They reappeared in Song Feng’s empty room. The young gymnast flopped on to her bed, face buried into her pillow.
Wisely, Zhu-ge Liang took his cue and vanished, leaving the girl to her thoughts.
What am I supposed to do? she thought bitterly. She thought of her mother’s tears and she clutched her pillow a little tighter. I could make Mom so happy. I’d be home for New Year’s.
She thought the words but they didn’t even really compute. She couldn’t remember a New Year’s where she had been home with her family. When she was in Guangzhou, they weren’t usually granted a long enough leave to go home. Her family would come and visit her instead. Last New Year’s, at Li Fei’s, she got a glimpse of what she had been missing. It hurts. Li Fei’s entire family was there, and all the food was home cooked and delicious. Northern style food was fine, and Li Fei’s family was very nice, but it just wasn’t her mother’s delicious Southern style cooking... it wasn't her food and it wasn’t her family.
She flipped over on to her back, seizing her stuffed tiger cub and clutching it to her chest. What am I supposed to tell Li Fei and Chan Mei-ling? And our coaches? I don’t... I’m not a quitter. But she was, wasn’t she? If she left the team... then she was quitting, she was admitting that the system had beaten her. The system took care of those who succeeded. If she made the team, if she won a medal, then yes, she would be set for life. And if I don’t make the team... or if I make the team and don’t win a medal... the system ate and spat out the lives that it had used and abused. She knew that. The sports system in the People’s Republic is not kind, it is efficient. She had always known that. But she had also always been confident that she could surpass everyone else; that she could be that one in ten thousand to make the national team, that she could be the one to win a gold medal.
She had no useful skills to do... well, anything. She couldn’t go back to school - normal school at any rate. She would be years behind. The only math she knew was basic: adding, but mostly subtracting, so that she could calculate her scores. She had read the three of the Four Great Classics: Journey to the West, All Men are Brothers, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but she only paid attention to the fighting parts. Her little brother would have to tutor her. She made a face at the thought. She was the older sibling. She was supposed to help take care of him.
She couldn’t even get married in the future. She didn’t know how to cook or clean or take care of a baby. If she stayed in the sports system, she would never learn either. Even if she retired at a relatively young age like eighteen, it would be hard to learn how, after a lifetime of not. There were different kinds of cleaning, weren’t there?
She was utterly useless for anything but gymnastics... and apparently magic. This is my one shot to do something different with my life, she realized. Otherwise, my only choice is to stay in gymnastics and try to make the Olympic team... and win a gold medal. Otherwise, I’ll just be a burden to my parents.
Then something else dawned on her. This will be the third time that I’ll be picking up and leaving. The third. She sat up and looked around. How long did she have to decide, how long before she never saw this room again too? How long before this bed belonged to some other girl?
She forced herself to stand. She had better take a shower before everyone else got back for the night. Even though it was summer, she felt cold. A hot shower would make her feel better, feel more human.
Another Monday, another day of the same. Waking up at an ungodly hour, eating breakfast, getting on the bus to go to the training center, stretching, getting lessons, practicing routines - the same thing, the same schedule that she had done for years. It was the only kind of life that she had ever known.
Somehow, it was as if knowing she wasn’t going to stay much longer made her relax into her normal, good form. Her coaches even praised her once or twice. She could have laughed until she cried at the bitter irony of it all. It wasn’t fair.
Now that she was leaving, she stuck every landing, did every leap, never even wobbled on the balance beam. Now that it no longer mattered.
Another week of handstands, pirouettes, leaps and vaults. Will I ever vault again? she wondered as her hands hit the table and she went sailing over it. Will I ever fly again? she asked as she let go of the top bar, spinning and twisting in the air. Probably not, she realized again and again. I’ll never fly again. I’ll never, ever fly again. Her feet hit the ground, her knees together, her chest up, her hands above her head, a perfect smile pasted on to her face. Salute the judges. The smile faded as she walked away from the bars. Never, ever, again. She brushed the chalk from her hands. Never again.
Song Feng had never been so sad to see the end of a week of training. It was over - forever.
She called home that night. “Mommy, Daddy... I’ve decided to go.” She could only handle a few minutes of their responses, which she barely heard. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk for long. Bye.” She hung up, barely having heard their assents to her decision. She didn’t want to hear the happiness in their voices that she was coming home.
She took out the piece of silk that Zhu-ge Liang had given her. She wondered briefly if it mattered that she only had a ballpoint pen, but then wrote on it anyway. If it didn’t work, then it didn’t. It would be his fault then. You win. In a few days, I’ll put the comb back in my hair. I’ll give more details when I can. Come when I call. She scrawled the words in a hurry, and in the simplified script, wondering if that would be a problem. She couldn’t write in the traditional style, and she wasn’t about to look up it up in a dictionary. If the words on her letter could change from traditional to simplified, then it should be able to translate back.
The ink faded into the silk and then reformed the word, “Affirmative." She wondered if it was Zhu-ge Liang who wrote the words or if he had left his responding piece of silk with someone else. It didn’t matter.
The next day, Saturday, she went out with Li Fei and Chan Mei-ling. She told them that she wanted to play tourist, and they had obliged her. They had gone to Tiananmen Square, to the Winter Palace, to the Temple of Heaven, to many of the famous sites in Beijing. She wondered if she should have tried to get into line to see the Chairman, if he would have approved of her choice, if this is what he had intended with the sports system. The line was too long, and she was afraid that seeing him would make her change her mind.
She had whispered goodbye to all of the places, even though she had barely known them. She took tons of pictures, knowing they would be the last ones she would have of Beijing, of Mei-Ling and Fei. Click. The three of them in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace. Click. The three of them next to the Whispering Wall. Click. The three of them in front of the Empress Dowager’s marble boat. She didn’t want to forget. She wished she could have brought her camera to the training center, but that would not be considered normal. Besides, she had no place to put it when she was actually training. She would have to make do with photos of tourist Beijing, the Beijing she really didn’t get a chance to know.
Finally, they had ended up at a relatively nice, but inexpensive restaurant that they often visited. They ordered a fair number of dishes for only three girls. Song Feng insisted on ordering more than normal. She didn’t know when she would be back, if she would ever be back and she would miss this place too.
“We’re happy that you seem to be better, but”” Chan Mei-ling looked over at Li Fei.
“”you’re still acting strangely,” Li Fei finished. Song Feng wondered if it was her constant picture taking, her request to play tourist or something else entirely that had given her away.
“I’ve decided to leave the team,” she said quietly. Feng wasn’t sure what to expect ” accusations, tears... she hadn’t expected deafening silence.
Her friends stared at her like she had gone mad. She wondered if maybe she had and Zhu-ge Liang and the Southern School was just part of some hallucination. It would explain a lot.
“You’re leaving?” Chan Mei-ling blurted out finally.
She didn’t want to think of it like that. “I’m... going home,” she whispered.
“Why?” Li Fei demanded.
Feng blinked. She couldn’t really tell them she was going to a school for magic. For one thing, they would never believe her. Besides, Zhu-ge Liang had told her it was a secret. She didn’t want to think of what magical people could do to her if she broke their laws. She had to think of something else to tell them. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? They would never just accept her resigning from the team without some kind of explanation.
“You were doing better this week. The coaches even praised you. Why are you going to leave?” Chan Mei-ling added.
Their first plate arrived, and she stared at the soup, with the crispy rice on the side. The waiter dropped the rice pieces into the soup, and they crackled. The waiter served the soup, bowed slightly and departed.
She considered lying and saying that her mother was sick, or something like that, but it seemed like inviting bad luck to say something like. “I... I can’t tell you,” Song Feng finally stammered out. At least that was the truth.
“You didn’t get transferred to the diving team, did you?” Li Fei asked, suspiciously.
Feng blinked. Why on earth would Li Fei think such a thing? “No. No, I didn’t.”
Li Fei shrugged. “It could happen. It has happened. You’re good at bars, it probably would transfer well to diving. At least the platform kind, from ten meters up.” Song Feng wondered if Li Fei knew someone who had been transferred to the diving team. She certainly didn’t and it didn’t sound like the kind of thing that happened all the time.
Mei-ling pressed on. “So why?”
Feng watched the steam rising from her bowl of soup. “Maybe, I’m just tired and I just need to go home.”
“Maybe?” Mei-ling demanded, her voice rising. Feng winced. She had never heard Mei-ling raise her voice before. “You’re on the national team. It’s only five years until the Olympics, here in Beijing! Here in China! What happened to your spirit, to your determination? What happened to winning gold medals for our nation?”
Feng sighed. She didn’t want to say she had lost it. She hadn’t lost it. She... couldn’t have lost it. She refused to believe that. But she couldn’t watch her mother cry like that... and she couldn’t devote herself entirely to gymnastics anymore, not now, knowing that she had a choice, knowing she had a legitimate way out.
“My mom cried... the last time I talked to her over the phone,” she added hastily. “Just because she missed me so much. I just... I can’t take five more years of this. Not seeing my parents, not seeing my brother grow up, not being home for holidays.” It was all only half-true, but at least it wasn’t half a lie.
Her friends shook their heads. The nation is more important than the individual. Feng could see them thinking it. “Soup’s getting cold,” Li Fei commented. Silently, they all began eating their soup.
It was a silent meal and a silent trip back. She watched the city go by, feeling distinctly disconnected from everyone and everything around her.
When they had gotten back inside their building, Mei-Ling finally broke the silence. “When do you leave?”
Feng paused, thinking as Li Fei opened the door to their room. She hadn’t even told the coaches yet. She really had planned the entire thing poorly. Then again, she had never planned to leave the team before. “I don’t know yet. You’re the first to know. After my parents, I mean. I haven’t told any of the coaches or anything.” Fei looked vaguely amused, probably at her lack of forethought, but Mei-ling was just completely blank.
“I wouldn’t want to tell them either. But tell them tomorrow, before Monday. Then you can sleep in and pack.” Li Fei patted Feng on the back. “Good luck, Birdie.” Mei-ling left, walking down the hall towards her room without saying a word.
Feng sighed, entering their room and flopping onto her bed. It was an action she was getting all too used to.
“You have time to change your mind, Birdie,” Fei said quietly, closing the door behind her. “You don’t have to leave.” The older girl walked over and sat down on Feng’s bed. “You haven’t told the coaches yet.”
She didn’t want to think about that. It was too tempting to stay in Beijing, to continue to work hard and to maybe, finally, actually achieve the dreams that she had had since she was three years old. She was a gymnast, a junior member of the national team. If she wasn’t that, then what was she? She had no idea and she didn’t like it.
She had better tell the coaches first thing, so she couldn’t change her mind, again. She was going home. She was going to learn magic, whatever that meant. She had to remember that. She had to.
Feng turned slightly to look at Li Fei, blinking back tears. “I’ve never seen you cry, Birdie. You’re too tough.” Song Feng managed a small smile at her friend’s assertion that she was too tough to cry, even though, clearly it wasn’t true.
Fei sighed. “You’re not telling us something. I can tell.” Feng wiped her eyes and opened her mouth to respond. “You don’t need to say anything. If you don’t want to tell us, you don’t have to. Come here.” Li Fei gathered the younger girl into her arms. Feng cried on her sister’s shoulder.
“Big sis,” she whimpered through her tears again and again. She didn’t want to leave. She was abandoning all of her hopes, and all of her dreams, everything she had ever worked for in her entire life. She was throwing it all away, and for what? She didn’t know anything about magic, or the school she was going to, or the other students. She was leaving everything she had ever known. Again. She wondered how many times a person could be uprooted before they no longer knew who they were or where they were from.
“Go take a shower,” Li Fei said after a few minutes. “Go on,” she repeated, nudging her. “You’ll feel better. Mei-ling will come around.” Feng held her for a second longer before letting go. I’ll probably never get to hug Big Sister Fei ever again either.
She silently gathered her shower things and left the room, trying not to sniffle.
After Feng returned from her shower, Li Fei had the TV on. One of the martial arts dramas again. Silently, Feng sat down next to her, as the hero on the screen swore vengeance on the villain for the murder of his master. “I’ll miss you,” Fei said abruptly. “You will write, won’t you?”
Song Feng wasn’t sure how she could send letters from the wizarding world to the normal world. Maybe she could send them to her parents and then they could send it to Fei the slow way. She wanted to say something, but she was afraid that everything would come tumbling out if she opened her mouth.
She sat there for a long moment, feeling like a fool, wishing she could tell Fei everything, but afraid of the choice that she was making. In the end, Feng only nodded, unable to say anything at all.