Little Yokozuna (11 page)

"Everything will be OK," said Annie. "We'll find her yet."

They left Kyoto just before dusk, and slept most of the way back to Kashiwa, despite all the jostle and jolts of the trains. When they got back to Kiyoshi-chan's little house it was like coming home, and in a short time his mother had a simple but steaming meal on the table, with bowls of tofu soup and heaped white
rice
.

Kiyoshi-chan's obaa-san knelt beside Annie, her hands folded in her lap. "You must not have found it," she said, "or you would not still be here."

"I was still trying to catch it in my net," said Annie. "I'm afraid that even if it was there I would have missed it. I was like a crazy woman."

The old grandmother chuckled. "You seem to be sane again," she said. "Maybe you are ready to find it now."

"Maybe," said Annie.

The
obaa-san
looked at Kiyoshi-chan's father. "There is one more place you must take them," she said.

He rolled his eyes. "Where is that?"

"To the shrine of Sumiyoshi-no-Kami," said the old woman.

"The god of poetry?" said the man.

"And to its garden," said the obaa-san. "The Garden of a Thousand Worlds."

"But that is six hours from here, in the mountains," said Kiyoshi-chan's father, with obvious reluctance. "I would have to borrow Sakamoto-san's car. And it is only one garden. Such a trip for one garden."

"Yes," said the old woman.

Annie and Knuckleball looked at each other.

"Here we go again," said Knuckleball.

"Let's do this one right," said Annie.

 

 

 

The top of the moss mound
was
moving; there was no doubt about it. There seemed to be a lump growing there, and chunks of moss and dirt were falling away.

'Siah was shaking like a leaf. "It's something else scary, isn't it?" he said. He stopped suddenly, and got a wrathful look on his face. "Well, I'm sick of scary things!" he shouted, and grabbing the old priest's cane he squeezed through the hedge of trees and started clambering to the top of the mound. "I'm gonna whack that thing before it even gets out of the ground." In no time he was thumping away at the heaving lump with the sturdy staff.

"'Siah!" yelled Owen Greatheart, trying to squeeze through after his brother, but getting stuck halfway. Basho the monkey scrambled through easily and swung up the little hill after 'Siah. "Get back here!" cried Owen Greatheart. "-You have no idea—"

But before he could finish, there was another cry, a shriek of anger and indignation. '"
Siab
!" yelled a voice. "You stop hitting me! You wait till I tell
Mom
!"

"Libby!" shouted Owen Greatheart in astonishment. "It's
Libby
, 'Siah! Stop it!"

But the little boy had already stopped thumping with his stick and was hauling away on his sister with all his might. "It's Libby!" he was shouting with delight.

"Owen, come help me get her out of here. She's
stuck
."

"I'm
not
stuck," argued Libby. She and 'Siah could rarely speak without arguing, no matter what country they were in. "It's Q.J. I can't get her through."

By this time Owen Greatheart and the old priest had dashed around the end of the hedge and were on top of the mound themselves, pulling on Q.J.'s arm, which was the only visible part of her. Libby was out completely, and pulling fiercely with the others.

"Careful," said Owen Greatheart. "We'll pull her arm right out of the socket if we don't watch it."

"No!" gritted Libby through her teeth. "We
have
to pull. They've got her by the
feet
."

"
Who's
got her?" asked Owen Greatheart, but wasted no time trying to dig away the top of the soft mound with his fingers. Q.J.'s head popped through, her eyes bulging wide open. She was fully conscious now, though the side of her head was an ugly mass of blood.

"Something's pulling on my legs!" she wailed. "Pull me!"

She got another arm through, and waiting hands grabbed it.

"It's those big goblins," said Libby, planting her feet and straining backward. "There's a whole army of them down there."

"Kick your legs!" shouted 'Siah. "Kick 'em right in the nose!"

"I'm trying!" sobbed Q.J. "There are too many of them!"

There was no doubt about it, she was beginning to slip backward into the mound. They were losing.

"No!" shouted Owen Greatheart. "We can't let her go!"

He turned to the old priest, who seemed to be uselessly poking his stick into the top of the mound on all sides of Q.J., as if trying to find a soft spot.

"Help us!" screamed Owen Greatheart. "We need you to pull! Or does that go against your philosophy?" He was almost beside himself with rage.

The old priest smiled gently at him. "No," he said. "It doesn't. But this fits it better." He hugged his stout staff to himself, having retrieved it from 'Siah. "
Sayonara
" he said. He jumped lightly into the air, the skirts of his robe billowing out around him. There was still a small smile on his face as he plunged downward, disappearing into the mound as if it were water.

Seconds later, Q.J. came flying out of the ground as if she had been thrown, and tumbled down to the bottom of the mound. A great hand, armored in black and purple, thrust upward out of the mound, then was snatched back.

Everyone rushed down to gather around Q.J. She blinked and tried to shake the dirt out of her hair. "Ow!" she said, and held her head.

"You're hurt bad," said Owen Greatheart. "We need to get some help for you."

"I feel OK," said Q.J. "But this hurts some."

'Siah looked back upward. "Is he coming back?" he asked. "I hope he's coming
back
"

But the top of the mound was quiet now, looking all chewed and trampled. Nothing moved there at all.

"He doesn't have a chance against an army of demon warriors," said Owen Greatheart. "What'll he do, wave his old stick vigorously around their bodies?"

"He didn't
seem
worried," said Libby. "He must have had a plan of some kind."

No one knew what to do or say. There was a solemn pause that felt like a memorial hush for the old priest.

"Look, Q," said Owen Greatheart finally. "There's water down the path. Let's at least try to wash the dirt off the wound."

For the first time they turned and looked down at what they could see of the Garden of a Thousand Worlds. It was obviously designed to be seen only a little bit at a time, with mossy mounds and boulders and hedges and clusters of trees arranged to divide one view from another. It was undeniably beautiful, a little wilder and more overgrown than other Japanese gardens they had seen, but nothing extraordinary. They could see over it to some taller trees that seemed to be its far boundary.

"It's not very big," said Owen Greatheart. "Pretty small, in fact. Doesn't look like a thousand worlds could fit in here."

"It seems very old, though," said Q.J., leaning on one elbow. "Look at the moss everywhere, even on the trees. And some of those trees are ancient. What is this place?"

They filled her in quickly, with whatever information they knew from Basho.

"And it's
supposed
to be seven hundred years old," said Owen Greatheart. "If it didn't look a little old we'd feel cheated, I suppose. Let's go."

Basho the monkey flipped a couple of times and came out right side up, facing them. "Silly people," he said. "Weren't we warned about going into this Garden? Didn't he say we would never come out again?"

Owen Greatheart hesitated. "I don't think he really knew," he said. "I still think maybe he was just giving us the old Chamber of Commerce line. You
know
, exaggerating the uniqueness of the local tourist attractions."

"You forget," said Basho. "They don't
invite
tourists here. Tourists are actively discouraged from visiting. There's a Keep Out sign on the gate."

"True," said Owen Greatheart, scratching his head. "But we need to get in there
somehow
. It's a gateway of some kind for sure, and we need it to get to Little Harriet."

"In a hall of a thousand doors, in which you only get to try one," said Basho, "how would you decide which one leads to Little Harriet?"

"I don't know," said Owen Greatheart. "I don't know."

There was a knock on the garden gate. They looked at each other, startled.

"Who could that be?" asked Q.J.

They all shrugged, perplexed about what to do.

"How do we know?" asked 'Siah. "We don't live here."

"It doesn't seem," said Basho, "like the kind of gate one would knock on."

"Especially with a Keep Out sign on it," said Libby.

"Unless," said Owen Greatheart, "it's someone who can't read the sign."

"Or someone who can read it," said Basho, "but really has to get in for some reason."

"And is too courteous just to barge in without knocking," said Owen Greatheart.

"Like
we
did," said Basho.

There was another knock.

"It certainly couldn't be one of those
demons
," said Libby. "They don't seem like the type of people who ever knock."

"True," said Owen Greatheart.

"It must be Annie," said 'Siah, who was back on Owen's shoulders, one of his favorite places.

They all looked at him in surprise.

"Why do you say that?" asked Q.J. "O little detective."

"Because," said 'Siah. "Just think about it. Annie can't read much Japanese. She really has to get in for some reason. And she's the politest person I know. She would never go into a place without being
invited
."

"Pretty smart, little brother," said Owen Greatheart. "But I don't know if I'm ready to go open that gate yet."

"Besides," laughed 'Siah, "I can see her. Hi, Annie!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, waving wildly and trying to stand up on Owen Greatheart's shoulders.

"You little
twerp!
" shouted Owen Greatheart, and they all tumbled shouting down the hill and around the hedge, flinging open the gate. There was Annie standing there grinning, and there was Knuckleball running up the flagstones toward them, and there was what looked like a whole Japanese family of all ages following behind, smiling and waving.

"Hi, guys," said Annie. "Here we all are."

 

 

 

Demon warriors and dead-end mines, Kyoto shrines and cherry blossoms, strange old priests and snow monkeys. There was so much catching up to do, and everyone tried to do it all at once. They sat in the moss outside the garden gate, and Kiyoshi-chan and his family watched in a bemused way as the American children chattered in a wild combination of English and Japanese, trying to find out where everyone had been, and what had happened in each place. In between all the news, there was general concern about Q.J.'s injury, and about the need to find some clean water and bandages.

"In the Garden," said Owen Greatheart. "There's plenty of water there. We have to go in sooner or later anyway."

"And we can rip up our sleeves for bandages," said Libby. "That's what they do in books. Each person can donate one sleeve."

"Oh, that should be enough," said Q.J., pulling her little sister's braid. "With twelve sleeves you could wrap me up like a mummy."

Meanwhile, Kiyoshi-chan's mother was untying a huge silk-wrapped bundle that her husband had packed in on his back. "Is
sunakcku
," she said. "For eating."

"A
snack?
" said Knuckleball. "Looks more like a banquet, from the size of it."

And so it proved to be. By the time she had spread it out on the moss, everyone realized how hungry they had become, and how glad they were that she had brought no less. It took astonishingly little time for the
sunakku
of inari-zushi and a variety of side dishes to disappear. The children thanked her over and over, while stuffing their mouths with a "dessert" of salty
osenbei
crackers.

"We need to take some bags of these home with us," said Owen Greatheart. "If we end up taking a plane home, our luggage allowance should give us room for a ton of
sunakku
. We've got no other baggage to take up space."