Young-hee and the Pullocho (5 page)

Life at home was not much better. Sarah and Fei were already talking online with her less and less often, and Denda never emailed at all. She could still follow her friends from their homepages, but the new pics, updates, and inside jokes left her feeling increasingly distant. Her mother worked more than ever, even at home. Lousy takeout food containers stacked up, and Young-hee was sick of the same things all the time.

Bum seemed to get lost at least once a week, although now the kindly guard was pretty good at finding him and cheering him up. Half the time Bum would return soaking wet after a mess-making swim in one of the complex's fountains. Sometimes Mr. Shin would tell Bum stories until Young-hee could pick him up. The last time, she found them playing with a stray orange kitten while Bum made tiger noises. Young-hee apologized again for the inconvenience, but the guard said Bum couldn't help it because it was such a magical time, being young. Young-hee always hated it when adults said that kind of thing.
There is nothing magical about being young
, she thought.
Only someone who has never been young could think it was magical. Being young is boring.
That she knew for a certainty.
And frustrating and confusing.
But mostly horribly, endlessly boring.
Every minute takes an hour, every hour takes a day, and life just sprawls out ahead of you.
But she held her tongue and thanked him.

Soon after that, school took a turn for the worse after the girls heard gossip about her father, and used it to tease her. On the chalk-board one morning, there was the simple drawing of a stick-figure man, standing sadly behind bars in a simple prison. “Where is Mr. Jo?” asked the cartoon's caption. Furious but determined not to let anyone see her cry, Young-hee stormed out of the classroom, with cruel laughter trailing her down the hallway. At least her teacher didn't punish her. In fact, soon after that, school got a little less terrible, although Young-hee thought she was probably just getting used to it.

Today, though, she was at home, listening to incessant, pounding rain, determined to avoid her homework. “I'm going to watch TV,” she announced.

“Please keep the sound down,” said her mom.

Young-hee sighed dramatically, but when she turned it on, the TV hissed static so loud, she jumped. “Sorry,” she said. She hit mute, but failed to find anything wrong.
Cable's out
, she concluded. She turned to the DVD collection, but had seen everything way too many times, even movies she didn't like. At last she decided that something with Gwenneth Paltrow would do—at least she was pretty.

When Young-hee pressed “eject,” the DVD door jiggled and cracked slightly open, then made a sickly noise as gears ground against some unseen obstacle. Young-hee hit the eject button a couple more times until the DVD tray managed to open—revealing a sticky mix of peanut butter and Japanese robot toys.

“Mom! Bum ruined the DVD player!” She felt like she would explode. “He ruins everything!”

Suddenly Young-hee found herself facing an umbrella. Her mom jiggled it slightly. “Take it,” she said, her voice clipped. “I need you to go for a walk. Or go shopping. Something.”

“But … it's raining.”

“I know. That's why I'm giving you the umbrella. Maybe you can visit your friend—what's her name?—Eunsu.”

“Eunju. And she's not my friend.”

“Whatever. I can't take it anymore. I have to get this work finished, and you've been impossible all day. All week. Longer.”

Young-hee looked back at her mom as defiantly as she could for as long as she dared, then took the umbrella. “Fine.”

She grabbed a light jacket and shoved a ball in her pocket, unsure if she was more furious or sad.

“Look, Young-hee,” said her mom, her voice suddenly soft again, “I just need to get this work done. Give me a couple of hours, then we'll have something nice for dinner. Okay?”

Young-hee, not ready for a truce, stormed out. As the door closed behind her, she called out “So annoying!” one more time, so her mom could hear.

The elevator was out yet again, so she took the stairs, scared she might start crying, although she couldn't really say why. She knew she was being difficult and her mom needed to work, but it still wasn't fair. Bum ruined the DVD player, the rain was ruining her summer, her mom had ruined her life.

Outside, the rain was falling harder than ever, forming ankle-deep water pools. Even with the concrete entrance overhang and her umbrella, the wind-whipped downpour soaked her shoes and pants.
I can't believe this is my life
, she thought. A gust of wind blew the umbrella inside out, soaking her all over.
This is stupid
, she thought,
there's no way I can walk around in that
.

Giving up, she sat down, failed to wrangle the umbrella into shape, and angrily threw it to the ground. She checked her phone. No messages. She sulked, checked her phone again, then sulked some more. A rainy roar echoed through the stairwell. Far away, she could hear cars pushing through water-filled streets.

Just then, she heard the clank of a heavy door, followed by feet on stairs. She turned and saw Mrs. Park from apartment 201 coming up from the parking garage, carrying shopping bags. With her blotchy, white makeup and her pushiness, Mrs. Park had quickly become a staple of their lives, often offering to keep an eye on Bum or share some extra side dishes. Everyone agreed she was friendly and helpful, except for Young-hee, who secretly found her nosy and vaguely scary. “My goodness, child, what are you doing here?” she said on spotting Young-hee's broken umbrella. “You're not thinking of going out in that? You'll catch your death.” She squeezed by Young-hee and kept going up the stairs, making complaining noises. “I can't believe the elevator is out in this terrible building again.”

Young-hee looked down into the dark stairwell. The building's parking garage was not the most exciting place in the world, but it had to be drier than outside, assuming it hadn't flooded. Pushing her broken umbrella into a corner, she walked carefully down four flights of rain-slicked stairs to that familiar dark blue door marked with the big 206.

After the stairwell, the parking garage seemed almost bright. At midday, it was only half-full, mostly with smaller cars—husbands took the nicer, big cars to work, leaving their wives the “cute” cars for shopping and errands.

The parking garage stretched out endlessly, connecting all the apartment buildings above into one giant concrete cavern below. It was not a pretty place, but quiet and kind of interesting. She instantly felt a kind of ownership, and pleasure that no one here could tell her what to do.

She fished the ball from her pocket and walked deeper into the garage, hoping to find an emptier area for throwing things.

The next level was a lot less crowded, and she tried whipping the ball off of a wall, but an unlucky bounce left a dirty round mark on a white Hyundai Accent, so Young-hee thought it best to find somewhere even more deserted.

Her foot falls squeaked on the rubbery green floor and echoed throughout the huge underground space. She passed stairwells to other apartment buildings, their doors emblazoned with big white numbers: 205, 204; around a corner was 408 and 501. They didn't seem to be a clear order, and some doors had labels instead of numbers: storage, maintenance, or utilities. Curious, she tried them, but they were nearly always locked.

Turning another corner, she came to a promising place—darker than most of the garage, but with very few cars—so she tossed the ball off the wall and ceiling, in elaborate caroms. Soon a bad throw coupled with a bad bounce sent the ball ricocheting over a wall and into a lower level. Young-hee took a ramp down to chase the rogue ball. The car park ramp turned and turned again, and it seemed to be too long to be going just to the next level. Then, it opened up again into another parking level, and Young-hee stopped short.

Something was not right. Everything was just too … empty. No cars, no people, no anything, except a forlorn orange parking cone on its side in a corner. The garage's colors seemed off. Sounds had a weird flatness. Even the light felt wrong.
That doesn't make sense,
she thought.
It's just a parking garage.
Young-hee swallowed, trying to stop scaring herself. She wasn't looking for the ball anymore, just trying to figure out where she was. And that was when she realized: None of the doors had apartment numbers. No signs told what floor she was on. Or marked an exit. The floor no longer had the green rubbery finish or bright white and yellow lane markers.
Where on Earth am I?

The feeling of dread grew overwhelming and, suddenly, Young-hee just wanted out. She tried a door that might be a stairwell, but it would not open. Nor would the next door, nor the one after that. Her heart raced. She took a couple of steps back and looked for a ramp up. There was one not far off, so Young-hee ran up it hard, but the next level looked the same as the one below—no signs, no numbers, no cars, no people. Young-hee ran up another level. And another. And another.
This is crazy,
she thought.
The garage wasn't this deep. And there definitely were cars around here.
She could feel a spiky ball of fear growing in her chest.

Her phone! She pulled it out and dialed mom, but nothing happened. Zero bars. No matter how many times she tried.
What's going on? What's happening?

Think logically
, she told herself. She must have wandered into some disused part of the garage. She tried to retrace her steps, but all the levels and ramps looked the same, no matter where she went.
That's it, I've gone insane.

She refused to let herself cry. She just needed to figure things out. Every place with a way in must have a way out. There was definitely an explanation—it just seemed scary because she couldn't think of it yet.

And then she noticed the orange pylon, on its side.
Have I just looped around to where I started?
It hardly seemed possible, but that must be it. She went to another ramp and ran up and up. But when she walked into the next parking area, the pylon was still there, in the same place. Every level was exactly the same. She was nowhere. She was trapped.

Young-hee sat down. Out of ideas, she yelled, but no one answered.

And then, a doorway caught her eye, and she walked over to it. It was dark greenish-brown, not blue. It was wood, not metal. Taller and thinner than the other doors, it looked handmade, almost elegant, like the door to a traditional home. Instead of a regular knob, it had a heavy metal ring. Curious, she turned the ring and pushed.

Finally, a door that opened. It revealed a pitch black stairwell leading up, with no lights and no signs. She strained her eyes and, high above, she thought she could make out the distant, dull glow of daylight. And for a moment, she felt cool air against her face. Young-hee looked back at the eerie garage and, not knowing what else to do, she stepped into the darkness and began her ascent, using her mobile phone to light her way.

The stairwell turned a corner, turned again, and Young-hee found herself standing outside in the sun. For a brief second she wondered what had happened to the rain; but then her eyes adjusted to the light. This was not Seoul. This was nowhere Young-hee had ever been before.

The Hammer of Wealth

Long ago, when the Tiger used to smoke a pipe, there lived in a quiet village a hard-working young man named Hongjo. His family was very poor, so he traveled far and wide over the surrounding hills, chopping wood to sell so his parents and sister and brother would have a little more money.

One day, after a long day of chopping far from home, he came across a strange walnut tree. He picked a bag of walnuts for the family to enjoy. Hongjo realized it had grown too dark to go home. Fortunately, in a clearing by the walnut tree, he saw an empty, battered house in which to spend the night.

It was a cold evening, so he started a fire in the fireplace. As soon as the wood lit, strange sounds came from the fireplace. Scared and seeing nowhere else to hide, Hongjo climbed into the rafters.

From there, he saw half a dozen dokkaebi—goblins—tumble out of the fireplace. Like all dokkaebi, they were short and very ugly, with dark gray, leathery skin and a single, stubby horn on their foreheads. The goblins danced around the house merrily, boasting of their mischief that day.

“I pulled the tail of a cow and made it kick his owner and run away,” laughed one.

“Well, I snuck into a woman's kitchen and knocked the rice pot's lid into the hot pot, ha-ha.”

“I danced under a rich man's home, making the floors creak and scaring the whole household.”

After a time the goblins grew hungry. The head goblin took out a big, wooden hammer and slammed it against the floor. “Tukdak tukdak,” he shouted. “Bring us food!” And—poof!—piles of hot meats and soups and rice appeared. Greedily the goblins ate, and working up a thirst, the goblin again swung his hammer. “Tukdak tukdak, bring us drink!” he shouted, And—poof!—bottles of soju and magkeolli appeared. Quickly, the goblins drank too much and became drunk and silly.