Little Yokozuna Page 8

  "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.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Knock on the Gate

  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 with
out 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."

  CHAPTER 13

  One Way Home

  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."

  "A plane?" said Knuckleball. "Does that mean we're not just taking the garden gateways back?"

  "Just?" laughed Owen Greatheart. "You make it sound so simple."

  "There's no way we should even try it," said logical Q.J. "Now we know of two times that a garden gateway has re-opened to work in reverse, but at least in one of those cases we ended up in a whole new place, not the original point. How could we possibly find our way back to Boston? Squib and I went from the azalea garden to the mine, but then we ended up here."

  "And what was the other time?" asked Libby, puzzled.

  "Little Harriet," said Q.J. "Escaping from big bad Kiyoshi-chan in the middle of the night. She went right back into the garden she came out of, but who knows where she was before that or where she went from there?"

  "Unpredictable," said Annie. "That's the key word with the gardens. Surprise. I don't think they have a scientific explanation in the usual sense of the word." She glanced at Kiyoshi-chan's obaa-san, who was still munching toothlessly on something, apparently oblivious to the conversation.

  "Of course not," said Owen Greatheart. "It's obviously some kind of magic."

  "I suppose," said Annie. "But think about it. In our culture, magic is not really a whole lot different than science. In all our old stories, magic is mechanical. It goes by formulas just like science or technology. If you say Open Sesame, the cave has no choice but to open. Find the right formula in the book of spells, say it on tiptoes with your eyes crossed, and presto! the evil witch turns into a toad, or whatever. It's just like moving the mouse or tapping keys on our computer keyboard. If this is magic, it's not like our kind of magic at all."

  "So?" said Knuckleball. "Is there a point to this lecture, Annie Granny?"

  "So" said Q.J., flicking a little larch cone off Knuckleball's left cheek, "she's just saying that, if we have a known destination, in the real world, we're better off with a nice slow boat."

  Annie said nothing.

  "But what about finding Little Harriet?" said Owen Greatheart, raising an eyebrow. "No boat or airplane can help us there."

  "True," said Annie. "That's a different story."

  "We have no choice," said Q.J. "We have to use the garden gateways to find her. Something has been directing us so far, whether it's been the demons themselves, the gardens, or something totally different, and whatever it is seems to want to keep us on the trail of Little Harriet. There's probably no good explanation fo that little explosion that separated us last time. I think the demons have a tendency to derange whatever they're using, even if it's this whole garden thing. I guess that this Garden will take us to Little Harriet, whatever the old priest said."

  "I think that might be what he thought, too," said Owen Greatheart. "He didn't really say not. He just sort of said we might regret wherever we ended up, and not be able to get back."

  "That's a chance we have to take," said Q.J. "Then at least we'll all be lost together, instead of Little Harriet being lost all by herself."

  "I disagree," said Owen Greatheart. "Listen, I have an idea. Doesn't it make sense for only one or two of us to try the Garden? Like maybe Annie and me?"

  "And what's the point of that?" asked Knuckleball. "I agree with Q.J. that it's bad for us to split up. We have to stick together."

  "But listen," said Owen Greatheart. "Suppose two of us go, and whether or not we ever find Little Harriet, we can't get back? Then at least four of us are still here in the real world, and can hop a plane back to the States. Better only three of us lost forever, wandering some strange weird world, than all of us. Think of Dad, and Mom."

  This provoked an uncomfortable silence. No one could deny the sense of it.

  "And," said Owen Greatheart, "probably the two of us would have as much chance of rescuing Little Harriet from wherever she is, as all six of us together. I mean, the little kids might just get in the way."

  "Hey!" yelled Libby.

  "I can knock you over any time, you big Owen," said 'Siah, jumping on the head of his biggest brother. "In fact, I don't think you can rescue Little Harriet without me and Squibby."

  "You are a scary pair," said Owen Greatheart, wrestling 'Siah in the moss. "I can't deny that. Ow!" He sat back suddenly against the garden fence, testing with his fingers for loose teeth. In the tussle 'Siah's hard head had clunked him in the mouth. "We could just use your head for a battering ram," he mumbled. "I think this tooth is loose, you little tiger."

  "I have to agree with Owen," said Q.J. suddenly. "It's logical."

  "Me too," said Knuckleball. "But I have to be one of the ones to go."

  "Me too," said 'Siah and Libby in unison.

  "No way," said Owen Greatheart. "The two oldest ones go, and the rest of you wait here. If we don't come back, then call Mom and Dad and take a plane home. Who knows? Finish that Japanese garden in the living room and one day the three of us may come strolling out of it."

  "Cool," said Knuckleball, intrigued by the idea. "But I'm coming."

  "No, you're not," said Owen Greatheart. "You stay here with your buddy Kiyoshi-chan."

  "Try and make me," said Knuckleball. "How could you possibly; rescue Little Harriet without my expertise?

  "Expertise in what?" said Owen Greatheart. "We don't have a clue what we'll find when we get there."

  "Bear in mind," said Knuckleball gravely, "that I am the only known human being ever to have knocked the head off a demon warrior and lived to tell the tale. How can you ignore that?"

  "Except for Momotaro the Peach Boy," said Kiyoshi-chan.


  "Excuse me?" said Knuckleball.

  "We have a very old story in Japan," said Kiyoshi-chan, "about a little boy named Momotaro, who slaughtered a whole castleful of demons. Except he didn't have a fence post. He only had a pheasant, a dog, and a monkey."

  "Ha!" said Basho the monkey. "You mean the monkey only had a pheasant, a dog, and a boy."

  "There's no comparison," said Knuckleball. "See? This peach kid had reinforcements. But where does the peach part come in?"

  "Forget it, Knuckles. Let's get on with this," said Q.J. "We've got to make a decision, now. Little Harriet's not getting any less lost while we sit here squabbling. What's with you, Annie? You haven't said a word in at least three minutes."

  Annie certainly did seem to have something else on her mind.

  "Yeah, what's up, Gran?" said Knuckleball. "You've been covering something up from way back."

  Annie sighed, with deep reluctance. "All right," she said. "I've got some things to explain to everyone. We can't really go on without it."

  "Well, let's get it over with," said Q.J.

  "The problem," said Annie, "has to do with getting home again."

  "Money, you mean?" said Owen Greatheart. "If we call Dad can't he get it to us somehow? I mean, I know it's expensive and he's not made of money, but I think he'd want as many of us back as possible."

  "Not money," said Annie. "It has to do with a conversation I overheard between Knuckleball and Kiyoshi-chan. You need to hear this, Owen. Kiyoshi-chan, try telling us again. Who were those Red Sox players you were talking to Knuckleball about? Remember?"

  "Of course I remember," said Kiyoshi-chan. He felt a flush of indignation and betrayal again, looking sidelong at his friend Knuckleball. The small hurt of that afternoon had never quite gone away, though he had convinced himself that perhaps American children treated even their best friends this way. "Yazu, you mean?" he said. "And Tonee-See? And Ree-ko? And Jimu Ro-nu-bu-ru-gu?"