Hidden Monastery Read online

  Ma said River School was a lucky school. Eight is a lucky number for Chinese people. And River School’s address was 88 Fortuna Avenue. Jax told Mai he thought ‘8’ was lucky because it was an infinity sign standing on its head. ‘The infinity sign and Yin Yang circle are the most beautiful symbols in the world,’ he told her.

  Whenever Jax felt nervous standing in front of the class, he would first concentrate on these two symbols, tracing them over and over in his mind. Then he would be calm and ready to face the fifty-eyed monster.

  ‘Have fun at the aquarium, Mai.’ Jax watched as Mai’s friends greeted her excitedly. He was just thinking how lucky she was to be so popular when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was his friend, Buzzy Alvarez. Buzzy was one of the most admired boys at school and so good at sport that he had already been signed up as a recruit for the Goannas, the top footy team in the league. Jax and Buzzy were as different as night and day, but it was their love of animals that kept their friendship alive.

  They had met while Jax was walking home from school. A car had swerved, its tyres barely missing a small black and white dog that had darted out into the middle of the road. The dog was terrified and sat cowering on the hot bitumen. Jax watched helplessly as two more cars came up over the hill. He wanted to do something, but he had never touched a dog before, let alone picked one up. His mind was alive with thoughts. Would the animal bite him? Would it run in the wrong direction, towards the cars? Would the cars be able to see him? He might be run over, too.

  At that moment, Jax saw a boy step onto the road. He was tall, with brown unruly hair. He recognised him from school. The boy put up his hands and the cars came to a halt. Then he gently lifted the little dog into his arms and walked calmly back to the footpath. Jax thought it was the bravest thing he had ever seen. The boy stroked the little dog’s head, murmuring soothing words in its ear. He then looked up at Jax and smiled.

  ‘Doesn’t have a collar. Must be lost,’ he said. ‘I can’t keep her, I already have two rats, an axolotl and a cat. Mum said I have too many pets. Do you like dogs?’

  Jax had only been in Australia for two months so he didn’t understand what the boy had said. But Jax nodded anyway. Sometimes it was easier to pretend you understood even when you didn’t.

  ‘Do you like dogs?’ the boy repeated.

  This time Jax caught the words ‘like’ and ‘dog’. He was about to say something back, but stopped. English words were so hard to pronounce. And if he made a mistake, the boy might laugh at him like some of the kids had on Jax’s first day of school. Instead he nodded again. He looked at the little dog. Her eyes were warm, the colour of chestnuts. Jax put out his hand and stroked her head.

  ‘She’s cute, isn’t she?’ the boy said. ‘Want to keep her?’

  While Jax was trying to figure out the English words, the boy thrust the dog into his arms. The animal immediately snuggled in, burying her head under his armpit.

  ‘Do you think your mum and dad would let you keep her?’ the boy said, this time more slowly. He also used his eyes in a way that helped Jax understand.

  If only I could keep her, Jax thought. Ma doesn’t like dogs, she says they are dirty. But then, she’s only small, not really like a dog at all. Maybe… ‘Yes, I keep,’ Jax said, smiling at the boy.

  ‘Good. What’s your name? Mine’s Buzzy.’

  ‘My name is Jax,’ he said proudly. This was the one sentence Jax had practised over and over again.

  Buzzy tickled the little dog under the chin. ‘And what will you call her?’

  ‘Call her…’ Jax repeated.

  ‘I know, how about Ruby? It’s a kind of precious stone.’

  Jax looked at Buzzy questioningly.

  ‘Ruby… you know… my name’s Buzzy… your name’s Jax. Her name’s… ?’

  ‘Ruby,’ Jax finished, feeling very pleased with himself.

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ Buzzy grinned.

  Jax lifted the little dog up to his face. ‘Ruby, Ruby,’ he whispered. She smelt like she had been down a sewer, but he didn’t care. Ruby was his dog now. She snuggled in under his chin. Jax thanked Buzzy and said goodbye.

  When he got home, Ma cried, ‘Aiya! Lao shu!’ and covered her mouth with her hand.

  ‘It’s not a rat, Ma,’ Jax protested. ‘Here, put on your glasses and look properly.’

  ‘Shi gou ma? Is it a dog?’ said Ma, peering at it more closely. ‘Will it bite? Where did you get it from? I think you should take it back. Why is it shaking, Mingzi? Is it sick?’

  ‘She’s just scared, Ma. A nice boy at school gave her to me. Can we keep her?’

  Ma screwed her lips to one side and frowned, shaking her head slowly.

  ‘She’s small, Ma, so she won’t eat much. And she won’t get sick. I’ll look after her. Hey, she can be our watchdog. She’s cute, don’t you think?’ Jax held Ruby up to Ma’s face.

  ‘Aiya, so smelly!’ she said, wrinkling up her face and waving her hand in front of her nose. She stood back, crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, ‘Ai… haole haole… qu qu… All right… all right… go, go. Better give the poor thing a bath before your father gets home. And you can feed her the leftover meat from the refrigerator.’

  Jax hugged Ruby and put his arm around Ma. He had never known a happier day.

  From then on, Buzzy would often ask how Ruby was doing and what new tricks she had learnt. He would then tell Jax all about his rats and the rat babies. But today Jax was worried about his friend. Buzzy looked tired and his eyes were bloodshot as if he hadn’t slept all week.

  ‘Do you want my rats? I’m giving them away.’ Buzzy’s voice was flat and weak.

  ‘But, Buzz, you love your rats.’ Jax couldn’t believe it. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Buzzy looked down at the ground and brushed his toe through the dirt. ‘I’m just sick of them, that’s all.’ Then he looked up and frowned. ‘Do you want them or not?’

  Jax was shocked and didn’t know what to say. His friend had never snapped at him like that before.

  ‘Well, think about it, okay? If you want them, they’re yours. I’m goin’ to play footy before class. Seeya, Jax.’

  Jax stared after Buzzy as he walked away. There was definitely something wrong, but what could be wrong in Buzz’s perfect life? He had everything – he was smart at school, good at sport, popular. Even the teachers liked him.

  In class that day, Jax couldn’t concentrate and his palm itched incessantly. The day seemed to drag on forever. Each subject melted into the other, becoming one long boring blur. Most of the time he spent staring out of the window at the forest of cactus plants. The spiny leaves had become home to a number of small birds and Jax had been watching them every day. He could hear the tiny cheep cheep of their song. He often wished he, too, could fly off whenever he wanted, instead of being locked up inside a classroom.

  Bing bing bing. Finally the bell sounded.

  As Jax stood up to go, lightning flashed around the room. Another big storm was on its way.

  The Black Abyss

  As Peng sank deeper and deeper into the icy-cold water, he watched the world of light slowly fade from view.

  But what was this? His paws touched something hard. Scrabbling to catch hold, his tiny claws curled over the rough surface of rock. Here the underwater current was strong, threatening to carry him away. But he would not let go. He could not let go. Down below, the sea floor opened up into a five kilometre deep canyon. It was like a gaping wound across the earth’s surface.

  Peng had landed on a narrow rock shelf on the edge of the Black Abyss. Silent grey shadows swam gracefully in and out of trees of kelp. They looked menacing. Sometimes a light would blink on, then off, then disappear. It was an unwelcoming world. A strange and frightening world for a creature who was still so young.

  Staying close to the rocky wall, Peng moved slowly, making sure his grip was secure before taking another step. He discovered that if he moved his legs and his tiny tadpole tail in a certain way, he
could move with the water, even turn and go against it. He was becoming used to the push and pull of the current. The silvery blue mane that rippled down his back also helped him to keep his balance. He was learning to swim.

  On the other side of the rocky shelf he found a large cave. Here he could hide from the larger creatures of the deep with their staring eyes and rows of razor-sharp teeth that seemed to snap at anything that moved. At first he just hid inside the cave’s entrance and waited in case it was home to some other creature. But no one came to claim it, and so he moved in.

  Peng grazed on seaweed and other grasses that grew on the rocks and ledges close by. And as he became more confident with his surroundings, he ventured out a little further each day.

  Soon the months turned into years and Peng forgot that he had once come from the stars, from a world that was dry and warm and light.

  He was turning into a handsome creature. His head was like that of a magnificent lion and a gentle buffalo all mixed into one. Around his mouth, white whiskers stood out like a bright sunburst. His eyes were the colour of emeralds, and all over his body were glistening scales, each one edged in fine gold hairs. A silvery blue mane ran down his back and finished in a stallion tail so that when he moved, he looked like a slip of liquid mercury swimming through the water. And in the middle of his forehead, a small golden horn could be seen breaking through the surface of the skin. Peng always knew when an underwater storm was approaching. His horn would itch and ache until the storm had passed and the waters were calm again.

  Being young and playful, Peng was still learning how to control his great strength and power. Sometimes, with an over-enthusiastic swish of his massive tail, he would uproot whole water gardens. Or he would swim backwards, straight into the middle of a shoal of fish, scattering them everywhere.

  At the entrance to Peng’s cave sat a large boulder. In a crevice underneath the boulder lived a striped coral snake. The two creatures became friends, and Peng would take the little snake on his travels as he searched for that other world – the one he often dreamt about – a world of alternating light and dark, of warmth and vivid colours. The coral snake would coil itself around Peng’s golden horn, like a sailor atop the mast of a ship, and they would set off. On each journey, Peng would learn something more about the world. He discovered new kelp forests and coral canyons and met a myriad of other sea creatures. He learnt that every creature in the world was connected in some way. Everything depended on everything else, whether it be for food or protection or shelter. It was a complex balance that maintained life.

  But then one day, the sea began to change. It lay there dark and brooding like an angry old man about to explode. Peng no longer saw large shoals of fish or turtles swimming past his cave. He too, stopped his long journeys and kept close to home.

  It was as if a dark shadow had fallen over his world.

  Inside Your World

  Inside Mine

  As Jax walked out of the gates of River School, the sky was draped in blue-grey clouds like fishing nets left hanging to dry.

  He waited at the pedestrian crossing for the lights to turn green.

  ‘Better run for it while you can,’ said Mr Rose, the lollipop man. As he spoke, a flash of lightning then a thunderclap made the girls scream, and it began to pour with rain.

  Everyone else ran, but Jax continued to walk down the street, his hands in his pockets, as if it was a bright spring day. It was a warm rain, anyway, like it always is in the tropics, and Jax didn’t feel his wet clothes clinging to his body, nor hear the swooshing noise of the car tyres as they free-spun through the water. An idea had suddenly come to him. There must be so many different worlds on this planet, he thought. What if I was an amoeba? Or a tree? Or a fish? All these things are living creatures, but they all inhabit their own little worlds. Side by side worlds that don’t know the other exists.

  Once on TV, Jax had seen a program about starfish. The starfish didn’t look as though they were moving until the film was sped up. Then you could see them moving all over the sea floor. You could even see them raising their arms and fighting each other. It was a slow motion world they lived in. Jax wondered if that was his problem. Could he be living in the wrong world?

  As he turned into Trumper Street, he could see the paperbark tree outside his house shaking its head wildly as if it was trying to shake off the rain. Then the wind picked up a raven with a broken wing. Oh no, thought Jax. The poor bird tumbled head over heels towards him. Jax readied himself to catch it, but as it blew closer, he realised that it was just an old broken umbrella someone had thrown away. He watched as the spokes of the umbrella caught in a wrought-iron fence, the black material fluttering wildly. Jax walked a few steps on, then looked back again. No, he shrugged. It was still just an umbrella.

  Jax lived with his family on the edge of the city. Small groups of cottages were crammed in amongst factories and warehouses. His parents’ house hardly had room to breathe, with a three-story factory on one side, and a red-brick warehouse on the other. She was like an old lady squashed between two sumo wrestlers. But rent was cheap in this part of town.

  As Jax put his key in the lock the door magically opened. It was Ba. His face darkened when he saw Jax. ‘Ay, ni shi tou le! You’re soaked! Ben Dan! You stupid egg! Don’t you know enough to come in out of the rain? Go look after your little sister until Mama gets home. I have to go to work early today.’ Ba stepped out into the wind and rain and was gone.

  ‘Hey, Jax! Wanna watch TV?’ Mai’s voice trailed up the hall as Jax sadly closed the front door. He took off his shoes and placed them neatly together. ‘Yeah, coming, Mai.’

  Jax’s father worked night shift and would sleep from seven in the morning until five in the afternoon, which meant that they could never invite friends over, or watch TV, or do anything that normal kids did after school. Instead, they had to creep around as if they were living in a funeral parlour and the noise might wake the dead.

  Then again, Jax thought, living in a funeral home might be good. At least I could sneak around and look at all the corpses. Or have a lie down in an empty coffin. I wonder what it feels like to die? The thought always made Jax shiver.

  Jax had seen a dead person before. Uncle Len had helped Jax’s family come to Australia. He died last year. The coffin lid had been open and everybody was walking past, saying goodbye to him. Mum told Jax to say one last thankyou, out of respect. So when it was his turn to look inside the coffin, he half-closed his eyes, in case Uncle Len looked like one of those zombies you see in movies. But he didn’t look scary. No, not at all. They had put make-up on his face, which was sunken and hollow. Jax thought the sickness was like a monster that had sucked Uncle Len dry.

  Jax plonked himself down on the old couch beside Mai. The springs groaned, ohh, then let out a long aaaahhhhhhh…. He reached over and stroked Ruby, curled up on Mai’s lap. ‘Hey, Ruby girl, why didn’t you come to meet me?’

  Normally she would trot up the hall as soon as she heard Jax open the front door. But today she just lay there, greeting Jax with a weak wag of her tail.

  ‘We saw a giant squid with eyes as big as basketballs at the ’quarium,’ said Mai. ‘The lady told us it came from the Black Abyss. It was a dead one, ’cos no one has ever found one alive. She said some fish down there even have lights on their heads. That’s funny.’ Mai giggled.

  ‘What are you watching?’ Jax asked, laying his hand on Ruby’s head.

  ‘Just the news, but Whirlygig is going to be on after. I saw it at Tessa’s house. It’s so funny. About a goldfish who got dumped in a creek. Then he swam into a river and because he wasn’t in a fish tank any more he grew to be a giant fish and…’

  The TV in the background droned, ‘…. warned it may be a monster cyclone, the worst storm yet to threaten our coast. In another item, a strange sound from the Black Abyss…’

  ‘Shush, Mai!’ Jax reached over for the remote control.

  ‘Scientists have revealed a mysterious reco
rding that they say could be the sound of a giant beast lurking in the depths of the ocean. The sound is more powerful than the calls made by any creature known on Earth. A report in the scientific journal, New Ocean, said that scientists have been tracking the sound off the northeast coast of Australia for three months. But last week, due to consistent bad weather, the signal was lost.’

  ‘Wow, amazing, a monster from the deep,’ said Jax. ‘I wish I had one of those mini-submarines, then I would go and look for it.’

  ‘Can I go, too?’ asked Mai.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll buy a two-seater for us.’

  ‘Yay.’ Mai’s face suddenly changed. ‘But won’t it cost a lot of money?’

  ‘I’ll be a marine biologist and research deep-sea creatures, then the government will give me one for free.’

  ‘I want to be one of those mine bologists, too, then we can get two submachines.’ Mai suddenly looked down at Ruby. ‘She’s shivering, Jax.’

  Ruby’s eyes were closed and her fur felt greasy and dull. Jax picked her up and held her close to his body.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ asked Mai.

  ‘I’ll take her to my room and put her under my doona. She’s probably got a cold.’ Jax walked down the hall to his bedroom then climbed into bed with Ruby. She whimpered softly.

  ‘You’ll feel better tomorrow,’ he whispered. These were Ma’s magic words. Whenever Jax was sick they seemed to work every time. He hoped they would work their magic on Ruby, too.

  A Small Dog’s Life

  Ruby slept in Jax’s bed all night. By morning she was worse, her breathing laboured. Jax was lying on the bed stroking her when Mai entered the room.