New Tales of a Great Wall
Katie Ho
am the middle child in my family, sometimes I feel like a piece of ham between two pieces of white bread.
My elder sister Rosebud, who is 16, is a total “Princess”. All the things in her rooms are pink and all are
expensive brands like Chanel, LV, Dior and so forth. Then there’s my little brother Alex, who I call him a
“
Brainbox” because he is very smart. He can even recite the encyclopedia. All his teachers and classmates
are fond of him. Then there is me Anna. I’m stuck in the middle, just a fat, good for nothing 11-year-old
girl.
Yan Luk, Group 2: Fiction, St. Paul’s Convent School Primary
I
Now I’m in at the hospital with my parents and Rosebud, waiting for the news of my little brother Alex. It is
kind of a long and a complicated story, so let me tell you what happened from the beginning.
Alex needed to do a project about a famous World Heritage Site. So my mum and dad brought us to the
Great Wall in Beijing. When we got there, I was shocked and amazed. The great wall was very long, it kind of
looked like a gigantic dragon. After seeing that Alex was so excited that he forgot about eating his lunch, then I
was forced to go on the Great Wall with them. I followed behind them while reading the new book about the
Great Wall that Mum bought for me before the trip. Rosebud kept on taking photos of her in different “cute”
poses until I wanted to vomit. Alex was busy taking notes, photos and jumping up and down due to his
excitement being on the great wall. After a while, I was exhausted, and when I looked over at Alex, he suddenly
stopped everything he was doing. His face went pale and collapsed. Dad went calling people for help right away,
while mum was trying to calm my sister and me down, but the funny thing was that we were calmer than she
was. Dad shouted at me, “Anna, quit staring! Go and look for help!” So I did, and even though I was
exhausted I tried to run as fast as I could to look for help.
When the ambulance came, they carried him on a stretcher. And we followed the ambulance to the hospital.
He went into the emergency room with the staffs. We sat on the sky-blue chairs waiting for him. We were so
worried that we kept on asking the nurse about his situation, but they could not tell us anything. I had read my
book for nearly half an hour, no one said a word. You could even hear a pin drop.
Now I understand from the book that the Great Wall of China is made of stones, brick, tamped earth and
wood… Suddenly, we heard a familiar voice, “Hey, where am I, I should be riding on a gigantic red dragon.”
Mum asks “What are you talking about? Are you ok? We are all very worried about you!” Alex interrupts, “No,
didn’t you see a lot Mongolian solders just now? They wanted to catch me while I was taking photos of the
Great Wall. Didn’t you guys see them? I don’t know why they wanted to catch me. But when they almost did,
a gigantic red dragon suddenly flew down and seized me with its claws, just like what we saw in the cartoon
movies. I’m so scared, but you know I’m very smart; I took control of the dragon very soon and climbed on his
back. We flew up the sky and the dragon suddenly exhaled a big fire ball, which killed most of the solders.”
Alex takes a deep breath and continued enthusiastically, “when the rest of the solders saw what happened, they
tried to run away but they were unable to act faster than the dragon. He blew out hailstones at them; none of
them survived this time. I hugged the dragon and thanked him a million times. The dragon said, yes, that’s right,
the dragon could talk! He said,
“
Trust me, I’ll defend you and all the people of China. I’ve surrounded China as
a great, long and hard wall in good and peaceful days for over 2,000 years already, whenever I smell the
invaders, I’ll wake up and defend my country.” When the dragon and I were about to fly into a big cave, he
threw me down. I think I lost consciousness then. What happened to me?” He asked eagerly.
Though we could not understand even a single word of what Alex said, we were very happy to see that he
was back! We told him what had happened after he had passed out. Mum quickly asks the doctor why Alex
passed out. “It’s probably because he didn’t have breakfast and was over excited,” the doctor says. We all
relieved. We hugged and hugged. Alex was very excited about his adventure and kept on telling everyone, the
nurse, the doctor…Suddenly, we heard a drum sound, it was Alex’s tummy rumbling! After we bid farewell to
the doctor and nurses, we had afternoon tea in the canteen of the hospital.
While Alex was munching a ham and egg sandwich, he said, “I want to be a doctor and save people’s lives
when I grow up. Although I cannot save everyone’s lives like the gigantic red dragon, but at least I could save
some.” We skipped back to the hotel happily, of course, after dinner. Now Alex is back to his old self, and I am
glad.
That night, I dreamt about playing with Rosebud, Alex and the red dragon on the Great Wall. We fly up to
the sky, up and down, up and down…
***