The early morning sky is heavy with rain clouds as we head west by train towards the Isle of Clouds. Por Por left Ting Ting’s ticket on the dining room table because she still hadn’t come home.

I can’t help feeling sorry for her even though she is so horrible.

There’s a narrow table jutting out from under the window where we put our snacks – watermelon seeds, cans of iced tea, a bag of toffees. I’m not very good at cracking the watermelon seeds but Por Por is an expert. She puts the whole seed in her mouth and, half a second later, spits the empty shell into her hand. When I try it, I end up with a soggy, mangled seed sliding around my mouth.

Por Por points to fields filled with water. ‘They are fish and rice fields,’ she says. ‘The fish are raised there in winter. They eat the weeds and the insects, so that by the time the rice is ready to be planted in summer, the fields are very healthy. Sometimes the farmer will grow baby fish and rice at the same time. It is a perfect system.’

Fish and rice living together, helping each other grow. Papa would like that idea – farmers working in harmony with nature. Since Mama died, though, he’s not as caring about the environment as he used to be. If he was, we wouldn’t be eating so many frozen dinners and takeaways.

A man comes through our carriage pushing a metal cart piled high with food and drink. Por Por buys some hot buns filled with pork and chives. The dough is a bit chewy but otherwise they taste delicious.

While I write in my diary, Por Por reads a book that looks ancient. The pages are yellow and sewn together with cotton. There are drawings of hands in different positions, and swirly symbols – the same symbols I saw around the fish pond and on the ceiling of the secret room. I wonder if Por Por is some kind of witch. She puts the book on her lap and closes her eyes.

As she sleeps, I look at her face, so peaceful and calm now. So different from how it was last night. She can be serious when she wants to be. And scary, too. Mama never talked about that side of Por Por.

After a while, there’s an announcement over the loudspeaker.

Por Por wakes up. ‘We get off at the next stop,’ she says, packing away the snacks from the table.

‘Are we there already?’ I say.

‘Not quite. Now we have a three-hour bus ride across the mountains.’

The bus stop is next door to the train station, which is good since rain clouds are gathering fast. But what’s not good is that the bus is old. I mean really old. It’s one of those old-fashioned buses that looks like a fat sausage. And there are lots of rusty bits on the roof and some of the windows are cracked.

We find our seats and put our bags up on a wire shelf above our heads. Soon we are travelling down a narrow, winding road with fields on either side. In the corners of some of the fields are little straw huts. Some of the huts are decorated with plastic flowers. I wonder who lives in them – they’re so tiny. I ask Por Por and she laughs.

‘Oh, they’re not houses, they’re toilets,’ she says. ‘The farmer decorates them so that a passing traveller might be tempted to use his toilet instead of his neighbour’s.’

‘But why would you want a stranger using your toilet?’ I ask.

‘The poo can be used on the vegetable fields. The more they collect, the more fertiliser they have and the healthier their plants will be.’

‘You mean … the vegetables we EAT?’

‘Nothing ever goes to waste in China,’ Por Por says proudly.

I sit back in the seat thinking about home and how much stuff we waste. But I can’t imagine people collecting poo and putting it on their vegie gardens. Yuck! I can’t wait to tell Robbie about it.

The man on the other side of the aisle gives a loud snort as the bus jerks. He’s fast asleep already and snoring so loudly the sound alone could drive this old bus.

I’m starting to feel sleepy, too, so I lean my head against the window.

I wake to something cold dripping on my head. When I look up I see a gaping hole in the roof right above me, and rain is pouring in!

Por Por stands up, pulls her bag down from the wire shelf and takes out an umbrella. She opens it up over our heads.

Everybody on the bus is changing seats to get out of the rain. There must be holes all over the bus. There are four umbrellas up … no, five. They’re going up everywhere. It’s so crazy! I grin. This would never happen in Australia, but I kind of like it.

Soon all the passengers have settled into their new seats and we jig along the bumpy road. It’s pitch-black outside now. I feel the bus straining up the mountain. Then it comes to a stop. I wipe a clear circle in the fogged-up window and look out. There are no lights, no houses, no cars. We’re in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if the bus has broken down.

To my surprise, the driver opens the door and a farmer wearing a woven bamboo hat and a cape made

from long dried grass gets on. He’s carrying a basket with two brown ducks inside it. The man takes the empty seat behind us, leaving his ducks and cape in the aisle.

We pick up more and more passengers as we climb higher and higher. A woman carrying a piglet in her arms, a man with a baby tied to his back, a lady with a basket full of vegetables on a long bamboo pole. By now, the floor of the bus is covered in a layer of muddy water and it’s still pouring outside. When we go around a bend, the water sloshes from one side of the bus to the other. I lift my feet when it comes my way but my shoes and socks are already soaked.

I’m just thinking how funny this bus ride is when something plops onto my shoe. It’s heavy, wet, cold and alive!

I scream, pulling my legs up to my chest. It’s so dark, I can’t see a thing down there.

Por Por looks at me. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.

Then we hear a loud croaking sound.

‘Just a family of frogs hitching a ride,’ she says with a chuckle.

I look up and down the aisle. She’s right. Huge frogs as big as a man’s fist are jumping against everyone’s legs. I’ve always liked frogs, but only when I can see them. I can’t keep my legs up like this forever, so I put them down carefully. No one else seems to care, so I won’t care either. I try hard to pretend that the frogs are just large soft stones rolling around on the floor.

Once we cross the mountains, we travel along flat ground again. It has stopped raining and we put our umbrella away.

I look out of the window at the mist that swirls around our bus. Mama told me the Isle of Clouds isn’t really an island. It’s just that the mist is so thick it makes the whole town look as if it’s floating on a sea of clouds.

I feel the wheels of the bus rumble over the wooden slats of a bridge.

Pale yellow lights appear and disappear in the fog like ghostly faces. Some seem to come right up to the window, blink at me with big eyes, then fade away.

‘Yun Dao, the Isle of Clouds,’ Por Por says, but I hardly hear her voice. I suddenly feel so sleepy.