Little Yokozuna (19 page)

"From the lee side!" cried the old priest. "Get around behind the stone, where it leans out over the water. We will have to sweep past quickly, or else we will all die on the rock."

It was impossible to stand in the tossing boat, so Q.J. got up on her knees, as close to the side of the boat as she could get.

"Now go/" she shouted, and the two rowers pulled with all their might toward the rock. Swooping down the side of one wave, with more luck than skill they came up

right beside the out-thrust part of the stone where Little Harriet stood. Q.J. reached over impossibly far and got a grip on the little girl's arm, just as another lifting wave started to sweep the boat away again.

"Oh, no!" she cried in agony. "I don't have her!"

And Little Harriet, seeing the boat being swept off, pulled her arm away in fear of being dragged down into the terrifying ocean.

"Q.J.!" she cried.

"Quick, Little Harriet!" shouted Q.J., leaning as far as she could over the side of the boat. "Jump!"

Then Little Harriet did the bravest thing of her whole life. Casting away her fear, she ran to the edge of the stone and jumped as far as she could toward Q.J.'s arms, while Owen Greatheart and Annie fought with their oars to keep the boat in toward the stone. The little girl screamed as she fell short, but when her tiny dark head bobbed back to the surface, Q.J. seized the little body and tumbled backward with her into the boat.

They wasted no time rowing back toward shore, away from the deadly rock. When safely away, they flung down their oars and hugged and kissed Little Harriet, laughing and crying and laughing and crying again that they had found her at last. But almost immediately Owen Greatheart snatched up his oar once more.

"Come on, Annie," he said. "Let's go."

Annie looked at him one blank moment, then nodded and took up the other oar. They began to row to the north, across the bay.

"We would never forgive ourselves," said Annie, "if this turned out to be the only time the express was late, and we weren't there."

"Whatever happens," said the old priest, "you have chosen between impossible choices. Therefore, you have chosen well."

No one knew how to respond to this, so the two rowers rowed and the others watched the shore creep closer. It was grim work. Q.J. huddled Little Harriet close to her body to warm her, but everyone was silent as the old boat crawled toward shore, with the red sun setting just off the port bow. Stroke by stroke Annie and Owen Greatheart hauled away in perfect unison, as if they had always rowed side by side, in just this way. The shore seemed to get no nearer no matter how they rowed, but they just kept rowing, with their heads down, watching the green water slide by out of the corners of their eyes.

They were still a hundred yards from shore when they saw the sleek silver train, its many windows bright with light, swoop around the bend of the dark mountain and dip downward toward the bridge. Knowing then that it was hopeless, the children stood up in the boat and waved and shouted at the top of their lungs, until they almost swamped themselves several times. Even the old priest shouted like a madman, while Basho the monkey leaped and gibbered in the bow.

"Too late!" cried Annie. "It's too late!"

And before their grief-stricken faces, the doomed train, full of hundreds of folk who were each a Little Harriet to someone, roared down the slope and onto the great bridge.

"No," whimpered Libby. Knuckleball covered his eyes, cringing in horror, not wanting to watch but looking through his fingers.

The crowded train thundered across the bridge and on through the trees, climbing a steep grade before it disappeared safely around the far mountainside.

The boat rocked on the waves, unheeded, as its ten occupants stared after the vanished train, stunned.

"What...?" said Q.J., finally. "How...?"

"He lied to me," said the old priest, his voice cracking with an unidentifiable emotion. "The demon samurai lied to me."

"But why?" asked Annie. "Why?"

"Even the gods love to play such games with us," said the old priest. He seemed very tired. "So why not the demons?"

In a great confusion of anger and weariness and overwhelming relief, the children slumped to the bottom of the boat, flinging their arms around each other in an exhaustion of emotion. The old priest stepped carefully around them and seated himself on the central seat, taking an oar in each hand. He looked at them, having recovered his maddening tranquility.

"You hate me perhaps," he said. "But now I will row."

 

 

 

 

 

 

The old priest rowed for hours, deep into the night ocean, while Basho the monkey sat in the bow and gazed unmoving at the horizon. The children slept soundly in the bottom of the boat, covered as well as possible by the robe of the priest, who rowed in nothing but his rain hat, a thick wrapping around his waist, and a loincloth. When the sun finally rose, the children sat up rubbing their eyes and looking about in bewilderment. There was no land in sight in any direction.

"Don't worry," said the old priest. "Trust me."

"In our country," said Owen Greatheart, "we are told never to trust anyone who says that."

The old priest chuckled. "That is very good advice," he said, but kept rowing. He rowed through that day and another night and another day, while the children asked no questions but spent all their time sleeping or watching the ocean pass by. There was little to see, but there was something healing about the smooth, steady passage of so much deep green water, and the children let themselves be eased, one bit at a time. The scrawny old man rowed through another night, his arms seemingly tireless.

"We haven't eaten in three days," said Annie.

"Are you hungry?" asked the old priest.

"No," admitted Annie.

"You won't be hungry," said the old priest, "until we get there."

"Where?" asked Q.J.

"There," said the old priest, and no more.

So they finally came There, but where There was the children couldn't tell, nor how this There differed from all the other places they had been on the wide ocean. It also was deep green water, but Basho the monkey leaned over the side of the boat and called, and a vast sea turtle suddenly surfaced beside the boat.

The old priest bowed deeply and spoke to the huge turtle, with great respect. "Please," he said, "take these children to the kingdom of your master, and ask him to care for them as they deserve. I regret that they have seen so much trouble and so little hospitality in our land. They are tired and sore with choices."

"I understand," said the great turtle. "For your sake I am sure that my master will give them great honor."

The old priest bowed. Then the American children stepped from the boat onto the back of the turtle, which was the size of a small island. They turned back to bow to the old priest, to Basho the monkey, and to Kiyoshi-chan, who knew that they were going not only to a faraway place, but also to a faraway time, to the time of strange heroes such as Akebono the unknown yokozuna, and No-ma-ru the unknown shortstop. He wept at the strangeness of it, and at the loss of Knuckleball, who had become the best friend he had ever known.

"Good-bye, Kiyoshi-chan," said Knuckleball. He wanted to say, "I'll see you later," as he would have said upon leaving any other friend, but knew that this time he couldn't say it. Tears flowed down his cheeks.

So they waved and bowed as the turtle sank into the depths of the ocean, and as they descended on its back. As always happens when anyone invited descends to the realm of the Dragon King, they were able to do so without drowning or even getting wet. Thus it was that the great turtle delivered them safely to the gates of the King's palace, and delivered his message to the King himself. Then the American children were taken into the beautiful palace, given into the care of courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, allowed to bathe luxuriously in deep steaming tubs, and given exquisite embroidered kimonos to wear. When they were ready, they were entertained at a great banquet in the presence of the King and Queen themselves, and served an incredible array of sashimi, paper-thin slices of every kind of fish all arranged in wondrous and brilliant floral designs, reminders of the flowers of the Garden of a Thousand Worlds. As they ate, musicians entertained them with koto, shakuhachi, and shamisen, delicate instruments of suggestion and significance, their music patterned after the rhythms of wind, rain, sea, and forest. Afterward they watched dramatic performances and spoke with the King and Queen for many hours until the littlest children were sagging with sleep and even the older ones wanted nothing more than a soft warm futon. Their first night in the palace of the Dragon King was spent in rooms of white tatami, with the sound of the sea beyond the pearl-colored shoji doors.

Having been properly tended at last, Q.J.'s ugly injury healed with amazing speed, leaving her without even a scar to take home and show her friends. With this last worry removed, there was nothing to hinder the children's enjoyment of the Dragon Kingdom, and for many days they lived in that palace in great happiness. But sooner or later, as every Japanese tale about that realm records, its visitors always grow homesick. Some say there is something in the magic of the realm itself that causes the homesickness, perhaps to keep the kingdom from being too populated by its guests. But more likely, there is simply something in the magic of home, which sooner or later always draws one back, even from the most enchanting places.

By whatever magic it happens, it happened once again with these children, and they went to the King and Queen and requested a ride home.

"Maybe one of your turtles could drop us off somewhere on the West Coast?" asked Annie. "We could call our parents from there, and arrange a way home."

"And in our own time?" Owen Greatheart added. "Could that be arranged?"

The Dragon King and Queen smiled graciously, as they always do in such situations, and taking the four smaller children by the hand, they led them all to an inner courtyard of the palace. There the children found themselves in a little garden that they had visited before, but had no reason to prefer to the many other beautiful philosophical gardens of the Dragon Kingdom.

"Sayonara," the Dragon King and Queen said together, releasing the hands of the littlest children and gesturing them all toward a thick stand of green bamboo in the corner of the courtyard. Annie was reminded of the bamboo grove in Kyoto, and was stricken again with regret for how little she had seen, given the opportunity.

But now they were all bowing and saying sayonara with growing eagerness, as they backed toward the bamboo grove. As they got nearer to it, they could feel and smell a breeze blowing from it, a hot, familiar Boston breeze that brought tears to their eyes. Then they felt the garden rushing up and outward to receive them, and the last they saw of the Dragon Realm was the King and Queen bowing in farewell, and other friends of the palace peeping around the royal couple to wave and bow.

"I can't wait to get home," said Little Harriet, as they were swept away.

On the second floor of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, Brenda the security officer decided to change her usual coffee-break routine and take a crisp walk, hoping that this would excite her circulation and keep her awake for the rest of the shift. After a quick circuit through the Egyptian and Chinese galleries, she meandered back toward her post in the Impressionist room. With a moment to spare, she first paused in the exhibition shop and put her round elbows down on her favorite leaning place, the broad windowsill that overlooked the Japanese garden. The sun shone on her face and she relaxed, resting her chin on her right hand. Whatever her walk had done for her circulation seemed to be subsiding, and she yawned an enormous yawn. Thinking that the garden seemed unusually full of children, she yawned again. Children? She looked, rubbed her eyes, and looked again, her cheeks quivering.

"Hey!" she yelped. "Hey!"

She glared into the garden, her nose pressed to the glass.

"Shoot" she finally said in a fierce voice, kneading her temples with trembling fingers but not taking her eyes off the scene below her. "I've been working too hard. I've got to get a vacation, anyhow I can."

"Sumimasen," said a gentle voice beside her. "Excuse me, please."

She jumped sideways, and looked back to her left in alarm. A short, slight Japanese man was standing at her elbow, with his hands clasped behind his back. He was probably middle-aged, with thinning hair on top and light crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He was looking out of the window as she had been, with an odd smile on his face.

"Please excuse me," he said again, still smiling, "but why do you say that?"

"Say what?" she asked. "I didn't say anything."

"You said," he went on, still looking away to give her a chance to collect herself, "that you have been working too hard and need a vacation." His English was really quite good.

"So?" she said, leaning back on the windowsill as if to reclaim a piece of lost ground. "Everybody says that. Everybody needs vacations."