Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 2 -1 2019 | Page 42

The Passage
Clearwater Bay School, Wen, Amy - 10
Lian skipped through her thoughts while she shouldered her way through the extremely crowded market,
why couldn’t girls learn Kung Fu? Why can’t she learn archery like her brothers Qing and Long? “Girls are
too weak to do things like that!”Qing will say, “Kung Fu and archery is for boys!” Long would taunt her
and mama will say “Girls shall NEVER do things like that!” Running away from the crowd, Lian continued
running. All of a sudden, a crate tripped her. She looked up and the majestic ships lay sitting in the bay. This
was Su-Zhou Bay. A thought dashed through her mind. She stepped forwards, slowly onto one of the
ships. Suddenly, a woman yelled behind Lian, “Step back Lian! Don’t you dare even step on that ship!” The
woman lunged for Lian. Lian dodged and leapt onto the boat “Bye mama!” Lian shouted triumphantly.
“Captain Zheng, we checked, all the goods are packed.” A voice of a young sailor came from the deck.
“Great job! Wang. It was right to choose you to come.”Lian inhaled, exhaled, and slowly walked towards
the deck, Zheng He was surprised that a 15 year old girl appeared onto his ship, “What is your name?” He
kindly asked the little girl “My name is Lian, the only daughter of the famous Luo family!” Her proud
introduction made Zheng He giggled and looked at this girl with her hands on her hips,“She is special.”A
voice deep inside
him spoke.
Lian stared at the sun, sinking into the sea painted by the sky in the colours of pink, orange and red. She
imagined herself as a fish, melting into the beat of the glittering waves, she turned her head and asked the
Captain “Where are we going?”
“We are trading our amazing goods to foreigners,of course!” Zheng exclaimed, it was his turn to be proud,
“And this ship is the best in the world!” He added with his head up. Lian wondered again, what was mama,
Qing and Long doing? Admiring her because she could go on the ships of Zheng He?Her heart whispered
to her “You want to go home, you miss home.” Right, maybe she actually does, her stomach growling after
dinner, sleeping on the hard deck, but she could not go back, or else she could never go out in her life
again. The chill wind blew and blew, one harder than the other, little by little darkness has taken over the
sky.
Lian opened her eyes, where was she? In the middle of the ocean? Where was land? She lay on her back and
closed her eyes.
“We are here!” Zheng’s familiar voice echoed through the majestic ships. When Lian opened her eyes,
some people wearing some cloaks waited at their harbour, captain Zheng calmly walked down and showed
them a piece of silk, and offer them to stroke it, they looked so surprised, and they handed a glowing ball to
Zheng and whispered in his ear secretly, Zheng winked back and went back on the ship for an
announcement, “We are entering their trading market and we are staying here for a night, everybody pack
your things and get down!” Every sailor jumped down the ship except for Lian, she did not bring anything,
she just jumped on the boat! Zheng looked at her and gave a sac, he winked at her. Lian took the sac and
carried it on her back and walked off the ship with the other sailors. The market was filled with goods like
pearls, coral, weaved fabric and some special things from all over the world, Lian eyes feasted on the goods
while Zheng is trading goods in one of the stands. She wondered what her brothers were doing, reading?
Eating? Sleeping on their soft beds with their silk blankets? She snarled in the cold wind, because snarling is
better than moaning. They settled in a little hut, she shared it with five other sailors, the floor was covered
in brown hay, it was to hard get to sleep, Lian closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.
Lian felt a push on her back, when she opened her tired eyes and looked behind her, Zheng stood there and
said to her, “Don’t be the last one again!” Hearing that, Lian jumped up realizing that all the other sailors
were gone, she packed everything and ran for the ship, after all the sailors were on the ship, the giant ships
sailed through the ocean, battling the waves. When one sailor shouted “Other ships!” Lian had a feeling that
they weren’t friendly ships, they had black flags and there was a dozen of them, something shot through the
air straight to the ships.”Bang!” A big explosion happened two meters away from the ship, another one was
fired, it flew through the sky and tore up the quiet night sky, “Fire!” Captain Zheng ordered, “Everybody