As we follow Sensei outside, I can’t help but look for Doi. All I see is her back as she rushes out the doorway of the hall.
In the sky outside, the birds are weaving and looping. Below them, Sensei Madame Phoenix is skating in odd patterns across the campus, weaving with her hands in the air as if she were writing with them on the sky above her. Many students are watching the birds, as if reading something in their flight path.
One bird in the lead files behind Sensei Madame Phoenix, and the rest of the flock follows. It responds sensitively to every one of her turns as she skates across the campus and even follows the nuances of her gestures with dips and rolls. It’s as if the lead bird were the tip of a great invisible brush held in Sensei Madame Phoenix’s hand and the other birds were a tail of ink trailing behind on the—Heavenly August Personage of Jade! That’s exactly what it is! Sensei Madame Phoenix is skating out a path for the birds to follow and writing logograms with them on the sky!
I have to look carefully to make out the words being formed by the birds. It’s a little hard to read because it’s written in that style of calligraphy that looks like blades of grass caressing each other.
I look around at the students skating by and see the girl with the mole on her chin.
“Hey, you. Girl.” She skates over, as eager as a puppy. “Are they writing something?”
“Oh, it’s just a sensational headline to try to get you to buy their newspaper. It always ends with ‘Buy Pearl Shining Sun News to get whole story!’”
“Sensei Madame Phoenix works for a newspaper?”
“No one ever got rich being a sensei. She just delivers the headlines. They do it with the birds from Pearl Famous because the whole city can see it from here.”
I pick out the logograms one by one.
“Empress. Dowager. Still. Refuses. To. Return. Mayor’s. Sons. While. Mayor. Calls. For. Resignation. Of. Chairman. Niu. Buy. Pearl. Shining. Sun. News. To. Get. Whole. Story.”
I freeze.
“The Chairman has sooo failed to keep the monkey pleased!” says a girl with a honking voice. “Do you think there’s going to be a war?” She sounds delighted.
“Don’t say that!” says the girl with the mole.
“So that’s why the Empress Dowager sent you here.” The crowd parts to reveal Suki skating slowly toward me. “You’re not really a skater. You’re a spy.”
I say, “So it must sting that you lost to someone who is ‘not really a skater.’”
“You saw the headline! It sounds like the Empress Dowager is holding those poor skaters, the mayor’s only sons, as hostages. That old imperialist snake wants the secret of the pearl.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “The Empress Dowager has invited them to extend their stay because she’s a great admirer of wu liu.”
“They’ve been there since last year.”
“You don’t understand anything about how these things work. That’s why she sent my brother and me in exchange. As goodwill ambassadors to thank Pearl for letting her enjoy the company of her guests for longer.”
“That’s not why she sent you. Everyone, mark my words! This girl is a spy sent by the Empress Dowager to steal the secret of the pearl! And if they find out where it comes from, they’ll take it all. Just like they tried to take our bamboo during the Bamboo Invasion.”
The students begin to whisper. They’re all looking at me.
“They’ll take our city apart piece by piece to build their own city of the pearl. They don’t know how to make anything themselves. They only know how to steal. They’re Shinian, after all.” Suki smirks.
I don’t have time for this ludicrousness. I have to go find Cricket. I should never have made him bring those soaps to class. I start to skate away, but Suki whispers something at my back.
I should ignore her. But I can’t resist.
“Say it to my face,” I say.
She skates so near that I can smell the plum blossom–scented thread woven into her hairstyle today.
She says quietly so that only I can hear, “I said that it doesn’t have to be true. It just has to look like it’s true. That’ll be enough. And you know why?” She smiles and whispers slowly, “Because you’re not from here.”
I turn away and leave, but I’m unnerved.
Because she’s right. I’m not from here. And that makes all the difference.
I skate to the point on the Principal Island where rails connect it with the Conservatory of Music, the boys’ last class for the day. I wait for Cricket, but it seems as if all the boys are already gone.
“Peasprout,” I hear from behind me. Cricket comes out from where he’s been hiding behind a fountain in the form of a dolphin. In his hands he holds white crumbles. His robe is powdered with crushed soap.
“I’m sorry,” he begins. “Please don’t be angry with me. I know they were so expensive. But the boys—”
What a terrible day. Especially after such a glorious yesterday. I move toward him, and he winces as if I were going to yell at him. Am I really that hard on him?
I pull him into a tight embrace. He muffles his sobs in the front of my robe. Curse these Pearlians! This horrible place! Why did we ever come here?
“It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “Never let them make you believe that.” This makes him weep harder. My poor little Cricket.
“Now, enough,” I say. “Let’s go eat. The line at Eastern Heaven Dining Hall will be longer than the Great Wall of Men by now.”
“I can’t face them again so soon.”
“We can’t let them think they can shame us into hiding from them.”
“I’m not like you, Peasprout.”
What am I going to do? He’s cutting up the pearl with
