Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 2020complete | Page 255

Hope for a Better Life
Singapore International School, Lu, Cindy - 10
She was on the train platform, about to leave for the Greater Bay Area, where she could find better
opportunities for working. She heard the abrupt train whistle, and walked onto the train. Leila looked out
the window, where her parents were standing to send her off. Slowly, the train started to glide forward. She
leaned forward, not wanting to miss a last glimpse of her hometown. Her parents waved at her, and she
quietly wiped away a tear. The train went around a bend, and her village disappeared – but not the image of
it in her mind. The memory was engraved there, as if carved into stone. She would never forget that scene.
The environment outside passed by, but Leila wasn’t paying attention to it. Numbly, she sat stone still as she
waited for her stop.
…Leila clutched her mother’s hand. Her mother was enrolling her at the public school not too far
from the village in which they lived. She looked up at the teacher in charge with wide eyes…
..She was eight or nine years old, reading her composition out loud to her classmates as the teacher
had instructed her. Her classmates listened, enraptured…
…Leila was reading test results from the blackboard. She was in her late teenage years, nearly an
adult. She scanned past them, a blur of letters and numbers. She stopped at the one at the top: Leila Ming
Yue – 99 She grinned, half astonished, knowing she would get a full scholarship to the school she wanted to
go to...
Then, all too soon, her stop came and she clambered out of the crowded compartment, feeling
claustrophobic. She stepped out of the train and inhaled sharply. In front of her was a metropolis. Bustling
streets, countless theaters and malls, and colorful public schools from which children rushed in and out of.
Five minutes later, she was in a taxi going to GBAU, a well-known university in the Greater Bay
Area. “Could you drop me off here?” she asked the driver, getting out of the car. The university was
colossal, with a large silver arch for the entrance and white marble columns all around, holding up the roof.
There were ornate carvings of the school’s history on the walls. She came up to a woman with stringy
brown hair, who sat behind a counter, organizing papers. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Leila. I’ve come for an
interview,” she disclosed, half asking it.
“Yes – Mr. Blake should be inside his office,” the woman said, looking up. “Just knock.”
Leila, hesitantly, walked up to the door and rapped on it sharply. The door was opened by an
elderly man with hair the color of dust and steely gray eyes. He was wearing a suit. “You must be Leila,” he
said, leading her into his office.
About half an hour later, Leila wandered out, a bit dazed. In her hand, she clutched a letter
accepting her to the university as a professor. The new school term would start in September, only a month
away.