Allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and Other Tourist Attractions Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Lenore Look

  Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2014 by LeUyen Pham

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Schwartz & Wade Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  Schwartz & Wade Books and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Look, Lenore.

  Alvin Ho : allergic to the Great Wall, the Forbidden Palace, and other tourist attractions / by Lenore Look ; pictures by LeUyen Pham. — First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: Fearful seven-year-old Alvin Ho goes on a trip to China with his family.

  ISBN 978-0-385-36973-2 (glb)

  [1. Fear—Fiction. 2. Travel—Fiction. 3. Chinese Americans—Fiction. 4. China—Fiction.] I. Pham, LeUyen, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.L8682Ap 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013033324

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-385-36972-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-449-81986-9

  Book design by Rachael Cole

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  This book belongs to Katie and Claire Stromseth,

  who climbed the Great Wall with me.

  —L.L.

  To Sabrina, who loves visiting China.

  —L.P.

  This book required a month of travel and research in China. I met many remarkable people along the way who dropped everything to help me and to make me feel at home. It’s impossible to fit all my (and Alvin’s) wonderful (and sometimes scary) adventures into one book, but I do wish to thank all those who shared the journey with me. Among them are:

  Lisa Bow and Jonathan Stromseth, for their amazing hospitality in Beijing.

  Pan Wei Bing, for driving me all over Shandong Province so that I could see the largest dinosaur pit in the world and Confucius’s birthplace (not the same location).

  Shi Yan Chen and all my monk brothers at Shaolin Temple in Henan Province, for teaching me kung fu and treating me as one of their own.

  Guo Nai Xiang and Wang Dan, for their warmest hospitality in Wangzigou.

  Liao Wo Zhang, Zhou Wan Wen, Liao Zi Xin, and Sylvia Liao, for their generous hospitality in Guangzhou.

  Angela Bow, Jean-Claude Humair, and their girls, Alexandra and Isabelle, for their gracious hospitality in Hong Kong.

  And as always, many thanks to the Phamtastic LeUyen Pham and the Amazing Annie Kelley, for being there for Alvin from beginning to end.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Alvin Ho’s Strangely Foreign Glossary

  the name on the passport said Alvin Ho.

  That’s my name, all right.

  But the photo looked nothing like me.

  Not one bit.

  When you’re a handsome dude like me, but your photo looks like you just robbed a bank and got run over by the getaway car, it’s enough to scare the flickering headlights out of you.

  And I’m already scared of many things.

  Emergency exits.

  Emergency landings.

  Oxygen masks.

  Seat cushions that are also life preservers.

  Toilets that are also exits.

  Recycled air.

  Strangers.

  Small enclosed spaces.

  Small enclosed spaces filled with strangers, hurtling across the sky at 600 miles per hour, 36,000 feet in the air. That’s almost two miles above the peak of Mount Everest!

  Thin air.

  I was born scared, and I’m still scared, and that’s the way it’s going to be, my brother Calvin says, until I’m a man. Then I’ll be bigger and scared of bigger things.

  Gulp.

  What’s bigger than an entire continent? My passport was being swiped through a machine at the airport. It was winter break, and we were—gasp!—GOING TO CHINA!!!!

  It was not a good idea.

  In fact, it was a really horrible idea.

  China, as everyone knows, is on the other side of the world, where everything is upside down and a day ahead of us.

  Worse, we had a new baby in our family, Baby Claire, who’s a girl, and who’s no bigger than a fish, and my mom and dad were planning to show her off to relatives in China.

  Imagine showing off a salmon, while standing upside down, on a day that hasn’t happened yet. What could be scarier than that???!!!!

  Nothing.

  Except for the plane ride. First you get on. Then you die. You can’t go to China the regular way anymore, by digging a hole. There are too many underground cables and dead bodies, not like it was in the old days, when there were no cables and just a few dead bodies.

  Now we were in line in front of the sign that said security checkpoint. It was a long, snaky line, that’s for sure.

  I stood on one foot.

  Then I stood on the other.

  “Oh, Alvin,” my mom said.

  Oh no. When she says “Oh, Alvin” like that, it’s not good news. Especially when going to the bathroom means you’ll have to come back and stand at the end of the line all over again.

  But my mom knows that when you gotta go, you gotta go.

  I couldn’t help it!

  My dad said our plane would fly for sixteen hours nonstop. No way I could hold it for that long! I know better than to use the airplane toilets with the powerful sucking action. Ever notice how full the plane is at takeoff and then wonder why there are empty seats during the flight? Well, now you know.

  “C’mon,” my dad sighed. “We should all go.”

  So we did. All of us: Mom, Dad, Calvin, Anibelly and me. Baby Claire was in her carrier on Dad’s chest and doesn’t go to the bathroom the regular way, but she came along anyway.

  After that, I felt much better. Everything was fine and the line was moving even slower than before, which was okay on account of the slower it moved, the longer we were alive. We were almost at the place where people were taking off their clothes and shoes to be x-rayed, when …

  Gasp!

  I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “What’s the matter now?” my dad asked.

  My eyes popped.

  My mouth opened.

  But nothing came out.

  “His PDK is missing,” Calvin said. “He’s not carrying his Personal Disaster Kit.”

  Calvin’s nine and he’s very helpful. Usually he’s kicking my butt, but he can also tell what’s wrong with me.

  “Maybe you left it in the bathroom,” Anibelly said. She’s four. But she can figure things out like she’s six or something.


  Oops.

  So my dad and I left the line again.

  And went back to the bathroom.

  It was a good thing we did—my PDK was right there in the stall where I had set it down. TGIDLLASP—Thank God It Didn’t Look Like A Suspicious Package!

  Then the mackerel needed to be changed. That’s the thing about babies—they need to be changed all the time. Lucky for her, we were already in the bathroom.

  After that, we waited at the end of the line again. Calvin, Anibelly and my mom were already on the other side of the checkpoint, waiting for us.

  Eventually, my dad and I got back to the place where everyone was taking off their shoes and clothes and throwing them into bins as fast as they could. I love taking off my clothes! Normally, my clothes come off, just like that. But this was not normal.

  I was wearing all my clothes and had packed none of them. When you travel, the important thing, as everyone knows, is to have room in your suitcase for souvenir candy. But the problem with wearing all your clothes is that you have to take them all off. They won’t even let you leave on a belt.

  Those are the rules.

  Lucky me, I figured out how to strip off nine layers of T-shirts all at once, so I was undressed, just like that.

  “Alvin’s naked!” I heard Anibelly shriek.

  My mom gasped.

  Her eyes popped.

  Her jaw dropped.

  Oops. Was I not supposed to get naked?

  But it was too late.

  All my clothes had disappeared into the X-ray machine. There was nothing I could do but stand there like tofu without sauce.

  Suddenly, security police hurried over as my PDK was coming out of the X-ray machine, and they grabbed it!

  I froze.

  “Whose bag is this?” a voice boomed.

  Security cameras pointed at me.

  “It’s my son’s …,” my dad said.

  “Where’s your son?”

  My dad turned.

  His eyes popped.

  His mouth opened.

  But nothing came out.

  Normally, this doesn’t happen to him. He always has something to say to me, or he might curse a blue streak like William Shakespeare if he’s trying very hard to be a gentleman.

  But this was not normal. I was naked, but my PDK was not. Out came: sunscreen, sports drinks, all sorts of forks and knives (I’m allergic to chopsticks), cheese (my favorite snack, hard to find in China), a mirror, bug spray, a lighter, lighter fluid, rope (for climbing the Great Wall), a face mask (Chinese superstition says that if you breathe smog, you will die), escape plans.

  I had spent hours packing my PDK the night before. I had no idea what I needed for China, but Calvin and Anibelly helped me figure it out.

  “I NEED MY PDK!!!” I wanted to scream. But it was too late.

  “Please step aside, sir,” someone said to my dad. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

  getting through airport security was not easy for my dad.

  By the time they let him go, he looked like he’d already been on vacation for a week! Normally, vacation is very stressful for my dad. But this was not normal. We hadn’t even gotten on our plane yet.

  My poor dad.

  But there was no time to feel sorry for him. We had to make a mad dash to the gate. We nearly missed our plane!

  Getting on the plane was not easy for me.

  In fact, it was nearly almost impossible.

  My entire family rolled right in like rocks into a ditch.

  But I stopped dead in my tracks just inches from the door.

  The good news was that I could grip the side of the plane really well. I’ve had lots of practice.

  The bad news was that my dad came back for me and turned me into carry-on luggage, just like that.

  Poor me.

  But poor Calvin too. As soon as the plane started to pull away from the gate, Calvin got sick.

  Super-duper sick.

  Calvin’s like that. He’s a scientist, an inventor, an explorer, a Boy Scout, and a karate chopper-upper—but he’s not an astronaut. He gets moving sickness on a plane as soon as it backs away from the gate, every time.

  Poor Calvin.

  He had to close his eyes.

  But poor me too.

  Calvin had gotten sick on me. My pants, which I’d had a hard time getting back on after passing through security, were now completely ruined. But lucky me, I had on several other pairs underneath those. Wearing all my clothes was very useful!

  “Oh, Alvin,” my mom said. “Aren’t you terribly warm?”

  I blinked.

  I scratched.

  I had so many itches I couldn’t reach!

  And yes, I was kind of warm, now that she mentioned it.

  But it was time for takeoff, and there are rules for takeoff:

  Whaaaaat???

  The plane loudened.

  My face flattened.

  I got sucked into my seat. Sluuuuurp!

  Faster and faster we went.

  Louder and louder it got.

  Then suddenly, we plunged into the air like a diver into water, only upward—toward the sun—and zoomed up, just like that.

  “Son,” my dad said.

  I stopped.

  “Isn’t that enough hand sanitizer?”

  I looked at the bottle.

  “It’s my best friend, Dad,” I said. “And it should be yours too.”

  I squeezed a little into my dad’s palm, but not too much.

  The problem with being locked in a plane, as everyone knows, is that the germs can kill you. A small enclosed tube where hundreds of people breathe the same air for sixteen hours is a death trap! Viruses! Fungi! Bacteria! Recycled air makes you tired. Then it makes you sick. The deadly stuff you can catch from airplane air includes:

  Tuberculosis

  SARS

  Influenza

  Measles

  Rubella

  Diphtheria

  Ebola

  Smallpox

  Anthrax

  Calvin had found the list on the Internet and printed it for me.

  Lucky for me, I had figured it out. I turned on my air vent. The rush of air, as everyone knows, will push everything away from you. You will not die of airborne illness.

  But you could die of deep vein thrombosis.

  “Relax,” my dad said. “Have a drink.”

  The drink cart rolled to a stop right in front of us.

  My dad got a couple of drinks in tiny bottles.

  I got a soda.

  In a can.

  An aluminum can.

  The same aluminum that planes are made of.

  I dented it with my fingernail.

  Oops.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t in a soda mood anymore.

  “My throat hurts,” I said.

  My dad looked at me.

  “My left leg looks swollen,” I said.

  My dad looked at my leg.

  “My left lung is collapsed,” I said. I know all about collapsed lungs from TV. I clutched my ribs.

  My dad clutched me.

  “Relax, son,” my dad said. “It’s a long flight.”

  Then my dad pushed back his seat and closed his eyes. He was very tired.

  But I was not. How can you sleep when you’re in a flying soda can with several hundred people?

  Worse, how do you stay calm when a lady suddenly appears out of nowhere and is smiling at you?

  “Welcome aboard, sir,” she said.

  I blinked.

  When you’re a gentleman and a lady talks to you for no good reason, you shouldn’t duck under the seat in front of you even if you want to. It’s one of the rules of being a gentleman, I think. I’m not exactly sure. I can’t remember.

  “You must be the junior pilot,” she said.

  Then she pressed a pair of shiny wings on my chest.

  The junior what???

  But there they were—a pair of genuine gold pilot wings.

&n
bsp; What was I supposed to do with those? Fly the plane?

  Was something wrong with the pilot?

  Was this an emergency???

  “Dad,” I said.

  “Uhhh,” my dad grunted.

  “I’m the junior pilot,” I said.

  “God,” my dad said. His head dropped.

  Was my dad praying? Or did he mean to say “good”? It was hard to tell.

  “Dad,” I said, giving him a shove. “What do I do?”

  “Keep … it … horizontal,” my dad said. His eyes were still closed.

  Keep it horizontal???!!!!

  I looked over at Calvin. He reads a lot. He always knows what to do. But his eyes were closed too.

  And my mom and Anibelly and the halibut, their eyes were closed.

  I looked around.

  Most people had their eyes closed. It was very quiet on the plane.

  I’d read about this.

  Normal people can’t stand g-forces and pass out.

  That meant I was not normal.

  I was special.

  I was the junior pilot.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice said, “the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts.”

  “This is your captain speaking,” another voice said. “We’ll be experiencing some turbulence ahead. It’ll be a little rough until we rise above the storm. There will be no cabin service at this time. Flight attendants, please take your seats.”

  Turbulence?

  Storm?

  Flying even higher?

  What was a junior pilot supposed to do?

  Ruuumble. Ruuumble.

  The plane shook.

  Then it rattled.

  The lights went out.

  Everything went up and down.

  Creeeak. Creeeak.

  It sounded like the plane was coming apart!

  Was that why they made me the junior pilot? In case I survived and the pilot didn’t???

  “Dad!” I said. “We’re going to DIE!!!”