Peasprout Chen--Battle of Champions

by Henry Lien

  “So she’s lost her oracular abilities?”

  “Apparently so, but she’s gained outstanding musical ability. That’s why she’s your sensei for wu-liu-combined-with-music this year. Show them, my very nice nice.”

  He sets Chingu—I mean Sensei Madame Chingu, it’s going to be hard to remember that—down in front of a row of instruments. She grabs a bow and erhu fiddle and begins sawing on it. As she plays, she squats in front of a twenty-five-stringed guqin zither and begins plucking at it with her feet. At the same time, she curls her tail around a thick drumstick and begins striking the beat on a small taiko drum behind her.

  Then she opens her mouth and emits a piercing vocalization over the music. It sounds as shrill as a stray cat reincarnated as a Meijing opera singer imitating a ghost while having all her teeth pulled out. Everyone clamps their hands over their ears.

  When Chingu at last finishes, Sagacious Monk Goom applauds. “Very nice, very nice. Since you liked Sensei Madame Chingu’s music so much, how about a little contribution?” When he sees none of the students offer even one coin, he says, “No appreciation for music.”

  “That wasn’t music,” I whisper to Doi.

  “And what does it have to do with wu liu?” she whispers back.

  Hisashi overhears and smiles. “It’s a weapon,” he says, grabbing a nearby erhu bow. “Stick her in front of a charge of attackers and make her sing at them. Think of the damage.” He sweeps the bow as if lopping the heads off an army.

  He says, “Let’s just thank the Enlightened One that it doesn’t have a smell! Hahahah!” He stabs the erhu bow into a nearby bladder horn, which burps out a rude flapping noise.

  There is something about how he laughs at his own jokes that is confident without being boastful. As if laughter were just a happy thing that happens, something to be shared that no one can take credit for, like the shining of the sun.

  It’s charming.

  “Now,” says Sagacious Monk Goom, cradling an enormous taiko drum on one shoulder. “All drums used for music in the city of Pearl are closed on the bottom. Why?”

  A hand goes up at the front of the class, wrapped in a black fingerless glove and shimmering with silver rings.

  “You,” says Sagacious Monk Goom. “Fancy boy with yellow hair.”

  He points at Dappled Lion Dao, the captain of the Battle-Kite Sparkle-Pilots. Dappled Lion Dao tosses his head to sweep aside his long forelocks frosted gold through bleaching with kelp-vinegar solution.

  He says, “Drums started out as martial instruments to communicate with during war. A closed drum creates a darker, more resonant sound. A boom, not a bang. A boom travels farther and is better for communication purposes.”

  Another of the Sparkle-Pilots, a boy with a nest of spiked hair powdered silver with moon-orchid pollen, says, “Bwei bai, bwei bai.” This is the standard understated “not bad” that Pearlians prefer. The two of them engage in a swift sequence of complex hand clasps and pats.

  “That is incorrect!” yells Sagacious Monk Goom. “Worthless answer!”

  He skates close to Dappled Lion Dao and bangs the drum with thundering force. The boy winces and covers his ear.

  “Who can give a worthy answer?” demands Sagacious Monk Goom.

  Another hand goes up.

  “You,” says Sagacious Monk Goom. “Mysterious and faintly eerie girl from Shin.”

  Yinmei replies, “Venerable holy Sagacious Monk Goom. I noticed something as I drummed on the lectern with my poles during the coiling water dragon attack. The lectern was hollow, and it seemed to bounce up in reaction to each strike of my poles. Is it that the pearl reacts to the sound of drums with force?”

  “Worthy answer!” says Sagacious Monk Goom. “The pearl responds to certain sound vibrations as force that it greatly amplifies and shoots back at the source, particularly the sound of drums.”

  Look at this girl, who seems to never blink, who sees everything. Just like a spider. Observing everything she can about the pearl.

  “That is why drums used in music all have covered bottoms. If they didn’t, they would go shooting off as soon as you struck them,” Sagacious Monk Goom continues. “Show them, very nice nice!”

  Sensei Madame Chingu crawls over to the drum. She begins chewing on the kelp-leather skin covering one end of the drum. When she has eaten the whole skin, she tips the drum upright so that its uncovered end is on the pearl. The drum is twice as high as she is, but she clambers up the side like a monkey and sits on top.

  Sensei Madame Chingu clenches her hands and feet and brings all lucky fists down hard on the skin of the drum.

  The impact produces a great bang, and the drum goes blasting into the air, with our sensei riding atop it!

  They go up as high as the statue of the Enlightened One, seven stories up, then arc back down. Sagacious Monk Goom staggers back and forth, arms outstretched to catch her.

  Sensei Madame Chingu comes plopping down into Sagacious Monk Goom’s embrace.

  The taiko drum, from which Sensei Madame Chingu ejected while in flight, comes down right on Gou Gee-Hong, trapping her so that the only thing visible are two skates sticking out the bottom. Cricket and Hisashi race over to help her.

  Over Gee-Hong’s muffled cries, Sagacious Monk Goom coos at Sensei Madame Chingu, “There’s my nice nice.” He looks up at Wu Yinmei, who nods humbly. “And you. Very, very nice, so very nice!” He sets Chingu down to applaud.

  Cricket whispers to me, “You could bang on a drum during combat and shoot away from an attacker. Yinmei’s clever to draw the connection between music and pearl.”

  Hisashi says, “Cricket’s right. We could use her in our battleband.”

  I snap at Hisashi, “We’re doing just fine without her.”

  Doi looks at me. She says nothing, but her words come back to me. Peasprout, your safety depends on this. It’s important to put aside jealousy.

  Doi says softly, “Do we want Suki to have her?”

  I know that they’re all correct. However, I also know that she’s not who she claims she is and that she’s using us somehow. But perhaps we can use her as well.

  Sagacious Monk Goom says, “Now, students. I need a volunteer to serve as apprentice wave organist.”

  Wu Yinmei raises her hand and asks, “What is a wave organ?”

  “The temple through which your gondola passed on its circuit around the Conservatory of Music is actually a massive instrument. It makes sound by creating waves through water rather than air—a delightful instrument. We use it to sound the hours, play assembly call, announce meal times, and warn of imminent comet strikes.”

  I raise my hand and say, “We didn’t hear anything like that last year.”

  “Ah, well, the senseis couldn’t find a student to volunteer to learn it. The last student quit.”

  Wu Yinmei asks, “What was the student’s reason for quitting?”

  “Ah, well, she griped that playing the wave organ was cold, wet, cramped, broadcast every one of her playing mistakes for the whole campus to hear, and placed her in constant danger of drowning. She also complained that any surge in tide caused the keys to slice uncontrollably at her hands, and she wanted to preserve her remaining fingers. But really, it’s a delightful instrument and so easy to play. She was difficult—very difficult. So who would like to volunteer as apprentice wave organist?”

  When he sees not a single student raise a hand, his sighs could blow all the hair off a monkey.

  Sagacious Monk Goom proceeds to interrogate each student one by one about volunteering. While the students are busy preparing their excuses to decline the offer, I see Chingu, huddled by herself, sucking her thumb.

  I don’t believe that her oracular powers could be entirely gone. I crouch down and gently reach my open palm to her. She flinches but then looks at my palm as if remembering it from last year.

  I fold my hands over her hand.

  The hairless skin on the back of her hand, covered in fern-shaped scars, is wa
rm and soft, like a newborn mouse.

  I say to her in my mind, What will be discovered to be the secret to winning the Annexations?

  She gazes up at me with round, shining eyes. She whimpers.

  Are they just random sounds, or is Chingu trying to answer me?

  I try with a different question. What will be discovered to be the secret to stopping the Shinian invasion?

  Again, she hums the same little song back to me.

  I sigh. It’s not a message. It’s just a whimper of fear.

  I stand up and turn from Chingu to find that Wu Yinmei has been watching us. Listening to us. Then, in a burst of motion behind me, Chingu springs away and leaps off the Conservatory of Architecture toward the ocean.

  We all gasp at the sight of her flying over the water, in which the coiling water dragons lurk. She plops onto the gondola rail and scrambles toward the wave organ pavilion. We hold our breath as she bounces from one part of the roof to another, high above the water, until she finally disappears inside the wave organ.

  “Don’t worry,” says Sagacious Monk Goom, waving us away in irritation. “She’d never fall in the water. She’s as agile as a monkey! You students worry too much.”

  The sound of levers clicks within the pavilion of the wave organ. There is a wash like tides surging through a comb. Then tones rumble out of the water below, as mournful as the lowing of whales.

  “Oh!” says Sagacious Monk Goom. “Why didn’t I think of that? Of course she likes it in there. No danger of being struck by lightning.”

  Chingu keeps playing the same short sequence of notes. I realize that it’s the sequence of notes she hummed to me.

  I watch Wu Yinmei angling her head to drink in the sound. Her brow furrows. She stows her swiftboard poles under her arm.

  She traces a finger on her palm, as if she were writing logograms or making notations. She silently mouths words. Then she looks up at me, her face wavering between stun and something like … delight.

  She pushes on her swiftboard to me and says, “What under heaven did you ask her?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Her oracular abilities are gone.”

  “No,” she says, smiling. “They are not.”

  “Did you hear something in the wave organ?” I ask Wu Yinmei.

  “What did you ask Sensei Madame Chingu?” she asks again.

  “I’m not telling you anything,” I say.

  “Then I shall not, either.”

  Ten thousand years of stomach gas.

  As I skate away from Wu Yinmei, she calls out, “You are the lock, Chen Peasprout, but I am the key.”

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  We are given a night to ourselves without any homework exercises in anticipation of the Annexation. That evening in Eastern Heaven Dining Hall, they’re serving spicy sesame peanut butter noodles with sliced cucumbers, scallions, and bean sprouts, which all the students love, so everyone is in a happy mood.

  During evenmeal, whispers float among the tables of students that the senseis are all going to have a staff meeting that evening, leaving the campus unmonitored.

  I catch the words “All the All” twittering around us in hushed tones.

  “What’s everyone talking about?” I ask.

  Doi says, “It’s a sort of secret shadow market where students can buy or sell all sorts of things that can’t be bought anywhere else, using special All the All credits.”

  Hisashi claps his hands together and says, “Now that sounds like fun!”

  * * *

  After evenmeal, when the senseis have convened in the Conservatory of Architecture, we skate to the dormitories. In the middle of the path between the girls’ and boys’ dormitories, the All the All Tree is erected. It’s a big false tree from an opera stage set, strung with wooden placards.

  I read one dangling placard. It says, DIVE: A STUDENT AGREES TO DELIBERATELY FAIL AT AN EXERCISE IN CLASS. AVAILABLE FOR BUY OR SELL. FIRST-YEARS ONLY.

  Cricket points at a placard and says, “Oh, look! There’s a wood-carving competition! It says, ‘Enter to carve a sculpture of a campus structure’!”

  My chest fills with a great weight as I remember the exquisite sculpture he carved of the temple last year. My mind’s ear sounds with the sickening snick that my skate blades made as I sliced his sculpture into pieces. With emotion in my throat, I say, “You should enter, Cricket. What’s the prize?”

  Cricket pulls down the placard and reads. “It says, ‘No entry fee. First one to finish gets to choose a servant for a day from the other entrants. Last one to finish has to eat everyone else’s carvings.’” Cricket quietly hangs the placard back on the tree.

  Some people have weird ideas of fun.

  There’s a whole section of branches advertising merchandise for use in the Annexations.

  Hisashi says, “Look! They’re selling coiling water dragon protection!” He unhooks a wooden box dangling from the tree. “It says, ‘Guaranteed to prevent user from being drowned by a coiling water dragon!’” He opens the lid of the box and finds inside a dagger with a tag tied to its handle. He reads the tag. “‘In the event of an impending coiling water dragon attack, insert dagger into own throat.’ Hahahah! I almost want to buy it, just because it’s got so much personality!”

  Doi fingers another placard and says, “Suki will ask if she can buy these in bulk.”

  I skate over to read the placard. It says, ASSASSIN: HIRE A STUDENT TO SABOTAGE YOUR RIVAL’S PERFORMANCE AT AN ANNEXATION. AVAILABLE FOR BUY OR SELL. SECOND- AND THIRD-YEARS ONLY.

  “This is shameful!” I say.

  “It’s only shameful when it’s used against you,” says someone.

  We turn to see a tall girl skate out from behind the All the All Tree. She’s wearing aquamarine and orange ribbons in her hair.

  “Be careful of her,” whispers Cricket to me. “That’s Lao Biling. She was a second-year student who managed to finish last in every discipline last year. She wasn’t among the fifty students invited to come back for the third year, so she probably didn’t get into an opera company after leaving. She’s not supposed to be here.”

  Doi says to her, “You’re not supposed to be on campus.”

  “Just trying to make a living here. And what are they going to do, kick me out? Anyway, I think you want to see what’s in my book.”

  She holds a book bound with what looks like baby sea dog fur.

  She says, “You’re going to be making important decisions soon about forming your battleband. You need as much information about each student as you can get to make your decisions. The Book of Qualities can help you.”

  She pets the book and continues in a showy stage whisper, “It has profiles of each student at Pearl Famous, including a complete performance log as well as confidential sensei evaluations. This is what you really need to decide your battleband lineup.”

  “Doi, Cricket, Hisashi, and I are a battleband,” I say to her.

  “And that is all? You need to consult The Book of Qualities to make good choices about your battleband teammates, now more than ever. Especially if your ranking last year was … a disappointment.” Lao Biling smiles and I see a smear of lip rouge on her teeth. “Do I skate too close? I can see from your expression that I skate too close. Really, your sixteenth-place ranking last year is nothing to be ashamed of … if that’s what you want from your second year.”

  “Peasprout, we should go,” whispers Cricket.

  “It costs ten All the All credits to view each profile. If you do not have All the All credits, other currencies are also accepted, including … information.”

  “Peasprout, she’s a fraud,” says Doi.

  “The information is real,” Lao Biling cuts in. “If you don’t believe me, you may view your own profile for free and see for yourself.”

  “Peasprout, you don’t need that,” says Hisashi. “We know your qualities.”

  I needed to hear that from him. I say, “I know. But … just give me a mo
ment.”

  He’s right. I don’t need some book to tell me what I am. I don’t need to see some observer’s log of my performances or confidential sensei evaluations, revealing what they really think about me to … Ah, make me drink sand to death, I really want to see it. I turn back to Lao Biling. “All right, show me my profile.”

  She flips through the pages, finds my profile, and spreads the book toward me on her open palms as if declaring her sincerity.

  It reads: Chen Peasprout.

  Origin: Serenity Cliff Village, Shui Shan Province, Shin

  Lineage: Insignificant

  First-Year Ranking: Sixteenth

  Performances: First Motivation, first ranking, successfully completed twenty moves; significant moves included single-footed grasshopper, hammer throw spin, two-heeled sesame-seed pestle jump, single-footed forward flip, one-footed final landing; significant errors included additional two-footed landing on hammer throw spin, additional step taken on landing of triple scissor heel backflip.

  How does she know all this? I scan down to the confidential sensei evaluations portion. It reads: Chen Peasprout is courageous, with tremendous talent and a huge heart. She is, in her own way, a genius, a true original, and impossible to forget. She is also boastful, sometimes strange, often extreme, and intensely lonely with a pronounced difficulty in forming lasting, meaningful connections.

  It’s signed Sensei Madame Liao.

  I close the book.

  Lao Biling says, “Do I skate too close? I skate too close.”

  I turn my back on her and skate to the far side of the All the All Tree.

  Cricket and Hisashi begin to follow me, but I hear Doi whisper to them, “Give her some privacy.”

  I try to calm my Chi, but I end up just clenching it. I don’t want to cry here, in front of everyone.

  Strange.

  Extreme.

  Lonely.

  I place my hand on the great trunk of the All the All Tree to steady myself. I don’t know if it hurts because I think her words are unfair or because I think they’re fair.