Meet Pearlie Page 6

The house was in a mess. Broken furniture, upturned bookshelves and cabinets lay all around. Mr Ito’s beloved bonsais were smashed, the roots of the tiny trees exposed.

  Pearlie made her way to Naoko’s room. She stood in the doorway, tears stinging her eyes. Someone had ripped Naoko’s clothes to shreds and torn out the pages of her Japanese books.

  What was that? Pearlie felt something brush softly against her arm. It was a butterfly, the same colour as the one she’d given Naoko to draw in the scrapbook. Pearlie opened the shutters wide to set it free. The butterfly flew towards the light and out the window.

  Between Naoko’s wardrobe and the wall was a narrow space where they kept the scrapbook. Pearlie peered into the cavity. It was still there. She reached in and drew it out. Then, with the book spread out on her lap, she began to flip through the pages, starting from the beginning. It was a history – a diary of their friendship in words and pictures and memories.

  The last entry had been written the day before Naoko was arrested. Naoko had used up both pages. On one side was a drawing of them, their arms about each other, laughing. Around the larger drawing were smaller pictures of the many adventures they’d shared together – Diamond Cave and the snakeskin. Pearlie laughed at the drawing of Naoko squatting with her dress up and her undies around her ankles. It was from the day when she hadn’t finished her business and a goanna had come at her from behind. Pearlie had thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen. Not so Naoko, who’d had to shuffle quickly away.

  On the opposite page was a story in Naoko’s neat handwriting. It was a story of her journey to Darwin and how she’d met her best friend.

  Tears dropped onto the page. Pearlie blotted them gently with her dress so she wouldn’t smudge the words.

  She sighed and closed the book, hugging it to her heart. ‘When things are bad, Nao, there will always be us. I’ll keep this safe. And when I see you again, I’ll bring it to you, I promise.’

  Pearlie stood up. It was time to search for Mr Ito’s camera. She was about to go into the parents’ room when she heard a soft whimper.

  ‘Tinto?’ Pearlie’s eyes were wide. She’d forgotten all about the little monkey. ‘Tinto! Where are you, little man?’

  A rustling came from inside the wardrobe. Pearlie slowly opened the door. A little brown head with a mane and big shiny eyes peeped out from behind the dry python skin.

  ‘Tinto! Oh, Tinto. You are such a clever boy for hiding.’ Pearlie was overjoyed. As she pushed the snakeskin to one side, she saw the camera hanging on a hook. She reached in and took it down. Then, smiling, held her arms out to the little monkey.

  Tinto stepped cautiously into the light, blinked, and climbed into Pearlie’s arms, his tail curling around her wrist.

  ‘No matter what happens, I’m going to keep you safe for Naoko,’ Pearlie vowed, rubbing her cheek against his soft fur. ‘I’ll get you back to her somehow, I promise.’

  He snuggled under her chin and, with the camera slung over her shoulder, Pearlie carried him to his new home.

  Mum stared at the small creature in Pearlie’s arms. ‘What in heaven’s name is that?’ she said.

  ‘He’s Naoko’s monkey,’ said Pearlie. ‘Isn’t he cute? His name’s Tinto. I’m going to take care of him.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Mum said. ‘He’s smelly and dirty.’

  ‘Please, Mum. Nobody else can do it. I’m the only other person he likes.’

  At that moment Reddy came through the curtain into the living area. ‘My mum baked a sultana cake for you, Mrs Chan.’ Reddy set the cake down on the table. It was still warm and made the dark kitchen smell yummy.

  ‘Oh – that’s kind of her, Reddy. Tell her thank you from all of us. I wish I could bake half as well as she does.’

  Then Reddy noticed Tinto. ‘You found him! I wondered what’d happened to the little guy. Is he going to live here now?’

  ‘We’re not keeping him,’ Mum said. ‘Pearlie will have to find him another home.’

  ‘But Naoko’s my best friend, and Tinto is all I have left of her.’ Pearlie felt her eyes prick with tears.

  ‘I can build a cage for him,’ Reddy said. ‘We’ve got lots of spare timber.’

  ‘Please, Mum. You know how I was saving up for a dog? Well, Tinto can be my pet instead. Please?’

  Mum sighed and looked at Tinto. ‘I suppose it’s the least we can do for the Ito family.’

  Pearlie went to hug her but Mum screwed up her face and stepped away.

  Three days later, Pearlie and Reddy went to the shop to pick up Naoko’s photographs. Taking them to Colonel Mitchell was the most important thing on Pearlie’s mind now. Once the film was developed, she would go back and give him proof that Beake was spying for the Japanese government.

  Pearlie used the money she’d saved from delivering packages to pay for them.

  ‘Your hands are shaking. Want me to do it?’ Reddy said, looking over her shoulder as she opened the envelope.

  ‘Stop breathing down my neck will you!’ Pearlie replied. ‘I’m perfectly capable of –’ She stopped mid-sentence.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Reddy took the photographs from her. ‘Oh strewth,’ he groaned.

  Every single photo was black.

  I am a fourth-generation Chinese Australian. My great-grandfather came to the Victorian goldfields from China in 1853. China was a very poor country and many people sailed across the sea in search of a better life.

  I grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne. I was a tomboy. I climbed trees, dug tunnels, built cubby houses. And like my main character, Pearlie, I loved animals.

  My dad was born in Shanghai, China. He met my mum when he was sent to Australia by the Chinese government during World War Two. It was the first time Australia had declared war on another country as an independent nation.

  I was born and grew up in Italy, a beautiful country to visit, but also a difficult country to live in for new generations.

  In 2006, I packed up my suitcase and I left Italy with the man I love. We bet on Australia. I didn’t know much about Australia before coming – I was just looking for new opportunities, I guess.

  And I liked it right from the beginning! Australian people are resourceful, open-minded and always with a smile on their faces. I think all Australians keep in their blood a bit of the pioneer heritage, regardless of their own birthplace.

  Here I began a new life and now I’m doing what I always dreamed of: I illustrate stories. Here is the place where I’d like to live and to grow up my children, in a country that doesn’t fear the future.

  WORLD War Two began in September 1939 when Adolf Hitler, the leader of Germany, invaded Poland. Britain and France then declared war on Germany, and formed a big team of countries called the Allies, who wanted to stop Hitler taking over Europe. On the other side were Germany, Italy and Japan. Almost every country in the world became involved. Australia joined the war on the Allied side because our country was settled by the British, and we have a history of supporting them when they go to fight.

  What followed was a war that lasted over five years, in which people did many cruel and frightening things to each other.

  At the same time, the war in Asia was even longer. Japan invaded China in 1937 and completely destroyed the capital of Nanjing, killing all of its inhabitants, about 300,000 people. Japan went on to invade many countries in Asia, as well as attacking the United States and Australia. Because it was fighting desperately in Europe, Britain was unable to help Australia when the Japanese attacked, and this was when Australia began working more closely with the United States.

  After many fierce battles, in 1945 the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, killing 200,000 people, and causing Japan to surrender. This was the first time the atomic bomb had been used, and people everywhere feared that the world was going to end. The Allies won the war, but it took many years for countries on both sides to recover from the death and destruction.
r />   Downtown Darwin

  Here is what the main street of Darwin would have looked like before the city was bombed in 1942.

  ‘WHAT am I going to do, Reddy?’ Pearlie said in despair as she looked down at the bunch of photographs in her hand. Every single one of them was black. ‘Now we still don’t have any proof that Beake’s a spy. My life is over . . .’ Pearlie’s arms dropped to her sides and she let the photographs scatter in the wind.

  ‘You’re not a goner yet,’ Reddy said. ‘We’ll break into his place and get proof ourselves.’

  ‘Break in? Again?’ She shivered at the thought, remembering how she’d had to hide in the cupboard when Beake had come home early; how she’d smelt his horrible pipe-tobacco breath just inches from her face.

  Reddy cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. ‘Hey, wait a minute . . . I’ve got a better idea.’

  ‘That’s a relief. What is it?’

  ‘We’ll ask Dulcie to come with us.’

  ‘No. What! Are you crazy?’ Pearlie said.

  ‘Just brilliant. Have you forgotten her father’s a silvertail? And a top-level one at that. If Dulcie sees the spy stuff in Beake’s house she’ll tell her dad, and bingo, Beake gets arrested and Pearlie Chan lives on to save the pets of the world.’

  Pearlie let out a long growl. The thought of doing anything with that girl, even if it meant saving her own life, made her feel as wild as a stormy sea. But Reddy was right. It was a good plan and it could work.

  Here’s a sneak peek at Meet Grace

  IT must be the longest day this winter, Grace thought, and all I’ve found are a few bits of coal and a piece of rope.

  Grace waded towards the riverbank, wiggling her toes into the mud, feeling for anything that had washed in with the tide or fallen from a boat or barge to put in her kettle. That was her job as a mudlark – to search the bottom of the Thames for things to sell. She shivered.

  A dirty fog hung over the water, draping everything in grey. The other mudlarks looked like shadows as they waded through the river. Grace felt the water cold against her legs – the tide was on its way in and her dress floated around her like a tent. She knew that soon she would have to get out of the river, but her kettle was only half full.

  ‘Please let there be something more,’ she said to herself, her teeth chattering, ‘some copper nails or a piece of driftwood.’

  Grace looked across the river at a forest of masts. It was the same view she saw every day. Sails of every size billowed beneath the winter clouds. Barges filled with coal and iron held anchor, ready to be unloaded on the shore. Longboats cut slowly through the water carrying fruit and meat to distant parts of London, and busy workboats ferried people up and down the river.

  Ouch! Grace gasped when she felt a sharp pain in the bottom of her foot. She bent down and searched around in the mud until she touched something that felt like metal – cold and smooth. She pulled it up. Grace wiped it clean with a corner of her dress and turned it over in her hand, unable to believe it was real. It was an iron hammer, with no rust on its head, and no chips in its sturdy wooden handle. It was the most valuable thing she had ever found – worth as much on the street as a silver watch, she was sure.

  ‘A hammer – a fine hammer,’ she whispered. ‘Uncle Ord will be so pleased.’

  ‘Oi! What you find?’ Someone shouted at Grace and she quickly dropped her hands beneath the water.

  A figure waded towards her through the fog. It was Joe Bean. He was no older than Grace, but he was the leader of a gang of mudlarks that lived under Blackfriar’s Bridge. Grace had always been good at staying out of their way; she kept her head down so she wouldn’t be noticed, or she worked in the parts of the river where Joe and his boys didn’t often go. They were thieves, and they didn’t think twice about stealing from the barges and from the other mudlarks who worked on their own. If any of the mudlarks ever had money from things they’d sold, Joe Bean would try to take it from them. And Grace knew that if he saw the hammer, he would snatch it from her and take it straight to the marine shop to sell for himself.

  ‘I got nothing!’ Grace shouted back.

  ‘I saw something in your hand just then – something shiny. Give me a look what you got!’

  Grace’s heart pounded; she couldn’t let Joe see her prize. With a hammer like this to sell, maybe Uncle Ord would be happy with her, instead of angry. He would be proud that she was clever enough to find something so valuable. They could keep the coal Grace had found and light a fire in the hearth – she imagined warming her numb toes and heating up a cinnamon bun on the end of a toasting fork. There’d be enough food for a week!

  Grace waded into the shallows, but Joe Bean was close now. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Don’t make me call the boys to look you over.’

  Grace shook her head, too nervous to speak. She held the hammer with one hand behind her back. She had never stood up to Joe Bean before, but then she had never found anything as precious as a hammer.

  Joe moved towards her. ‘Show me!’

  ‘No.’ Grace’s voice quavered.

  Joe grabbed her arm and tried to pull it from behind her back. Grace fell back into the river, dropping her kettle into the mud. Water splashed up around them as they struggled.

  ‘No!’ she shouted.

  Joe Bean had his hand on the hammer. It was slipping from her grasp. Grace gritted her teeth and with all her strength, she wrenched it from him. Joe fell back into the water and Grace held the hammer high over him.

  ‘I said no, Joe Bean! The hammer is mine! You go away and leave me alone!’ Her voice trembled as Joe crawled like a crab through the mud, his eyes wide with surprise. The sharp iron claws on the hammer’s head glinted.

  Grace picked up her kettle and ran, knocking straight into a group of sailors clambering out of a rowboat onto shore.

  ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ one of them said. ‘A handful of rags like you?’ She could smell whiskey on his breath.

  The other sailors laughed at her.

  Grace picked herself up and pushed her way past. When she turned around, Joe Bean was lost in the crowd somewhere behind them. Grace hurried higher onto the shore where the crowd thickened, pushing past mudlarks and boatmen, coal whippers, and costermongers selling dried fish and oysters. She breathed a sigh of relief, shoving her way through groups of people waiting for workboats and others lining up to buy fresh fish from the colliers to sell at the market.

  Grace gripped the hammer tight and headed home, slowly now and limping. Her foot stung against the cold cobblestones as she dodged the open drains of sewage and the piles of garbage that lined the narrow crowded streets. She stopped to inspect her wound. The cut wasn’t deep – only bloody.

  Grace shivered. It was when she got out of the water that she most felt the cold. The wind cut straight through her. It doesn’t matter this time, though, she thought. I’m safe from Joe Bean and I still have my hammer.

  In Chatham Square a line of fishmongers stood at a long scaling table. They ran their knives down the backs of freshly caught fish, cutting out the guts and tossing them to the ground, staining the cobblestones a purplish red. The smell of fish filled the air. The women sang as they worked, their arms moving in time to the rhythm of their song.

  Grace stopped to listen. She liked singing, never mind who was doing it; sailors or fishmongers or butchers selling ham hocks, even her drunken uncle and his sailor friends. The only thing Uncle Ord had ever told her about her mother was that she liked to sing. I wish I could remember the songs, Grace often thought. I wish I could remember her voice.

  Grace kept walking, humming the fish-mongers’ tune. She had never known her father, and her mother had died when she was very small. When Grace tried to remember her mother, she could recall the feeling of warm arms around her; but the memory wasn’t enough to keep her alive without a roof over her head in the long cold winters. Uncle Ord always reminded her of that. ‘You’re lucky to have me, Grace! You’d be on the
street without your uncle to take care of things. You are an orphan after all!’ He said the word as though it were a curse word – the very worst thing you could be.

  Uncle Ord had lost his wife and his only son to an illness called consumption, and he missed them a lot. He’d lost his sister too – Grace’s mother – and that was how he got stuck with Grace. She knew that every day, just by being alive, she reminded him that his son was not.

  Grace climbed the steps that ran up by Blackfriar’s Bridge and crossed into Water Lane, hobbling to keep weight off her foot. Her wet skirt slapped against her legs, stinging her skin. The fog was in the streets too, hanging like low-slung spider webs. Crowds of people pushing carts ready for the night markets were coming down in the opposite direction.

  Two of the girls who lived next door came running up behind Grace, giggling together. Grace pressed back against the stone wall as they shoved their noisy way past her. She wished she had a sister, or a friend to share things with. It never mattered how hungry they were, or how cold, the girls were always playing and laughing with each other.

  Ma Honeywell, their mother, stopped when she saw Grace and gave her cheek a playful pinch. She had eleven children, most of them girls, though she could never find half of them.

  ‘Hello, luv,’ she said, smiling. ‘How was business today?’

  Ma Honeywell always asked the same question, only today Grace could give her a different answer. ‘Good,’ she said, smiling back. ‘Very good! My uncle will be happy!’

  ‘That’d be a sight for sore eyes. You better get home, luv, and give him what you got!’ Ma Honeywell patted Grace’s arm, then turned and walked on. She was on her way to the alehouse, where she would drink so much gin that later she wouldn’t remember who Grace was at all.

  Grace continued up the steps, imagining what it would be like when Uncle Ord saw the hammer. ‘Well done, Grace,’ he would say. She could almost feel the heat from the fire and taste the toasted cinnamon bun.