Land of the Yellow Sea

Chapter 1. ROSE IRIS LAVENDER

ROSE IRIS LAVENDER walked with a wiggle and a waggle, not a girl of over-confidence but one simply full of life. Her mind soared free as a bird in a bright summer's sky. She would swoop and glide, under and over, around and between her fresh and often original ideas until she had finally exhausted herself. Any idea not fully thought through would be put aside in her brilliant memory, which was yet another part of her magnificent mind. Rose was never happy to let any question remain unanswered. Each stone set in her mind would one day be overturned, over and over and over again—of that there was no question. Unlike many people she was prepared to accept that all her questions might never be fully or even acceptably answered. But these questions would not be allowed to just rest like ancient stones gathering moss. She had a healthy sense of fun despite the dire situations she often found herself in. Rose was very creative and her imagination was probably the most incredible aspect of her magnificent mind. She could see things quite clearly that others were completely blind to.

She had no idea of all this though.

What she did have an idea of, was that tomorrow was her birthday. She was very young and had not yet reached double figures. But at least she was closing in on them. Tomorrow, she would be nine.

However, there was one thing that stood in Rose's way.

The world.

It had a nasty tendency of taking the most inimitable of people and turning them into soldiers of mediocrity, servants of nobody and mirrors of everybody. The world was calling out to Rose to be a particular type of girl, and telling her how wonderful that would be. It was attempting to steal her individuality. The world had always been calling out like this, as it did to every man, woman and child. The difference now was that Rose was becoming old enough to hear it.

She was starting to lose herself.

She had no idea of all this though.

And one outward feature of Rose's inimitableness that could not go unnoticed was her obsession with large black polka dots on her white clothes. It was her thing. Her dresses were always white with large black polka dots. And if she wore a T-shirt, a blouse or a jumper, it would be the same: white with large black polka dots. Her coats were fashioned in that way. Her favourite Wellington boots too. She insisted on it. Even her favourite toys were white with large black polka dots. Hillary the horse, Gregor the gorilla, Tolly the teddy bear, Deidre the dinosaur. And there was her quilt, pillowcases, wallpaper, school backpack, school pencil case and her piggybank. Yes, it was most definitely her thing.

There was no end to Rose's large black polka dot obsession. She was open to talking about it. Her mother, Mrs Lavender, Mrs Yasmin Violet Lavender, would always tell her she would grow out of it one day. But Rose had always told her mother that she wouldn't. She even once said, "I bet when I die, it will be of a new strain of the measles. One that turns the skin white. One where the red dots are large black polka dots. My coffin will be white with large black polka dots, and I'll be sleeping inside it in my white burial robes covered in my large black polka dots. Morbid I know, but the Lord God would want to see me no other way. I can just tell."

And right now, she was in the kitchen of an ordinary moderately run-down end of terrace house located on a run-of-the-mill housing estate on the outskirts of Cambridge, England. It was summer and she had on her blue jeans and one of her white with large black polka-dotted T-shirts. She was with her mother, making every effort to make the most out of her late afternoon Tea...

She had just finished hugging her upset mother who looked like a larger version of her. They both had shoulder length bright-red hair the colour of a Robin's chest, and keen lime-green eyes. Rose would often hug her mother, because her mother would often get upset. It had always been this way since Rose's father had gone missing almost a year to the day. The police had done their best to find him, but could find nothing. He had disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again.