Penguin Highway

by Tomihiko Morimi

  At lunch, the teacher turned on the TV and showed us the interview with Suzuki. That was the first time we saw the creature he’d captured. It was much squatter and smaller than the one we’d seen in the woods—even a little cuter. Maybe it was a baby Jabberwock. The Jabberwock was on all fours in the tank, sitting perfectly still.

  After school, the teacher stood in front of the class, explaining, “Starting today, there’ll be a university team investigating the woods behind the athletic field. They’ll be using the athletic field as their base, so you won’t be able to use it for a while. Make sure you don’t get in their way.”

  I raised my hand. “Why are they going into the woods?”

  “To investigate the ecology and climate. I’m not surprised you’re interested, Aoyama.”

  “Is this related to the creature Suzuki found?”

  “I don’t know all the details, but I’d imagine so.”

  “When the investigation is over, will we be allowed in the forest again?”

  “You were never allowed in that forest,” the teacher said sternly. “Even when the investigation is done, don’t ever go in there.”

  Hamamoto looked at me, scared.

  Our fears had come to pass.

  As soon as school was over, the three of us left in a hurry. We didn’t even want to take the time to go home first. We headed straight to the water-tower hill.

  “Do you think they’ve already found The Sea?” Hamamoto asked.

  “I think they’ve almost certainly found it. If this was just an investigation into a new creature, there’s no way a whole investigation team would be here this fast. I’m sure they’ve found The Sea. And decided ‘This is too weird and must be dangerous.’ That’s why they’ve acted so swiftly.”

  We headed toward the hill, feeling anxious. The closer we got to the forest, the more aware we became of the stir running through the town. There were women standing on corners, gossiping about it.

  At last, we reached the water-tower hill, but there was yellow tape across the stairs at the bottom, with signs saying UNDER INVESTIGATION and NO TRESPASSING hanging from it. When we tried to go under the tape, a young man with glasses came running down the stairs, waving us off.

  “We have business in the forest,” I said.

  “It’s under investigation, so we can’t let in any outsiders.”

  With him watching from the stairs, we couldn’t get into the forest.

  Thinking we might be able to get into the forest from a different direction, we circled the hill and cut through the residential area, heading toward the athletic field. As we neared the fields, everything got even more imposing. There were a number of white tents in the parking lot and lots of people scowling at monitors, fiddling with instruments, or drawing things on whiteboards and arguing about them. We could hear generators running.

  Hamamoto peered into the parking lot and then called out, “Dad!”

  Hamamoto started walking toward one of the tents, so Uchida and I followed her. Professor Hamamoto was with a few others, glaring at the monitor, but he stood up when he saw Hamamoto coming. He scratched his big bearlike face. There was a ballpoint pen behind one ear and a worn-out notebook in one hand.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Dad, what are you researching?”

  “We’re observing a very strange phenomenon discovered in the depths of the woods. I’ve been abruptly called in to help.”

  “What sort of phenomenon?” I asked.

  The professor hesitated. “I can’t tell you. It’s under investigation.”

  “We’d like to get in the forest.”

  “Not until we’ve finished investigating and are sure it’s safe. Now, you run along home. Don’t want you bothering anyone.”

  Hamamoto wanted to keep bugging him, but Uchida and I grabbed her hands and pulled her away. No matter how much we talked with him, he was never going to let us in the forest, and it would never do for him to get suspicious. Hamamoto sulked about it but started to follow us.

  Then she saw Suzuki and his minions sitting in a tent at the back of the parking lot.

  “Why is Suzuki here?”

  “Suzuki’s cooperating with the investigation,” Professor Hamamoto said. “They’re the ones who told us about the phenomenon in the forest. That’s what prompted this emergency investigation. They know a lot about this forest, so we need to hear from them.”

  At that, Hamamoto shook off Uchida and me. Her chestnut hair streaming behind her, she took off like a rocket. “Wait!” Professor Hamamoto yelled. He tried to catch her, but he moved like a bear waking up from hibernating, and she easily slipped past him.

  “Catch her!” he yelled.

  Other investigators tried to nab Hamamoto, but she dodged between all of them and reached Suzuki a moment later.

  Suzuki and his minions stood up, surprised.

  Hamamoto hauled back her arm and slapped Suzuki across the cheek. There was a sound like a balloon popping. I think Suzuki must have been so surprised, he didn’t even try to protect himself. If I’d been in his position, I’m sure I’d have just stood there stunned as well. The other investigators and Kobayashi and Nagasaki were all surprised, too. “I’ll never forgive you!” she yelled, so loud that everyone in the parking lot heard. Suzuki’s face twisted like he was about to burst into tears.

  “Why?” Suzuki wailed. “Why?”

  Professor Hamamoto caught up and pulled her away, and she just kept yelling, “I’ll never forgive you!”

  In all my life, I had never seen a girl get that angry.

  Chased away from the athletic field, we held an emergency meeting at my house.

  Hamamoto was leaning against the wall, silently making walls out of blue LEGOs. She was furious that her father had scolded her and sent her away. Even the sweets my mother prepared us didn’t cheer her up.

  I thought odds were high the investigation team had already found The Sea. The “strange phenomenon” the professor referred to was likely The Sea. The investigation team was starting to research The Sea using all the most modern observation instruments. I thought it was a real shame we couldn’t participate in that research.

  “What are you going to do, Aoyama?”

  “We’ve been studying The Sea all this time. I think we should turn over our important discoveries to the investigation team. But the lady is at the center of our research. We can’t tell the research team about her. That leaves us with a dilemma.”

  “A dilemma?”

  I looked over at Hamamoto. She was focused on her blue walls.

  “I think we have to call a halt to our research. And forget all about it. We can’t show the results of that research or the records we’ve made in our notebooks to anybody. We have to forget about the connections between The Sea and the penguins, and the penguins and the lady, forget everything we’ve brought to light.”

  “And you’re just fine with that?” Hamamoto said.

  “I have a lot of research projects. I’ll just research something else.”

  “I think we should continue observing The Sea.”

  “But the forest is off-limits.”

  “Show me the exploration map.”

  I took out the map and spread it out on the floor. Hamamoto leaned over the map, studying it intently. She pointed at the final route Uchida and I had followed for Project Amazon.

  “There are a number of routes into the Jabberwock Woods. If we can’t get there from the water-tower hill, we just have to go in from the other side. You followed this path in from the side of the highway, so I don’t think the investigation team will have closed that off.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense. There’s no way they could be watching the whole forest.”

  Hamamoto took a deep breath and stood up.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Now?”

  “I’m angry. This is our research project!”

  We hastily got ready. It was already getting rather late, so just in case the
sun set while we were within the forest, I got a big flashlight from the closet under the stairs and put that in my rucksack.

  Then we left the house.

  For Project Amazon, we’d followed the flow of the stream, which forced us to walk through the university campus and the old houses. On the map, this was a very roundabout route. If we followed the overgrown hiking path from the bus terminal, we could reach the highway much faster, and if we followed the highway, it wasn’t that far to the point where Uchida and I had entered the forest.

  We reached the highway and followed the asphalt road. The trucks whizzing past us kicked up clouds of dust. The forest grew right up to the edge of the highway, so it was rather dark. The sidewalk was narrow, and the wind from the trucks felt like it was trying to knock us over. Each time a truck went past, Hamamoto clapped her hands over her ears. When there were no cars, we could hear the Walker’s cicadas singing their distinctive song in the woods. When we reached the conduit under the highway, we turned off into the forest, following the stream.

  Inside the woods it was wet and so dark it felt like it was already evening. In the overgrown valley, the noise of the water flowing through the stream seemed extremely loud. When we got through the forest and emerged into the grassy area, there were dragonflies everywhere. The sky to the east was starting to darken, and the sky to the west was turning orange. Lights were on in the windows of the houses in the residential area to the left. Beyond this field was the Jabberwock Woods, and it looked like it was filled with massive black creatures.

  We turned on the flashlight and stepped into the darkened forest.

  Just as Hamamoto planned it, we slipped right through the investigation team’s security and made it to the clearing. When we stepped out of the forest, all three of us stopped in our tracks, surprised.

  The Sea filled the entire clearing. It was so big, it would be difficult to measure the exact size.

  The lower half of The Sea was now buried in the ground, leaving only the top half rising out of the clearing like a giant breast. We worked our way around the outside of it, looking up. The evening sun hit the top of The Sea’s dome, turning just that section of it red.

  “It’s still waxing,” Hamamoto said, staring up at it. “This is the biggest it’s ever been.”

  “If it keeps expanding, our entire town will be inside The Sea,” I said.

  Then Uchida grabbed my arm.

  “Aoyama! There’s something here!”

  We turned, and across the clearing, around the observation station, we saw a number of black silhouettes. They were on all fours, their sleek bodies bent over. Like statues, the silhouettes weren’t moving at all. “Hamamoto,” I whispered. We ducked down low, hiding in the grass. “Investigators? Penguins?” Hamamoto whispered.

  “Neither. Those are Jabberwocks.”

  “The thing Suzuki captured? These are much bigger.”

  “And there are a lot of them.”

  We stifled our breaths for a while, but the Jabberwocks never moved. Just as we were considering going forward, we saw something stirring at the border between the clearing and the forest. A penguin, waddling along. No other penguins with it. It ran hastily across the clearing, flippers flapping, and stopped right in front of us. It seemed tired.

  Then a number of Jabberwocks came out of the forest, following the penguin’s path. The way they walked was very clumsy-looking. Human arms and legs were just awkwardly jammed onto the sides of a blue whale’s body, so it looked like they had to work really hard to move at all. “Gross,” Hamamoto said.

  “The penguin’s in danger.”

  The pack of Jabberwocks was sliding across the grass, following the penguin. The penguin was seemingly too worn out to notice the monsters creeping up behind it.

  Uchida started running.

  It was so sudden, neither Hamamoto nor I were able to follow.

  He ran across the grass and picked up the penguin. As he did, the Jabberwocks picked up speed, dashing across the grass right toward Uchida. Uchida ran in the other direction, clutching the penguin in his arms.

  Hamamoto and I got up and ran after him.

  The Jabberwocks occupying the observation station noticed us. The hitherto immobile silhouettes all turned toward us and started running forward on all fours. Before Hamamoto and I could catch up with him, Uchida was tackled sideways by a Jabberwock. The penguin was flung away and went rolling across the grass. I tried to save the penguin, but a Jabberwock got there first.

  The penguin was swiftly swallowed up. The Jabberwock’s torso swelled up like someone had added helium. The wind from its mouth shook the grass.

  “Ah!” Uchida yelled. “You ate it!”

  Uchida tackled the Jabberwock. Then another Jabberwock threw itself onto the pile. I shoved it off Uchida.

  Hamamoto turned the flashlight on, lighting up the Jabberwocks. We heard a noise like a bunch of crying babies, and the Jabberwocks scattered across the grass, avoiding Hamamoto’s flashlight beam.

  “They don’t like the light! This way!”

  Hamamoto pointed toward the observation station. I grabbed Uchida’s arm, and we ran toward Hamamoto.

  At the observation station, Hamamoto opened her notebook and quickly took measurements on The Sea.

  One side of it was right in front of us. If it waxed a little larger, it would swallow up the observation station. Its sides had a cold, silvery gleam, like it was made of steel. And there were a dozen Jabberwocks standing on all fours between us and The Sea. It seemed like they’d forgotten us. They were all looking up, gazing into the distance, not moving at all—like shadow puppets. Looking at them, I remembered how the penguins had stood in this same clearing, staring up at the sky. It was like both the penguins and the Jabberwocks were alien life-forms that had come here from another planet and were lost on Earth.

  “What are the Jabberwocks?” I murmured.

  Just then, we heard grown-ups yelling. Powerful beams of light came out of the forest behind us, like searchlights illuminating the side of The Sea. The Jabberwocks scattered. We turned toward the forest and were caught in the lights, unable to see a thing.

  “The kids are here!” someone called. The investigation team.

  And that’s how our research on The Sea ended.

  We were taken back to the base at the athletic field, and all the adults there were mad at us. Professor Hamamoto, bathed in the bright lights inside the tent, was the scariest. He didn’t give us a long lecture like the teachers at school did. He just asked, “How’d you get in the forest?” We admitted we’d gone in from the other side of the woods, and he nodded. “You can’t do that again. Understand?”

  “But…,” Hamamoto began.

  “You can’t do that again!” he shouted, his voice like a thunderclap.

  It was so loud, we all jumped off our seats.

  Even Hamamoto didn’t say anything more.

  Still, I thought we should at least explain the dangers of The Sea to Professor Hamamoto. I tried to detail how we’d sent a probe inside The Sea only to have it vanish, but he didn’t give me the time.

  “Aoyama, this isn’t something you need to worry about,” he said.

  We were left sitting under the tent. Hamamoto stared at the ground, not saying a word. Uchida cried a little. Someone from the team came and gave him a handkerchief.

  At last, our parents arrived, and we were escorted home.

  The next morning, I tried to go to school, but I was too worn out to move. My whole body felt heavy, like it wasn’t even mine. My mother noticed I wasn’t getting up and came to check on me. She put her hand on my head.

  “You’ve got a fever,” she said. “Punishment for doing something so dangerous. You’d better stay in bed today.”

  “I’m so busy, though.”

  “None of that, now.”

  She brought me a cup of soup and some yogurt with apples in it.

  I spent the whole day in bed. After my sister left for school, I heard my mo
ther run the washer and dryer and the vacuum cleaner. Bright light shone through my blinds. I was always extremely busy, so it was rare for me to be in bed when it was this bright out. It felt very odd.

  I remembered the advice my father had given me before he set out on his trip and put a large piece of paper next to my pillow, writing notes that summarized all the research results so far.

  The lady makes penguins.

  The penguins live on Penguin Energy.

  Penguins evaporate if they ride the train.

  The lady wants to make penguins if she’s feeling good.

  If the lady makes too many penguins, she gets sick.

  If the lady makes Jabberwocks, she gets better.

  The penguins break The Sea.

  Jabberwocks eat the penguins.

  The Sea is linked to the lady’s health.

  The Sea bends space and time.

  I was lying on my stomach in bed, glaring at the list. I read it over and over, then let the notes roll around and around in my head. How did they all connect? How could I tie them all together? No eureka moment arrived.

  Before lunch, my mother came up. “Hey!” she said. “If you don’t get some rest, you won’t get better.”

  And she took my notebook and the paper away.

  I was a child made of steel. The last time I’d had a fever was in December of the previous year. I’d made a record of my suffering in my notebook, yet, once again, I was surprised by how awful this was. I’d been running around just fine the day before, but now I was so tired, I didn’t even want to move. It was upsetting to not know what was happening inside your own body.

  My mother made udon for lunch, and we ate together in my room. There was an egg in the udon. I was in the fourth grade, but eating this with her made me feel like I’d gone back to being a baby who didn’t know how to read books or write notes yet.

  She went out shopping, and I got the pocket-size notebook and a pen from my desk. I kept it under my pillow where she wouldn’t find it. Now I could finally relax again. Mother didn’t understand that I just didn’t feel comfortable without a notebook next to me.