Great Call of China (S.A.S.S.) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Chinese, it was using chopsticks. She lifted the veggies to her mouth. Not bad for her first dish in China. It was kind of spicy, a little sweet, a little sour. She went for seconds.
    Next, a chef in a white hat pushed a cart to the table. As Cece turned to face the cart, her enthusiasm for authentic cuisine fizzled into the atmosphere. A roasted duck with its head still intact stretched across the cart. The chef picked up the fowl and snapped it at the neck and head. Then he ripped the bill off the duck’s face with one quick jerk. Finally, he raised a butcher knife and split the skull into two.
    Cece winced.
    The chef scooped up the parts, put them on a plate, then set the plate on the lazy Susan.
    The duck’s broken face was staring right at her.
    While everyone watched the chef slice the remaining carcass, Peter said, “Are you okay? It is only Beijing duck. Think Chinese chicken burrito.”
    Cece nodded weakly.
    Peter must have sensed she wasn’t okay because he rotated the duck so it was staring at Dreyfuss instead. “Better?”
    She nodded again. “Yes, thanks.” But her appetite had just left the building.
    From that point on, the food situation only got worse. It was as though the menu planner had purposefully picked the most disgusting things to serve. Cece’s idea of a meal did not include a slimy eel coiled on a platter (it looked ready to attack), live shrimp drowning in a bowl of wine, or steamed pregnant crabs with orange eggs.
    The odd thing was Cece seemed to be the only person at her table affected by the Ripley’s Believe It or Not meal they were having.
    “Don’t look sad, Cece.” Amy pushed up her glasses with the tip of her finger. “All this, Chinese delicacy. This very special dinner for special occasion. We don’t eat every day.” She poked at a fish skull with her chopsticks and balanced a glassy eyeball on the tips. She put it to her lips. Slurp! “Eyes good for vision.”
    Will and Dreyfuss grimaced.
    Cece’s stomach churned.
    “Amy, I don’t think Cece looks sad,” Jessica said. “Try green.”
    It was too much. Cece got up from the table. She didn’t know which way the bathroom was, and her insides were now officially doing the Wave.
    “Cece, what’s wrong?” someone said.
    She covered her mouth. She couldn’t stop picturing fish eyes, live shrimp trying to climb their way to safety, broken duck faces. . . . She saw the blurry image of a door and bolted for it.
    Will grabbed her wrist. “Cece, it’s that way.”
    But it was too late.
    In her room, Cece lay in bed on her side, a wadded-up tissue in her hand. Even though she’d brushed her teeth a million times, she thought she could still taste carrots and turnips. She wiped at her mouth.
    “It wasn’t that bad.” Jessica was sitting across from Cece on her bed, gently smoothing moisturizer onto her face. “I mean, Will’s khakis weren’t all that great. He can pick up another pair here for like five bucks. He said so himself.”
    Cece moaned. Throwing up all over someone’s pants—especially a cute boy’s—was not a way to start the program. “I feel like such an idiot.”
    “Oh, don’t worry about it. That room could have used some more excitement. I mean, did you see who my host was—George? The entire time he only said like two words. Ni and hao .”
    Cece scrunched her forehead, trying to figure out what the words meant.
    Jessica looked at her. “That means, ‘How are you ?’ ”
    Oh . Cece lay on her back. This and tonight’s episode only proved how out of her element she really was.
    If Jessica and Lisa hadn’t rushed to her side and helped her to the bathroom after she’d hurled, she probably would have crumpled to the floor and cried. But luckily, her new friends proved they weren’t just walking, talking Prada hounds. They cleaned her up as best they could, and Jessica even volunteered to take her back to the dorm in a cab. Cece felt bad for misjudging Jessica earlier.
    “I’m really