The boys circle out to either side of me and then charge. I launch into a defensive move, the iron parasol spin. I dive onto my fingertips and split my legs above me, my skates rotating in a deadly circle that spins faster and faster. The boys scrape backward from my flashing blades, but they’ve built up too much momentum and now they’re sliding toward me. When they’re about to meet the steel, I pull in my skates, channel the gathered Chi energy of my spin, and use my knees to knock them back.
The boys land on the edge of the vat of stinky tofu. They spiral their arms and peddle their feet wildly to keep from falling into the stew. I leap up, balance my skates on the edge of the vat between them, and grab the fronts of their robes in my fists.
On the horizon, the bottom edge of the sun is nearly touching the water.
“Where are the rail-gondolas to the academy?”
The boys answer only with sneers.
“I’m going to ask each of you where the rail-gondolas are. And you’d better say the same thing, or you’re both going into that vat. Now, whisper it in my ear.”
I bend my ear to the slimmer boy. “You first.”
He says, “It’s to the east, just past the dolphin embassy’s water court.”
I bend my ear to the square-shaped boy. He spits out, “Your ancestors leaked out of rancid turtle eggs, Shinian pig!”
I release the boys, straighten my robe, and perform a double-jump double-knee tornado kick. I send them both flying into the vat of stinky tofu.
CHAPTER
TWO
The sun is now half covered by the sea. If those two nasty boys are any indication of how Pearlians treat Shinians, the teachers will probably ship us back home if we arrive late.
I search for the rail-gondola towers from atop the vats. In the far distance, something that could be a water court glimmers in the light. I look for the thin rails stretching across the open sea, but my view is blocked by the plumes of water that spray up from all the canals and pools throughout Pearl. It’s the Season of Spouts, after all. I calculate the distance using finger geometry. The towers are thirty li away! It will take us an hour to skate there!
“Peasprout, let’s leave the street level so we won’t lose sight of the towers.”
We skate our way atop a high bridge rail and leap upward. The pearl surface bounces with us as we jump, launching us into the sky up to roof level. The new skates that the Empress Dowager sent us have filigree blades in the shape of a dragon. The tail curls up and spirals under the heel to serve as a wonderful spring.
The roofs are designed to be skated on. They form another complex of streets above the streets below, like a second city floating above the first one. I’m proud of the fact that a Shinian invented the art of wu liu, but Pearlians have built a whole city made for it.
The sun is now three-quarters covered by the water! However, we can keep the towers in view from up here. The ornamental curves at the edges of the roofs send us lifting into the air. We cross the city, striding left and right, skipping off the structures as if we were leaping from stone to stone in a pond.
At last, we reach the towers. Only a sliver of the sun remains above the water. A group of tourists from the Shin mainland is gathered at the scenic overlook point between the towers.
“Witnessing the sunset in the legendary city of Pearl produces feelings of serenity and quietude!” shouts the touring group’s guide through his hollering cone.
There aren’t any rail-gondolas at the foot of the towers. A small scroll at the base of one tower informs us that we’ve missed the last gondola to the academy. I almost panic until I notice there’s still a portion of sun left above the water.
“Customs are different in Pearl. Even their sun sets differently!” shouts the tour guide to his group. “In Pearl, it is sunset when the bottom edge of the sun first touches the edge of the water!”
Ten thousand years of stomach gas. Why didn’t I read anything about this in The Imperial Anthology of the Pearlian Colloquial, Vernacular, and Obscurely Idiomatic?
The tourists from Shin look at me and whisper to one another. Two girls from the group skate toward me. Their movements are terrible, exactly as you would think Shinians on skates for the first time would look. I don’t want to be seen with them. Luckily, there are no Pearlians nearby.
“Everyone, look!” squeaks one of the girls. “It’s the Peony-Level Brightstar Chen Peasprout!”
The others in the touring group make their way over, all of them appalling skaters. Some even use snow poles to balance.
The tour guide bows deeply and says, “We’re all so proud of you. All hail the Peony-Level Brightstar Chen Peasprout, emissary of the Empress Dowager!”
An old man and woman at the back of the group tuck their heads in and bow shyly when I catch their gaze. They look at each other and unfold two identical fans with my face painted on them. They look like my maternal grandparents.
I can’t be ungracious to these people. My people. And we’re already late anyway.
I lose a tenth of an hour returning their bows, thanking them as they praise me, and brushing my autograph on their merchandise. I’m just glad that none of them has one of those mortifying paper dolls of me, especially the one with me dressed like a silly assassin or the one with me toppling an entire pagoda with a flying
