She said this abruptly, but even her mouth was motionless. How had she spoken? Maybe these words were just the thoughts in her head and I could actually hear her thoughts.
The contraption was already thick with rust, and a hole had rusted out in the sheet iron. Scared stiff, I shook the rusted crank. Suddenly, that crank made a frightening vibrating sound, and my mind went blank. I fell down on the ground. I tried hard to remember, but I had no idea what that sound was. It felt as if I’d been shut up in a secret metal room and someone had hammered on a piece of armored plate. No, this sound was even worse: it could make a person lose his mind.
It took a long, long time for me to recover. When I looked up, the old woman had disappeared. Under the contraption was a large ball of multi-colored cotton candy. A dirty hand grabbed it right away and took off. The owner of the hand was the little girl Amei — that sick little kid. She ate it as she ran off. In the blink of an eye, the cotton candy dissolved in her mouth. When I caught up and seized hold of her, she opened her big mouth and started crying.
“Shake out one just like it and give it to me!” I ordered.
Whimpering, Amei nervously went back to the contraption. She was short, so it was only by standing on tiptoe that she could reach the crank. I stopped up my ears with my fingers.
The strange thing was that Amei wasn’t the least bit afraid of the sound that the contraption made. She kept shaking it as hard as she could. Perspiration beaded her face. When she stopped, however, no cotton candy appeared. Standing on the small bench and manipulating this contraption, Amei was the picture of health — as if she weren’t sick at all. She was like a little hero — arms akimbo — looking at me.
I peered under the contraption and saw that a few gears and screws had fallen off. I concluded that this contraption was ruined, so I paid no more attention to Amei. I lazily dragged myself home. Dad was at the front door scolding me, for I was supposed to be helping carry the groceries.
=
It was a long time before I could figure out what had happened. I kept seeing the old woman sitting, unmoving, in front of a pile of rags. If I approached her, a sound came out of her chest. By fits and starts, that sound sometimes spoke of her past glory, and sometimes it was only a string of curses. Once, I smelled an odor on her body. Startled, I felt her forehead. She lifted her eyelids to look at me. Her strange gaze frightened me. In the deep recesses of my dark memories a lot of little jars were being opened, and floating in the air was the fragrant scent of honey. I opened my mouth and said an irrelevant word: “Chasing.” The word interrupted my memories. Just then, the old woman’s gaze fell away, and she didn’t look at me again.
I saw Little Zheng and the others take the gears from beneath the contraption. They said they could make tops to play with. And so one day, in the strong sunlight, we played with the tops until perspiration ran off us like rain. But even this exciting game couldn’t satisfy me. In the evening, we grew tired of playing with the gears and threw them into the river. “This is boring! This is boring!” Little Zheng and Little Ying were wailing. I suggested that we visit the old woman. But when we arrived, she wasn’t there. Only then did I remember that every time I’d seen her, I’d been alone. When I asked Little Zheng if he had seen the old woman, he was baffled. He said they hadn’t seen her for a long time. They didn’t believe that the old woman could sit on a pile of scrap iron every day. They said something must be wrong with my eyes. Long after Little Zheng and the others had left, I stood there examining the scrap iron. I even considered appropriating it and taking it home. Naturally, I didn’t dare; if I did, Father would kill me.
The next day, the old woman was sitting there again.
“Hey, Little Qing. Hey, Little Qing. You’re out of your mind,” Amei taunted me.
I thought the children were all on to me: they must be jealous of my desire to become a vendor. Somebody might secretly sabotage my plan. But where could I raise the money? I had to force the old woman to divulge her secret recipe for shaking cotton candy out of thin air. I also had to ask her how to get rid of the strange, frightening sound that the contraption made. If it weren’t for that sound, wouldn’t I have already shaken out lots of multi-colored cotton candy?
Ah, she beckoned to me! From a long way away, I saw her beckoning to me! After setting down my dinner bowl, I ran toward her, even though Mother was scolding me from behind. I ran over to the old woman. How strange. She’d reverted to the way she was before: she was like a fossil, motionless.
=
“Granny — quick! Please teach me your secret recipe.”
I said this three times in a row.
She pointed at the contraption. I looked, but it was no longer there. There were only some flies licking the syrup that had fallen to the ground. The old woman stood up, pretending to turn the crank. I heard the tremendous sound again. After shaking it for a while, she looked disheartened and sat down heavily on the wooden stool. She uttered a crisp sound from her mouth, but not from her throat: “Take it!” I looked at the ground: nothing was there.
My hopes had been dashed: How could I reconcile myself to this? For so many years, my only goal had been to be a vendor — one like this trickster. Not only did I want to shake cotton candy out of thin air, but I also wanted to shake out little golden bells. First, I had to amass capital and buy a contraption and practice. But I had no capital. With no capital, I had to shake a treasure out of thin air that could turn into money for real. The old woman was my only hope. With my own eyes, I’d seen her empty hands shake out cotton candy. I couldn’t let this hope be dashed. As I reasoned with myself, I came up with a bizarre, audacious plan.
That morning, while the adults were at work at the bamboo-ware factory, Little Zheng and I began putting our plan to kidnap the old woman into effect. Everything went smoothly: we didn’t even need our rope and chair, because the old woman made no sound as we manipulated her. Little Zheng and I carried her, letting her old legs drag on the ground. She was heavy. After we dragged her to the custodian’s tool shed, we were ready to pass out from exhaustion. When we flung her to the ground, we also fell down and couldn’t get up for a long time.
“Let’s starve her and see if she opens her mouth or not!” Little Zheng said angrily.
We knew that she had only an alcoholic son at home, so there would be no problem for a while.
When we glanced at her, we saw that she was coiled into a ball on the ground. She was pawing at the dust with one hand and rubbing her face with it. Her face was now as black as the bottom of a pot, and her crocodile-like eyeballs were turning slowly. Little Zheng and I felt uneasy: Could she have some sinister motive?
“Granny, do you want something to eat?”
I had no sooner said this when my eyes were blurred by dust; they hurt too much to open. The old woman had thrown a handful of dust — accurately and ruthlessly. I had never expected this. I heard Little Zheng kick the old woman.
“Water! Water!” I shouted wildly.
=
In unbearable pain, I had no recollection of how Little Zheng got me home. The next day, my eyelids were swollen. Although I couldn’t go out, I was still thinking about the tool shed. How was she getting along there? I had a hard time waiting until afternoon when my parents left. Then I got out of bed. Covering my eyes with a washcloth, I moved to the door. From outside came the sound of running footsteps. Someone came in.
“Little Qing, little Qing, the floor of the tool shed is heaped with cotton candy. She’s almost buried in it!” It was Little Zheng.
“Really? Really?”
“Alas, we were really dumb. Why didn’t we wait and watch her sorcery?”