Sagacious Monk Goom opens the lid and cries, “What did you ask her?”
“I asked her something precise!”
“Did you ask her about the future?”
“Yes. I mean, no.…”
“She can only answer questions about the future. She’s an oracular monkey. Phrase your question into something about the future.” He closes the lid on us again.
I take Chingu’s hand, close my eyes, and ask her: Who will be discovered as the criminal who attacked the structures of Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword?
Chingu’s hand falls from mine. She runs her fingertips in circles over the tray of sixty-lucky tiles, making them click and shuffle as her head lolls wildly on its stem.
She quickly grabs one tile as if she’s catching a fly in the air, flips it over, and stabs it into my palm, facing up. Then a second. Then a third.
I read them. At first, they don’t make any more sense than Supreme Sensei Master Jio’s gibberish sayings.
Then I understand.
My Chi freezes all the way through my being.
I close my hand around the tiles, throw the lid of the box open, and jump out.
When Doi sees my face, she quickly turns to her father and says, “Oracles can be difficult to interpret. They might not really be saying what they—”
“Give them to me,” says the Chairman.
“Peasprout…”
I have no choice. I lift my hand, open my palm, and show the three tiles to the Chairman.
He takes them and reads the logograms written on them.
Sister.
Boy.
Heart.
In classical Pearlian, heart is pronounced “shin.”
“Sister of boy in Shin?” he says. “Sister of boy of Shin? The sister of the boy from Shin.”
I watch the Chairman’s eyes widen, then narrow as he arrives at the truth.
“There’s only one boy from Shin here at Pearl Famous.” He looks up at me.
“And he has only one sister.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
“I had nothing to do with it!” I cry.
The Chairman grasps one of my arms and Sensei Madame Yao, the other.
“Let me see Sensei Madame Liao!” I plead.
“This has nothing to do with wu liu,” says Sensei Madame Yao. “She has no jurisdiction over this. You might be surprised to learn that wu liu isn’t everything.”
“Foundational principle of values number thirty-nine states that the interpretation of the oracles is sometimes incorrect!” I say. “Maybe ‘heart’ didn’t refer to Shin at all. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
“Tell that to the Chiologists,” says the Chairman.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You’ll be detained until your trial for crimes against Pearl.”
“Detained where? What does that mean?”
“It means,” says Sensei Madame Yao, “as you students say, that you have seriously failed to keep the monkey pleased.”
They take me to the central court of the Principal Island, where the morning assemblies are held.
In the center is a small pavilion of the pearl that was not there before. I tremble when I see the pavilion is in the same shape as the trinket.
“You can’t put me in that!” I try to tear away from them, but it just gives Sensei Madame Yao an excuse to crush my arm even harder with her muscled grip.
“Doi, help me!” Where did she go?
She abandoned me! Just like her brother.
They haul me harder toward the pavilion. I try to dig my skates in. The chips nicked into the blades during the fifth Motivation are helping them dig into the pearl.
“What is going on here?”
We turn and see Sensei Madame Liao skating toward us. Beside her skates Supreme Sensei Master Jio.
And Doi. She must have fetched them. Thank you, Doi!
“We’re detaining her for trial,” says the Chairman.
“Chingu named her as the vandal,” says Sensei Madame Yao.
“You’re not using one of those on her,” says Sensei Madame Liao.
“It’s for her own protection,” says the Chairman.
“You’re not putting her in that thing,” says Sensei Madame Liao. “This is an academy matter first. New Deitsu doesn’t have jurisdiction until we determine that she has committed a crime. She will be confined to her dormitory chamber until trial.”
“She attacked three academy structures,” Sensei Madame Yao says. “This has nothing to do with wu liu. You don’t have jurisdiction here.”
“If she’s accused of attacking structures, then this is an architecture matter. And those incidents delayed the Motivations. So this is also a wu liu matter. And you don’t teach architecture or wu liu, do you?”
Sensei Madame Yao glares at her.
“Supreme Sensei?” asks Sensei Madame Liao.
Supreme Sensei Master Jio looks at all of us with sad eyes. He closes them and nods.
“You can’t just trust her to stay in her dormitory chamber!” says Sensei Madame Yao.
“I will ensure that she does not leave her chamber,” replies Sensei Madame Liao.
“How are you going to do that?”
“Are you questioning my judgment?”
“Supreme Sensei, you can’t let this happen!”
Supreme Sensei Master Jio says nothing. Sensei Madame Yao throws my arm aside and skates off toward Eastern Heaven Dining Hall in a fury.
Sensei Madame Liao bows to Supreme Sensei Master Jio. She places her hand on my shoulder and leads me away. We skate past Eastern Heaven Dining Hall. The sounds of violent clanging emanate from within, as if someone were trying to batter a gong to death.
As Sensei Madame Liao leads me toward the dormitories, I start blathering, “Sensei, I swear, I’m innocent! I know who’s behind this. Maybe she has a secret half brother from Shin or something. Or maybe the Chairman’s interpretation is incorrect. Heart is pronounced ‘shin’ only in classical Pearlian; it’s ‘shim’ in modern Pearlian. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Oracles are misinterpreted all the time.”
Sensei Madame Liao remains silent, but I can’t stop the words from spilling out. “When I was not even five, my parents took me to an oracle who said that our whole family’s destiny lay in my feet. They thought that meant that they should bind my feet so they could sell me to a noble house. But my parents didn’t have the heart to do it. It turned out that our destiny was in my feet, because my future was to become a legend of
