MAIN CHARACTERS
Li MEI(李美)
Li Mei, a ten-year old girl from a remote Chinese mountain village is lost to depression. A reoccurring dream, her dead mother vanishing into the earth, offers hope in a future where there seems to be none. Lee May begins to dig in search of a mother’s spirit. Under a downpour, the ground opens up below and LI MEI passes through the Earth, falling into Rosy’s backyard. A one-winged dragonfly in a world of giants, where trees eclipse the sun, Lee May battles loneliness and a crazed mountain man. But, not all is dangerous in this unfamiliar world. Fainting under the touch of a humongous woman, she wakes in a magnificent home. A friendship with Rosy’s sister grows amongst mountains of food, a river of humiliating vomit and a shared loss. To prove to her village, and more importantly herself, that a girl’s life is just as important as a boy’s, Li Mei must survive a showdown with a hideous night demon and protect her new friend from certain death.
Rosy O'Sullivan
Roosevelt ‘Rosy’ Tecumseh Sullivan, an twelve-year old daydreamer from Kentucky, tunnels his way through the Earth. Transformed under a boy’s imaginative eyes and ears, he experiences a China within a walled-city where the people chirp like canaries and dress pretty as peacocks. Wrestling bulls and gobbling fried bugs only begins to test his courage. Coming from a long line of men who died early, most recent, his father, the promise to never rely on another explodes with a Chinese firecracker. With a new Chinese buddy by his side, Rosy is forced to choose between the easy choice and the right choice and must battle a fire they accidentally lit and now threatens to destroy the walled-city’s history and its habitants.