Traffic was busy this morning on Rumba Street. Trams were banked up along the track like large green caterpillars playing follow-the-leader. Two men stood on the roof of a yellow tramway’s truck, fixing the power lines overhead, black wires playing noughts and crosses against the sky.

‘Hey ching chong,’ a voice yelled from a passing car.

‘Unfortunate beings!’ Mimi muttered, to keep out the hurt.

‘People like that, very unfortunate,’ her mum would say. ‘Their parents no teach them right or wrong.’

As Mimi arrived at the school gate, the bell started ringing. This week’s number one hit, ‘ME-YOW’ by The Furballs, was blaring from the loudspeakers into the assembly area.

‘I thought we could do some pottery today, Mimi,’ said Miss O’Dell, walking beside her down the asphalt path. ‘I fired up the kiln yesterday’

Miss O’Dell’s rosy cheeks stood out like little pink balloons as she smiled at Mimi. Her skin was smooth and soft, and when she spoke it was as though she was singing a gentle Irish lullaby.

‘Dad won’t let me come any more,’ Mimi replied sadly.

‘Why ever not?’

‘He says I draw too much. I have to concentrate on school work.’

‘My, that’s a shame. But maybe if you work really hard, he might change his mind and let you come back. Give it a go, all right? Why don’t you drop by the art room on your way home anyway. I’ve got something to give you.’

After morning assembly, Mimi slipped into her wooden desk beside Josh Rudd. She liked Josh. Everyone did. He had a broad smiling face and spiky fair hair and his voice would crack in mid-sentence. But best of all, he never called her Smelly-Loo. Instead he called her M.

Josh was extremely untidy. His books would start in a nice neat pile at nine fifteen. By nine sixteen, they would slowly spread, like molten lava, across both desks, onto the seat, then finally spill over onto the floor. By three thirty, Mimi’s feet would be surrounded by books, pencils, pens, rubbers and rulers all belonging to Josh. But Mimi didn’t mind a bit.

At lunchtime, Mimi sat by herself in her usual spot under the peppercorn tree, swinging her legs to keep away the flies.

‘Hey there, Smelly-Loo . . . what ya got for lunch today?’ chanted Gemma Johnson, the leader of the ‘cool’ group. She winked at her two offsiders Phoebe and Eliza. Gemma always wore her hair high in a ponytail which she would deliberately swing from side to side to attract attention. Especially the attention of Josh Rudd. She was jealous that Mimi got to sit next to him in class. ‘What a waste,’ she told everyone.

Mimi grimaced, desperately trying to hide her thermos before Gemma could make fun of it. But it was too late.

‘She’s eating flied lice!’ Phoebe pointed and laughed.

‘Oh, puke,’ said Gemma sticking her fingers down her throat. ‘And look at these primitive eating sticks.’ She snatched Mimi’s chopsticks and rolled them under her shoe. ‘There, all nicely sterilised. Why don’t you use a knife and fork like civilised people?’

Eliza and Phoebe giggled. ‘Seeya, Smells,’ they chorused and ran off towards the oval.

Why won’t Mum give me a plain old sandwich like everyone else?

Mimi had pleaded with her mum to pack normal lunches but her mum didn’t understand what the problem was. ‘Hot fried rice is surely better than a cold sandwich for lunch,’ she had told Mimi. ‘Cold food is not good for the stomach.’

Suddenly, Mimi had lost her appetite.

As soon as the bell rang for dismissal, Mimi grabbed her bag and raced to the art room. She loved the thick and slightly sickly smell of paint, and the brushes standing up in their containers like bunches of hairy flowers. The shelves were stacked with a new delivery of coloured paper, but it was the pure white paper that Mimi loved the best, lying there waiting to be given new life.

Miss O’Dell stood on a bench pinning up giant papier-mache faces, with bulbous eyes and hairy noses.

‘Hello, Mimi,’ she said, her lips studded with drawing pins. ‘Come in, I’ll just be a sec’ She spat the pins into her hand and climbed down, then cocked her head to one side as she looked into Mimi’s face.

‘Something’s bothering you, I can tell.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Come on, what is it?’

Mimi wasn’t used to telling outside people her feelings. ‘We Chinese keep them to ourselves,’ her mum always said, ‘that way we never lose face.’ But Mimi did feel a closeness with Miss O’Dell that she never felt with her parents.

‘I hate being a banana.’ The words echoed around the art room.

‘A banana?’

‘You know . . . yellow on the outside and white on the inside. I wish I didn’t look Chinese because I don’t feel Chinese. I feel just like everyone else. I hate it.’

Miss O’Dell smiled her soft smile. ‘I know it’s hard being different, but that’s what’s wonderful about you. You are a Chinese Australian just like I’m an Irish Australian. And I think we’re lucky’

‘I don’t think so. Someone like Gemma Johnson is lucky. She fits right in.’

‘You might feel that way now, but as you grow older you will see how you can choose the best from both cultures. Sit down, Mimi.’ Miss O’Dell pulled out a stool. ‘You know, there’s something else, apart from your Chineseness that makes you different from others. You are an artist. You see the world in a special way – and you paint with your heart. Few people can do that.’ Miss O’Dell’s eyes brightened. ‘I’ve got an idea. If you don’t mind giving up your lunchtime, how about coming in twice a week, say Mondays and Thursdays? Your father surely wouldn’t object to that.’

‘Oh, Miss O’Dell, that’d be so great.’ Dad’ll never find out and I’ll be able to eat my lunch in peace, thought Mimi.

‘I’ve been meaning to give you something for a long while now. I think the time is just right.’

Miss O’Dell went over to her bag and pulled out an oblong object wrapped in a purple silk scarf. She handed it to Mimi.

‘Open it,’ she whispered, as if she was about to share a secret.

Mimi let the silk slip away. It was a long wooden box with a beautiful carving of a miniature oriental garden on the lid, with willows and pavilions and bridges crossing lakes. As Mimi ran her fingers over the honey-gold surface, it was like touching the finest silk or the smooth skin of a newborn baby. Flowing Chinese characters were carved around the sides and inlaid with mother of pearl. Mimi read each character out loud:

Empress Cassia

Supreme Ruler of all China

80 Sticks of the Finest China Pastels

A Treasure for Some

A Curse for Others

That’s funny, why would pastels be a curse? Mimi wondered, then put the thought out of her mind.

She laid the box on the bench and opened it carefully. Inside were rows and rows of coloured pastels that shimmered in the light. The colours were so delicate they looked as though they had been made from the gossamer wings of fairies.

Mimi rolled the pastels under her fingertips and her imagination began to fill with amazing pictures.

‘You must promise me one thing, Mimi.’ Miss O’Dell spoke in an unusually serious voice and a frown touched her brow.

‘What is it, Miss O’Dell?’

‘No one is to use the pastels but you. Look me in the eye, Mimi, and promise me now.’

‘I promise, Miss O’Dell. I definitely won’t let anyone use them. They’re too precious. Thank you so much.’ Impulsively, she gave Miss O’Dell a big hug. ‘I better go or Dad’ll be mad. Thanks for everything.’

Mimi carefully wrapped the box up in the silk scarf and raced out the door, her mind brimming with pictures. She couldn’t wait to get home and start drawing.