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I stuck my tongue out, and the brat snickered. "I rest my case."
Yeargh!
She totally got me there, but whatever. This place was just too amazing to let Mary Priscilla's parade-raining ways get to me. There was just so much to look and experience here, and no matter where I looked, there was always something entrancingly new to discover and delight in.
On one side of the road, colorful lotus-shaped candles floated down a stream that ran parallel to the festival's main route while red-and-gold lanterns drifted above our heads to light up the skies. I retraced their trail with my gaze and eventually saw they were coming from beyond towering temple gates. Even this far, I could easily discern several animal statues made of colored quartz: a blue serpent, a vermilion bird, a white tiger, and a black tortoise. They were all enormous in size and poised as if they were about to leap, climb, or fly over the temple gates at any moment.
“Those stone statues look unbelievably cool, don't you think?"
Mary Priscilla wouldn't even follow the direction of my gaze. "I really don't like this place, Saoirse—-"
I wrinkled my nose at her. "Of course you wouldn't." The kid watched horror movies for educational entertainment but ran away in disgust every time she heard Sesame Street playing on the TV. So yeah, with this place practically oozing with warmth and happiness coming from the festival goers, it was only to be expected—-
"Oh my God, do you smell that?" I was once again distracted, my nose, sniff-sniff-sniffing away as delicious smells wafted towards us. Although the scent of incense still perfumed the air rather overpoweringly, there was something else this time...
"That's definitely dumplings," I said dreamily. "And pork buns, and even shrimp wonton—-"
"Saoirse!" The eight-year-old ghost scowled up at me. "This is not the time to think about food!" She gestured to the busy scene around us. "Can't you feel how weird this place is?"
"Weird how?" I looked around and did my best to get a sense of any kind of weirdness, but the irresistible smell of shrimp wonton noodles kept getting in the way, and dear God, I was getting really, really hungry.
"People seem to be looking at me—-"
My brows shot up. "Whoa there." I wagged a lecturing finger at Mary Priscilla. "Somebody certainly needs an ego check."
"But—-"
"You're way cuter than Sofia the First, I'll grant you that—-"
"I don't even know who Sofia the First is!"
"But I think you've forgotten one thing. You're a ghost, and so no one can actually—-"
"Sssssh!"
Chapter Five
An old woman suddenly thrust her face between Mary Priscilla and me, and we stared at her in shock. She had her white hair neatly tied back, and she was dressed in a staid-looking blouse and a shapeless black skirt that fell all the way to her ankles. Just your regular grandmother walking down a street, really...as long as you discounted the fact that she was glaring at the brat and me like lecturing ghosts was part of her everyday routine.
She nodded towards the temple gates, asking reproachfully, "Have you no manners? It is disrespectful to fight before the gods." She clucked her tongue at us and shook her head admonishingly. "You shall never be reincarnated if you persist with such rudeness."
It was only when the old woman floated off with a loud harrumph that Mary Priscilla and I slowly turned to each other—-
"Did that just happen?" I asked faintly.
"I t-think so."
Both of us looked around us again, and this time it was like seeing the whole town with new eyes.
Ghosts, I thought incredulously. Everyone in this magical Chinatown was a ghost, and oh my God, wasn't that the coolest thing ever?
I turned to Mary Priscilla, and one look at my face had the girl shaking her head like a crotchety granny stuck in a young girl's body.
"Why are you looking like you think this is a good thing?" she wailed.
"Because it is?"
"Saoirse!"
"Mary Priscilla!" I couldn't help mimicking her indignant tone even though I knew it was going to make me sound childish again. But it was honestly appalling, how utterly unenthusiastic the kid was about this place. A magical Chinatown, for heaven's sake! How could she not find that exciting?
Times like this, it just made me wonder if we hadn't accidentally swapped souls, and I was meant to be the eight year old between us. "Don't you have even the tiniest sense of adventure? This is a ghost town—-"
"You're kidding me, right?" Mary Priscilla floated up to stare into my eyes as if desperately needing to gauge my level of seriousness. "A town full of ghosts is not the definition of a ghost town—-"
"Oh, pooh. Potato, po-tah-to—-"
Mary Priscilla rolled her eyes. "That's not even how British people pronounce potato—-"
"You're missing the point," I retorted, "and you know it. So won't you just lighten up a little?"
