Fiction: Group 2
Tale Of The Pearl River
International College Hong Kong-Hong Lok Yuen, Chong, Arthur - 9, Fiction:
Group 2
dark, stormy night of 1951…
As the wind howled beside the muddy West River, far away from the delta where three rivers met,
Brendan Lee swore under his breath as he waded through the banks. He didn't like the job of night
shift security guard much when he had his first watch eighteen years ago, and now he despised the job even
more. In Guangdong, storms were often, and it wasn't uncommon to wake up and find a monsoon or a
cyclone howling outdoors. Here, all buildings were huts for farming, and had leaking roofs although the
government had promised skyscrapers by 1970.
As Lee waded his way through the ankle-deep puddles, his foot implanted on something squishy. As soon as
Lee picked the object up, he instantly regretted his action. What he had stepped on was a massive tangle of
flesh, bone and blood. And judging from the look and smell, it had been lying there for at least a decade.
Lee screamed.
" ...And a Guangdong night guard brought shocking news and evidence of a sliced body in a ditch next to
the East River banks... carbon dating shows that..." 10-year old Joe Wang clicked off the battered Toshiba
3456 TV. He already had fallen behind on his schedule of homework, but the news about the murder made
him uneasy.
Joe knew that telling his
father, Wong Wang, would make him ballistic (“How dare you think
only of that! Would you like to be murdered?”), and he had no mother to talk to, as his mum had died
when she gave birth to him. So he had only one person to tell: Grandma Wang.
Grandma Wang was the only person that he ever trusted. After all, she was ninety-nine years old and had
survived the Japanese bombing and invasion of The Republic of China in 1942.But that very day when Joe
went to her hut, she was wary.
Pale face, fallen eyebrows, shaky knees, Grandma Wang slowly tilted her head to face Joe. There was clearly
a difference from his usual old, cheery grandma and this worn-out grandma.
" Grandma, what's wrong?" asked Joe warily.
Grandma slowly replied, " Joe, I have a secret to tell. A secret so shameful that even Grandpa went to his
grave not knowing. You may not forgive me for this. I have waited for a long time to tell you this."
"What is it, Grandma?", asked an increasingly nervous Joe, who was frightened when Grandma spoke in a
dying voice. "Joe Wang, I killed your mother in cold blood, Joe, I killed her without mercy."
Nine years ago, 1942, in a Japanese camp......
"Aaaargh..." moaned the mother. She had many things to worry about. One, she was pregnant. Two, she
had a Japanese soldier's bayonet pointed at her vibrating chest. Last, but worst, was that she had found that
both her husband and her mother were collaborators. To her, that meant
traitor
.
Two days later............
"Ffffffff.…” huffed the mother. She saw the tiny shape of a baby's smiling head come out. To her, it would
be the last thing she saw. As she saw the small, fat, apple-sized shape of a baby's foot, she realized her time
was up. Lifting her shaking, quivering, ice-cold chest, she hardly made a sound as the snarling tip of a
dagger snagged her heart. She slumped motionless to the cold stone ground. The frightened baby
whimpered. A platoon took her away.
1943, North River
A
