After my passport is stamped, I collect my suitcase. Then Eve takes me out through the security doors into Shanghai airport. All I see at first is a blur of faces. It’s so crowded. I look around for Por Por. I try to match the photo on our hall table with a face in the crowd. But none of them fit.

Other people are meeting their relatives and friends, laughing as they go off together.

‘Are you sure your grandmother is coming to collect you, hon?’ Eve asks, after we’ve been waiting for about twenty minutes.

‘She’s supposed to be,’ I say, pressing my backpack to my chest. I feel a rising panic. I don’t show Eve though. When she looks at me, I smile.

Then I see a big yellow sunflower coming towards us through the crowd. ‘That’s her!’ I say to Eve. ‘That’s my grandma.’

Por Por is wearing a red jumper and grey pants. She looks like a girl as she rushes over to us. Her eyes are all smiley and filled with little sparks of light.

‘Duibuqi, sorry I’m late,’ she says, thrusting the flower into Eve’s hand.

Eve looks surprised, then nods and smiles a thank-you because she can’t speak Chinese. Then she turns to me. ‘Have a great stay in Shanghai, Celeste.’

‘I will, thanks,’ I say, and wave as she walks away.

‘At last you are here, Little Cloud.’ Por Por speaks to me in Chinese and uses my Chinese name. All of a sudden I want to cry because Mama used to call me that. But I hate crying in front of people, so I hold back my tears. Sad thoughts are like canaries in a cage. If you open the door, they can fly off in all directions, banging against the windows, wanting to be free.

‘Por Por, nin hao.’ I use the polite form of greeting like Mama taught me to.

‘Lai ba, come,’ Por Por says gently, and I follow her out of the airport.

The cold air is like a blast straight out of Antarctica. It’s the middle of summer in Australia, but now I’m in the northern hemisphere it’s the complete opposite. The wind cuts through my jacket and right into my bones as we stand in the taxi queue. My feet feel like blocks of ice and my teeth chatter like those false teeth you see in funny movies.

People are stamping their feet against the cold and clouds of steam billow out of their mouths and noses. The line goes on and on, zigzagging backwards and forwards like a centipede.

Good, our turn at last.

A taxi pulls up and the passenger door and boot open automatically. Por Por puts my suitcase in the back and closes the lid, then she climbs in beside me.

The driver has a round face and spiky hair. Por Por tells him the address and we shoot off like a bullet out of a gun. I’m thrown back in my seat. I look around for a seatbelt but there isn’t one.

Every fifteen seconds our driver blasts his horn. He seems to be going twice as fast as the other cars.

‘How is your baba and little Robbie?’ Por Por asks calmly.

We swerve to the right then quickly to the left.

When I catch my breath, I say, ‘They’re good.’ I don’t want to tell Por Por how Robbie can’t sleep and Papa doesn’t paint anymore. I turn and stare out at the apartment buildings whizzing by. But all I see are blurry wet blobs of colour as tears fill my eyes.

Por Por reaches over and takes my hand. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t look at me either, or want to get into my thoughts. Not like some of my parents’ friends who hovered around like witches waiting to swoop after Mama died. They thought they were helping. Looking at us in that pitying way. But all Robbie and I wanted was to be left alone.

The buildings get taller as we get closer to the city. The streets are packed with cars, trucks, motorcycles and bicycles. There’s hardly any space to move. Mama said that Shanghai has around the same population as Australia, and I can believe it now. It’s like a whole world spinning all by itself in the universe!

Our driver honks his horn at anything that moves. A policeman standing in the middle of the road directing traffic gets an extra long blast. He glares at us then waves us on.

We cross a wide river with barges and container ships and ferries. It’s wider than any river I’ve ever seen, and a deep murky yellow. On one side of the river there are huge skyscrapers with lots of glass towers and domes. It’s like something out of a space movie. On the other side, the buildings are old. Some even look like palaces. That’s the side we are heading towards.

At last we turn off the main road and enter a maze of little laneways. The noise of the traffic fades away and we slow right down. The laneways are lined with small wooden shops selling all kinds of stuff – pots and scrubbing brushes, bicycle tyres and exhaust pipes, picture frames, bamboo steamers and feather dusters. And there are heaps of food stands. I can smell garlic frying and see small piles of fresh vegetables and noodles waiting to be cooked.

The tyres of our taxi rumble over the uneven stone surface. Sometimes we meet another car coming in the opposite direction. Then the taxis slow down and I suck in my breath as they squeeze past each other like elephants on a tiny one-way track.

Por Por leans forward. ‘Hao, okay, driver, up ahead on the right, thank you.’

We come to a stop in front of a high stone fence with a round red gate that looks like a sleeping moon.

While I get my suitcase out of the boot, Por Por rings the buzzer. There are no shops in this laneway, only houses and four-storey apartment buildings. I hear light footsteps coming towards us from inside the fence. Then the gate swings open.

A girl who looks about my age stands before us. She’s wearing a blue windcheater and I recognise the rainbow scarf Mama sent Por Por two years ago for Chinese New Year. Her straight black hair kicks out on her shoulders and her ears are pierced with two tiny pearl earrings.

‘This is Ting Ting,’ Por Por says. ‘And Ting Ting, this is Little Cloud. I hope you two can become good friends.’

I vaguely remember Mama telling me about a girl Por Por had adopted. I smile and say hello. She looks me up and down with a cold icy glare that freezes the smile on my lips. It’s as if she’s saying, ‘Go home. You’re not welcome here.’

All of a sudden I feel so homesick.

Then I think of Mama, and how she wanted her ashes to be brought home to China. That’s what I came here to do, I tell myself. So I lift my head up, pull back my shoulders, and follow Por Por through the gates.