Little Mei lived on the fourteenth floor of Rainbow Estate in Hong Kong, and she was absolutely certain that her home was the most wonderful place in the entire world.
Every morning, Mei would press her nose against the kitchen window and look down at the courtyard far below, where the aunties were already hanging their washing on bamboo poles that stuck out like colorful flags. The laundry danced in the morning breeze—red shirts and blue trousers and flowery dresses—making the whole estate look like it was celebrating something special every single day.
“Mama,” said Mei one Tuesday morning, “why do we live so high up in the sky?”
Her mother, who was packing dim sum into Mei’s school bag, smiled. “So we can see everything, little sparrow. We can watch over our neighbors and they can watch over us.”
And it was true. From her window, Mei could see into dozens of other windows. There was Mrs. Chan on the twelfth floor who always waved when she watered her plants. There was old Mr. Wong who kept pigeons on the roof and spoke to them in Cantonese as if they were his dearest friends. And there was the family with the new baby who hung tiny clothes that looked like they belonged to dolls.
After school, Mei loved to play in the estate’s playground with her best friends, Tommy and Lin. The playground sat right in the middle of all the tall buildings, like a small island of swings and slides surrounded by a forest of concrete and glass.
“Let’s pretend we’re explorers,” said Tommy one afternoon, “and these buildings are mountains!”
“And the lifts are magic caves that take us to different kingdoms!” added Lin.
So they played their game, riding the lifts up and down, visiting the “Kingdom of the Seventh Floor” where Mrs. Lau always had cookies, and the “Kingdom of the Twenty-First Floor” where you could see all the way to the harbor if you squinted hard enough.
One day, when the autumn wind was particularly strong, all the washing in the courtyard was dancing so wildly that it looked like the clothes might fly away to different countries.
“Quick!” shouted Mei to her friends. “We must save the washing!”
They ran through the estate, up and down staircases, knocking on doors to tell people their clothes were trying to escape. Soon, half the estate was outside, laughing and catching shirts and socks that had broken free from their lines.
Mrs. Chen from the ground floor caught her husband’s favorite blue shirt just as it was about to sail over to the next estate. “Wah! This shirt wants to visit the neighbors!” she laughed.
When all the washing was safely back where it belonged, everyone gathered in the courtyard. Someone brought out tea, someone else brought moon cakes, and before long, they had an impromptu party right there among the buildings that reached toward the clouds.
“You see,” Mei’s mother whispered to her as they sat on the concrete benches, surrounded by all their neighbors, “a home isn’t just four walls and a roof. A home is all the people who care about you.”
Mei looked around at the faces of her neighbors—young and old, speaking Cantonese and English and sometimes other languages she didn’t recognize—and she felt her heart grow as big as the courtyard itself.
That night, as Mei lay in her bed by the window, she could see lights twinkling in windows all around her. Each light meant a family, each family had their own stories, and somehow, all their stories were woven together in this tall, bustling place they called home.
“Good night, Rainbow Estate,” she whispered to the buildings around her. And if you listened very carefully, you might have heard the estate whisper back, “Good night, little Mei. Sweet dreams.”
From somewhere far above, Mr. Wong’s pigeons cooed softly, like a lullaby drifting down from the roof to tuck all the children of the estate safely into their dreams.
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