White Crane (7 page)

A smell drifts across from the kitchen. It jumps in the window and thumps me on the nose. I sit bolt upright in bed, and sniff. It’s pudding. Honey pudding. Not a whiff of rice pancakes. It’s pudding and . . . and chicken noodles. Have I have slept until dinner?

Looking around the room, I see my friends, still asleep. The paper walls vibrate gently in time with Mikko’s snoring. Behind the screen at the end of the room, Kyoko’s slumbering shadow rolls over. It looks and sounds like an ordinary morning but it smells different.

“Mikko, wake up.” I poke him in the belly. Grunting, he turns onto his stomach. “Yoshi, Kyoko, Taji. Wake up. Something strange is happening!” I shout.

One by one they open their eyes to stagger out of bed and sniff. Taji has the best nose. Without eyes, he uses his nose and his ears twice as hard as the rest of us. “It’s definitely dinner,” he announces.

Together we roll Mikko out of bed and onto the floor. His nose twitches. “What’s that smell? Where’s breakfast?”

“That’s what we’re trying to tell you!” Kyoko yells in his ear. Mikko’s wide awake now.

It’s not easy for a samurai kid to get dressed in a hurry. Lots of layers go over the cotton loincloth I sleep in. First, a kimono with a long sash to tie the folds together. Then a short jacket, with another sash. Finally, I drag on big, baggy trousers. Samurai are fashionable warriors. It’s not enough to die honorably. You have to look good, too.

“Let’s go.” My crutch flying, I race toward the kitchen. The others soon pass me. Taji veers in front of Kyoko in the lead, and we all fall in a heap, arms and legs flailing.

“Watch out where you’re running next time, Bat Boy.” Kyoko pins Taji in a playful headlock.

“How am I supposed to see where I’m going?” Taji is our best wrestler. He can hear a move before it’s made and easily flips Kyoko over, to hold her shoulders against the ground.

“I give in,” she pants. “But you’re still a lousy runner.”

“Oww. Who’s shoving their foot in my ear?” I yell. It’s not Taji or Kyoko, and it’s not big enough for Yoshi. It must be Mikko. I give his ankle a yank, and he moves his foot into my mouth. Remembering what Sensei said about teaching teeth, I take a small bite. Now Mikko will watch where he puts his feet!

“Yow-ow. Oww!” It’s Mikko’s turn to yell.

“Early morning wrestling practice. Excellent.” Sensei nods approvingly from the kitchen doorway. “Double dessert for everyone.”

Sensei has dinner bowls set out on the table — noodle bowls, little soy sauce dipping bowls, and, most important, bowls for pudding.

“Hurry, hurry,” he says. “We have much practicing to do. In three days you leave to journey to the Games. Eat quickly, for soon it will be lunch and then it will be breakfast. Today we eat backward.”

“Why are we doing that?” I ask.

“So when we get to breakfast, there will still be plenty of time left to practice. Chop, chop, Little Cockroaches.”

“A master walks a fine line between wisdom and insanity,” Sensei once told me. I think he just fell headfirst over the line.

“A samurai must discipline himself so his body does not question what his mind decides,” Sensei continues.

I always think with my stomach. It never listens to my head, and nothing will change that.

Yoshi isn’t convinced, either. “What if it gets dark? We can’t practice in the dark.”

“Why not?” Taji grins. “Makes no difference to me. I’m always in the dark.”

If Taji can do it, then so can I. My head tells my gut to stop rumbling and rudely interrupting.

Sensei picks up a glass and drinks half the plum juice.

“Is the glass half empty or half full?” He holds it up for us to see.

My stomach knows this one. Before I was dying of hunger; now I’m dying of thirst.

“The glass is half full,” I say, wishing I was drinking the rest now.

“You could say the glass is half empty,” Kyoko muses. “If you wanted more.”

I do want more. She’s right, the glass is half empty. Suddenly it makes sense: I can choose.

“So is it dinner or breakfast?” Sensei asks. “Will the mind tell the body pudding or pancakes?”

It’s an easy choice. “Dinner,” we chorus.

We shovel down our food. Halfway through my second pudding, Sensei bangs on his drum. Dinner is over.

“Stop eating now. More practice!” Sensei waves us toward the door.

No way! I’m not leaving my dessert. I empty my soy sauce into a nearby bonsai plant, then wipe the bowl clean with the corner of my kimono. Then I tip the pudding into the bowl and gently place it in my pocket. I’ll finish my dessert outside.

But there’s no time to eat.

“This way.” With long spidery steps, Sensei strides toward the field behind the kitchen. Even Yoshi has to hurry to keep up.

Uma, the horse, grazes in the long grass. For once, I wish I was back in the classroom writing calligraphy. Some kids think horseback riding is fun. Not us. Not with Sensei’s crazy horse.

Uma is cranky and cantankerous. He’s really old, but he throws tantrums like a two-year-old. Nostrils twitching, he’s staring at me now. I’m sure Uma knows what I’m thinking. Flicking his mane, he snorts in my direction, and a fine spray of nostril mist settles on my hand.
Yeech!
Horse snot. I wipe it on the grass.

Sensei smiles. “He likes you.”

He doesn’t. Uma turns away and swipes his tail across his backside. It’s a big insult, to be no more important than a fly on his rump.

Sensei’s horse hates being ridden. When Kyoko puts the saddle on him, he throws it off. When Mikko loops the reins over his neck, he tosses them away. And when we try to climb on, he throws us, too.

Many years ago, before I was born, a wounded samurai came to the Cockroach Ryu. Sensei cared for him, and when he left, he gave Sensei his only valuable possession. This crazy horse.

“In his glory days, Uma was a warrior steed.” Sensei strokes the horse’s thick mane. “He raced into battle and trampled on fallen swords. He doesn’t like teaching trainees to ride. Your bony knees make him grumpy.”

Sensei takes an apple from behind his beard and feeds it to Uma. If I did that, Uma would be crunching my fingers. He curls his lip in a toothy smile. Big yellow teaching teeth stare at me. Sensei looks, too. Together, the horse and its wizard read my mind.

“You can learn a lot from teeth,” Sensei says. “Especially when they bite.”

“That’s true.” Grinning at Mikko, I remember this morning’s wrestle.

“What does it mean, if he bites?” Kyoko asks.

Mikko knows. “It means stop.”

Sensei nods. “If you can ride a horse that does not want you, you can ride anything. Even a Dragon. First you have to find a weakness. What is Mikko’s weakness?”

I know because I practice with Mikko every day.

“Shoulder weight thrust off the back right foot.” It gets him all the time. Luckily for me, the right foot is the one I’ve still got.

“Is that how you beat me?” Mikko is really smart when he bothers to think. His lazy brain is ticking fast. Tomorrow I’ll have to find something new if I want to beat him again.

Sensei twists his beard around his finger. “Very good, Niya. But what would a Dragon think?”

“That Mikko’s one arm is his weakness,” answers Taji.

“Yes. Foolish Dragon, even blinder than my Golden Bat.”

Taji beams. He’s proud of his spirit totem. Rare and clever, the Golden Bat doesn’t need to see where it’s going. It knows.

“A weakness is not always obvious. Find Uma’s weakness and you will ride,” instructs Sensei. “Until then . . . more practice!”

Waving his staff in Uma’s direction, our teacher wanders off to sit under the large, shady maple tree, where he can watch us from his sleep.

Catching Uma is never easy. Facing away from us, he doesn’t need to see what we are doing. He knows. Uma is like the Golden Bat.

“Let’s get this over and done with,” I sigh.

“You go first,” Kyoko suggests. “He likes you best.”

Probably because I only have one knee. It makes him half as grumpy.

Uma has his head down in the grass, pretending not to listen.

“Easy, boy,” I say, holding out my hand. He lets me strap on the saddle and climb onto his back. Ky-yaa! Raising my arm triumphantly, I am a legendary samurai rider.

But Uma is not in the mood for even one knee, no matter how legendary. I land with a thump. A cold splash soaks through my layers of clothing — through the jacket, the baggy pants, and the kimono. My fingers sink into a wet sticky mess. Oh, no! I forgot about my pudding.

Uma’s nose twitches as he bends to sniff my hand. Scooping the remainder out of my pocket, I offer it to him. His tongue is rough and tickles my palm while he slurps down my leftover dessert. A warm, sticky muzzle rubs against my neck. Uma’s weakness is the same as mine — honey pudding!

“He likes honey pudding!” I call, leading my new friend back to the others.

Kyoko doesn’t look convinced.

“Go on. You try.” I scrape the remaining sticky mess from my pocket and smear it on her hand.

Uma licks his lips as Kyoko climbs into the saddle. She reaches around to offer her hand. He slurps happily.

“Let’s go, boy.” Kyoko nudges gently with her knee.

Uma is on our side now and is happy to let Kyoko ride him to the cherry tree and back. As long as we’ve got enough pudding.

“At least now we won’t fall off our horse at the Games. One less thing for the other teams to laugh at,” says Mikko.

I try not to think about the Games, but it must be hardest for Mikko. Once he was a mighty Dragon, a winner. Now he is one of us.

“Do you miss the Dragon Ryu?” I ask him.

“Never.” Mikko shakes his head.

“It must have felt good to win sometimes.” Kyoko sounds wistful.

Mikko shakes his head even harder. “When a Dragon makes a mistake, the Master strikes him hard across the head with his fist. When a Cockroach gets it wrong, Sensei cares. He says, ‘More practice!’”

“More practice!” Sensei yells from his sleep.

Suddenly it feels good to be a loser Cockroach. It feels safe.

Uma bares his teeth. A big toothy grin speckled with pudding. Drab and cockroach brown like our kimonos, he’s one of us, too. Sensei says brown is good. A samurai must earn attention from his skill with weapons and words, not the bright colors he wears.

“Students who want people to notice what they are wearing should wear nothing. Everyone looks then,” Sensei told us.

Still, I wish I had a magnificent red and gold silk cloak like the Dragon Master. Sensei has a long dark brown cotton cloak, stained with cherry juice and torn at the corner Taji accidentally stood on. I don’t want one like that.

After horseback riding, it’s lunch. Even eating backward, lunch is still in the middle. We rush through it and stuff our faces with plums.

The afternoon lesson is archery. I’m good at it, because I am the White Crane, expert at standing still. Even on one leg. Archery is about balance.

A samurai bow is taller than a man and my bow is a head taller than me. Sensei helps us carve our bows from the
ryu
trees. We make bamboo arrows and tie a feather to the end. When I nock my arrow and send it flying skyward in an arc, the White Crane opens its wings and flies with it.

In the old days, when Ki-Yaga was a hero, samurai archers rode horses. I want to be a hero this afternoon, but Uma is nowhere to be seen. A handful of pudding loyalty doesn’t last all day.

Our practice area is a large clearing in the middle of the forest, behind the classroom where Sensei is meditating. The hardest thing about archery is ignoring the rustling noises. It’s especially hard for me because I have a vivid imagination.

There really is a monster out there. Black Tusk, the most fearsome wild pig in Japan, lives in our forest. None of us have ever seen him, but Sensei has.

“What should we do if we see the boar?” Yoshi asked.

“Run. Run fast to the tallest cherry tree,” Sensei said.

Behind me, the undergrowth crackles and rustles.

“Face this way.” Mikko points Taji in the direction of the target. Taji places an arrow in the bow, pulls the string back, and lets the bamboo fly.
Twang. Phlock!
It pierces the outermost edge, but Taji can’t see it almost missed, and we always say the same thing.

“Well done,” Yoshi calls. Kyoko claps.

The snuffling sounds are loud and close. His bow and arrows forgotten, Taji is listening hard.

Black Tusk charges from the undergrowth.

“Eeeeee!” Kyoko’s high-pitched shriek claws at my eardrum.

“Run!” yells Yoshi, dragging me along with him. I can’t run fast enough. The boar’s hot breath burns the back of my leg. My wooden crutch is not made for racing wild pigs. I imagine my skin beginning to rip. I imagine a warm trickle of blood.

Yoshi sweeps me onto his back, like an empty harness package. The boar runs faster. Wild animals can smell the weakest member of a pack. The boar smells me. Clinging to Yoshi’s back, the White Crane shivers in fear.

Kyoko reaches the cherry tree first, with Taji close behind. They help pull Mikko out of danger. It’s easy to run with one arm, but it’s hard to climb. Yoshi pushes me upward, and my friends haul me onto a large branch. Yoshi scrambles up after me. Five samurai kids safely perched in a tree.