Penguin Highway

by Tomihiko Morimi

  “What is even happening?” Hamamoto said.

  I had to record this new discovery.

  Penguins can destroy The Sea.

  I went on a drive with my father.

  We went toward the university, down the bus route that reminded me of a seaside highway. We passed through the university buildings to a narrow road that led into the mountains. We went up and down over the mountains and under a big highway.

  “I wonder where this road goes,” my father said.

  “I wonder,” I said.

  I liked going for drives with my father.

  When we left the house, we never had a destination in mind. He’d just pick roads out of curiosity. “Where does this one go?” I didn’t know where we’d end up. Neither did my father. When he put his hands on the wheel and muttered, “Let’s see where this road goes,” I felt like the asphalt before us led to places my father had never seen, possibly to the ends of the earth. But we never made it to the ends of the earth. We’d reach unknown towns, take a rest at a café or hamburger shop in that town, and then drive back home.

  That day, we found a town built on a hill.

  A big road went up a hill with houses on both sides and not a lot of pedestrians. The sunlight was pouring down, and everything around us was quiet. It was only two o’clock, but the sunlight hitting the houses made it look more like it was evening. Very mysterious. On the way to the water tower at the top of the hill, we saw a brown building with a fitness center in it. There was a café inside, so we pulled into the parking lot and went in.

  The café was air-conditioned and very cool. My father drank coffee, so I did, too. My father took his black, but I put sugar in mine. Mother doesn’t know I drink coffee. She wouldn’t be happy if she knew, so I only drank it when I was out driving with my father. I was slowly reducing the amount of sugar I used, training myself to drink real coffee.

  “Let’s stop at a bookstore on the way home,” my father said. “Did you read that book on the space station?”

  “I did. I used it as a reference to help build my LEGO space station.”

  “What part did you like best?”

  To get my father to buy me a new book, I had to pass my father’s test. He would always ask what I liked best about the last book he bought me, and I would have to explain it to him. If I didn’t pass that test, he wouldn’t buy me a new book—that was the rule. But I’d never failed the test.

  I told my father the things I’d been most interested in concerning the space station’s structure and history. My father nodded as he listened. At the end, he said, “I see. When you’re grown-up, do you think we’ll all be able to travel through space?”

  “I think it will be extremely expensive.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “But if we can make a space elevator, maybe it will get easier. And then Uchida and I can go.”

  “Uchida wants to go to space, too?”

  “…Maybe he wouldn’t actually go. He’s scared of black holes. But I think the odds of being sucked into a black hole just because you’ve gone to space are quite low.”

  “However low those odds may be, that might not be enough to convince Uchida.”

  “Yes. In that case, we’ll just have to go see a rocket take off together. We’ve agreed to do that.”

  We could see the parking lot from the café window. Grown-ups were going to and from the fitness center. I knew that inside the fitness center, there were a bunch of machines that would let them run or walk forever without ever getting anywhere, like the exercise wheels we give hamsters. I’ve always thought these machines were very strange.

  “When I go driving with you, I always feel like we’ll end up at the ends of the earth.”

  “That would be interesting.”

  “But I know the ends of the earth aren’t anywhere close. I’m in the fourth grade now, after all. I know the ends of the earth are much, much farther away. And the ends of the universe.”

  “That’s not entirely true,” my father said, totally serious. “The ends of the earth aren’t far away at all.”

  “They aren’t?”

  “I don’t think so. In my way of thinking, the ends of the earth aren’t always on the outside. Take wormholes, for example. There might be a wormhole on the table between us. Perhaps it only exists for a moment, which is why we can’t see it.”

  I looked at my coffee cup. I imagined an entrance to another universe opening and closing right next to it. If that happened, it would definitely be very interesting.

  “The ends of the earth are folded up inside the world,” my father said.

  This was a very strange idea.

  Maybe that’s why I always felt like I was on the verge of discovering them.

  My father took a sip of coffee, smiling. “Is your research on the lady getting anywhere?”

  “It is extremely difficult.”

  “The other day, I had a chance to talk to her at the university. She’s very smart, and definitely interesting, but also quite mysterious. The dentist said the same thing.”

  “The more I research, the less I understand.”

  “I don’t know what sort of research you’re doing, but you remember what I told you before?”

  “About identifying what the problem is?”

  “What problem is it you’re trying to solve?”

  “I don’t know yet. I have found a number of different problems, and all of them are extremely difficult.”

  “Maybe that means you’re getting closer to an answer.”

  “How so?”

  “Perhaps the true nature of all those problems is the same.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I took out my notebook and wrote All the problems might be the same. I would have to consider the meaning of those words later and decide if the Penguin Highway and The Sea weren’t actually different problems, but the same research topic.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Make sure you record each day’s discoveries,” my father said. “Always go over those discoveries and organize them.”

  He finished his coffee.

  Hamamoto’s blue notebook had a record of The Sea’s size. She made good use of grid-lined paper to draw very accurate graphs. According to these graphs, the size of The Sea had been constantly increasing, but lately, that increase had been slowing down.

  We were on the grass under the parasol, engaged in a Joint Research Meeting. Hamamoto had her white hat pulled down over her eyes and was sitting in the folding chair. She had her knees grumpily pulled up to her chest and wasn’t saying much. Uchida was sitting next to me on the grass, anxiously looking up at her. We knew exactly why she was in a bad mood; it was because I’d kept it a secret that the lady could make penguins.

  Hamamoto was conducting an interrogation from that chair.

  “Aoyama. You’ve known the whole time?”

  “I have.”

  “That’s not fair! I told you about my research on The Sea. But you didn’t tell me about your research. I wanted to know where the penguins come from, too!”

  “I had no choice but to keep it a secret. I’d promised the lady I would. And I was worried that if I told anyone else about the penguins, the lady would be captured by researchers.”

  “I can keep a secret!”

  “I know you can.”

  “But you didn’t trust me.”

  “That’s not true.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “But Hamamoto,” Uchida said, “you know now. So…isn’t that good enough?”

  “Don’t keep things like that a secret ever again. It can obstruct our research!”

  “That’s true,” Uchida admitted.

  “You’re right about that, Hamamoto. I thought our research on The Sea and my research on the Penguin Highway were two different things. But if we look over all the discoveries we’ve made, I think it’s clear The Sea and the penguin appearances are connected. Researchin
g them separately won’t ever solve the problem. Because this is all one problem.”

  “Exactly!” Hamamoto said, pointing at me.

  Uchida hung his head. “I had no idea.”

  “So I regret keeping my Penguin Highway research a secret from you both. And I’d like to formally ask for your assistance researching the lady.”

  Hamamoto and Uchida considered my proposal.

  Hamamoto frowned.

  “I don’t believe that woman is telling you the truth, Aoyama. Does she really not know why she can make penguins?”

  “It’s a mystery to her, as well.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. I mean… She’s the one doing it.”

  “But she’s not a bad person, and she wouldn’t lie to me about the penguins. She doesn’t know. That’s why she asked me to research the topic.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you hate the dentist?”

  “That’s not true!”

  “You’re fighting again,” Uchida said. “Eat some sweets.”

  Hamamoto poured some ice-cold tea from a thermos into some paper cups. I took out three Boob Cakes from my rucksack. “Everyone’s going to be on edge, so I think you’d better bring sweets,” Uchida had said, so I’d bought these before entering the Jabberwock Woods.

  While we were drinking tea and eating Boob Cakes, Hamamoto seemed to calm down a little.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  When the Joint Research Meeting ended, we observed The Sea for a while. It had shrunk a bit, but no particularly noteworthy phenomena appeared. Occasionally, we’d see a penguin waddle past at the edge of the woods, and Hamamoto shouted “Penguin!” every time.

  Our plan to send a second probe into The Sea was currently postponed. The Penguin I had vanished, and the Penguin II had turned into a real penguin—it was probably still wandering around the woods somewhere. And construction of the Penguin III was not yet complete. Losing so many LEGOs was a real issue, and we didn’t have replacements for the thermometer and penlight that had been installed in the Penguin I. Also, based on the mysterious optical phenomenon the other day, we had a hypothesis that The Sea might be making fun of us, which was cause for concern.

  Uchida was getting ready to fly a kite he’d made. We helped. I cut beautiful photos out of the magazine the dentist had given me, and Uchida glued them to his kite.

  At last, we had a bright, beautiful kite.

  We had a great time flying it over the clearing.

  For the next week, my family went to my grandparents’ house. We drove there every summer once my father’s summer vacation started.

  I was sad I couldn’t observe The Sea, but I couldn’t exactly stay behind on my own. And if I didn’t go with them, I knew my grandparents would be extremely sad. In this case, my grandparents were my father’s parents. The day before I left, I spoke to Hamamoto and Uchida and said, “The research is in your hands.”

  My grandparents’ house was a two-hour drive from where we lived. It was a much older town than ours. There was a small mountain behind their house, and in the summer, you could always hear cicadas. Deep in the mountain, there was a small pond, almost a big puddle. Next to the house was a field where my grandfather grew vegetables. While we were staying there, I would walk close behind my grandfather, helping tend to the vegetables.

  I liked my grandfather.

  He walked slowly and took his time when he spoke. I didn’t know anyone else who talked as slowly as he did. If I talked too much, he would always say, “Slow down, I can’t keep up.”

  My grandfather loves sweet things, so when we went out for a walk together, he’d always buy me some sweets. We would eat those sweets next to a fire we’d made in a hollow near the field or while walking through the bamboo groves in the mountains. While I was spending time with my grandfather like this, he’d tell me all sorts of stories. All the countries he went to when he was young, or stories about when my father was in college. I wrote all of these down in my notebook later.

  In the evening, I went to my grandfather’s room to show him my notes, and he was extremely impressed.

  “You’re quite the scholar,” he said.

  My grandfather’s room had a lot of old books and tools, and it always smelled of incense. He hated organizing his room, and he hated it when anyone else moved his stuff. His room had an old, comfy green couch for him to sit in and a small wooden chair. He would sit in the house, pour coffee from a thermos, add sugar, and drink that. I’d sit on the little wooden chair and talk with him. His room was extremely messy, and I couldn’t tell where anything was. I’d given him a map, but I had no idea where he’d put it. But my grandfather just said “I’m sure it’s somewhere” and drank his coffee. “As long as it’s somewhere, there’s no problem.”

  My grandmother was nothing like my grandfather.

  I liked my grandmother, too.

  She was always working in the house and talked faster than any of us. According to my father, she’d talked even faster when she was young, and when she got angry, nobody could understand what she was saying at all. While she was working in the house, she would tell me how to clean rooms or organize things. She’s the one who taught me that dividing everything up properly was extremely pleasing. My grandmother had three rules.

  Divide things you often use from things you only sometimes use.

  Divide things you definitely can’t lose from things you don’t care if you lose.

  Don’t divide things that are hard to divide.

  My grandmother divided up all kinds of things and put them away in a big chest with lots of drawers. I liked watching my grandmother organize these drawers. When I was with her, watching, she’d pull all manner of strange things out of the drawers and make me guess what they were for. She even had broken plates and wine corks in there. She threw things away that she didn’t use, so everything in there was something that still had use, but it was not easy to identify what that use was. The more lost I was, the happier she got.

  The only part of the house she didn’t organize was my grandfather’s room.

  “If I cleaned in there, I feel like it would kill him,” she said. “So I never do.”

  My mother said my father took after my grandmother. But part of him was also like my grandfather.

  “Normally, he’s a lot like your grandmother. But when he’s focused on his work, he gets more and more like your grandfather,” my mother said.

  When we were staying at my grandparents’ house, our family slept in an empty room on the second floor. At first, it bothered me that it smelled differently from our house. Just as I got used to the smell and was comfortable sleeping there, it was time to go home.

  After a week away at my grandparents’ house, we came back home, and the next day was one of those mid-vacation school days. I hadn’t been to school in ages, and some of the children had shocking tans. It was astonishing how much spending time in the sun could transform people. I never really got all that tan.

  While we waited for the teacher, I talked to Hamamoto and Uchida about what I’d done at my grandparents’ house. Then Hamamoto looked up.

  “Suzuki’s acting weird,” she said. “I wonder why.”

  I turned around and took a look at him. He was sitting at his desk, staring into space. That wasn’t like him at all. Everyone else in class was excitedly talking to friends they hadn’t seen in a while, but it was dead quiet around Suzuki, like he was in the eye of a typhoon. Kobayashi and Nagasaki both looked uncomfortable, as if they were afraid to approach him.

  While I was observing him, Suzuki glanced up and saw me staring. He avoided my eyes.

  “Suzuki’s being really quiet,” Uchida said. “I wonder what’s wrong?”

  I’d never seen the Suzuki Empire emperor sitting alone, lost in thought.

  A warm breeze blew in the open windows, making the big cream-colored curtains flutter. The classroom was full of happy vo
ices, but one odd rumor was making the rounds. Uchida heard it first and made sure to tell me.

  A kid from another class had witnessed a strange creature in the drain north of the athletic field.

  That drain went under the bus route through a ten-meter-long dark tunnel. It was used for Tunnel Diving, one of the Suzuki Empire’s famous punishments. The drain was designed to help the water run off when it rained a lot, so most of the time, it was dry, and you could make it through the tunnel on all fours. I’d explored it myself once. Voluntarily.

  Anyway, the kid in question was trying to go through this tunnel when they saw a large creature lurking in the dark. The creature was wet and smelly, like a fish. It was about the size of a large dog. But it had no fur anywhere—its skin was smooth. It was big and round, so the kid couldn’t tell where the head was. While the kid was still astonished by it, the creature suddenly jumped up, stretched out, and ran off down the other side of the tunnel, footsteps echoing through the tunnel. The ground where it had been curled up had been soaking wet.

  “A new species?” Uchida asked.

  “Could be just a stray cat or dog. Maybe it got wet in the rain and was taking shelter there.”

  “But it wasn’t raining.”

  What a weird story.

  There wasn’t much to do on days like this, so school ended before lunch.

  In the afternoon, I went to the dentist for an examination. I figured it was best to have them make sure I hadn’t developed any new cavities while I wasn’t looking. When I stepped into the dentist’s office, Suzuki was already sitting there, just like last time. He was as out of it as he’d been at school, just staring up at the silver mobile with all the fish on it. When he noticed me standing there, he twitched. Then he avoided my eyes.

  I started flipping through a magazine. “Suzuki,” I said. “That last fight was extremely rough. If the penguins hadn’t shown up, I think I would have lost.”

  Suzuki didn’t say anything.

  “But I’m glad you explored the river. Now the town map is much better. The fact that the river behind the school flows down to that clearing is a great discovery.”