The wu liu skaters here in Pearl can train all year long. That means that the other first-year students at the academy could have had a total of several years more training than I have had.
So what? I was a Peony-Level Brightstar. Before that, I was wu liu champion for all of Shui Shan Province five times before the age of ten. And the Empress Dowager chose me for this goodwill exchange because Pearl sent the mayor’s sons, Zan Kenji and Zan Aki, the lead skaters of the New Deitsu Opera Company. Who cares if the other students train year-round? They probably spend the extra time on purely ornamental moves, like bowing and hand flourishes. I can do hand flourishes just fine. My hand flourishes are legendary.
“It’s like pools of poured tofu!” says Cricket. He crouches to touch the pearl. He pops his finger into his mouth.
“Cricket!”
He pulls his finger out of his mouth and says, “It’s salty. Maybe the pearl comes from the sea.”
“We’re not here to study architecture or work for the pearlworks company, so it doesn’t matter. Come on, we have to find our way to the rail-gondola towers.” The academy scroll says that the gondolas are the easiest way over the sea to the string of islets on which the academy sits, but we have to board them before they stop running at sunset. The sun looks like it’s only an hour from setting.
We have to arrive on time. We can’t disgrace the Empress Dowager.
Cricket and I are blocking the main path of the boardwalk, so we skate off to the side and huddle next to a series of pungent vats that must belong to some sort of stinky vinegar-tofu factory.
I notice two boys in official-looking uniforms watching us. Cricket digs his nails into the back of my sleeve and says, “Don’t talk to them.”
“Cricket, how do you think we’re ever going to succeed if we’re afraid even to talk to the people here?”
The boys skate over to us. They’re not much older than I am, but they wear uniforms that remind me of the ones that government officials wore back in Shui Shan Province. The logograms on the boys’ sashes are too small to read while they’re moving around. I bow and say, “Hail, brothers.”
“Brothers?” they say together, then laugh.
What is there to laugh at?
“Shinian, neh?” says one, a compact, square-shaped boy. How does he know we’re from Shin? I speak perfect Pearlian. It must be Cricket’s accent. I’ve told him ten thousand times that no one curls their tongue when speaking Pearlian. Make me drink sand to death!
“You’ve come to study wu liu?” the square-shaped boy asks. “Which school?”
“Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword.”
The boys look at us as if for the first time. I know this look on their faces. It’s envy. Well, they should be envious. The square-shaped boy reaches inside his coat and brings out a small clay tablet and a stylus.
“Name,” he says to me.
“I am called familial name Chen, personal name Peasprout,” I answer. “My little brother is called familial name Chen, personal name Cricket.”
“Peasprout, neh,” he says. “Kawai.” Is he mocking me, or does he really think that my name is cute? And why is he using an Edaian word like kawai? The empire of Shin is no longer at war with the empire of Eda, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to just forget the war.
“Please,” I say. “We have to get to the rail-gondola towers before the sun sets.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we approve your papers.”
I hand him our scrolls confirming acceptance into the academy. “No good,” he says, handing them back to me. “No seal.”
“What seal? Nobody told us we needed to get a seal.”
“No seal, no admittance farther into the city.”
“Where do we get a seal?”
“If you’re Shinian, you have to get the seal from the office of the Minister of Culture for your province.”
“Where might that be?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even. We’re going to miss the last gondola. The academy will turn us away and say that Shinians are too ignorant to tell time.
The boy squints at the setting sun. “If you start swimming now, you might get back in time to see the rest of your class graduate.”
This can’t be. The Empress Dowager would’ve provided us any necessary documents. I knew that Pearlians would be unfair to us. Two hundred years later and they still blame us for the damage caused to their city by the Great Leap of Shin.
“Peasprout, look at their sashes!” Cricket whispers.
The writing on their sashes is so small, but Cricket always did have eyes like an owl. I pick out the words: Number-One Best Quality Auspicious Golden Dragon Discount Wu Liu Academy and Noodle House.
My heart fills with a thousand throbbing fists.
These boys are only students as well, not officials. They’ve been making us stand here like fools while the sun sets over the gondolas. I want to teach them a lesson, but I know we should just skate away.
“How many Shinian feng shui masters are needed to take care of a tree blocking the front door of a house?” says the square-shaped boy to the slighter boy in a loud voice meant for us. “Eighty-one. One to yell at the tree and eighty to push the house.”
I whip into a combat stance. “Show some respect! I am the emissary of the Empress Dowager!”
“Meaning you’re her spy? What’s in the basket—bombs?”
The boy grabs for the basket. I push Cricket far from the combat radius. We didn’t bring these gifts across three thousand li just to have some harbor scamp steal them. I enter into the single-toe butterfly spinning leap, ending with a diagonal toe kick that connects with the boy’s forearm. The force of my kick sends his hand slapping against his own shoulder.
The pearl here is so smooth,
