The eldest Mrs. Liu told the best stories, hands down. When he was little, very little, before Pia was even born, he would pile into the Liu living room with about two hundred other kids and she'd be sitting there in her armchair with a plastic mug of something hot, and she'd take a sip all calm and quiet, and then put the mug down, then pick it back up, take another sip, look around slowly until they were positively squirming with anticipation, and then begin.
He could only just remember her, with her wispy steel-grey hair and soft chinless face, and the room all stuffy with wall-to-wall kids, but hte stories he knew by heart.
"Once there were two countries, both great and powerful so that the whole world followed one or the other. One was good. The people who lived there were free to do as they liked, and they were prosperous and happy. But the other country was evil. They watched their peoples' every move. They told them what they could or could not do. They locked their borders tight so that living there was like being in detention. The two countries did not trust each other, but were always watching carefully, waiting for the other one to attack, and always competing because each one wanted to become the greatest and gain control of the whole world.
"Now the laeder of the good nation was young and handsome and everyone loved him. One night, he was wondering to himself, 'How long will this go on? If we make a weapon, they make a more powerful one. If we build a building, they build a taller one. What can we do that they will never be able to beat?'
"As he spoke, he looked up and there was the moon, big and bright and white. And he thought, 'I know what we will do.'
