Six years old! Derrick stared down at his dark, skinny, frail-looking body and then at the reflection of a child's face in the water. "Huh? That isn't even me!" His voice was thin and high, and the way he pronounced his words was weird.
Hebe smiled. "Oh, it is not the boy you started as. But it is you. The new you." She smiled and hefted him out of the pool and set him down on some soft towels. Derrick was too stunned to do anything but sit there as she dried him off. He was really confused. There were lots of things he wanted to say, but the words were getting mixed up. Words he knew were getting replaced by new sounds that were not English. En-glish? He frowned, trying to remember what that was. Another language, what people far away from his country spoke. The funny foreigners with the pale skin and bright hair and bulky clothing.
The nice lady bathing him smiled and patted his head. "Huí jiā de shíhòu, wáng chāo." She was pale and golden-haired, but spoke his language like his mother. Time to go home, Chao. That was his name. Chao. Home to the rice paddy that he and his family worked. Derrick grinned and nodded, then blinked as he was suddenly sitting in a mud puddle by the rice fields. Looking around, he did not see the lady anywhere. But he did see his next oldest brother scowling at him. "Qù shàngbān, lǎn niú!"
Scrambling up, Chao joined his older brother, fuming. He was not a lazy cow!
Back at the Spa, Hebe gathered up the damp towels and smiled. One lazy American teenager turned into a useful laborer. The sister would be next, and then the soft, spoiled parents.