Setting the Scene
The day Hong Kong surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army.
What is Christmas Day, 1941?
The gardener who pulls Nicholas away from the gate and warns him to be quiet.
Who is Ah Kwan?
The household servant who says, “We go now.”
Who is Tang?
The kind of boy Nicholas is disguised to look like.
What is a Chinese boy?
The mountain behind the buildings whose Cantonese name means “Heavenly Peace Mountain.”
What is Victoria Peak (Tai Ping Shan)?
The Holfords’ cook and head servant, who had ruled the household for eighteen years.
Who is Tang?
The route the group follows after leaving through a gate by the servants’ quarters.
What is a watercourse through thick bushes along the hillside?
The three items of Chinese clothing Nicholas puts on as part of his disguise.
What are a dark blue sam jacket, baggy fu trousers, and a small round hat made of varnished cane?
The familiar corner gathering place that is now boarded up after the fighting.
What is the tea-house?
The servant who had cared for Nicholas from the end of his first month, including bathing, feeding, and singing him to sleep.
Who is Ah Mee?
The destination Tang says they should reach because staying on Hong Kong Island would make them easy to find.
What is the Kowloon side?
The reason Tang says Nicholas must cut his hair as well as change clothes.
What is that Japanese soldiers might recognize him as an English boy and kill him?
The contrast between the quiet, damaged street and the normally busy scene shows that this is a place changed by what?
What is the fighting/the war?
Nicholas trusts Tang and Ah Mee even though leaving breaks his promise because he believes they would not make him do so without a serious reason.
Who are Tang and Ah Mee?
Tang’s urgent order and his normally calm character show Nicholas that the danger is what?
What is immediate and serious enough that they cannot wait for his parents?
The disguise changes Nicholas’s clothes, hair, and headwear so he will be less easily identified as what?
What is an English boy?