White Tiger

Mr Chen moved closer and leaned into me. His long hair brushed over my shoulder. I found it extremely difficult to concentrate.

Simone didn’t seem to notice. ‘Was it poisonous?’

‘Was what poisonous?’ I said.

‘The snake, silly.’

‘Uh, no, it was a python.’

Mr Chen pulled his arm closer around me. ‘What did you feed it, Emma?’

Leo made some throat-clearing noises behind us. Neither of us paid him any attention.

I turned and looked up into Mr Chen’s glowing dark eyes. ‘Live mice.’

He shifted even closer. His whole body was pressed into mine. ‘Where did you get your mice from?’

I caught my breath. ‘I bought them from the pet shop. Monty only ate about one a week. Then they found out what I was doing with them, so I had to breed my own.’

‘Monty?’ Simone said, still watching the tortoises.

‘The snake.’

Leo snorted. He was the only one who understood the joke. Then, ‘My Lord…’ he said softly, warning.

‘I wonder if they have any poisonous snakes here, Simone,’ I said without looking away from Mr Chen.

Simone pushed her father out of the way and he snapped out of it. She took my hand. ‘Let’s go and see.’

Mr Chen took Simone’s other hand. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

‘I hate snakes,’ Leo said as we moved towards the snake house.

Mr Chen stopped and spoke over his shoulder. ‘Some of my best friends are snakes, Leo.’

‘No offence, sir,’ Leo said sheepishly.

About three hours out of Macau, the jet pilot called for Mr Chen on the intercom. Mr Chen went into the cockpit and talked to him for about ten minutes.

When he returned, he sat and picked up the Chinese book he’d been reading.

‘Is there a problem, sir?’ Leo said.

‘Not at this stage,’ Mr Chen said without looking up.

About an hour later, Simone fell asleep on my lap and Leo carried her to the back of the plane and put her in the bunk.

The pilot called Mr Chen over the intercom again. When Leo returned he looked questioningly at me. I pointed towards the cockpit and he nodded.

Mr Chen came back, sat in his chair, picked up his book and bookmarked his page. He closed the book and put it to one side. ‘A typhoon is headed straight for Macau. It will be a direct hit in the next two hours.’

A direct hit from a typhoon would close the airport. The winds would be ferocious. A small plane had tried to land during a typhoon in Hong Kong a couple of years before, and had flipped over on the runway. Three people had died. And that hadn’t even been a direct hit.

‘So we’ll divert to Taipei or Manila?’ I said.

‘I have to be in Hong Kong later today,’ Mr Chen said. ‘I have an appointment that I must fulfil, regardless of the circumstances. We’ll land in Macau.’

Leo threw himself out of his chair and towered over Mr Chen. ‘If you’re planning what I think you are, you are completely crazy!’

Mr Chen glared up at Leo, irritated. ‘I must be in Hong Kong later today. I have no choice.’

‘You’ll undo all the good work the Lady Kwan did for you!’

‘I’ll probably need to see Mercy about a month earlier.’

‘Wait a minute.’ I pointed at Mr Chen. ‘You’re going to fiddle with the weather?’

Both of them looked at me.

‘Don’t point at a Chinese, Emma, it’s very bad luck,’ Leo said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Leo,’ Mr Chen said. ‘I am far too big for any fung shui to affect me. I am water. I am shui.’

I dropped my hand and glared at Mr Chen. ‘You’re going to use all that energy that Ms Kwan gave you to move a stupid typhoon? Leo’s right – it had better be damned important if you’re going to waste your energy like that.’

‘I have a meeting with the Jade Emperor,’ Mr Chen said grimly.

Leo sat down, stricken.

‘The Jade Emperor,’ I said softly. ‘The Jade Emperor is so…’ I searched for the word ‘…so awesome, they don’t even have statues of him in the temples.’

‘Believe me,’ Mr Chen said, ‘I would much prefer to divert to Taipei and wait. But the appointment is for this evening at seven and I must be there. The Celestial has come down to the Earthly Plane, to Hong Kong, to see me. It is the first time he’s done this in hundreds of years.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ I said.

‘Move the typhoon, make it hit land about two hundred kilometres from Macau, and make it hit in the next thirty minutes.’

‘You can do that?’

‘I’ll need to change my form, but yes.’

Leo hissed with frustration.

‘Move the chairs, Leo, give me room,’ Mr Chen said. He rose and kicked off his shoes, then pulled his hair from its ponytail and shook it out. ‘Emma, sit with Simone in the back. If she wakes, keep her quiet. I’ll need to concentrate. Make sure she doesn’t come in here. Understood?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she doesn’t come in.’

He smiled. ‘I am more impressed with you every day.’