Little Yokozuna Page 5

  Annie turned slowly back from the door, unable to break away from the conversation. A vague disquiet stirred somewhere inside her. She sat down on the doorstep to listen.

  Knuckleball stared at Kiyoshi-chan. "That's strange," he said. "I guess I was confused. Sorry."

  But Kiyoshi-chan was upset. He was upset at himself for spoiling this afternoon with his passion for the dignity of sumo, and he was upset with Knuckleball for not caring about the spirit of a true sumo wrestler. Maybe no foreigner could be a true rikishi, but Knuckleball didn't seem like a gaijin, he seemed like a brother.

  "Listen, Knuckleball," he said. He had trouble with this nickname, which came out with a couple of extra syllables, no matter how hard he tried. Na-ku-ru-ba-ru. "Try to understand. What if the great Yazu of the Boston Red Sox tried to play left field with a glove this big?" He stretched his arms out to their fullest extent. "Would you think he was playing with the spirit of a true baseball player?"

  Knuckleball tilted his head as if to look at his friend from a new angle.

  "Well?" said Kiyoshi-chan.

  "Who is Yazu?" asked Knuckleball.

  "Who is Yazu?" cried Kiyoshi-chan. "How can you say who is Yazu?"

  Knuckleball shrugged, avoiding Kiyoshi-chan's eyes. He didn't know how to escape this conversation. "I've never heard of Yazu" he said.

  Kiyoshi-chan stared at Knuckleball, dumbfounded. "Didn't you say you came from Boston?" he said. "Didn't you say how you love baseball?"

  "Yes," said Knuckleball. "And yes."

  "Haven't you been to Fenway Park?" shouted Kiyoshi-chan. He said the name with a sort of passionate reverence, as if it were a temple or a sacred mountain like Fuji-sama.

  "Yes," said Knuckleball. "Twice last season. And I watch the Red Sox all the time on TV."

  Kiyoshi-chan clutched his head. "Then how can you say who is Yazu?" he cried again. "Do you know who is To-nee See? Do you know who is Jee-mu Ro-nu-bu-ru-gu?

  Knuckleball shook his head, as distressed as his friend. "I'm sorry, Kiyoshi-chan," he said. "I can't even begin to guess what those names are."

  Kiyoshi-chan took a deep breath, trying not to be angry. "Tell me then, Oh Person From Boston Who Loves Baseball," he said. "Who plays for your Boston Red Sox?"

  Knuckleball sighed. "Well," he said. "There's Manny Ramirez, and Nomar Garciaparra, and Pedro Martinez. Nomar's my favorite. He plays shortstop. And Tim Wakefield throws a knuckler, like me."

  Annie was listening with her head down.

  Kiyoshi-chan scrutinized the face of his friend. "Noma- ru?" he said carefully. "I have never heard of Nomaru. What happened to Ree-ko?" He hesitated. "Knuckleball. Who plays left field for the Boston Red Sox? Is it not the great Yazu?"

  "No," said Knuckleball. "They're having trouble in left field now because Manny's been hurt. Lots of times it's Troy O'Leary or other people. Nobody regular."

  Kiyoshi-chan shook his head in complete confusion. "You are making fun of me, Knuckleball. Why are you doing this? Aren't we friends?"

  Knuckleball looked at Annie, but knew she would be no help. Her only sport passion was actually playing soccer. She despised the whole concept of watching sports at all ("Unless people come to see you," Knuckleball often said to her. "You don't mind that, now do you?"), and had no idea whether the Red Sox played baseball, football, or hockey. He was amazed to see that her face had gone pinched and strange, as if she had seen another demon.

  "Annie!" he said. "Are you gonna throw up?"

  She reached out for him from her sitting position, so he stood in front of her and let her put her head on his shoulder. He hoped she wouldn't throw up all over him.

  "I think we're in trouble, Knuckler," said Annie in a thin voice, as if from far away.

  He pulled back to see her better. "Trouble?" he asked. "What kind of trouble?"

  "I don't know exactly," she said. "But maybe terrible trouble. If I'm right, I don't know how we'll ever get home again."

  He jerked away from her. "What do you mean!" he cried. "What do you mean never get home again?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I shouldn't have said anything till I know. We need Owen right now. He's the sports fiend. He would know for sure. But Knucklehead, I'm afraid."

  Knuckleball got a sudden picture in his mind of his dad and mom waiting for them at home, wondering where their children had gone. His eyes stung with tears, but he rubbed them before Kiyoshi-chan could see.

  "That's ridiculous, Annie," he said, and putting his head down on her shoulder, he began to cry.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Way Out

  In a very very dark place, two sisters sat side by side, holding each other. Moments before they had stood with four other brothers and sisters in bright sunshine, and for the umpteenth time had taken a deep breath of evergreen breeze and plunged into a garden place that they believed would keep them on the trail of lost Little Harriet.

  But something had gone wrong. In that particular garden, the breeze had been flowing outward from a fiery cluster of azaleas growing on a small stone island. As they plunged into the flowers, they had expected the familiar sensation of the ground dropping out from under them, or of the garden rushing upward to receive them. But this time there seemed to be a resistance of some kind. They started to sink into the ground, but before they disappeared beyond their waists, the ground suddenly solidified again, and they were trapped. The shortest ones had been in the greatest danger, because what was waist-high for the others could have smothered them. Fortunately, 'Siah was perched on Owen Greatheart's shoulders, but six-yearold Libby was buried up to her chin, and she looked around for help, with wild eyes.

  "Q.J.!" she had cried out, and her sister leaned over to soothe her. So when the bottom fell away from them this time, Q.J. and Libby were together, and they clutched each other and wailed in unison as they plummeted into space.

  The passage to the next garden had been horrible this time. Where it had always before been a dreamy, swirling sort of float into the next place, over in a few seconds, this time was full of turbulence, faraway voices, disturbing shapes, and ugly shouts. Still holding to each other, Libby and Q.J. tumbled through clouds and darkness, breathless with fear. When they at last crawled through the next gateway, shaken and disheveled, they found themselves in total darkness.

  "Do you think we're blind?" asked Libby. "I'm holding my hand right in front of my face and I can't see a thing."

  Q.J. was always logical. "Relax, Squib. There's not much chance of both of us going blind at exactly the same time. I think it's just dark."

  "Real dark," said Libby. "Really, really dark."

  At first it was more interesting than frightening, because neither of them had ever known such complete darkness before. Once Q.J. had tried to entertain her smaller siblings by seeing how dark she could make one bedroom in broad daylight. They had covered the skylight and windows and every possible crack, but somehow enough light managed to seep in so that when their eyes adjusted to it, they could still see the faint shapes of things. They had not come up with any solid explanation for this, though Knuckleball as usual had several exotic ideas, one of them involving hypnosis by aliens.

  "Maybe our eyes will get used to this," said Libby. "Then we'll be able to see something."

  "Maybe," said Q.J. "But I think they've had enough time to adjust. And I still can't see anything."

  "It must be real, real midnight then," said Libby. "Maybe it'll start to get light soon."

  "Maybe," said Q.J.

  They huddled together, afraid to venture away from the place where they were sitting. The surface under them seemed to be sharp-edged gravel, but by shifting around they were able to get a little comfortable in each other's arms.

  "If it's nighttime," said Libby, "we should sleep."

  "So sleep," said Q.J. "Want me to rock you?"

  "Yes, please," said Libby. She was, after all, only six. "I wonder where the others are? Why did we get all blown apart like that?"

  "I do
n't know," said Q.J. "I don't know why it was so different this time. Maybe there was no reason. There aren't always reasons for things." She pulled Libby onto her lap, and sang her some songs to help her sleep, small melodies that she sang over and over until the little girl slumped into a sound sleep. Then the long hours began to pass for Q.J. After a while, her back started to hurt and the gravel underneath her became increasingly painful. The air was cold, not bitter but uncomfortable, and very still. She would not do anything to wake Libby, so Q.J. sat as motionless as she could, trying to relax every muscle in her body to help it hurt less.

  She woke up suddenly, out of a terrifying dream. She had been dreaming that they were all together again on a little stone island in the ocean, a little stone island with a thick cluster of bright red azaleas. It was dark and stormy, and the waves were crashing on their island. Then they had seen Little Harriet, riding a dark storm cloud over the ocean, waving to them and laughing as if she were riding the carousel at Canobie Lake Park. They called out to her, but she laughed some more and her face was actually shining, as if it were the only thing in that whole abyss of wind and water that was in sunlight. Then the storm cloud she was riding on turned into a dragon, a vast bronze unthinkable creature writhing from one horizon to the other, and she laughed some more. The dragon disappeared with a pop and Little Harriet's tiny white body was falling falling falling through the clouds toward the black ocean, still looking toward them laughing with that sunny face. Then Q.J. woke up, with a dark, hollow certainty that Little Harriet was dead.

  "What a ridiculous thing to think," she said to herself, always logical. "A stupid dream doesn't mean anything." But she couldn't shake away the thought. She pinched herself to try to get a little more sense. Libby must have been ready to awake, because that small movement made her sit up, stretching and yawning. Q.J. felt the breath of her yawns on her cheek.

  "Cover your mouth when you yawn, Squibber," she said, teasing, trying to protect her little sister from the darkness inside her, which seemed to have become deeper than the darkness outside. "Rude person."

  Libby giggled. Then Q.J. felt the little girl cuddle herself with her arms against the cold. "It's still dark," Libby said. "Really dark."

  "Yes," said Q.J.

  "Why doesn't morning come?" asked Libby.

  "We must be in a place," said Q.J., "where morning doesn't come."

  "There's no such place," said Libby.

  "If only we had a flashlight," said Libby. "In stories, people always happen to have just the things they need, like matches or rope or something. Why can't we be in a story?"

  Q.J. hit herself in the forehead with the palm of her hand, and groaned.

  "What did you just do?" asked Libby. "Did you just hit yourself?"

  Q.J. gave no answer, but grabbed her backpack and zipped it fiercely open.

  "I'm such a total idiot," she said.

  "What!" asked Libby. "Don't tell me you've had a flashlight this whole time."

  "All right," said Q.J. "I won't tell you that."

  "Have you?" asked Libby. "Have you had a flashlight this whole entire time?"

  "Not exactly," said Q.J., but a sudden beam of white light shot out from her hand. She laughed. "My reading light," she said. "The one that clips onto books for reading in bed. I got it for Christmas."

  "Well, you goose," said Libby. "Why didn't you remember it before?"

  "Who knows?" said Q.J. "Memories are funny things."

  She pointed the beam outward, moving it in a semicircle around her body.

  "It's a cave," said Libby.

  "A mine, I think," said Q.J. "Not a natural cave,

  anyway. Look at the tool marks on the walls and ceiling. This is a tunnel, carved out by people."

  "But where's the garden?" asked Libby. "I thought we had figured out that we were traveling from garden to garden."

  Q.J. swung the beam behind them, in the direction from which they had first come. She gasped. "Look!" she said, in wonder.

  They were facing the dead end of the tunnel, a wall of black stone. But between them and the wall was a thing of beauty, a tiny garden all of stone. There was a delicate waterfall of white gravel, and a pond of the same. There were two stones, one vertical and one tortoise- shaped, set up near one end of the pond, the tallest one only up to Libby's waist. Trees were represented by some natural stone formations, twisted intricate shapes brought to this cavern from some place that had weather and flowing water. There was a stubby stone lantern among the trees.

  "It looks so real," said Libby. "It's beautiful."

  "It is real," said Q.J. "It's as real as anything can be." And for a moment there was something about the low bright light and shifting shadows that made the little garden seem like a landscape in early morning, somebody's homeland, with animals beginning to move behind the trees and a village of living, waking people just over that ridge, between those two great pines.... Q.J. had to shake herself.

  "Look at the char on the lantern," she said. "It's been lit before. Maybe a long time ago."

  "Who do you think made it?" asked Libby.

  "Who can say?" said Q.J. again. "This looks like an abandoned mine, and maybe some miner once tried to make it a little more beautiful."

  "Even though no one else would see it," said Libby. "I wish I could meet him."

  They continued to examine the tiny garden, entranced, until finally sensible Q.J. sat back on her heels.

  "It's stupid to keep wasting the batteries," she said. "We have to get out of here."

  "Let's go," said Libby. "Out must be that way."

  The tunnel was not perfectly straight, but it had the advantage of having no branches or side passages. There was no choice but one, so the two sisters were able to move quickly along it holding hands. The footing was good and smooth. Before long they began to hear a sound.

  "Water," said Q.J. "Maybe a stream of some kind."

  And indeed around the bend they came upon a small trickle of a stream so unexpectedly that Libby put her foot in it before she could stop.

  "Yuck," she said. "I hate wet socks."

  "Tough," said Q.J. "They'll dry."

  On they went, over the stream and along the tunnel, toward a sharp bend that concealed what was beyond it.

  "I have a feeling," said Libby, "that we're gonna see something good around that next bend."

  Q.J. laughed in spite of herself. "Like maybe our front door?" she said. "Or at least a telephone?"

  "Maybe," said Libby. "Or maybe Daddy. Or Mummy." She laughed. Since seeing the stone garden, anything seemed possible, and that bend ahead seemed full of magic chances. They were almost running when they finally reached it.

  "Here we go!" cried Libby, and they ran around the bend, hand in hand. They thudded to a stop against another black wall of stone.

  "A dead end!" wailed Libby. "A dead end!"

  "It can't be," Q.J. said, arguing with her own eyes. "Both ends of the tunnel can't be a dead end. It's impossible"

  "It's impossible," said Libby, fighting back the tears. "But it is."

  CHAPTER 9

  Weaving a Net of Words

  "Now listen," said Annie. She was squatting on her heels in front of the garden of Kiyoshi-chan's family. Knuckleball and Kiyoshi-chan were on each side of her, in the same position. There was the pungent aroma of cooking soba coming from the kitchen window, where the head of Kiyoshi-chan's mother, wrapped in a blue print kerchief, was visible. It was finally no longer raining over Kashiwa, and there were even bits of blue sky overhead.

  "Now listen," said Annie again. "We need to go about this more scientifically. We've been wasting too much time."

  "Go about what?" asked Knuckleball.

  "Go about gathering everyone together again," said Annie, "and finding Little Harriet, and getting back home again."

  "Oh," said Knuckleball. "Is that all? Piece of cake."

  He said "piece of cake" in literal Japanese, just like the rest of the conversation, which confused
Kiyoshi-chan a lot. It took a while to explain the expression to his satisfaction, and even then he wore a puzzled look afterward.

  "Especially," said Annie, "we need to figure out everything we can about these garden passageways we've been using. There must be some rational, scientific explanation for them. If we can only figure them out better, maybe we can learn how to control them."

  "That would help," said Knuckleball. "So far they've just been dumping us places, but at least they've kept us on the track of Little Harriet. This last time was weird, though. It almost killed us all."

  "Oh, don't exaggerate, Knuckleball," said Annie. "It was just uncomfortable for a second, like somebody was trying to keep it shut. Or like we were too late, trying to squeeze through a closing door. Who knows?" She shrugged.

  "Yeah," said Knuckleball, "but then it blew us all in different directions. Who knows where the others are now?"

  "Exactly why we need to approach this more systematically," said Annie. "Now, let's put together everything we know so far about this... this... means of transportation."

  "OK," said Knuckleball. He straightened his glasses, as he always did when he was about to act like a professor. "We know that it gets us places in a hurry," he said, "even halfway around the world."

  "Right," said Annie. "Distances seem to mean nothing to it. And neither does... " She stopped without finishing her sentence.

  "And neither does what?" asked Kiyoshi-chan.

  "Never mind for now," said Annie. "I'll tell you when I find out for sure. So what else do we know?"

  "Well," said Knuckleball, "we know that not all Japanese gardens are gateways from one place to another. We've tried plenty just in the past few days that didn't get us anything but facefuls of shrubbery."

  "Actually," said Annie. "We don't even really know if only Japanese gardens are gateways. Maybe other gardens would also serve as gateways."

  "Do people in other countries make such gardens?" asked Kiyoshi-chan. "Gardens that are supposed to be bigger on the inside than they are on the outside?"