Red Skies (The Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters) (11 page)

She strained to see, but as she got closer, it was obvious An Ni wasn’t there. Mari wished she could get the girl out of her mind. She had enough going on and enough stress. She didn’t need to be thinking about a little street urchin, but she just couldn’t help it. She’d been drawn to her and couldn’t stop wondering about her. She stopped at the exact place that she’d talked to An Ni, hoping her waiting would make her appear.

Two boys stepped out of a dark shop entrance and Mari jumped.

“What do you want?” The biggest one asked, a dark scowl on his face.

Mari stared at him, wondering if he was a part of An Ni’s gang of beggars. When he shrugged sarcastically at her, she almost laughed at his forced bravado. But she wouldn’t hurt his pride—she could sympathize too much.

“I’ve seen a little girl here before,” Mari said. “Her name is An Ni. Do you know her?”

She could tell by the sudden, quickly masked surprise on his face and by the shuffling away of the younger boy that they did indeed know An Ni. Yet the bigger one shook his head, denying it.

“Listen, I know you don’t want to tell me. But can you just say if she is okay or not?” Mari opened her bag and took out a five-renminbi note. Precious funds to her, but if it got her an answer, she’d gladly give it up.

The boy snatched the bill as soon as it saw the light of the streetlamp. “She took off, and I doubt she’ll be back here again.”

Mari narrowed her eyes at him. “Did she take off, or was she traded?”

More surprise showed on his face that she knew street talk.

“I used to be just like you and An Ni,” Mari said softly, hoping their connection would spring more information from his lips.

The boy looked her up and down, then crossed his arms. “You’re wearing a warm coat and nice clothes. You’re clean, and you look well fed to me. I’ll bet you have a home to go to—somewhere out of the rain and cold. You’re nothing like us.” He spit on the ground at her feet, then turned and stomped away.

Mari didn’t blame him for the sudden anger. She’d spent many years with the same heavy burden, even after she was rescued. Only when she’d finally faced her anger and broken down wailing—finally letting out all her sorrow—in the embrace of her mama’s gentle arms was she able to let it go. She knew what the boy was feeling.

Rejection. Isolation. Fear.

It wasn’t easy to watch people going by on their way to protective and loving homes as you scurried into a dark hole somewhere, searching for warmth never to be found. She knew he lay awake at night—cold, hungry, and wondering
Why
me?

She didn’t know what fate had in store for the boy, but she did hope he at least would spend the money on a hot bowl of noodles or rice for him and his friend. And that was all she could do.

She turned and headed away, ready to hit one more street in her search to get Bolin what he needed for his relief.

Chapter Ten

A
n Ni opened her eyes and stared at the shadows that moved above her. She wasn’t sure where she was but it definitely wasn’t any of their usual shelters. She didn’t see a trace of any building, overhang, or culvert. Instead, what looked like trees—tall and almost bare from leaves—were her ceiling. Where was she? Where was Xiao Mei? Had they already taken her away?

Train. Window. Jumping.

Now she remembered. She struggled to sit up, but an agonizing pain streaked through her leg and all the way to her hip, sending her flailing backward again.

“An Ni, stay still,” a small voice said. Xiao Mei appeared over An Ni’s face, leaning down to talk to her. The girl pulled at the small blanket, tucking it around An Ni even more.

“Where am I? What happened?” The pain from her attempt to sit up made her dizzy, and she closed her eyes to still the swirling trees.

“We’re in the woods. You dove out the window. Li Xi couldn’t reach you, and you hit the ground and rolled.”

It was coming back to An Ni now, though she didn’t remember the impact after her dive out of the window. “Where’s the boys?”

“They ran when you didn’t wake up. Li Xi’s scared he’s going to get a beating because of your leg.”

“My leg? What about my leg?” An Ni tried again to sit up, propping herself up to look down at her leg. What she saw made her even dizzier. The blanket—and where it had come from, she didn’t know—was short, only covering her torso. Her legs poked out, and her right leg lay in a strange, skewed angle. And it hurt. Bad.

“Oh no. Don’t tell me I’ve broken it.” She remembered that more than a year ago, one of the kids in their gang had stepped out in front of a car and broken his leg. He’d gone through a lot of pain, but Tianbing had never taken him to the hospital. Instead, he’d fixed him up himself, and the boy’s leg had finally healed—or she guessed it did, even though he’d still walked with a bad limp until the day he wasn’t with them anymore.

Xiao Mei looked at her, eyes big with fright. “I don’t know, An Ni, but I thought you were dying. You wouldn’t wake up.”

It was still night, so An Ni didn’t think she’d been out long. “How long was I out?”

Xiao Mei scrunched up her nose and looked at the sky. “You slept through the rest of last night and all day today. It’s nighttime again and I was getting scared. I walked all the way to the station and snatched this baby blanket when the mama wasn’t looking. I didn’t want you to be cold again.”

A whole night and day? The alarm ran through An Ni. She’d been out that long? Then she was filled with warmth for Xiao Mei’s sweet spirit. She’d thought that no one cared about her, but Xiao Mei did. Then confusion swirled once more.

“But how did I get in here?” From her place on the ground, she couldn’t even see the train tracks.

Xiao Mei smiled. “I dragged you but I didn’t touch your bad leg, I promise. I think it took me a couple hours—you’re really heavy, An Ni. I rolled you, too, sometimes. I was afraid if someone saw you from another train car, they’d call the police, and they’d take you away.”

An Ni struggled to get her legs under her but gave up after a few seconds of agony. Poor Xiao Mei, she must’ve been terrified. And no wonder she hadn’t woken up. If her leg was broken, she’d probably passed out over and over from the pain of being moved. But Xiao Mei wouldn’t have known any better.

Xiao Mei smiled and ran over to a tree, grabbed something, and came back. In her arms, she held the plastic bag of dinner trays from the train. The ones that An Ni had risked her life to steal.

“These fell all over the ground when you rolled, but the boys were so scared about you that they didn’t pick them up. I waited until they ran and then I got them all and put ’em back in the bag.” Her smile disappeared. “But I already ate one. Sorry, An Ni.”

“Don’t be sorry. You did good. And I’m not gonna call you Xiao Mei anymore, because now you’re such a big girl. Now you’re just
Mei
. And I’m proud of you. But”—she said through her clenched teeth, “we’ve got to get to some shelter. It’s going to be too cold out here tonight.”

She wasn’t worried about herself as much as she was the little girl. What if she passed out again and something got Xiao Mei? A person? An animal? Anything!

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Xiao Mei said, her voice trembling.

To An Ni, Mei looked twice her age, her eyes full of fear and the knowledge that this was a serious problem—them being left out in the woods all alone. As bad as Tianbing was, at least on their part of the streets, most people knew he was their protector and didn’t mess with them. Here, anyone or anything could get to them. She realized her teeth were chattering, though it wasn’t cold enough for that yet. And An Ni didn’t know much about injuries, but she did know there was something called shock. And she hoped she wasn’t in it.

“No hospitals. You know they won’t take me without an adult. Just let me think a minute.”

Xiao Mei sat down beside her. They were quiet for a minute, then the little girl looked at her. “An Ni?”

“What?” An Ni said, her mind completely somewhere else, ideas taking form then rejected quickly.

“We can’t go back there.” Xiao Mei spoke softly, almost too low for An Ni to make out her words.

“Go back where?”

“To Tianbing. Please don’t make me go back there. And he won’t come looking for us, because you know the boys aren’t going to tell. He doesn’t know where we are. We can get away.”

Something in her voice made An Ni stop thinking about the pain and focus her attention on the girl.

“Why, is something bad happening to you?” She felt silly even phrasing it that way. Everything about their life was bad.
Bad weather, bad food, bad people
. But she knew from stories she’d heard, that it could always be worse.

Xiao Mei hesitated, then nodded. It was in the way she slowly bobbed her head that the realization came over An Ni.

She was filled with fury—so much that it overrode the pain. Xiao Mei was barely more than a baby. If one of the boys had—if they’d—she couldn’t even form the words in her head.

She played over the last few weeks in her memory and remembered that after the few times Tianbing had taken Xiao Mei away for hours then brought her back, she had been especially silent. “Tell me, Xiao Mei.”

Xiao Mei started to cry, rocking back and forth as she squatted on the ground. “No, don’t make me, An Ni. Please.”

An Ni reached out to her, and ignoring the streak of pain the movement caused, she pulled her into a hug, then just held her as the girl cried. “Shh. You don’t have to talk about it. And we won’t go back. I swear. I’ll promise you this, too. I’m going to find a way to get you home.
Hao le
?”

Xiao Mei sniffled, then used her fist to rub at the tears on her face. “Okay. But you called me Xiao Mei again.”

Through her pain, An Ni had to chuckle at the girl’s spunk.
Mei.
She’d try to remember. She didn’t know where they’d go or what they’d do, and she might not be able to find a way to get her home, but she did know one thing—she would not let Xiao Mei go back to Tianbing’s gang. But first, they needed shelter until they could figure out some things.

“Okay Mei, I can’t see outside the line of trees. What’s out there other than the train tracks?” If she remembered right, they’d walked about a mile or two from the station, along a deserted edge of Beijing.

“Nothing, except a tiny building sort of close to the tracks. It’s no bigger than an outhouse.”

That got An Ni’s interest. An outhouse-sized building would be plenty big for her and Mei while she thought things out. “Really? How far?”

“Not far.” Mei looked out, over An Ni’s shoulder.

“But are you sure it’s not being used? How do you know?” An Ni didn’t want to try to make it there and find out someone was in it. Someone who might call the police. Tianbing had lots of friends who were police, and An Ni didn’t trust any of them.

Mei shrugged. “I didn’t see nobody.”

An Ni attempted again to get up, but her leg just wouldn’t cooperate. She thought for a minute, then turned to Mei. “Mei, I need you to find me two sticks. Real strong ones,” she used her hands to motion to her groin area, “get me one that is about as long from here to my foot. The other can be as long as from my armpit to my foot. Try to find some that have forked branches on the end. Just bring them to me and let me look at ’em.”

Mei jumped up and began scouting around for long branches.

“Wait—I just remembered, the branches need to hang longer than my foot, so my leg doesn’t touch the ground. You might have to get them from the trees.” An Ni sat up, ignoring the shooting pain, and began tearing the little blanket into strips. She was going to make some homemade crutches like she’d seen Tianbing do before. She’d stored everything she’d seen in in the last few years up into her head. She didn’t need him. She might only be eleven, but she could do everything he could and more.

And she’d find a way to get her and Mei away from the street life. She
would
.

She bit her lip, concentrating on tearing the material to keep tears from falling.
I will do it,
she chanted to herself.
I will do it.

Chapter Eleven

M
ari paced in front of the noodle shop, impatient for Max to arrive so they could get the day started. Fall was coming fast, and just in the last few days, the air had turned crisper, causing the people around her to already start wearing scarves and thicker coats. She shivered and hoped the sun would come out from behind the haze of pollution, then looked at her watch again.
Hurry up, Max,
she thought. The faster they began, the quicker she could get home. She continued to pace, letting the cheap soles of her rubber boots slap the sidewalk in a satisfactory thump to keep her mind distracted.

A week had passed since they’d lost Chu Chu, and in that time, Bolin had barely said two words to her. She’d tried to talk to him, discuss a plan to get them out of their current financial mess, but he’d offered nothing. She should’ve known that spending their last funds on more medicine—this time from the black market because the doctor refused—would send him back to his hazy world of uncaring. But he’d cried and begged, so she’d relented. And he hadn’t mentioned Max again. Now it was up to her to pay the rent that was due in less than a week. And after hitting the Internet cafes to search online for jobs and trudging up and down the shopping streets looking for signs in the windows, Mari had decided to call the one person she knew would help and not ask questions.

Max.

A bus came to a screeching stop directly in the street in front of her, and Mari watched the harried people load, many pushing against the other in their worry to be able to ride. When it finally pulled away, Max was crossing the street coming at her, a smile on his face.

Mari wouldn’t let herself appreciate the feeling of comfort it gave her, that another human being was happy to see her. This was a job—a minor emergency, really. But if Bolin found out this was how she’d pay the rent, he’d probably come out of his haze long enough to go stark raving mad. He and his distrust of foreigners bordered on ridiculous, but Mari didn’t want to hurt him. So she’d keep it quiet. She didn’t want to—she’d been taught not to—but she’d have to lie to him and tell him she’d caught a short-term job doing something else to get the rent.

“
Ni hao,
Mari,” Max called out as he waved.

“Max,” she nodded at him, keeping her distance.

He stepped onto the curb and gestured toward the noodle shop. “
Zaofan
?”

Mari couldn’t help but laugh at his pronunciation of breakfast. She had to give it to him, though—he tried. Still, despite the rumbling in her belly, she didn’t want him buying her food. “I’m okay. Have you eaten?”

He shook his head. “Mind if we get a quick bowl of noodles?”

She shrugged and followed him into the shop. The owner waved and called out a greeting, pointing to the table that Max had claimed as his usual spot. They crossed the room and sat down.

“You look different,” Max said as he dropped his camera bag to the floor at his feet, then bent down to push one of the straps under the leg of his chair. No one would be stealing it, and Mari was impressed to see him take the precaution.

She reached up and smoothed back a few stray hairs, ran her hand down her ponytail. She probably did look a bit boring, with her dark jeans and bland gray sweater. But she was feeling drab. No wonder she’d unconsciously chosen clothes to match. “I’m dressed to blend in. And my hair was being extra difficult this morning, so I tied it back.”

“It looks good. And I like your rain boots,” Max said, smiling again.

“Are you making fun of them?” Mari knew that some were ridiculed for their obsession with the cartoonish icon Hello Kitty, but the truth was, she’d found the boots at an outside market for a fraction of what they would’ve been in a store. Normally she might’ve chosen the same boots with a different pattern, but her tiny size was limited to just Hello Kitty styles. It was embarrassing, to say the least.

“No, I’m not. Really. My daughter’s room was decorated in Hello Kitty when she was younger. We learned to ferret it out in every shopping mall in the area. Clothes, toys, books. She took it to another extreme though, with all the stuff she collected.”

The waiter brought them a kettle of steaming tea and two small porcelain cups. Mari raised her eyebrows, noting how the owner no longer served Max with paper products but had moved on to the fancy stuff.

“You talk as though she collected it in the past. What about now? Is she too old for Hello Kitty?”

Max stared into his cup for a moment, then looked up. But he still didn’t make eye contact with her. “At my house, yes—her room is stuck in a time warp. But at her mother’s house, she finally moved on to a more grown-up theme. My wife—I mean my ex-wife—hired a decorator. My daughter said her new room was all candles, silk, and bamboo. Sounds to me like some kind of spa or something in there. And I told her that, but she said her mom thought it would make her at peace with her mind and body—or some nonsense like that.”

Separate houses. Ex-wife. So they were divorced. That answered a lot for her. And Mari could only imagine how spoiled his daughter was, having two houses, two bedrooms, and being passed from father to mother as they both competed for her affections. She’d heard that American children were usually given every material object there was. Computers, iPhones, iPads—and here she was probably the only one in the city still using a flip phone, and even it was left at home for emergency use only. Who Bolin would call in an emergency, she didn’t know—over the last year, he’d shut them off from all their neighbors so completely that no one even looked at her when she passed by.

She was self-conscious that she didn’t own a computer, but they were lucky to even have a television, and especially a refrigerator. The small fridge had been their first New Year’s present to each other.

“Your daughter, what was it like when you first saw her?” Mari asked, thinking briefly of the first time her own baba had walked up to her on the street corner and looked down at her. The first thing she’d remembered was his kind eyes. Then he’d handed her an orange, and she’d been taken aback by how big his hands were. Minutes after he’d asked her about her life on the streets, he’d looked at her and told her that if she wanted to, she could walk away with him and be a part of his family. It was her first time trusting a man, and her first experience with trusting her instincts. She knew now that she’d made the best decision of her life—she’d conquered her fear of the man who controlled her, and then she’d become the first of many daughters her new parents would bring under their roof. They’d been poor, but the love she’d had from them was worth more than any amount of money or gadgets.

“When I first saw her, she wouldn’t come to me,” Max said softly. “I think she was scared. But soon, I won her over with her curiosity to feel the beard I wore back then. One day, maybe a week after she came home, she held her arms out to me and came willingly. Then she grabbed my beard with both her chubby little hands and pulled my face to hers. She pressed her forehead against mine and giggled like crazy. That was our moment.”

Mari let him talk, watching the intensity of his emotions when he spoke of her. It was hard to believe a father could be so enamored by a daughter of a different heritage, but obviously this one was.

“I always said that was the moment I melted like butter. When my daughter got old enough to talk, she’d ask me to tell her about the time she made me melt like butter.” He smiled as he wrapped his hand around his cup of tea and stared down into it.

The silence settled around them. Mari didn’t want to be too intrusive, and his sudden reticence warned her not to pry even more. “So,” she said, “you want to see the underground tunnels?”

Max nodded, then dug in his pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it, then spread it across the table. It was well worn, and Mari could tell he’d studied it many times before. She couldn’t read it from the distance across the table, but it appeared to be some sort of list.

“Yeah, that’s the plan. If I can find a story there, that’d be great. But either way, I need to see it.” He took a pen from his pocket and marked something on the paper. Then he folded it carefully and put it away.

The owner brought two bowls of noodles—he hadn’t listened to Mari decline hers—and set them on the table. She almost pushed hers away, but her good sense and her rumbling stomach kept her from being too proud.

“So let’s eat up, then get out of here,” she said, and she lifted the bowl to her mouth, grateful when the first taste of the warm broth hit her tongue.

“Isn’t there an easier way in here?” Max asked as he stepped down and joined her in at least six inches of water. He stopped to snap a few photos, almost blinding Mari with the flash.

Mari peeled the end from her ball of string, then tied it to the flaking banister. She led the way down the stairs, slowly and carefully, as she let the string out and searched the narrow passageway for any swimming rats. They could’ve taken the easy route to the higher tunnels, where migrant workers paid a small fee to live in the tiny bed-sized private alcoves that served as rooms. Max had been astonished when she’d told him the damp tunnels were home to laborers who came to Beijing from faraway villages and couldn’t afford the aboveground housing expenses. But Max wanted to go deeper to the older and restricted tunnels, so they had to go through more of a hardship to get there. She hoped her boots held up and didn’t leak.