Forbidden City by William Bell

Amazing. This guy was the second most powerful man in China.
    By that time I was making my way towards him. I had to climb down from the monument’s base, so I lost sight of Zhao, but the lights were easy to home in on. What wasn’t easy was pushing through the crowd. Then I got an idea. I took off my hat and stuffed it in my pocket so my blond hair would show.
    “Press! Press!” I shouted, and held my camcorder up high so it could be seen. “Press! Let me through, please!”
    It worked. The crowd of students parted and I got to the bus in time to see that Zhao was talking. He was of medium height, with a high forehead andwestern style glasses. I put the camcorder to my eye and zoomed in to get a medium close-up of Zhao with students at the bus windows in the background. Even through the viewfinder I could see that he was crying as he spoke to the crowd.
    The only thing from his speech that I understood were the words … “too late.”

    I probably don’t need to write down how deliriously happy Dad and Eddie were when I hooked my camcorder up to our office TV and showed them the tape. I thought Eddie was going to carry me around the room.
    Within an hour Dad had found someone in the hotel who agreed to take the tape to the satellite feed station and Eddie had written a report and faxed it to Toronto.
    I was delirious myself. The reporter’s bug had
really
bitten me.
    We all wanted to go back to sleep but we couldn’t. Too much to do. I skipped school again. Dad went back to the square with Eddie and Lao Xu to try and interview some students about Zhao’s visit and ask them what they thought it meant to their movement. I got to clean up the office because Eddie wouldn’t let anyone from the hotel in. Pretty demeaning job for someone who got his video report on national TV, if you ask me.
    It took me all morning to tidy up the office. It’s hard to make an office neat when you know that the people who work in it are used to a mess and that if they ever came back to find an orderly workplace they’d think they were in the wrong office. I also made sure all the battery rechargers were full and charging away.
    After lunch Lao Xu came by and started using the phone as he often did. He tried to catch people after the customary afternoon nap, before the lines got too busy again. He was shouting away for an hour or so, saying “
Wei? Wei?”
about once a second, then he sat and made some notes.
    Eddie and Dad came back later in the afternoon, looking tired. Dad put away his camera in its aluminum case and flopped into one of the armchairs. Eddie said hello and headed for the shower with his pipe still in his mouth.
    Just as Eddie padded into the office wearing a towel around his large middle and drying his hair with another towel the phone rang. Lao Xu answered it, yelled for a few seconds, listened some more, and hung up, looking glum.
    “There is a rumour that Chairman Zhao Zi-yang has been removed from office,” he said quietly. “And my friend says we should turn on the TV.”
    I pushed the button and the screen came to life. We gathered around.
    “That’s Li Peng,” Lao Xu said. The premier was talking. He looked stern, even angry, but he had a lookon his face that seemed to say, “I’m the boss now.”
    “What’s up, Lao Xu?” Dad asked.
    Lao Xu kept his eyes on the screen. “Please wait, Ted.”
    So the three of us stared at Li Peng, dressed in a dark blue Mao suit, collar buttoned up under his chin, chopping the air with his hand, karate-style, as he talked. I could make out a couple of words, like
China
and
student
and
foreigner
. Then it was over.
    Dad and Eddie and I turned to Lao Xu. We knew from the look on his face that the news was not good. He spoke in a low voice, as if he couldn’t quite believe his own words.
    “Premier Li Peng says that Beijing is now under martial law.”
    “Oh-oh,” Dad said.
    Eddie let out a low whistle, puffing out his moustache.
    Lao Xu continued. “And he has