Winnie Zeng Vanquishes a King by Katie Zhao

Author:Katie Zhao [Zhao, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

Quickly, I wrote a reply. Lisa did not like to be kept waiting.

Winnie: K I’m omw now

Lisa: Excellent.

Tilting my head to the side, I studied the text. Something about it was odd. Why was Lisa texting all formal, with periods and everything? Was she mad at me? I hadn’t done anything to her lately, so I didn’t see why she would be. And why did she refer to her text message as a “note”?

Whatever—I didn’t have time to dwell on a few odd texts. I rushed out of that classroom faster than Kelly could answer a teacher’s question, with David right on my heels. The halls of the community college soon filled with Chinese school students as young as five to as old as eighteen, as we took our one-hour break from class.

“I can’t believe that Peilin—I mean Kelly,” David muttered as we sidestepped a group of kindergartners who were running down the hall. “There’s no way she can be this good at everything. She doesn’t have any weaknesses, and it doesn’t make sense! It isn’t fair.”

“David, you’re just salty that you’re not the favorite student anymore.”

“Of course I’m salty! You wouldn’t get it. You’ve never been the favorite student.” He lengthened his strides to keep up with me. “Why are you in such a hurry, anyway?”

“I’m going to meet my sister,” I said as we drew closer to the exit door that led to the courtyard. “You don’t have to follow me. In fact, please don’t.”

Before David could reply, a scent wafted into my nostrils—that familiar, vaguely flowery smell I’d detected at the museum when the portal opened. In a moment, I understood what was happening.

I whirled around and hissed, “David. There are spirits nearby.”

“What? How do you know?” David’s eyes widened, and he whipped his head back and forth.

“Do you smell that?”

He sniffed the air. “Smells like…chalk? And sadness.”

“No, not the school smell. There’s another smell, like—like—”

“Flowers,” David murmured, eyebrows scrunching together.

I nodded. “The flowers. That’s what I smelled back at the museum, when that portal opened.”

David’s jaw dropped. “So you think that this flowery smell means the spirits are nearby?”

“It can’t be a coincidence.” At least, I didn’t want to believe it was a coincidence. This might finally be a lead, some knowledge that we had—and Kelly didn’t. If I was right, then evil spirits were stirring near New Chapter Chinese School once again, and we didn’t have our overspirits with us.

“What do we do?” I blurted out in panic. The Chinese school was way too far from my house for me to make a quick trip to pick up Lao Lao and then come back. Ugh. Why hadn’t I thought to plan ahead and bring my grandmother with me? Yeah, it would have been annoying figuring out how to sneak a rabbit into the Chinese school—last time I’d attempted that, things had gone south fast—but at least it would’ve been worth the hassle for this moment.

David opened his mouth to reply but got interrupted by a shout.

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