by Henry Lien
Why do they all have these ridiculous Edaian names? Pearl is part of Shin, and Shin and Eda were enemies. How is this not open treason?
“How do you all already know each other?” I ask. The girls look to Suki. Her face hardens. “Did you go to another school together?” No one answers. “Was that what you and Niu Doi were talking about? Pearl Colony for Rehabilitation of Unwanted Girls, or something like that?”
Suki scowls, then smiles sweetly. “I really liked your wu liu style. Especially the ending flourishes you added on to every single little move. Like what people used to do in our grandparents’ generation. So quaint. The only thing missing was a pink peony tucked behind your ear.” The girls all cover their teeth with their hands and giggle. What are they laughing at? The Imperial Anthology of Wu Liu Style, Fancy, and Faddish Whimsy says that ending flourishes and wearing pink peonies behind the ear are the latest fashion in wu liu. What do these girls know about style? They’re wearing bandages and eye patches.
The great doors to Eastern Heaven Dining Hall are closed, and the windows facing out to the sea are opened. Mists from the waterspouts stream in. They’re lovely in the lantern light.
Supreme Sensei Master Jio takes the dais, smiles, and laughs. “Ahihahaha! And now…” And then he starts intoning something with so much vocal modulation that I can’t understand any word except for tsunami, which I think is the Edaian word for tidal wave, and delicacies. There are gasps of delight from all around. I hope Cricket doesn’t ask what was announced.
The lines of serving girls come skating out in brown uniforms. I stiffen as I see that they’re all Shinian. No one else here in Pearl wears twin pigtail braids. Except for me. Suki is going to say that I look like the servants. I wish I could unbraid my braids right now. They bring out the first course of the Osmanthus Banquet. I hope the Shinian girls don’t recognize me and try to talk to me in front of Suki.
I have two things to say about this banquet. Number one is that people reveal more about their culture through their food than through anything else. Number two is that I’m grateful that academy tradition holds that we each attend this banquet only once a year, because I don’t know if I could survive more than one Osmanthus Banquet a year.
Course Number One: “The Obscuring Mask of Lady Hu.” These aren’t too bad. The problem is that you’re served a dish that looks like a crisp apple varnished with water. You bite into it, and instead of the fruit that you expect, it’s chopped pork and lobster with scallions, ginger, vinegar, and sesame oil, covered in a glazed candied shell. At the center is a watery, bubbled egg seasoned with horseradish. Actually quite delicious but just not salty enough. Like all the food I’ve tasted in Pearl, it could definitely use some salt or soy sauce.
I’m not going to let this food and these girls make me feel out of place. “We have a very similar dish in Shin that’s a meatball with egg inside,” I say.
“Friendship between Shin and Pearl is very strong,” says Suki. I can’t tell if she’s mocking me. “What do you call that dish from Shin?”
Stupid me, why did I bring up anything about Shin? “We call it … meatball with egg inside.” Make me drink sand to death, Shinians are such peasants.
Course Number Two: “Clarity of the Moon.” It turns out that shortly before the start of the school year, Pearl was hit with a tsunami that washed ashore all sorts of unusual creatures churned up from the bottom of the sea. The chefs of Pearl mobilized and harvested all of them before scholars of science could collect them for study. The sea creatures are so rare that they don’t even have proper names.
The dish is served on a lovely porcelain plate that has a poem written on it in spidery black calligraphy. I can read the poem through the food because everything in this dish is bleached transparent in kelp vinegar. There’s a blanket of wide clear noodle garlanded with cucumbers cut as thin as paper and slices of uncooked white fish. At the center, encased in a bubble of gelatin, is a translucent creature that I’ve never seen before. It’s sealed in a dumpling made out of what looks like its own birthing sac, tied closed with its own pink intestines. The creature stares out at me from inside the sac with one great silver eye.
Then it blinks.
All the students begin to devour the dish.
Somehow, I manage to get this creature down my throat and make it stay there, but I don’t like to talk about the experience. It’s behind me now.
Course Number Three: “Geh-Hu.” After conquering the translucent sea creature, I feel a swell of confidence. How much worse could it get?
The conversation is also going well. I didn’t mean to insult Suki when I asked about Pearl Girl Detention Colony or whatever it’s called. But I’ve managed to save the evening. My skills of conversation are very high. I know that sounds conceited. But words are power. Look at Cricket. He even speaks Shinian like a foreign language.
As I’m thinking this, they bring out the dishes of tofu. No, not tofu! I turn toward Cricket, but it’s too late.
When he sees the tofu, Cricket says to Mitsuko in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “Oh, I can’t eat tofu. I developed an allergy to my own saliva after I started my ivory yin salt treatments to improve my wu liu practice. Whenever I eat tofu, I salivate so much. When I have to swallow so much of my saliva, I cough. The coughing causes me to salivate more. Which causes me to cough even more. It always ends in violent vomiting.”
Ten thousand years of stomach gas.
The girls giggle behind their hands. Mitsuko explains to Cricket, “It’s not tofu. It’s imitation tofu.”
Etsuko explains, “It’s made out of crabmeat. But it tastes just like the real thing.”
Chiriko adds with reverence, “It’s a new hatsubai.” I think that means new product. “From Eda.”
Suki says, “Of course.”
“Of course,” coo all the other girls in agreement.
Course Number Four: “The Cave of Jade.” It’s a rubbery cylinder, like a sea cucumber. The only features on it are four moist, glistening tubes growing out of its back, each ending in something that looks like a mouth with puckered lips.
The Shinian serving girl ladles seawater seasoned with eight-horned star anise over the thing. She catches my eye. I think she recognizes me as the Peony-Level Brightstar. It looks like she wants to show me how to eat it, but the last thing I want is for Suki and the other girls to see me talking with the Shinian servants, so I pretend not to see her. She bows and turns away in silence.
I instantly feel regret. She’s Shinian and she only wanted to be kind to me because I just arrived from Shin. And I dismissed her like a scrap of trash. I turn to her but only see the back of her head, braids bobbing as she skates away.
I watch the other girls. They take their eating sticks, insert them into one of the four tubes, and split them open. Green fluid leaks out. They each twist a tube off, dip it in the fluid, and eat.
Across the table, Cricket pokes his dish in the middle. It immediately deflates and shrivels.
“That’s not how you eat it. You’ve ruined it!” cries Noriko. “Well, don’t think you’ll get another one. That creature’s very rare.”
I immediately spear mine through the middle with my eating sticks, too.
Course Number Five: “Tea Olive Pies.” Finally, something that I recognize. I’m so grateful. Just sweet bean jam flavored with osmanthus in a moon cake crust. Nothing with blinking eyes or multiple tubes coming out of it. I savor every bite. I never want it to end.
Final Course: “First Kiss.” The eating sticks are taken away by the serving girls. A blunt knife is brought out. Then we’re each served a bristled tongue impaled on a stick.
I can’t do it. I drop mine on the floor when no one is looking.
When the last of the dishes is cleared, Supreme Sensei Master Jio stands up to address us.
“Ahihahaha! So sweet to watch you eat, little embryos. But as you shall learn when you attain sagehood, nourish abundance to nurture perfectly.” I’m start
ing to think that I simply can’t understand anything that comes out of his mouth when he says, “And now, time to announce the next Motivations. The first-year girls’ second Motivation will be Lady Ming’s Hand-Mirror! And the first-year boys’ second Motivation is Vertical Battlefield!”
Afterward, the students proceed to the Hall of Six Excellences for conversation and tea anemones. What a horrible drink. But everyone drinks it because most children our age aren’t allowed it at home. Not even in Pearlian homes, I understand. Cricket and I join the river of students skating in a slow circle.
Suki and her court appear at my side. Chiriko is cupping something in her hands. It’s a white chrysanthemum blossom, blushed with pink streaks. She offers it to me and says, “Her Grace, Gang Suki, Princess of the House of Flowering Blossoms, humbly begs you to confer honor on our house by accepting the title of third fan-bearer.”
The whole circle of skating students slows as everyone watches to see what I’ll do.
Why would I want to be some other first-year girl’s third fan-bearer in some stupid club? This is a veiled insult. How dare she? I took first ranking. I’m going to make history here.
I know that I’m new here. I should be as slow to make an enemy as I should be swift to make new friends. But this girl could use a public bucket of cold water. Cricket sees my face.
“Peasprout, no.…”
“Shut up, Cricket.” I smile at Chiriko. “Her Grace, Princess Soo-Kee” (I intentionally mispronounce it so that it sounds like the Pearlian word for loser.) “confers too great an honor on a worthless girl from Shin. I can’t accept, because I was never sent anyplace like Pearl Penal Colony for Unbearable Girls, so I’m not rough and used to being banged up like all of you.”
Suki scrapes to a stop right in the middle of the flow of students. “Infuriate me to death!” says Suki.
The friendly faced girl with the mole on her chin skates over and whispers to me, “Oh no, now you’ve really failed to keep the monkey pleased.” All the other students giggle. I don’t recognize the Pearlian phrase, but the meaning is clear.
Suki stares at me, her face a mask of sizzling hatred. She looks left and right.
She’s confirming that there aren’t any senseis around.
She wants to fight me. Right here. Right now.
All the students part the way between us like a tide.
She’s trying to take off that stupid fake metal patch over her eye, but it’s glued on. She scowls at me with her big brown eye. She doesn’t want to fight me if she has a disadvantage.
I reach into the pocket of my robe and take out the cotton cloth that I carry to wipe my skates. I fold it in a triangle and tie it around my head, covering one eye.
Now I’ve brought myself down to her level.
Suki feels the insult. She is furious. She crouches into position to spring at me.
I pull my arm back, ready to receive her kick.
Cricket pulls on my arm. “No, Peasprout! You’ll be disqualified from the next Motivation! Don’t risk it! It was a perfect day!” I look down at his pleading face. “It was the favorite day of my life!”
“I think you have something on your arm,” says Suki. “You’d better take care of it before it starts to cry. Mew mew mew!” All the students start to laugh. Suki turns and skates away with a strut in her step. She’s acting like she won. But I know she was relieved that Cricket stopped us.
My good humor is all depleted, so Cricket and I retire.
In my dormitory chamber, I unroll my bed and cross my legs on it in lotus position to meditate before sleep.
The sound of the activity of the academy outside drops to a hum.
Despite all the struggle and strife of this past day, I end it with a peaceful heart.
Because I’ve ended this day on my own terms.
CHAPTER
FIVE
A terrible noise jolts me awake. It sounds like the walls of the dormitory are about to come down around me. It’s an earthquake! I fumble with the paper shoji door to my chamber and accidentally tear a hole in it before sliding it open. I race into the middle of the dormitory courtyard in my underclothes.
No one else is awake.
One by one, the girls come out of their chambers wrapped in their bathrobes and with trays of washing materials. They look at me standing in the courtyard like a fool.
The girl with the mole on her chin walks over to me and takes my arm. She smiles and says, “I’m sorry. Do they not have this in Shin? Our walls are tunneled through with mazes lined with metal plates. They release steel balls into the mazes, and the noise is used as an alarm for emergencies but also to wake us up each morning.”
“I know,” I say, taking my arm back. “I just thought it was an emergency.”
“Yes, of course. Oh, look. You’ve torn a hole in your shoji.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me help you patch it.”
“It’s all right, just one of the four corners got loose.”
She winces. “Aiyah, don’t say that!”
“What?”
“That number. We don’t mention that number, because it sounds like the word for death. Say lucky instead.”
Everything is so strange here.
While I take my bath, I remember that Cricket and I forgot, in the excitement of the first Motivation, to give our senseis the artisanal soaps. I don’t want people here to think that we are so poor in Shin that we don’t give gifts to our senseis at the opening of term. After I finish bathing, I pack up a basket of gifts for Cricket to take to his classes with the other boys.
As I’m skating to class, a low, hoarse voice says, “Don’t bring those.” I turn, and Doi is skating beside me, her waterfall hair swinging behind her.
I’m so startled by her rudeness that I don’t know what to say. She reaches to snatch my basket of soaps. I slap her hand away. I scrape to a stop and glare. “Mind your own business!” I say.
“You’ll be sorry.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?”
I look straight into her face. How unlike her brother she is. The nose is the same; the mouth and the shape of the face are the same; even their builds are the same. However, Hisashi is all dimples and laughing eyes. Perhaps his sister also has dimples and laughing eyes. I have no idea, because you can’t see either of these things on a person who refuses to smile. I turn from her and skate away.
At the assembly, we are told that since our whole first day was taken up with the first wu liu Motivation, we only have architecture, music, and literature classes today.
Our first class is architecture. We’re taught by Supreme Sensei Master Jio himself. We don’t gather on the islet of the Conservatory of Architecture, as that’s for third-years only. We are sent to the open square on one lip of the Principal Island of the academy. It is lined with desks. Supreme Sensei Master Jio hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t see other students with gifts. I wonder if they have different school customs here. The guidebooks said that students at wu liu academies in Pearl aren’t required to attend class. They treat us like university students, because they hold us responsible for our own performances.
As I look around, the basket is clawed out of my hands! Etsuko skates with it to the back and delivers it to Suki. Suki rips off her smoked spectacles and peers into the basket. She unties the reed leaves and takes out the cakes of soap.
“What is this junk?” cries Suki. “Bleached rocks?” All the girls laugh. “No wonder you invaded us for our bamboo if this is what you eat in Shin.”
“Give them back!” I say.
“What are they?”
“They’re opening-of-term gifts for our senseis.”
“Yes, but what. Are. They? Do you understand Pearlian? Does anyone here speak Shinian?” Suki asks. She’s just trying to insult me. I speak perfect Pearlian and, anyway, everyone in Pearl understands Shinian.
“I do!” says Etsuko. “Oink oink oink!” All the vile girls laugh.
“They�
�re distilled lard soaps,” I say. “Number-one quality-grade artisanal soap.”
“Artisanal soap! Does that mean you made it all by yourself in your little hut in Shin?”
Everyone laughs. What is there to laugh at?
“It’s made from a thousand-year-old recipe!”
“Wah! Is the secret ingredient your grandmother’s petrified bladder stones?”
I lunge for the basket of soaps, but the girls from the House of Flowering Blossoms block me. Someone kicks her skate under mine and I nearly stumble.
The students are silenced by the arrival of Supreme Sensei Master Jio. Suki skates to him. “Sage and venerable Supreme Sensei Master Jio,” she says, bowing. “Chen Peasprout wishes to present to you a gift that she brought all the way from Shin.” She skates back to me, wrapping a cake of soap back up in a reed leaf, and shoves it at my chest.
Everyone is looking at me, but why should I be ashamed of my gift? I skate to Supreme Sensei Master Jio and say, “I beg permission to present to you this worthless opening-of-term gift to express my gratitude for the honor of being your undeserving pupil.” He opens the leaf and holds the cake of soap in his hand.
One of the students cries out, “Don’t touch it. It’s her grandmother’s bladder stone!”
The students erupt in laughter. Only one student isn’t laughing. Doi. Probably gloating because she was right that I would be sorry. Or maybe she was the one to tip off Suki about my soaps, since she’s the only one who saw me bringing them? She must hate that some Shinian girl beat her.
Supreme Sensei Master Jio’s face fills with merriment. “Ahihahaha, how sweet a sound, little embryos! For, as you shall learn when you attain sagehood, children’s laughter, greatly promoting.”
