A week after moving to live with the Williams', Skye received a call from the State Department. The Official said Skye and a companion of her choice had been invited to visit China for seven days on a cultural exchange next month, a visit that had been approved by both Governments.
"But why?"
"Because you have significant impact as a writer in parts of China and you will visit four areas where your popularity is significant and at the first of those centers you have been invited to open a regional doll exhibition of some magnitude. It has been requested you bring your doll with you and in all probability the area where your doll was made will be identified and there is a possibility that the doll marker will be identified as well."
Skye accepted and invited Glenys to accompany her but Glenys revealed a fear of flying and so Myra went. In China an interpreter and a Chinese female photojournalist who also spoke excellent English joined them to accompany them on the short tour.
The doll exhibition was huge, the exhibition halls covering more than one and a half acres with each group of halls exhibiting a different class of dolls. Two security guards arrived at Skye's hotel with a steel box and Daisy was placed in the box. The interpreter said, "These guards will keep in close contact with you all morning. Security is deemed necessary because officials don't wish to risk an international incident by someone deciding to acquire Daisy."
Skye thought protection for Daisy was a great idea.
The official opening was held in the open outside the main hall where the exhibits were like a Hall of Fame. The assembled, tightly packed crowd was the largest mass of people Skye and Myra had ever seen.
The speeches were long and all Skye had to do was to step forward, accept a pair of engraved scissors to keep as a memento and then say, 'I declare this impressive exhibition open' and cut the tape.
The security men then unlocked the box and handed Daisy to Skye. Skye turned to the crowd and held Daisy high and a huge murmur swept through the crown and then a tremendous chant broke out, although not everyone took part. The word being called was clearly, 'Daisy, Daisy, Daisy'.
The interpreter shouted to Skye, "That chant is because many people here are aware of the long-running comic strip that features Daisy as the heroine. They are astonished and respect you because they had no idea a person from the United States of America could hold dearly a rag doll made in a village of insignificance in China."
The chant died away and the assembly began to disperse.
The official in charge led the guests to the main hall where refreshments were served. He then presented to Skye a woman dressed in a pinstriped business skirt and jacket. The journalist with Skye's party sensed something was up and began taking photographs.
"Good morning Miss Skye," said the woman. "I am Xue Ai-ling and you may call me Ai-ling which is my first name. You won't recognize me because you people from the West have this funny idea that we Chinese all look vaguely familiar. We have many jokes about that."
Skye smiled and said, "You are the business lady who received my authority to print my story about the doll maker written when I was fourteen."
"You astonish me," said the woman. "I certainly did not recognize you."
"I didn't remember you. I just thought it's most likely that the only woman in all of China who would have ever met me would be that woman who wanted to publish my story."
"And I am also the official in a printing company who decided your books should be published here in China under license because our comic strip about the adventures of Daisy we had written for us in your style continued in popularity."
The chief official, who had been listening to his translator, clapped and said 'Bravo' and everyone in his party clapped and said something that sounded like bravo.
"Your writings have made me very famous," said the woman.
The head official clapped and his associates joined in the clapping.
"I knew you were coming here and I would like you to accept this gift from me. Through your influenced I have become wealthy."
A younger woman came forward and opened a jewelry case and Ai-ling held up a magnificent gold bracelet and everyone clapped as she placed it around Skye's left wrist.
"This is a huge surprise and a most wonder gift. I shall always treasure it"
Everyone clapped.
"Now please allow me to hold Daisy," Ai-ling said. "A line of elite doll makers, who are also doll historians because that is the tradition, from various regions but not from all of China of course, will file past and examine Daisy briefly. If Daisy was made in this part of China she will be recognized."
Some thirty master craftsmen had looked at Daisy when one of them shouted and called something and a young guy raced off.
Ai-ling and the elderly man conversed.
She told Skye, "Your Daisy was made in the 1920s and that doll maker is no longer alive but his son, now an old man, is here helping with his son's exhibition. He comes now."
Almost ten minutes later an elderly man was escorted in. He examined the back of Daisy's head and pointed and nodded.
"Oh can you believe it," said the Chinese photojournalist. "He says his father made that doll. The head-flap is sewn in cross-stitching and that is usual but halfway up on the left-hand side of the head are four lots of double cross-stitches, his father's mark as doll maker."
The official translator took over and the retired doll maker was pleased to know that one of his father's dolls had gone to America and had survived. He offered to replace the missing leg.
"Please ask him what would he do if that were his daughter's doll. Tell him a dog tore the leg off and ran off with it. My mother stitched the hole closed because I didn't want her to make a new leg."
The interpreter repeated that and the old man smiled and nodded at Skye.
"He says you are a good doll owner. The doll is in excellent condition. He says if his daughter had not wanted the leg replaced he would not have replaced it. However his daughter had been spoilt and she would have thrown the damage doll away and demanded another one. He says his daughter was not a good doll owner."
"Oh lovely story. Please tell him that."
The guy laughed.
Skye took off her watch and handed it to the interpreter. "Please ask the son of Daisy's maker to accept this watch. Daisy and I are very pleased to know approximately how old she is."
The interpreter said, "He thanks you and Daisy very much because he doesn't have a watch. He thinks the year could have been 1923 and says that would be a good year to settle on. He could name the village but says it's too small to find on any map. The village is in this Province of Jiangsu and that borders Shanghai Province to the south."
* * *
Skye was tremendously pleased to be visiting China and had given her thoughts for a new Carey Green adventure. At the suggestion of the Chinese journalist, the accompanying government official/interpreter traveling with them had arranged to have a change in their travel schedule. Late on the their final day they flew to Hong Kong for a brief stop before leaving for home just after midnight. The official arranged for Skye to meet the TV presenter who had helped to make Skye's books popular. The young woman Kim invited Skye to appear on her show because by sheer coincidence Skye was arriving in Hong Kong on Friday; the show was broadcast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights.
Skye wondered was it a coincidence. Just as she wondered was it a coincidence the locality of where Daisy had been made was revealed at the doll exhibition. Also it had to be more than a coincidence that the son of the doll maker, who looked well into his eighties, had been at the show. With Daisy things that appeared to be coincidences seemed to be suspiciously coincidental.
Skye decided to tell no one about those thoughts because... well because people might think she was becoming unstable. It was not unlike when she was young and believed that sometimes Daisy told her what to do. Thereafter she'd never attempted to analyze why she would have believed until she was about the age of ten or so that Daisy sometimes told her what to do. She knew it would serve no useful purpose to speculate. As they say, leave sleeping dogs lie.
The hour-long TV music/chat show began at 7:00 and Skye was scheduled to be Milly Woo's first guest. Skye was pleased to learn that Milly spoke excellent English and the program was broadcast in English.
Although it was a small TV station, Milly's three nights a week show was the station's most popular program. It had huge ratings as Hong Kong-born Milly had gigantic appeal to females especially 14-17 year olds. Publicity about the unexpected upcoming live appearance of Skye Brock, a key influence behind the Daisy comic strip and creator of the legendary fictitious book character Carey Green, had created huge interest and when tickets for the show became available TV news film clips showed near riots outside the studio 1200-set theatre. Young people were protesting because all the tickets had been snapped up within an hour. The media began calling the disturbance 'the Carey Green frenzy'.
When Skye and her party arrived late afternoon on a direct 2½ flight from Nanjing City, capital of the province where Daisy has been made, the media mobbed Skye and news clips of that melee were shown next day on TV in North America.
A woman reporter with a photographer asked, as the barrage of questions began to fade, "Do you have Daisy with you?"
Surprised that a journalist would know the doll by her name, Skye said, "Yes, right here, a dug into her carry bag.
The effect of the media was astonishing.
"Stand back, let the TV cameramen get this," called one of the unit directors.
People moved away a bit, creating space around Skye and the Chinese journalist. TV lights blazed and camera flashlights blazed away.
That reporter asked, "Please hold Daisy against you affectionately for a photograph Miss Brock."
Sky ask the journalist who began this, "Are you a mother?"
"Yes," said the surprised reporter. "I have a boy of eight and a girl of six."
"Then come and stand beside me and stroke Daisy and your daughter can see you on TV tonight with Daisy and me."
"You are the real celebrity Miss Brock. Daisy and Carey Green are more famous than you but they cannot emote and talk in real time and therefore they cannot become celebrities but you can speak for them."
Skye reeled at the impact of that profound statement. It put together the final piece to explain why her sudden rise in popularity had occurred. All the time she'd thought Carey Green had been responsible for this but she now understood Carey was not operating in real time. The thing generating the influence of Carey was the two people er two figures in her background, Skye and Daisy. For starters the creation of Carey Green, earnest striver and accidental heroine, had been a result of Skye testing a number of possible characterizations on Daisy and the one Daisy appeared to favor had been the bumbling Carey Green.
How remarkable.
A voice in the background she knew very well had remarked involuntarily, "Omigod our ranch girl a celebrity. We will lose her."
