Tokyo Surprise (4 page)

Josh gingerly raised the spoon to Mr. Yamamoto’s wrinkled lips. The old man leaned forwards and wrapped his lips around the spoon. But then Josh didn’t know what to do – should
he wait for the old man to swallow, or should he try to pull the spoon away, or what? He went for pulling away. It was the wrong thing to do. A thin line of rice and dribble splatted onto Mr.
Yamamoto’s front.

“Oh, sorry!” Josh grimaced, grabbing a tissue from a box beside the rice bowl and trying to wipe the rice away without making it worse. “
Sumimasen
, Yamamoto-san!”
But to Josh’s relief, Mr. Yamamoto didn’t look angry – he laughed.

“That’s all right, Josh-kun. Let’s leave the rice for now. Where was I? Oh, Josette. She was a beauty. She made flowers...” Mr. Yamamoto yawned. “... out of silk,
and...she was a pilot...or was that Chiyoko? Dear Chiyoko...always smelled of... engine oil...”

Josh waited for the rest of the sentence, but it never came. Mr. Yamamoto’s head fell back on the pillow and he was soon snoring like a motorbike revving up in a wind tunnel.

Once again, Josh found himself looking for something to do. There were lots of very old books on the shelves, ancient things with fabric flaking off their spines. But unlike Granny
Murata’s nice neat bookshelves, these were stacked in messy, teetering piles, and in between them there was a forest of...
stuff
. It looked like junk to Josh. There were scraps of
paper, tiny porcelain models of birds and fish, a bunch of silk flowers that Josh guessed were made by Josette – or was it Haruhi? – a sadly tattered collection of old ribbons, a pair
of gleaming kama...

...
Kama
? Josh blinked and rubbed his eyes, but there they were – two silvery weapons, like the miniature scythes that farmers used to harvest crops, half-hidden under an old
porcelain dragon with several fangs missing. They looked clean and razor-sharp, as if they’d been polished yesterday. Josh glanced back at Mr. Yamamoto. He was still snoring and now drooling
slightly.

Maybe they’re not really as sharp as they look
, Josh thought. But then his eyes strayed over to another cabinet, and there was a pair of nunchaku with bright silver swans painted on
their sides. Now that he was looking, he could spot sai daggers sticking out of a vase, and polished wooden tonfa being used to prop up a wobbly shelf. He peered closer and reached up to open the
cabinet. He’d never seen these things outside movies and manga – what were they doing in the apartment of a little old man, hidden under a load of strange old junk?

“What...” Mr. Yamamoto spluttered. Josh jumped, and tried to look like he hadn’t been snooping. The old man sighed and continued as if he hadn’t fallen asleep. “Oh
yes, the smell of engine oil – that’s what I remember. Good old Chiyoko.” The old man went on, and Josh sidled back across the room and sat down in the chair again. He was such a
feeble-looking wrinkled old man, but he had such awesome weapons in his collection. Josh wondered if there was a story in that – he could write a comic about an elderly man who used to be a
fighter, battling black-clad villains with whirling nunchaku in each hand, rescuing his five glamorous wives from evil Yakuza bosses. It’d make a pretty awesome comic, Josh decided.

Finally, Mr. Yamamoto’s monologue rolled to a halt and he thanked Josh for visiting. Josh took the elevator back upstairs, still mentally laying out fight scenes from the comic, which
he’d decided to call
Mr. Y’s Golden Years
. He made a beeline for his bedroom and threw a quick sad glance at his games console with its Japanese two-pronged plug—

Wait. Its
Japanese
plug? He looked again. He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes and then looked
again
. It was definitely there, neatly wired into the charger, a plug of exactly the
right sort to fit into Granny’s power sockets.

He poked his head into Jessica’s room, where she was scribbling in a notebook and chewing on her pen lid.

“Hey Jess, did you bring my Japanese console plug?”

She looked up at him and shrugged.

“Nope,” she said.

“It’s just – I could have sworn—”

“You forgot it?” Jessica asked, pulling a sympathetic face.

“Yes, I mean, I thought I had. But now it’s right there, wired in and everything.”

“You must’ve just missed it before,” she said.

“Only rational explanation. Oh, unless – I know,” she said, with a totally deadpan expression, “Granny must have sneaked in and rewired it for you.”

“Oh right. Yes, that must be it.” They looked at each other for a few seconds. But Josh couldn’t keep it up for long – he could feel the laugh start at the bottom of his
chest and work its way up through his throat. He cracked up.

“Ha!” Jessica crowed. “I win! I am the Queen of the Straight Face Game.”

“You always win.” Josh bowed to her, still sniggering. “Granny rewired the plug! She wouldn’t know a fuse from a hairpin.” He went back into his room, shooting
another glance at the games console and then putting it out of his mind.

“Come and have your lunch,” Granny said, appearing in the doorway a few minutes later. Josh followed her beckoning, bony finger into the dining room. It was as clean and
traditionally decorated as the rest of the apartment, with a few concessions to the modern age – as well as the low wooden table surrounded by cushioned seats, there was a worktop containing
a pair of silver steamers and a sparkling hotplate.

Jessica was already sitting at the table, gazing at the food Granny Murata had laid out for them. Josh felt his mouth start to water at the sight of the little bowls of rice, slivers of fresh
ginger, sliced tuna, and pork dumplings wrapped in dough with spicy sauce to dip them in. He quickly slid into a seat and waited for Granny to make herself comfortable.

“
Itadakimasu
,” Jessica said.

Josh nodded fervently. “Yeah, thanks!” he grinned.

Granny nodded solemnly to them both and picked up her chopsticks. Josh dug into the dumplings and rice balls.

When the meal was nearly over, Granny’s phone chirped. She apologized and excused herself to the kitchen to answer it.

“Granny’s cooking is the best,” Josh said, slurping down the last of his broth.

“Agreed,” Jessica replied, setting her chopsticks down on their holder.

Granny returned and collected their empty bowls. “Josh, Jessica. Will you two go to the mall for me now? I need some groceries for dinner tonight but I am feeling tired.”

“Sure!” Josh said, happy to go exploring in the city.

“Here is my list,” Granny said. She handed over a piece of paper. It was all written in kanji.

Josh felt his face heat up. He was rubbish at the Straight Face Game. “Hm,” said Granny Murata. “You see how useful it is to know your kanji. Take this also.” She handed
over a second piece of paper, this time with the list written down twice – once in transliterated Japanese and once in English. “Use this to learn,” she said.

“
Hai
,” Josh and Jessica chorused.

Granny Murata had sent them off to the mall with a wallet full of yen and a mobile phone in case they got lost. But as soon as Josh walked up to the huge glass front doors, he
was sure that getting lost was inevitable. The mall towered over them and sprawled out, all brightly coloured bricks and giant windows. In the massive entrance lobby there was a map showing six
floors and eighteen separate shopping districts, with tiny kanji lettering and arrows. Jessica pointed suddenly.

“There!” she said. “That’s the grocery store. See, the kanji matches this one on Granny’s list.” They set off, passing noodle stalls decorated with beads;
gangs of teenaged girls in identical outfits with exactly the same stripy socks, short pink skirts and pink goggles on top of their heads; giant light displays advertising soft drinks and candy;
and gleaming white shopfronts that didn’t seem to be selling anything at all.

They passed an electronics shop decked out in sparkling lights. Josh stopped in his tracks when he saw the window display.

“It’s the new Starplayer,” he breathed, gazing at the sleek white machine. “It’s the new generation of video games – backwards and sideways compatibility, 200
gig of memory, touch screen and laser sensor interface, and full exclusive rights to the Star Knight franchise – and it’s not going to be sold in Europe for the next
five
years
.”

“And even then there’s no way you’ll be able to afford one,” said Jessica wistfully.

She wandered off to look at the other cool gadgets in the window, leaving Josh to sigh at the Starplayer. The power of its awesomeness sucked him in until there seemed to be nothing else in the
world but him and its shiny buttons.

“Hey, Josh. Look at this!” Jessica said, bringing him back down to earth with a poke in the shoulder blades. “It’s Kiki. I think she’s on the news.” Josh
turned to look. In another window of the electronics shop, a collection of massive High Definition TV screens showed a serious-looking newsreader in a pink suit beside a photo of Kiki. “Look,
I found one with English...subtitles...” Jessica began, but trailed off as she read the translation of the kanji that was scrolling along the bottom of the screens.

Bodyguard sustains several injuries. Authorities call for any witnesses to go to the police. Chiba Mikiko abducted in Tokyo.

“Josh,” Jessica gasped. “Kiki’s been kidnapped!”

Jessica rushed inside the shop and Josh followed. Now they could hear the newsreader’s voice – the shop manager had turned the volume up and most of the customers
were staring in disbelief at the TV screens.

“In dramatic scenes in Minato Ward earlier today,” the newsreader’s subtitle read, “Chiba Mikiko’s loyal bodyguard stumbled into a police box, with several injuries
to his face and arms, and told officers that a masked thug broke into Chiba-san’s car and abducted the popular singer as they travelled from Tokyo Airport to her penthouse
apartment.”

Josh and Jessica stared at each other. Josh thought of the friendly girl on the aeroplane and blinked hard – this couldn’t be happening! Jessica was wide-eyed and clutching her
shopping bag so hard her knuckles had turned white.

“What can we do?” she asked. “Maybe we were the last to see her! Maybe we should talk to the police?”

The newsreader cut to a live report of Kiki’s bodyguard making a speech outside her apartment building. Josh stared as the hulking, suited man appeared at the top of a flight of concrete
steps. He had a black eye and a large purple bruise spreading across his jaw.

As he watched, Josh got the feeling that he knew those steps. In fact, the whole scene, the gleaming glass doors and polished silver railings of the building, was ringing a huge, loud bell in
Josh’s head.

“I know that place!” he said. “That’s just round the corner from here. We could...” He wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence – what more could they do
there? But Jessica finished it for him.

“Let’s go,” she said, heading for the door.

As they reached the apartment building, Josh realized they weren’t the only ones who’d had the idea of going round to see what was going on. As they turned a corner
and the building came into sight, they nearly ran into a group of girls who were walking towards the steps chattering worriedly. A crowd had already gathered outside Kiki’s apartment.

“How could they do this?” one of the girls wailed. “Who would want to hurt Kiki?”

Josh and Jessica weaved through a group of teenagers holding up hastily scrawled banners saying
We ♥ you Kiki
and
Give us back our Kiki
and passed two women weeping hysterically on
each other’s shoulders.

Police barriers surrounded the building’s entrance, where the bodyguard was appealing to a row of TV cameras.

“We were prepared to deal with an incident of this nature,” he growled, “but we were taken by surprise on the road. Mikiko-sama was very frightened on the aeroplane,” the
bodyguard went on. “She had received some upsetting hate mail.”

“That’s not true!” Jessica said loudly. Josh “sshhed” her, and she frowned at him. “But it’s not,” she said more quietly. “We were there;
she was fine! She said she
liked
her fan mail; I’ve still got my notes.”

“She could have been just...trying to keep her spirits up?” Josh suggested, but he didn’t believe it himself. Kiki’s publicist, a woman in a bright red suit with hair
that stuck straight up from her head, took over from the bodyguard.

“Please,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Whoever has taken our Kiki – please let her come back!”

Josh watched the bodyguard carefully, as the focus of the crowd’s attention slid over to the publicist. The man stalked down from the steps, cracking his knuckles.

“He doesn’t look badly injured,” he said.

“You ran into him in the airport,” Jessica said. “Did he seem like he could be overcome by a single thug in a confined space? Or thrown out of a car he didn’t want to be
thrown out of?”

“Not in a million years,” Josh said. Beside them a young woman groaned sadly at something the publicist had said, and a man put his arm around her.