Bad Kids Read online

  “I don’t want to see all that blood,” Pupu said.

  “Please?” Ding Hao wheedled. “You can keep your distance. I wanna see.”

  “Fine. I want to go down and check that my mum’s OK.” Chaoyang sighed as they went down the long staircase.

  Chaoyang spotted his mother speaking with several colleagues. “Mum, did you find those two people that fell a few minutes ago?”

  “Oh, you came back down! You should go home. I have a lot to do, I can’t talk right now,” Zhou answered. She didn’t think this was a good place for Chaoyang or his friends.

  “Did they find them?”

  Zhou pursed her lips. “Yes. The security guards are carrying the bodies away now.”

  “What did they look like?” Ding Hao asked earnestly.

  Zhou was too shocked to answer.

  The man who had shouted after the old couple appeared, crying miserably. He followed the security guards. “Mum! Dad!” he repeated over and over. The onlookers felt sorry for him.

  Chaoyang and his friends waited until the commotion died down and then said goodbye to Chaoyang’s mother. As they left the park, they saw the man again, speaking to police, security guards and other staff members. He was saying something about cremation. Guards picked up the two body bags and put them in the back of a pickup, followed by a police car. The man walked slowly to his car, which was parked by the entrance.

  “Look, he drives a red BMW,” Chaoyang whispered.

  But he did not know much about cars and failed to note that it was the cheapest model available in China. Still, any BMW was a rarity in his life and it represented wealth to him. Pupu stared intently at the car until it disappeared.

  13

  NINGBO JIANGDONG PUBLIC SECURITY BUREAU

  Xu Jing entered the interview room, clearly distraught. She tripped and almost fell but Zhang Dongsheng was ready to catch her. Xu wrenched her arm away as if she did not want him to touch her.

  Zhang had not expected this reaction. “I’m sorry, Jing, it’s all my fault. I didn’t take care of them,” he said in a low voice. Now they were both crying.

  Xu turned her head away, bit her lip and tried to stop her sobbing. The police officers invited them both to take a seat and offered them tissues and glasses of water.

  “Thank you,” Zhang said, accepting some tissues and drying his eyes.

  “Thank you for coming. I know this is a difficult time. Xu Jing, your parents are in the crematorium now, I take it?” The interviewing officer’s kind face was filled with sympathy.

  She did not answer.

  “We need to register this accident and in the next few days we will invite you to talk to the staff at the nature park. Is that OK?”

  Zhang turned to her. “What do you think, Jing?”

  She was in too much pain to respond.

  “Can you please explain what happened on the mountainside, Mr Zhang?” the officer asked.

  “Everything was going just fine. I am a teacher and our summer break just started. I wanted to take my parents-in-law to Sanmingshan to get some fresh air. My plan was to visit the mountain in the morning and then take them home in the afternoon. My father-in-law has—had diabetes and high blood pressure, and I think the hike was a little too much for him. But he kept saying he needed the exercise. I never thought that… Oh, it’s all my fault!”

  Zhang buried his head in his hands.

  The officer took notes. “Did they both have high blood pressure?”

  “No, just my father-in-law. My mother-in-law was healthy for her age.”

  “How did they fall?” the other officer asked.

  “We reached the platform and were going to take a little break. My mother-in-law asked me to take a few photos and the wall blocked the view a bit, so they both sat on it. They said a picture with them on the wall would look better. I was fiddling with the camera and in those few seconds when I was distracted, I heard them scream. When I looked up they were falling backwards down the mountain. I should have… I should have…” Zhang trailed off.

  “I can’t believe you let my parents sit on that wall! At their age! You did this!” Xu cried.

  “You’re right! It’s all my fault!” he interrupted. “I never thought anything would happen, the wall looked sturdy enough. I just don’t understand how they fell.”

  He looked to the police officer for help.

  “Don’t be too hard on him, Mrs Xu. Nobody has ever had an accident like this at Sanmingshan before. There are warning signs, but so many people take photos there that nobody would ever think that something so terrible could happen.”

  “If nobody has ever had an accident there before, how did it happen?” Xu Jing demanded.

  “I don’t know! It was all over so quickly,” Zhang cried.

  “All the evidence points to this being an accident. It is a sturdy wall; it’s not dangerous at all. Maybe your father had a heart attack or fainted and then fell. Then he would instinctively grab for his wife and they fell together. We found medication in his pocket. Was your father taking medication for his blood pressure, Mrs Xu?”

  “I don’t know, you’d have to ask Dongsheng,” she stammered.

  “She’s very busy at work. I usually take care of those things,” he explained.

  The officer was impressed at how well Zhang looked after his in-laws.

  “I always reminded my father-in-law to take his blood pressure medication, but he didn’t want to take it unless he felt like he needed it. Maybe if he had taken it regularly, this would not have happened,” Zhang continued.

  Before long, the interview was over. The officers recorded the deaths as an accident. Stopping to rest after intense activity was known to cause cardiac arrest in people with high blood pressure. The report suggested that the man fainted and took the woman down with him.

  The officers did their best to comfort the bereaved and reminded them to take care of themselves. The nature park could not be held at fault since there was a warning sign on the platform. Xu Jing and Zhang Dongsheng would receive a small sum from the park as a token of sympathy. For all intents and purposes, the case was closed.

  This is exactly what Zhang had expected. He had carefully planned the murders. He was pleased with his acting skills at the police station and didn’t think that anyone suspected him—apart from Xu Jing, that is.

  14

  CHAOYANG’S APARTMENT

  “What colour do you think mashed-up brains are—yellow or white?” Ding Hao was still jazzed from the day’s events.

  Pupu rolled her eyes and Chaoyang told him to lay off the death talk. Neither of them wanted to go over it again.

  At the orphanage, Ding Hao’s nickname was Blabber Mouth. Nobody trusted him with their secrets, because they knew that by the next day everyone would know them.

  The gruesome deaths did not seem to dampen the friends’ moods. As soon as they arrived at Chaoyang’s place, they went to the computer to check out the photos. They were pleased with how old they looked in the serious ones and how funny they looked in the wacky ones. Even Pupu was laughing along. They clicked on the video where Ding Hao had pretended to be a newscaster.

  “You actually sound like you’re from Beijing! Impressive,” Chaoyang laughed.

  “When I grow up, I want to be a reporter,” Ding Hao answered.

  “Sounds like a good plan for someone who likes to share juicy stories,” Chaoyang teased.

  “That’ll never happen. You’d have to go to school for that,” Pupu said.

  “You’re right, my grades are awful, and I’m not going back to school,” Ding Hao agreed glumly.

  “Hey, do you want to go to KFC tonight? My mum said I should treat my guests,” Chaoyang suggested in an attempt to distract them.

  “All right!” Ding Hao was excited. “I’ve never tasted KFC! I can’t wait.”

  Chaoyang was about to close the video and shut down the computer when Pupu stopped him.

  “Hang on.” She sat perfectly
still as she stared at the screen.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Can we watch the video one more time?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “There it is,” she whispered.

  “What?” The boys asked simultaneously.

  Pupu waited for the video to end. Her voice was cold. “He murdered them.”

  “Huh?”

  “Those two old people didn’t fall. That guy with the fancy BMW shoved them off the cliff!” Pupu exclaimed, taking the mouse from Chaoyang.

  “What?” The boys couldn’t understand what she had seen.

  Pupu pressed play and they all watched the video again. This time, they all saw, far in the background, the man grabbing the legs of the couple and pushing them over the wall. The victims reached out for him, but he did not help them. The whole incident only lasted seconds, but it was clear to all three what had happened.

  “He murdered them,” Pupu repeated slowly.

  “That’s impossible!” Chaoyang said. His heart was racing.

  Even Ding Hao was speechless. Chaoyang was terrified—nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Hearing about a murder on the news was totally different from knowing you were at the scene of the crime when it happened! The video was the scariest thing he had ever seen.

  “I don’t think anybody at the park suspected murder, which means we might be the only ones who know. We have to report this,” Chaoyang said, trying to sound determined.

  “Yeah, OK, let’s report it,” Ding Hao said, his head bobbing up and down.

  Chaoyang hurried to the phone in his mother’s room and picked up the receiver. He didn’t know what to say to the police. Would they believe that three kids had witnessed a murder? Would they think it was a prank call?

  He looked at his friends. “What should I say?”

  They didn’t say anything.

  Chaoyang handed the phone to Ding Hao. “You do the talking, you’re better at it.”

  “No, I can’t,” Ding Hao said, backing away. “Pupu, why don’t you do it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then… I’ll just tell the truth? Do you think they will believe a thirteen-year-old?”

  “If they don’t, we can go to the police station and show them the video,” Ding Hao said.

  “Yeah, OK. I’m going to call them now.” Chaoyang screwed up his courage, picked up the receiver and dialled 1-1-0. “Hello, my name is—”

  The line went dead. Pupu had pressed the button to end the call. She looked solemnly at him and shook her head. “Don’t report it, we have to sort things out.”

  “Sort what out? This is a major crime!”

  “Would you give the camera to the police?” Pupu asked softly.

  “Of course!”

  “What about me and Ding Hao?”

  “What about you and Ding Hao?” Chaoyang was still confused.

  “They’ll ask about all the people in the video, then they’ll make us give a statement and find out that Ding Hao and I are runaways. Next thing you know, we’re back at the orphanage.”

  Ding Hao inhaled sharply in surprise. “Yeah, Chaoyang, you better wait, we gotta think about this. We swore never to go back to the orphanage. We can’t… we just can’t…”

  “So what do we do?”

  The phone rang. Chaoyang hesitated, looked at his friends and wrung his hands anxiously. Pupu grabbed the phone and spoke in her sweetest voice. “Hello? Sorry, I dialled the wrong number. It was an accident.”

  The call handler chewed her out for wasting their valuable time and Pupu said “sorry” at least a dozen times. Finally she hung up. “I’m hungry. Maybe we should get food and talk about this afterwards?”

  15

  The three kids sat at a table, sharing a bargain bucket and plenty of sides. Normally Chaoyang loved corn on the cob, but today it was tasteless. “But if we don’t report that man, he’ll get off scot-free.”

  “Ding Hao and I are in the video. As soon as they know who we are, they will contact the orphanage and it’s game over,” Pupu said.

  “But we can’t just stand by and let him get away with murder!” Chaoyang exclaimed.

  Pupu arched her eyebrows. “Maybe they were bad people.”

  “Bad people? They were an old couple!”

  “You don’t know,” she retorted.

  Chaoyang looked to Ding Hao. “What do you think?”

  Ding Hao stuffed a piece of chicken in his mouth to avoid answering, but then realized there was no way to get out of it. “Chaoyang’s right, we can’t let the guy get away with it. But Pupu’s right too: the police would definitely send us back to the orphanage. How about we report it once Pupu turns eighteen, so neither of us have to go back to that place?”

  Chaoyang frowned, then shook his head. “That video would haunt me.”

  “What are you afraid of? We could say we didn’t notice the murderer in the video earlier,” Pupu argued.

  “I am positive I would have nightmares about this,” Chaoyang responded nervously.

  They sat in silence.

  Pupu finished her bread roll and then looked at them earnestly. “I have an idea.”

  “What is it?” Chaoyang asked.

  She paused for effect. “We should make a deal.”

  “How?” he asked, confused.

  “We give the video to the murderer, but before that, we make him give us money!” Pupu said, her eyes glinting.

  “You mean, sell it to him?” Chaoyang gaped.

  She nodded confidently. “He drives a BMW, doesn’t he? We don’t have a place to live and we need money. So the best thing is to sell the video and get money so we can live by ourselves for a few years. What do you think?”

  “But…” Chaoyang protested.

  “We’ll split the money three ways. Come on, Brother Chaoyang, nobody knows about this but us. We can put your share in a bank account because if your mum found out we would have to explain,” she said.

  Chaoyang was so shocked it took him several seconds to answer. “Pupu, that’s blackmail. That’s a crime!”

  “What about you, Ding Hao? Are you in?” Pupu asked.

  Ding Hao played with his hair. “It would be good to have money. But… isn’t it dangerous trying to make a deal with a murderer?”

  “That video is life or death for him! He would definitely want to buy the video off us,” Pupu argued. She gave her idea a little more thought. “Chaoyang doesn’t need the money like we do. He would be taking a bigger risk by hiding the money and not telling anyone.”

  Chaoyang said nothing. He was not interested in negotiating with a murderer—what if he killed all three of them to eliminate them as witnesses? This was not only blackmail; it would be helping a murderer walk the streets. It didn’t sound good. He had always been a good student. He avoided conflict; his experience with bullies had taught him that staying away, and keeping quiet, was the best option. Making contact with a murderer was ludicrous, let alone trying to strike a deal with one.

  Chaoyang was starting to think he should secretly report his friends to the police so they would go back to where they came from. Then again, they would never forgive him—they might beat him up or worse. Even if he managed to get them sent to the orphanage, they might get out again, or they might take revenge when they turned eighteen. Chaoyang remembered how Ding Hao promised to get even with the director of the orphanage—he clearly didn’t let go of a grudge.

  Chaoyang realized that he was afraid of the murderer—and of his new friends. There didn’t seem to be an easy solution. Ding Hao and Pupu’s appearance was turning his life into a nightmare! How he wished he had not answered the door!

  16

  After finishing their KFC meal, the three kids still had not reached a consensus. They walked to the largest Xinhua Bookstore in Ningbo. It was three storeys tall and had air-conditioning, making it a great place for Chaoyang to hang out in the summer. The three separated, with Ding Hao making a beel
ine upstairs for the children’s books, and Chaoyang going to the reference section. He felt relaxed the moment he entered this space. He wished he could buy all of the exam books that were arranged on a large table and go through the problems one by one. After half an hour of indecision, Chaoyang finally selected a book of problems from the International Mathematical Olympiad. He sat on the floor and started to read it, perfectly content.

  Another half an hour passed. Pupu appeared holding a book. She sat down next to him. “Ding Hao is obsessed with a book he found—he doesn’t want to leave.”

  Chaoyang did not want to leave either—the bookstore was much more interesting than his apartment. More importantly, he wanted to put off the conversation about blackmailing the murderer for as long as possible.

  “We can stay. The store doesn’t close until nine, and we can take the bus back. I come here all the time,” he said.

  “That sounds amazing,” Pupu said enviously.

  They left Ding Hao upstairs and kept on reading. Then Chaoyang heard a familiar voice: “Jingjing, what books are you supposed to get? We should ask someone to help us find them.”

  “It’s the four classics, Dad. Journey to the West, Water… something, and two more,” a young girl answered.

  “Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Aren’t those a little bit challenging for someone your age?”

  “Our teacher said we wouldn’t understand them but we would have to read them later. I want to see what they look like.”

  “Then I’ll buy them for you. We can buy whatever books you want,” the first voice replied magnanimously.

  “Dad!” Chaoyang blurted out and immediately regretted.

  Pupu looked up, her curiosity piqued. Zhu Yongping stepped into the aisle and saw his son on the floor. He glared and put a finger to his lips, a commandment to be silent.

  “The four classics are upstairs, Jingjing. Let’s go find them,” he spoke loudly.