Seesaw Girl by Linda Sue Park Read Free Book Online Page B

and with Servant Cho's misfortune. They remained a background of steady reassurance in a scene of confusion and pain.
    The time she spent planning her panel took her mind off the fact that Servant Cho had not been rehired. At first Jade had hoped that the events at the court had been keeping her father too busy to attend to the matter. But the days went by, and Servant Cho did not reappear. She had failed.
    Her mother brought out the precious bolt of blue silk, dark as the night sky. It had been saved especially for this purpose. She measured and cut the proper length. "Have you chosen your subject?"
    "Yes, Mother," Jade answered. She hesitated only a moment. "I wish to show the noble mountains that guard Seoul, where the graves of our ancestors lie."
    Jade's mother looked at her sharply. But her voice was gentle as she said, "That is not the usual subject for a panel, Jade. Have you considered, perhaps, a peony blossom or a water lily? Your flowers are very fine. They would make an excellent panel."
    Jade had been prepared for this response. She spoke respectfully but firmly. "If it would not displease my honorable mother, I would like to show the mountains. I know that it is not usually done, but it is my wish to try."
    Jade's mother sighed almost inaudibly. "All right, if it is your wish. But I think you will soon find that they do not make a good subject."
    Jade took the length of blue silk, vowing silently to prove her mother wrong.
    ***
    It took only a few attempts for Jade to learn that her mother knew far more about embroidery than she did. The texture of the thread on the silk was somehow wrong for mountains. The tiny, fine stitches that melded together so smoothly to show a flower petal or a fish's shiny scales would not make the greatness and solidity of mountains.
    Jade tried different stitches. She changed colors often. She picked out as many stitches as she put in. She worked so long and hard that her fingers were raw from the needle and her back and shoulders ached from bending over.
    Her mother tried to tease her gently. "You need not work so hard on the panel, Jade. You have plenty of time before the matchmaker comes!"
    Jade heard the worry in her mother's voice and smiled halfheartedly in response. But when her mother turned away, Jade sewed all the more stubbornly.
    Her stitches were only part of the problem. Each day she feared that her memory of the mountains was fading, little by little. From the special spot in the garden, she would stare at what little she could discern of the peaks, then close her eyes, trying to remember what she had seen from the seat of the cart that day. Jade had first thought she would never forget how the mountains looked in their entirety. But her failure to embroider them as she wished combined with the passing of time to make her feel as if those same heavy clouds were slowly closing in over the picture in her mind.

Chapter Fifteen
    Brushes and Scrolls
    Schoolmaster was ill. He had woken one morning with a bad spirit of sickness in his head and had been in bed for several days now. Jade's mother sent special soups and tonics every morning and evening, and he would soon be well. But for the time being the boys had no classes.
    Tiger Heart alone among the boys still went to the Hall of Learning each day to study on his own. In a few years he would take examinations at the King's court. He would have to do well to become a royal scholar like his father.
    One afternoon Jade put down her embroidery in despair. She stretched her aching back and shoulders and took a walk around the Inner Court. The door to the Hall of Learning was open, and she saw Tiger bent over his books. She stepped inside quietly. The Hall was forbidden to girls only during the boys' lessons, but Jade had not been in the room since the day of her prank with Willow.
    She liked the Hall of Learning. Many beautiful scrolls hung on the walls, with elegant calligraphy for the boys to copy. Jade could not read, but