the smaller
islands."

In Shah Tin they parted company with Mary. Mrs. Choi had come
to meet her and to take her to the Chans'.

"Mrs. Choi! How nice to see you," Wesley had cried on seeing her.
"Dad and Mom want to thank you for looking after Mary last night.
It was so kind of you!" For a few moments the Friesen children and
Mrs. Choi chatted and exchanged news. But Lisa was staring at Mary.
"You're going to the Chans'?" she asked.

Mary nodded. "Uncle John's computer's there!"

"You don't want to come up to Lion Rock?"

"Not really. I'd rather fiddle with the computer."

Lisa shrugged her shoulders. "It's your decision."

There was an awkward pause. Then Wesley again addressed Mrs.
Choi. "Well, it's been lovely to see you. But I guess we'd better move
if we're to climb Lion Rock today."

After they parted, Lisa said, "She's up to something. I can feel it in
my bones."

"You're too hard on her, Lisa," Kurt protested as they began to
make their way to the taxi stand.

"She can be as tough as nails when she wants to be. That's what
worries me," Lisa countered fiercely. "One minute she's crying her
eyes out, and the next, she's up to one of her schemes."

No one knew why Uncle John had brought his laptop computer
from Winnipeg to Hong Kong only to leave it at the Chans'. "It's
crazy!" Wesley had pondered at the time. "He'd only just bought it. He'd hardly used it-hadn't even loaded much software into it Anyway, you can buy computers much more cheaply in Hong Kong. It's
like shipping coals to Newcastle, or wheat to the prairies-it makes no
sense!"

They proceeded by taxi to the ascending trail for lion Rock.

Alighting from a taxi, they crossed the road. On the far side of the
road they ascended steep steps in a stone-faced hillside, and in no
time found themselves standing and staring at a map behind a glass
case.

"I'm sort of scared of what we'll find on the rock," Kurt muttered
uneasily.

"Oh, why?" Lisa asked him.

"I dunno. It's a feeling I got."

"It's a feeling you have, not that you've got," Lisa admonished in
an older-sister tone.

Kurt seemed unruffled. "Sure. But I got it anyway. An' I feel real
uneasy, like something's going to happen."

Wesley turned to his brother. "Oh, don't worry, Kurt. It's a pretty
easy climb. It's not a bit dangerous if you stick to the trail."

"It's not Lion Rock, Wes. It has to do with Anthropos somehow.
Like something wild is going to happen."

"You probably ate something at lunch and feel out of sorts."

Lisa asked, "Can you figure out the map?"

Wesley nodded. "Anyway, I can still remember it. We can't really go
wrong if we keep climbing. There's only one summit-Lion Rock At
one point if we take a right fork it would take us to Amah Rock. We'll
just keep to the left"

Above them the early October sky grew clearer, and though the
wind was fairly strong and gusty, the weather looked as though it was
changing for the better. Clouds scurried across the sky, revealing an
occasional patch of blue. Soon the noise of the traffic on the tunnel
road died down behind them, as their path wound upward among
trees and bushes. Before long they began to feel the pull of the ascent in their thigh muscles. From time to time they crossed the same stream
on stepping stones, and once they spotted a picnic area on their right.
Also on their right, tall bamboo shoots soared to incredible heights.
The children passed through a sort of defile, and as they emerged
from it, suddenly Amah Rock stood clear and sharp against the cloudy
gray of the sky.

"It really does look like a Chinese peasant woman with a child on
her back," Kurt gasped, trying to catch his breath.

"But it's more obvious from down below, I think," Wesley panted.

"Andrew Choi once told me that lots of people take this hike," Lisa
added. "But we seem to be the only ones here now."

"Dad loves the walks around here. It was listening to him talk that
first made me want to try this one." Wesley took a big breath. "But
what's the hurry, guys? Let's take it easy. We've a long way to go yet.
You'll be surprised at how tired you will get."

They proceeded Indian file, Wesley leading the way, then Kurt,
then Lisa. Lisa sighed. "I wish I could have been at the wedding. I
bet Aunt Eleanor looked just great!"

Kurt laughed. "You mean they'd dress up? At their age? They're old,
Lisa."

"Oh, I don't know. Fifty's not that old. She was going to wear white,
and I bet she looked pretty. He was to wear a topper and a morning
suit. I hope they took photographs." Lisa had a dreamy, faraway look
in her eyes. "Y'know, they knew each other when they were kids. I
think Uncle John stayed single so long 'cos Eleanor was the only one
he ever loved. It's real romantic."

"Romantic?" Wesley turned round grinning, and his plain and
freckled face was transformed. His eyes twinkled with mischief.
"What's romantic about a man marrying a heavy-equipment operator?"

"What d'you mean?" Kurt asked.

"I mean that Eleanor was once a heavy-equipment operator. She
was also a foreman at a construction site in California. She drank like
a fish and bossed the men around."

"Oh, don't be silly. She's not a bit like that," Lisa declared scornfully.

"Not now she's not. But she used to be."

"Who said?" Kurt asked.

"Dad told me. He said it was a phase she went through, long ago
when she was a lot younger. It had to do with the way her dad treated
her when she was younger. He was an alcoholic, apparently."

Lisa sounded angry. "I don't believe it. She's such-such a neat lady.
I bet he was fooling you. How could she be a construction foreman
and a university professor at the same time?"

Wesley grinned again. "I guess the professor bit was later, after she
finished her doctorate at UCLA."

They emerged from the trees and were confronted by a wide, cement-lined ditch, about twelve feet across and six or seven feet deep,
which crossed their path at right angles. Rushing water coursed along
the bottom of it.

They crossed on a bridge and soon were climbing steeply again and
breathing hard. The sound of the stream in the steep drop on their
right grew steadily more pronounced. Wesley had already removed
his sweater, and soon pulled off his sweatshirt Lisa tied a large handkerchief round her head to catch the perspiration and stop it from
getting into her eyes. "I sure envy Mary," she panted, her thoughts
back at the wedding. "She got to see it all-but what did you think of
lunch?"

"I was a bit scared," Kurt said. "I thought Dad was going to blow
his top."

"Mary still hasn't learned," Wesley murmured.

"Oh, come off it, Wes," Kurt protested. "She's far better than she
used to be. Don't you remember the night she came to Winnipeg? I
felt like murdering her then."

"And don't forget, she'd never met Dad," Lisa added. "We're used
to him, but Mary's only had Uncle John-an' those weird men who
used to stay at her stepmother's apartment in Toronto."

"But I'm sure she's heading for trouble," John said. "It began when Uncle John and Aunt Eleanor were writing all those letters to each
other. She knew what was going on."

"She's jealous. Of us. She thinks she should have exclusive rights
to Uncle John. She ought to grow up," Lisa said. "Anyway, he's our
Uncle John more than hers."

"He's hers far more than ours. Don't talk like that, Lisa. You know
what a rotten deal she's had." Kurt was indignant. "Uncle John was
the first grown-up who was ever decent to her. We may have been the
first to know him, but Mum's his cousin, not his sister."

"I know. You're right," Lisa said after a minute or two. "But she was
so good after we went to Anthropos. She was-well, she was real nice
to live with. But since Eleanor came on the scene she's been getting
fat and mean again."

A frown creased Wesley's face. "You know she's started attending
a witches' coven."

Kurt assumed a lofty air. "That started when Uncle John told us he
was thinking of marrying Eleanor. But it's just kid stuff-isn't it?"

"I wish I could be sure. Uncle John once said something about a
curse that comes from the female line in her real family. At least, I
think that's the phrase he used. I asked him what it meant, but I think
he realized he'd said too much."

"I even thought of telling Uncle John." Lisa paused for a moment.
"The trouble is she's such a whiz at school. She gets nothing but A's
and A-pluses. And that impresses him."