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
