Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Newbery Honor Book)

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CHAPTER

1

Far away from here, following the Jade River, there was once a black mountain that cut into the sky like a jagged piece of rough metal. The villagers called it Fruitless Mountain because nothing grew on it and birds and animals did not rest there.

Crowded in the corner of where Fruitless Mountain and the Jade River met was a village that was a shade of faded brown. This was because the land around the village was hard and poor. To coax rice out of the stubborn land, the fields had to be flooded with water. The villagers had to tramp in the mud, bending and stooping and planting day after day. Working in the mud so much made it spread everywhere and the hot sun dried it onto their clothes and hair and homes. Over time, everything in the village had become the dull color of dried mud.

One of the houses in this village was so small that its wood boards, held together by the roof, made one think of a bunch of matches tied with a piece of twine. Inside, there was barely enough room for three people to sit around the table—which was lucky because only three people lived there. One of them was a young girl called Minli.

Minli was not brown and dull like the rest of the village. She had glossy black hair with pink cheeks, shining eyes always eager for adventure, and a fast smile that flashed from her face. When people saw her lively and impulsive spirit, they thought her name, which meant quick thinking, suited her well. "Too well," her mother sighed, as Minli had a habit of quick acting as well.

Ma sighed a great deal, an impatient noise usually accompanied with a frown at their rough clothes, rundown house, or meager food. Minli could not remember a time when Ma did not sigh; it often made Minli wish she had been called a name that meant gold or fortune instead. Because Minli and her parents, like the village and the land around them, were very poor. They were barely able to harvest enough rice to feed themselves, and the only money in the house was two old copper coins that sat in a blue rice bowl with a white rabbit painted on it. The coins and the bowl belonged to Minli; they had been given to her when she was a baby, and she had had them for as long as she could remember.

What kept Minli from becoming dull and brown like the rest of the village were the stories her father told her every night at dinner. She glowed with such wonder and excitement that even Ma would smile, though she would shake her head at the same time. Ba seemed to drop his gray and work weariness—his black eyes sparkled like raindrops in the sun when he began a story.

"Ba, tell me the story about Fruitless Mountain again," Minli would say as her mother spooned their plain rice into bowls. "Tell me again why nothing grows on it."

"Ah," Minli's father said, "you've heard this so many times. You know."

"Tell me again, Ba," Minli begged. "Please."

"Okay," he said, and as he set down his chopsticks his smile twinkled in a way that Minli loved.

"Why doesn't someone bring the water of the four great rivers to the mountain?" Minli asked, even though she had asked this question many times before. Every time Ba told the story, she couldn't help thinking how wonderful it would be to have the mountain blooming with fruit and flowers, bringing richness to their needy village. "Wouldn't that make Jade Dragon happy?"

"When Jade Dragon's children turned themselves into water," Minli's father said, "they were at peace and their spirits were released. Their spirits are no longer in the water. So Jade Dragon cannot find them in the rivers. Over a hundred years ago, a man tried to reunite them by taking stones from the mountain to the rivers."

"That man was not taking the stone for a dragon spirit," Minli's mother cut in. She never quite approved of Ba's stories, as she felt they made Minli impractical and caused her to daydream. "My grandmother told me he was an artist. He took the mountain rock to carve into inking stones."

"Did he ever come back?" Minli asked.

"No. It probably did not make good ink." Ma sighed. "He probably found something finer elsewhere. I bet the bronze on his horse's saddle was more than we will ever have."

Ma's sighs made Minli wish that every rock of Fruitless Mountain were gold and she couldn't help asking, "So how will Fruitless Mountain ever grow green again?"

"Ah," her father said, "that is a question you will have to ask the Old Man of the Moon."

"Oh, tell that story next!" Minli begged. "Whenever I ask something important, people say, 'That is a question you have to ask the Old Man of the Moon.' Someday, I will ask him."

"The Old Man of the Moon! Another story! Our house is bare and our rice hardly fills our bowls, but we have plenty of stories." Ma sighed again. "What a poor fortune we have!"

"Maybe," Ba said to Minli, glancing at Ma, "I should tell you that story tomorrow."

CHAPTER

2

Every morning, before the sun rose, Minli, her mother, and her father began work in the fields. It was planting season, which was especially grueling. The mud stuck to their feet like glue and each seedling had to be painstakingly planted by hand. When the hot sun burned overhead, Minli's knees shook from weariness. She hated the feeling of thick, soggy mud on her hands and face; and many times she wanted to stop in irritation and exhaustion. But seeing her parents patiently working, backs bent, made her swallow her complaints and continue.

As soon as the sun began to set, Minli's parents sent her home to make dinner and to rest while they continued to work in the thick mud. They would not come home until the sun had completely disappeared from the sky.

At home, Minli washed her face and hands and feet; and even though all the water in the basin turned brown, she still felt like she was covered in mud. Her arms and legs were so tired that she felt like an old crab crawling on rocks. As she looked at herself reflected in the dark water, she saw Ma's frown on her face.

Ma is right, Minli thought. What a poor fortune we have. Every day, Ba and Ma work and work and we still have nothing. I wish I could change our fortune.

At that very moment, Minli heard a faint murmuring sound that she had never heard before, like a song chanted from the clouds. Curious, she opened the door to see what the noise was.

And there, on the road in front of her house, she saw a small stranger calling out quietly. "Goldfish," he was saying softly, as if he were coaxing his fish to swim. "Bring fortune into your home."

Minli and the villagers stared as he wheeled his cart. Even though the village was by a river, it had been many years since anyone had seen a glimpse of a goldfish. The fish in the Jade River were brown and gray, like the village. The goldfish man's cart was full of bowls of flashing fish that glittered like jewels.

His gentle calling drew Minli to him like a moth to a lit lantern. "How does a goldfish bring fortune into your home?" Minli asked.

The goldfish man looked at her; the sun setting behind him made him glow bright red and yellow. "Don't you know?" he asked her. "Goldfish means plenty of gold. Having a bowl of goldfish means your house will be full of gold and jade."

As Minli stared into his bowls with her shining black eyes, a brilliant orange fish stared back at her with its shining black eyes. And then quickly, so quickly that Minli barely thought about it, she turned into the house and grabbed the two copper coins from the white rabbit rice bowl.

"I'll buy that one," Minli said, and she pointed at the fiery orange fish with the black eyes and fin that had caught her eye.

The other village children looked at her enviously while the watching adults shook their heads. "Minli," one neighbor said, "don't believe his impossible talk. A goldfish won't bring fortune. Save your money."

But Minli was not discouraged and she held out her copper coins to the goldfish man. He looked at her and smiled. Then he took one coin, picked up the fishbowl, and gave it to her.

"May it bring you great fortune," he said. And with a small bow to the villagers, he wheeled out of the village. In moments, he disappeared from view into the shadow of Fruitless Mountain, and if it wasn't for the goldfish Minli had in her hands, all would have thought he was a dream.

CHAPTER

3

But the goldfish was real, and when her parents returned from the fields for dinner they were not happy to learn that Minli had spent her money on it.

"How could you spend your money on that!" Ma said, slapping the rice bowls on the table. "On something so useless? And we will have to feed it! There is barely enough rice for us as it is."

"I will share my rice with it," Minli said quickly. "The goldfish man said that it will bring fortune to our house."

"Fortune!" Ma said. "You spent half the money in our house!"

"Now, Wife," Ba said, sitting quietly, "it was Minli's money. It was hers to do with as she wished. Money must be used sometime. What use is money in a bowl?"

"It is more useful than a goldfish in a bowl," her mother said shortly.

"Who knows," Ba said. "Maybe it will bring fortune to our house."

"Another impossible dream," Ma said, looking at the plain rice in her bowl with bitterness. "It will take more than a goldfish to bring fortune to our house."

"Like what?" Minli asked. "What do we need to bring fortune here?"

"Ah," Ba said, "that is a question you will have to ask the Old Man of the Moon."

"The Old Man of the Moon again," Minli said, and she looked at her father. "Ba, you said you would tell me the Old Man of the Moon story again today."

"More stories!" Ma said, and her chopsticks struck the inside of her empty rice bowl resentfully. "Haven't we had enough of those?"

"Now, Wife," Ba said again, "stories cost us nothing."

"And gain us nothing as well," Ma said.

There was a stony silence as Ba looked sadly into his rice bowl. Minli tugged at his sleeve. "Please, Ba?" she said.

Ma shook her head and sighed, but said nothing, so Ba began.

"So the Old Man of the Moon was right!" Minli said.

"Of course he was," Ba replied. "The Old Man of the Moon knows everything and can answer any question you ask."

"I should ask him how to bring fortune to our house!" Minli said. "He would know, I'll ask him. Where do I find him?"

"They say he lives on top of Never-Ending Mountain," Ba said. "But no one I have ever spoken to knows where that is."

"Maybe we can find out," Minli said.

"Oh, Minli!" Ma said impatiently. "Bringing fortune to our house! Making Fruitless Mountain bloom! You're always wishing to do impossible things! Stop believing stories and stop wasting your time."

"Stories are not a waste of time," Ba said.

"Stories," Ma said, slapping her hands against the table, making the water in the fishbowl sway as she stood up and left the table, "are what wasted money on this goldfish."

Minli stared down at her rice bowl; the few white grains left sat like precious pearls at the bottom of her bowl. Ba patted her arm. "Eat all your rice, Daughter," he said, and with his shaking hands, he scooped the last of his own rice to feed the fish.

CHAPTER

4

That night Minli could not sleep. Ma's words echoed in her ears and when she closed her eyes she saw Ba's hand, shaking from hard work, feeding the goldfish.

Ma is right, Minli thought to herself. The goldfish is just another mouth to feed. I can't let Ba feed the goldfish. Ma and Ba work so hard for every grain of rice, Ba shouldn't have to feed the goldfish too.

Minli slipped quietly out of her bed and crept to the table where the goldfish was. They stared at each other and Minli knew what she had to do. Quickly slipping on her shoes and jacket, she took the goldfish and left the house.

It was late. The village was quietly asleep and the stars above filled the sky like spilled salt on dried seaweed. Minli's footsteps seemed to hush the night as she made her way toward the Jade River.

At the edge of the river, Minli looked at her goldfish one last time. The moon shone above so even in the darkness of the night, the fish seemed to burn a bright orange. Its black eyes sparkled at her.

"I'm sorry I can't keep you," Minli whispered. "I hope you will be all right in the river." And with those words, she emptied the bowl into the water. For a moment the fish seemed shocked and was still, like a flickering flame on a match. Then it wiggled in the water and swam in circles, a joyful fire twirling in the water.

Minli watched it and sighed. As the sound faded into the night, Minli realized it was an echo of her mother's impatient, frustrated noise. "Ma will never stop sighing unless our fortune changes. But how will it ever change?" Minli asked ruefully. "I guess that is just another question for the Old Man of the Moon. Too bad no one knows how to get to Never-Ending Mountain to ask him anything."

The fish stopped swimming and looked up at Minli.

"I know where it is," it said. The female voice was high and soft, like the wind whistling through the reeds of the water.

Minli stared. "Did you say something?" she asked.

"Yes," the fish said. "I know how you can get to Never-Ending Mountain and ask the Old Man of the Moon a question."

"You're a talking fish?" Minli asked, her words tumbling into each other with excitement. "How can you talk?"

"Most fish talk," the fish said, "if you are willing to listen. One, of course, must want to hear."

"I do," Minli said, enthralled and eager. This was just like one of Ba's stories! She bubbled with excitement. "How do you know the way to Never-Ending Mountain?"

"I've swum all the oceans and rivers, except for one," the fish said, "and on my way to the last, the goldfish man caught me. I despaired in his cart, for I have seen and learned much of the world, including the way to Never-Ending Mountain. Since you have set me free, I will tell you."

"You've swum all the oceans and rivers?" Minli asked. The questions spilled like overflowing water. "Which river haven't you seen? Why have you traveled so much? Where is Never-Ending Mountain? When did—"

"This river is the one river I have not swum," the fish interrupted, "and I have waited a long time to see it. So I would like to start as soon as possible. You can ask the Old Man of the Moon all your other questions. Let me tell you the way to him so I can be off."

Minli nodded and asked no more. She realized she was having a conversation with a goldfish, which was very unusual, so she decided to listen.

CHAPTER

5

The next morning, Minli felt as if her head was spinning with thoughts and plans. She was so busy thinking and plotting that she barely noticed her parents nodding sadly at each other when they saw the empty fishbowl. And in the fields, when Minli worked as if in a daze, her parents said nothing about her slow and messy planting.

When the sun began to set and Minli went home to make dinner, she quickly washed and made the rice. Then she set the table for two people, sat down, and wrote this note:

The obedient part isn't completely true, Minli thought to herself, as she knew her parents would not be happy to find her gone. But it's not false either. They didn't say I couldn't go, so I'm not being disobedient.

Still, Minli knew that wasn't entirely right either. But she shook away her uneasy feelings and prepared for her journey. On a blanket, she put:

a needle

a pair of chopsticks

her white rabbit rice bowl

a small piece of dried bamboo

a hollow gourd full of water

a small knife

a fishnet

some uncooked rice

a large pot