I looked out the restaurant window. The woods behind the shopping mall had been cleared away, and there were plots of land laid out. I could see the drain Uchida and I had followed. I’d seen it every time we left the mall, but if Uchida and I hadn’t followed it, I would never have noticed it was there. I still had a lot to learn.
“Dad. Imagine there was a really hard problem.”
“Mm, okay,” my father said, smiling. “I’m imagining a really hard problem.”
“In this case, we want to use your three principles.”
“Right. Break the problem into smaller pieces. Change the way you look at it. Look for a similar problem.”
“Right. But after you do that, are there times you still don’t understand?”
“Of course. There are more ways to think about things. Lots of approaches.”
“For example?”
My father thought about it, then took out his new notebook. He flipped through the pages like he was reading something important written in it, saying, “For example, if you go home and try to turn on the light. You flip the switch, but nothing happens. That’s a problem. If that happened, what would you think?”
“The switch was broken.”
“Maybe it is. If you think that, then the problem becomes ‘The switch is broken.’ But what if there’s actually a power outage, like last night? Then the problem has nothing to do with the switch. Yet, because you think the switch is broken, you can investigate the switch all you like and never find an answer.”
“Because the problem isn’t with the switch.”
“So first, you need to identify what the problem actually is.”
“I’d check to see if the lights in other rooms work.”
“That’s one method. If the other lights don’t turn on, there might be a problem with the circuit breaker. But this still might not solve the problem. In that case, you’d have to check the neighbor’s houses… And as you continue looking into it, you get a better idea of what the problem actually is.”
“That makes sense.”
“This is the most important thing but also the hardest. With math problems, you have the problem written down in front of you. But in most cases, you have no idea what the problem really is. It’s easy to end up accidentally investigating the switch while having no idea there’s a power outage.”
“You make mistakes, too?”
“Of course I do. Everyone does,” my father said softly. “When you try to figure out what the problem is, you’re often wrong about it several times. But the more practice you have, the better you get at finding the real problem.”
I wrote this down in my new notebook.
I had to get to know the problem better.
Why could the lady make penguins out of Coke cans?
Why could the lady make bats out of chess pieces?
Why could the lady make penguins and bats sometimes and not other times?
What is Penguin Energy?
Is the lady’s ability related to her physical state?
June arrived with no significant progress on my Penguin Highway research.
School was peaceful. There were no standout conflicts with Suzuki and his friends.
It seemed like his group had gotten interested in exploring, using the map they stole from us. They talked about the map in class as if the things on it were their discoveries. When he heard Suzuki had formed an expedition party and followed the drain just like we had, Uchida was dejected. But after listening a little more, we discovered that Suzuki’s party had headed in the opposite direction of where we had gone.
“No problem, then. They went downstream. No risk of running into them.”
“But it isn’t fair! We’re the ones who found that stream.”
“Uchida, we are searching for the source of the water. We can’t explore in both directions at the same time. Suzuki’s party can explore all they want to.”
“You really don’t get mad, Aoyama.”
“Not if I think about breasts.”
I definitely wanted to find out where the drainage canal led for myself. But I had a lot of other research projects on my plate already. No matter how smart I was, it was a mistake to take too much on. Handling both Project Amazon and the Penguin Highway research was more than enough for someone my age. And I was also doing research on the Suzuki Empire. I was better off leaving them be for now. I chose to believe that if we could make friends with them later, our map would be enriched as a result.
Hamamoto played chess with everyone in class and defeated every challenger but me.
She was extremely smart and good at chess. And I was extremely smart and good at chess. So when we played, the entire class gathered around. Even Suzuki was secretly watching us. My knights were very active. When Hamamoto’s hands stopped moving like a chocolate factory robot and actually paused, the entire class gasped. I heard Suzuki whisper, “Get her, Aoyama!”
“Shh! Be quiet!” Hamamoto said, holding up a finger. Suzuki shut up.
She glared down at the chessboard. Her cheeks were always pale, but today they were flushed. She brushed her chestnut hair out of her eyes. She was like a chocolate lover given a chocolate assortment, hovering over the chessboard as if trying to decide which piece to eat first.
To be strictly accurate, I only won because Hamamoto made a careless mistake. Either of us could easily have emerged victorious. That’s how tense a match it was.
I really enjoyed it, and I think Hamamoto did, too. After all, when the match was over, she didn’t look frustrated. Instead, she smiled, her face still red, and held out her hand for me to shake. We were worthy rivals.
“Aoyama, we should play again.”
“Okay,” I said.
When I was playing chess with the lady at Seaside Café, I told her about our battle. After all, she was the one who had taught me to play chess, so I thought she might praise me for it. But instead, she said, “You should have let her win. Not very grown-up of you, kiddo.”
“Well, I’m not a grown-up,” I argued.
“Don’t pretend to be a child only when it suits you. You’re letting me win right now.”
Every time we met up, she asked how the Penguin Highway research was going, just to mess with me. She teased me so mercilessly about it that I found myself suspecting she really did know all the answers and was just keeping them from me. But even if I thought that, I never said it out loud. I knew if I did she’d definitely get mad.
“Kiddo, can you solve this mystery?”
“You sure you’re not just having fun at my expense?”
“I totally am. Is that a problem?”
“This is a very difficult matter. My research will take time.”
“Oh, but please try to hurry!” the lady said. “If you don’t solve the mystery, I won’t take you to the beach.”
The lady came from a town on the coast.
It was right up against the water, with mountains crowding behind it, so the whole town was built on a hill that sloped down to the sea.
The lady had grown up looking down at the ocean from a house high above it. A sea breeze coming in the window, her bookshelves and clothes always smelling like the ocean. That’s why, she said, her body smelled like the sea. I once got her to let me sniff her arm. It smelled good, but I couldn’t be sure if it smelled like the sea. Unfortunately, I’d never been there.
“I’ll take you someday,” she’d said. Her father and mother still lived in that coastal town, and apparently, they’d love it if she brought me. So we had promised to go one day. Life was born from the sea, so as a representative of humankind, I wanted to research the ocean someday.
This year, I’d heard about a new railroad line.
The train route was being extended across the mountains on the prefectural border. There would be a new station in our town. It was still in the planning stages, and there was no telling when it would be completed, my father said. But when I had heard this railroad would also connect to the tow
n where the lady was born, I was very happy. It would make going to the sea with her a lot easier.
When we were playing chess one time, I’d told her about the new railroad.
“If we take that train, we’ll be at the sea in no time,” the lady had said. “That’ll make this a seaside town.”
It would, I’d thought.
At the time, I’d only just started playing chess with the lady, and the café we played chess in wasn’t yet named Seaside Café. Back then, Yamaguchi had given it a difficult name in some foreign language that I couldn’t even pronounce. The lady couldn’t pronounce it, either, and neither could my father. That’s how hard it was.
If the train came here and this became a seaside town, then this café would be a seaside café, and because of that, the lady changed the café’s name to Seaside Café. At first, it was just me and the lady who called it that. After he heard us calling it that, Yamaguchi hung the model of the blue whale from the ceiling, making the new name seem more appropriate.
Everyone in town started calling it Seaside Café. The sign outside the café still showed the really hard foreign name, but by now, everyone had forgotten about that sign.
“Why Seaside Café?” people sometimes asked, and I would tell them about the new train that would make us a seaside town.
Logically, that meant this town was also by the sea, I’d insist.
Uchida had moved here from a town across the prefecture line, but he still had a friend back there. He sometimes called that friend or wrote letters. I looked it up, and to get where Uchida used to live required crossing the prefecture border on one train, then transferring to a different line. It was over an hour away from where we lived.
Uchida said he wanted to show the penguin to his friend in that town.
Uchida had never taken a train alone, and carrying a penguin all that way alone would be a challenge. So I decided to help him. On Sunday, I went to Uchida’s apartment building and found him waiting with a dog carrier he’d borrowed from someone in class.
The penguin was waddling around the roof. It was hot and humid, but the penguin seemed fine. I knelt down, observing it, and it didn’t seem to be losing strength at all. Uchida said the penguin hadn’t eaten anything in over three weeks. The mystery of the Penguin Energy only deepened. If I could discover a way to make use of Penguin Energy, I would likely win the Nobel Prize. I’d be the first person to win a Nobel Prize in elementary school.
Uchida spread out his hands, and the penguin came waddling over. It really liked Uchida. We put the penguin in the pink carrier. I touched the penguin’s black wings as we did this. They were as hard as asphalt, which surprised me. The penguin’s back was covered in down, much softer and less slippery than I’d imagined. Penguins are clever, so it didn’t struggle in the carrier. It just sat still.
“I’m sure this is gonna be great!” Uchida said.
“For your friend?”
“Mm. It’ll be awesome to see a penguin. My friend’s in the hospital, so even going to the zoo isn’t possible.”
“Is it because of an illness?”
“Yeah. I don’t know with what. But my friend’s been in the hospital a long time.”
“If this makes them that happy, I’ll be glad.”
On the bus to the station, Uchida kept putting his fingers into the carrier. The penguin would peck his fingers with its beak. Maybe this kept it relaxed. “Don’t worry! Just hang in there,” Uchida said.
It was my job to buy tickets at the station. When I bought the tickets and gave Uchida his, he was impressed and said, “You’re like my dad, Aoyama.” But I just knew how to do it and had never ridden a train on my own before.
It was a clear day, and the train interior was well lit.
“What’s your friend like?”
“We used to live in the same building. Like you, my friend read a lot of books and liked researching things. Knew a lot about all kinds of things. Not just penguins.”
“Perhaps also interested in space? Like black holes?”
“Yep. I hope the two of you become friends.”
“Were you lonely when you moved?”
“I was. Until I started exploring with you, I really wanted to go back.”
“And now?”
“Part of me still wants to, and part of me doesn’t.”
We watched the town go by through the train windows. We were moving away from home at incredible speeds. Japan is really big, I thought. My father and Uchida’s father both rode this train to get to work. The town around the station petered out, and I could see rice paddies and bamboo groves. The train stopped at two stations and then went into the tunnel under the mountains on the prefecture border. The tunnel was really long and dark. It amplified the noise of the train.
Uchida peered into the carrier, worried. “Aoyama, the penguin’s lying down.”
I looked, too. The penguin was curled up at the bottom of the carrier.
“Is it train sick?”
“What do we do, Aoyama?”
“Let’s get off at the next station. If you get carsick, you get better if you get out of the car and lie down awhile. Let’s give it some time and see if it’s all right.”
We got off at the next stop.
I’d never gotten off at this station before. The platform was elevated, and we could look down at a bus terminal surrounded by small buildings. Behind the bus terminal was a small shopping area and then houses. I could see cumulonimbus clouds forming. There was a green forest to the north of the platform. The forest’s green seemed to be tumbling toward the station. The train pulled away, and the station was empty.
We put the carrier down on the edge of the platform and monitored the penguin’s condition.
“I hope it’s okay,” Uchida said, worried. “It seemed so happy before.”
“Sorry. I don’t know what could have caused this.”
“It’s okay. This isn’t your fault, Aoyama. I’m the one who insisted we should bring it…”
Uchida’s voice got smaller and smaller. His eyes never left the penguin.
As he stared down at the carrier, his bangs were fluttering. The wind was blowing. That’s weird, I thought. There was no wind on the platform, and none of the trees north of the station were moving at all. Only Uchida’s bangs. I licked my finger and tried to confirm the wind’s direction. I moved my finger all around until I was sure the wind was coming from the carrier.
“Uchida.”
“What?”
“Back up a bit.”
When Uchida moved back, I made sure the station attendants weren’t looking and opened the carrier. The penguin staggered out, looking very unhappy. The black of its back was all wrinkled. Its wings hung limp at its sides, like it was too tired to flap them. As though all it could manage was to stand upright and keep its balance.
The penguin’s beak turned toward Uchida, and it squeaked.
A moment later, all the shiny down covering it stood on end, starting from its feet and rising toward its head. Like a tsunami lifting the feathers, a spiral running around its body. The penguin raised its beak so high, it made it seem like it was swallowing a fish, stretching its body toward the sky expectantly.
The wind resembled a tiny tornado.
I grabbed Uchida’s head, shielding him from the gale.
The next thing I saw was a Coke can with wings flying through the air. The wings shrank like deflating balloons, vanishing completely by the time it landed on the platform. The wind was gone in an instant. The Coke can made a heavy clunk as it landed, echoing across the deserted platform. The penguin was nowhere to be seen.
I was stunned.
Uchida said nothing.
I walked over, picked up the Coke can, and investigated it. It was cold, as if it had just come out of a vending machine. Cold enough the drops of water on the outside moistened my fingertips.
Only then did I finally remember what had happened to the penguins on the truck, the first time they’d appeare
d in town.
I named this phenomenon the Penguin Evaporation.
I added the following line to my notes on the subject:
Why do penguins evaporate when they ride trains?
EPISODE 2
Observation Station
My hair was an extremely accurate barometer. I could measure the day’s humidity by how curly it got.
It was raining constantly, and my hair curled up in little loops. The water level in the town’s streams rose, and the mountains on the prefecture border were always gray and indistinct. The sound of water dripping from the trees was a constant presence.
“This is gonna create a bottomless swamp in the forest,” Uchida insisted. We were a wise exploration squad, so we delayed Project Amazon and resolved to focus on our Rainy Season study instead. We cut out the weather reports from the newspaper and pasted them into our notebooks, highlighting the high-pressure systems over the Sea of Okhotsk and the Ogasawara Islands. Such was our passion for research that my little sister copied us and turned the newspaper rainbow-colored with all the highlighters. “Look, look!” she said, all proud of herself. “You’re a real artist,” I said, and she was entirely satisfied.
Uchida was really depressed about the disappearance of his friendly penguin.
“Maybe that was never a penguin at all,” he said. “If it was a real penguin, it wouldn’t have suddenly vanished like that.”
“Then what do you think it was?”
“I don’t know. But he’s gone now, and I’m sad.”
“I think it’s a real shame.”
“Do you know why it vanished?”
“This is a very difficult matter to research. Even for me.”
Penguin Highway Page 7