Owl Ninja

by Sandy Fussell

  “You need only one slipper.” The ghost’s voice cackles softly, embers in a dying fire.

  “What?” The ghost is making fun of me! My blood bubbles in anger. I’m not afraid anymore. No one likes to be made a fool of. Especially me. The other ryus always jeer and call me silly names. Hopscotch. Frog foot. I’m glad I whacked the ghost in the head with my crutch. I’d like to do it again.

  But now the branch is empty. All that remains is the faint smell of scorched wood.

  “Come back,” I yell, swinging my crutch like a sword. “Who are you to laugh at my one leg when your body is barely there? You’re nothing but a pair of firefly eyes.”

  A Cockroach is not afraid of other bugs.

  “What was all that yelling about?” Nezume asks moments later when I climb into the pool, my crutch safely leaning against our clothes.

  Kyoko giggles. “Niya likes to talk to himself.”

  “So who was he waving his crutch at?” asks Mikko, snickering.

  I’d do more than wave my crutch at him, if it wasn’t resting out of reach. “Didn’t you see anything?” I ask.

  My friends shake their heads.

  “Niya was talking to ghosts.” Mikko laughs at his joke, and Nezume joins in, even louder.

  Sensei says nothing, but his face has words written all over it. My friends can read the whole story there. It’s not a joke. Their eyes grow as wide and round as rice balls.

  “Were you scared?” Kyoko’s eyes are biggest of all.

  “No. I stood straight and still like a samurai warrior. I stared death in the face.” Even Mikko looks impressed. “I shook my crutch, and it ran away.”

  It’s almost true. Most of the time I was so terrified I couldn’t move. But in the end, I did shake my crutch. They all saw that.

  “What did the ghost say?” Yoshi asks.

  Embarrassed, I stare down at my foot. “It said, ‘You need only one slipper.’”

  “I could have told you that without even looking,” Taji says with a hoot.

  Kyoko tries to hide her giggle behind her hand, but Yoshi guffaws loudly. Nezume and Mikko slap palms. Even Sensei thinks it’s funny.

  When the ghost laughed at me, I was insulted. But when my friends laugh, it sounds different. It makes me smile and forget my anger.

  “The dead like to play games, but they are also very knowledgeable. The ghost has given Niya a special message,” Sensei says. “Sometimes the information we need is right under our foot.”

  “But what does the message mean, Sensei?” asks Yoshi.

  “It means Niya has a task to complete. And he only needs one slipper to do it.”

  “Maybe Niya will stop the war with his smelly old slipper,” Mikko teases.

  I wish it was that easy. I would give my remaining foot to ensure no one dies.

  Inside my head, the wizard is whispering again: I am very proud. You have passed an important test. None of my other students were ready.

  The pool soothes my aching muscles, but Sensei’s words warm my heart. I want to ask more questions. Why am I being tested? What task must I complete? And why do I need to be told what I can see every morning when I put my slipper on? But there’s an even more important question I need to ask Sensei. “Are you worried about what will happen when we reach the castle, Master?”

  I know I am. What would we do without Sensei? Yoshi is a good leader, but he’s not a teacher. And we still have so much to learn.

  “There is nothing to fear. The Emperor is wise but very superstitious, and he knows that if he chopped off my head, I would haunt him for the rest of his life.” Sensei smiles. “He would never enter Hell Valley. One word from a ghost and the Son of Heaven would die of fright.”

  “I could stay here forever,” Kyoko sighs. Her long white hair floats like water lilies on the surface of the pool.

  Taji sinks low until only frog eyes show above the water. “The ninja are smart to come here.”

  Not even I would argue with that. The waters of the river near the ryu are freezing cold, except in the middle of summer. But the mineral pool is the color of tea and just as warming.

  Nezume pulls my foot out from under me, and I sink toward the bottom. When I surface, thrashing and sputtering, I spit water in Nezume’s face. Despite appearances, mineral water is not good to drink — it doesn’t taste a thing like tea.

  “I like the feel of warm mud between my toes,” says Nezume. “Maybe I would like to be a ninja.”

  I shake my head. “The ninja sneaks around in the night, but the samurai calls his challenge loud and brave, looking his opponent in the eye.”

  Sensei smiles knowingly, like the cat that swallowed the crane. “If you are hungry for an extra rice cake and there is only one left over, what do you do? Do you wave your sword and shout for challengers?”

  I remember the honey rice cakes we had for dessert two nights ago. Especially the last one I ate in secret as I sat on the ryu kitchen floor in the moonlight. Sensei knows what I did. I sneaked in, just like a ninja.

  “Sometimes ninja skills might be useful,” I admit.

  Taji pokes me in the ribs. “Next you’ll be throwing shuriken stars.”

  Shuriken stars are small metal shapes the ninja use to throw or stab. They can be tossed at the eyes, hands, or feet, and they’re used to distract a warrior from his sword. I lean back against the edge of the pool, warm water lapping against my chin.

  Someone pulls my hair. Hard.

  I ignore it. Then it happens again, even harder.

  I whirl around to face Kyoko. “You said we were even. Why are you pulling my hair?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” She grins. “Although I wish I did. Maybe it was ninja fingers.”

  “Or a ghost. Whooooo . . .” Yoshi teases.

  Another tug. This time I’m faster and find myself looking at a bunch of tiny faces with more wrinkles than Sensei and breath worse than one of Uma’s after-dinner belches.

  “Snow monkeys!” Kyoko shouts excitedly.

  She was born in the snow-covered mountains of northernmost Honshu. Her superstitious parents left their white-haired, six-fingered child on the mountainside to die. The snow monkeys came and took her to their home — and that’s where Sensei found her, climbing trees before she was old enough to walk.

  “Look, Sensei, there are five. It’s a family.” Kyoko reaches out to link fingers with the mother.

  “Five is a good number. My favorite,” Sensei says, gently removing a young monkey from the top of his head.

  Two bigger monkeys fight over who will pull my hair next. They chatter and screech. They chase their tails around the pool and stick their noses in our clothes.

  Nezume laughs. “They’re checking to see who smells the worst.”

  “That’ll be Niya. You don’t have to be a ninja to smell him coming,” Mikko teases.

  I’ve only got one foot, but it kicks twice as hard. Even underwater.

  “Er-er-ergh,” Mikko groans theatrically and does a dead-fish impersonation, floating on top of the water.

  “I do not smell. And no one can tell who a person is by sniffing,” I insist. “Not even a ninja. Or Taji. Or a monkey.”

  The smallest snow monkey pushes its way into my armpit to prove me wrong.

  “Every person has their own odor.” Taji smiles. “You know that.” He blows a kiss to remind me. Mrs. Onaku smells like cherry blossoms.

  “The ninja have many secrets worth learning,” Sensei says. “Before I came to the Cockroach Ryu, I trained with a ninjutsu master for more than a decade.”

  Sensei is a samurai and a ninja? Wait till Grandfather hears about this. It’ll make a great story.

  “I learned to move with the wind, to disappear in the mist, and to run up the cherry tree. How do you think I manage such things? Did you think I could do magic?”

  I know he can. I know because he’s always practicing on me. Maybe I could learn a little ninja magic too. Then when Kyoko throws things at us, she won’t be
able to escape by climbing Sensei’s cherry tree. I’ll be able to run up after her.

  “You would make a good ninja, Taji.” Sensei’s praise fills Taji’s unseeing eyes with pride.

  “What about me?” I ask. Before, I mocked the ninja. I only wanted to yell and wave my sword. But now, suddenly, I want to do more. I want to sneak and sniff and fade into the night. Like Sensei.

  “You are an excellent student, Niya. Even ghosts want to teach you a lesson. You could learn to be the greatest ninjutsu samurai ever.”

  Even better than Sensei? Not likely. But in my heart I accept the challenge and the wizard nods.

  “Are there any ninja girls?” Kyoko asks.

  Sensei smiles. “Many more than samurai girls.”

  Kyoko is the only samurai girl we’ve ever heard of.

  “There are?” Mikko grins and whistles. “Then I think I might be a ninja, too.”

  Sensei closes his eyes and twists the water from his long white beard. We wait for his words of wisdom to fall with a splash. Even the snow monkeys are quiet now.

  “We must learn to open our eyes and ears to new things if we are to stop the war drum. Our first battle is not far away.”

  Yoshi looks alarmed. “I thought we weren’t fighting.”

  “Not every conflict is settled with a sword. At the castle, a word can send a head rolling across the floor,” Sensei says.

  The White Crane cowers. Is Sensei talking about his own head? He smiles at me, but I don’t feel reassured.

  “Our path to Toyozawa is very rocky,” Sensei continues.

  “I know.” Mikko grimaces. His foot still hurts from kicking rocks.

  Sensei stretches his arm out, palm down. “Chi,” he says.

  Yoshi places his hand over Sensei’s and Taji adds his next. “Jin.”

  Then Kyoko. Mikko. And me. “Yu.”

  Chi, jin, yu.

  Wisdom, benevolence, and courage.

  Our wet hands form a mountain where the code of the samurai binds us together. Ancient powerful words, stronger than rock and sharper than any sword. Standing together, samurai kids are not afraid of anything. I’m even braver than the Emperor of Japan. Not even the most fearsome ghost in Hell Valley could frighten me now.

  “Drop,” Sensei yells.

  We do, without hesitation or thought for rocks, mud, and puddles. We sit cross-legged and still and wait for the next instruction. We’ve been doing this training exercise since our first day together at the ryu. A samurai cannot choose where to fight his battles, so Sensei doesn’t let us pick where we practice. Anywhere will do. Even in the middle of the back road to Toyozawa.

  I watch Sensei’s eyes, searching for the moment when he will command us to jump up and draw our swords. Flickering eyes mean your opponent is thinking. When a man makes a decision, his eyes stop moving. He doesn’t need to think anymore. He knows.

  “The samurai who draws first is very slow,” Sensei taught us. “He draws first because he needs a head start. The true swordsman waits until the last moment, then unsheathes so fast that he catches his opponent in mid-swing.”

  My leg aches, but I don’t move. Beside me Nezume crouches motionless, coiled to spring at Sensei’s next word. Like his spirit totem, the Long-Tailed Rat, Nezume radiates nervous energy. Nose twitching, ears wriggling. He’d flick his tail, too, if he had one.

  Nezume has the fastest sword in the mountains; he always draws last and slices first. No wonder the Dragon Master wants him back. He doesn’t want Nezume on our team at the Games next year.

  “Draw!” Sensei bellows.

  I’m on my foot in an instant, sword in hand. Yoshi is standing too close, and I catch him on the elbow by accident. It’s a good thing we are using our wooden swords for practice, or Yoshi would have nothing to lean on next time he lies out on his rock overlooking the valley. But it’s my error. To bump against another samurai is a great insult. Honor demands a duel to the death. Luckily, to bump against a samurai kid is not as dangerous.

  Yoshi pokes his tongue out at me, raising his sword in triumph. “Niya loses a point.”

  We don’t really keep score. Sensei doesn’t believe in awarding prizes. When we asked for merit scrolls like the other ryus have, he gave each of us a blank piece of rice paper.

  “This contains everything I have taught you,” he said, presenting my copy with a flourish and a smile.

  I grinned back. “Then I am an excellent student, because I have learned it all.”

  Awards look good, but they mean nothing. Still, we did like winning the trophy at the Annual Samurai Trainee Games. And there is one reward worth striving for. When Sensei beams at us with pleasure, we glow warm and proud.

  “Stop,” Sensei commands.

  We turn to stone, like statues blocking the road. Sensei usually waits until one of us moves. Usually Kyoko will giggle or Nezume will twitch his nose, but sometimes it takes hours. This afternoon, Sensei doesn’t have the whole day to wait. Ta-thum. Thum. Thump. Inside my head, the drum throbs against my temples. Time is running out. Only eight days left.

  “Go!” Sensei yells.

  We take off running. The road winds through the rice fields where the only people we’ll see will be farmers, too busy to notice an old man and his students. It takes a lot of rice to feed a castle town and to pay its samurai soldiers. Once the samurai lived on country estates, but peace has made the daimyos nervous and they like to keep their armies close. Now most of the samurai live in houses in the town or castle keep, their wages paid in rice. Their jobs are to wait and practice.

  No wonder Sensei makes us train so hard. We are practicing for a life of practice.

  “More practice,” Sensei yells. “Run like the tiger.”

  Yoshi is the Tiger, and with great loping strides, he hunts down Sensei. The rest of us chase along behind. We’re covering ground quickly now. At this pace, we might even reach the castle town by midnight.

  My father is a town samurai. He collects his samurai rice and lives in a comfortable house with a garden. But sometimes I know he wishes for the days of Grandfather’s youth, when samurai slept in fields. One winter, Grandfather told us he slept in the snow. “Brrr! Too cold for me. I’m glad we don’t do that anymore,” Father said. But he doesn’t want to grow old counting rice, either.

  Sensei slows to a brisk walk. “Soon we will reach the river,” he says. “We’ll stop and catch fish for dinner.”

  None of us are fooled by that. He means he’ll sleep on the riverbank while we hold the rods. Fishing is so boring. Mikko groans and Nezume moans even louder.

  “I can’t see the point of fishing,” Taji complains.

  Kyoko giggles. It’s a good joke because Taji can’t see anything.

  “It is a waste of time,” I agree. “I thought we were in a hurry.”

  “The war will not outrun the drumbeat, and we do not want to stand before the Emperor without the skills we need. All samurai warriors have time to fish,” Sensei insists. “It’s always good practice.”

  Not more practice.

  Even Yoshi rolls his eyes, but Sensei continues. “It keeps the brain focused. If a samurai allows his brain to wander off, when it comes back, there will be no head left to hold it. Fishing teaches the mind to stay in one place.”

  I’m not convinced. Fishing puts my brain to sleep. And I’ll bet it does the same for Sensei. That’s probably why he lies there snoring while we cast our lines.

  Sensei’s smile flashes in my eyes like sunlight on fish scales. He knows what I’m thinking.

  When we reach the place where the road crosses the river, Sensei stops to talk to a lone man fishing on the bridge. He bows low and exchanges a bottle of wine for a bucket of bait. The only way to catch a river sweetfish is with another of its kind. Sweetfish are too smart to swallow a hook but foolish enough to chase the bait fish.

  The road soon veers from the flat, open fields to the protection of trees.

  “Stop!” Sensei yells.

  Yoshi c
rashes into me. I stumble against Mikko, who tips over. He falls, dragging Taji and me with him. Kyoko loses her footing, and Nezume lands on top of us all.

  Only Sensei is still standing.

  “We thought you said ‘drop,’” Mikko says sheepishly.

  “I can’t hear anything. Someone’s elbow is in my ear,” Taji complains.

  “Sorry,” Yoshi and Kyoko chorus.

  Poor Taji. One elbow in each ear.

  “We have found the perfect spot,” Sensei announces over the noise of arms and legs untangling.

  Nezume removes his foot from my face, just in time. I was about to bite it.

  “Are there lots of fish here?” he asks.

  “Even more important. There is a tree,” Sensei says, settling back against it. “Fish swim all over the river, so it does not matter where you throw your line. A tree is much harder to catch. You must find a place where one is already standing still.”

  That’s true, but I’d rather chase trees than fish any day.

  Sensei unties the long bundle from his back and takes out our rods. My mouth waters. Fresh sweetfish taste much better than two-day-old rice cakes, cold omelette, and gluey noodles. Sensei will let us light a cooking fire this evening. Last night, on the edge of Hell Valley, we slept on warm volcanic rocks around the hot springs, but our food was stone cold. Sensei said flames might attract attention. Here on the road, many fires burn through the night. One more won’t be noticed.

  Inside the bucket are six small sweetfish, one for each of our hooks. The first fish is the bait to catch the second. Then the second fish becomes the bait to catch the third. That’s if any of us get up to three. Sweetfish are not easy to catch.

  I cast my rod into the river wearily. I’m tired of this already.

  “Look, Niya.” Mikko points to a bird upriver at the far water’s edge. It’s a white crane.

  We creep closer. Head bent slightly, the crane stands perfectly still, black eyes staring into the water. Even the crane must concentrate when fishing. At the last moment it strikes, faster than a samurai sword stroke. When it lifts its beak out of the water, a bright silver fish struggles in its mouth.