Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters

by Margaret Dilloway

  “Or maybe we’re already dead,” Peyton says in a way that lets me know he’s kidding, but not quite kidding.

  Maybe my father’s already dead. No, something deep inside me whispers. No. My grandmother knows what she’s doing. I have to trust her. “We’re not.”

  Peyton glances sideways at me. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Peyton opens the food box again. “In that case, I might as well eat another rice ball.”

  “No! We better save the rest.” I clap my hand down on the box.

  Peyton pulls it toward himself. “What are you talking about? It’s full again.” He shows me. Yes, indeed, the box has refilled itself with fat balls of onigiri. For the first time aboard this ship, I smile.

  We sit quietly for a minute, staring at each other, the walls, and Inu, who wags his tail. “No TV on board, huh?” I say.

  Peyton unzips the messenger bag and takes out the Momotaro comic. “Want to read this?” He slides it over. “Might help pass the time—or give us some clues about what to expect. Your grandma did say it was a real story.”

  Clues? I gulp. None of this feels real yet. I’m not ready to think about all the nuts and bolts of how I’m going to save my father. My head throbs. For a second, I want to go to sleep and never read the comic at all.

  I realize I’m breathing pretty fast for someone who’s just sitting down. I feel like I need to run around the ship, yelling. Forget it. I’m much too torqued up to go to sleep.

  I might as well read it and get it over with. It’s not like there’s a computer in here. There’s literally nothing else to do.

  I look at the cover.

  There’s a picture of a man in samurai gear, tons of heavy woven-looking old armor, and a huge sword across his back. His hair is so silvery it glints off the page.

  Definitely not me.

  I flip through to where we left off and read aloud.

  Momotaro set off toward the ocean. The journey would take three days on foot.

  At night he dreamed his terrible dream of the dark and cold place, and it made him shake with fear, but every morning Momotaro still got up and continued. He was determined not to falter.

  Along the way, in a barren field, he came across a dog tied to an old fence post. As he cut its rope, he could count its ribs through its thin brown fur.

  Though Momotaro had only three rice balls, he gave one to the dog without hesitation. For Momotaro would rather starve himself than let this dog go hungry, too.

  The dog gobbled it up. “Arigato. I am at your command,” the dog said with a bow. “You have saved me. Where you go, I go.”

  “Where I go is to the Isle of Akumu,” Momotaro said. “It is within the Ring of Fire, where all the earthquakes originate. I am headed there to battle monsters and demons and more than likely meet my doom.”

  “Where you go, I go. You are my master now.” Without hesitation, he fell into step beside Momotaro.

  “I must tell you,” Momotaro said, “I have very little food.”

  “I do not care, for I will get food for both of us,” the dog answered. “You are the only person who has ever helped me, so my life will be spent helping you.”

  Momotaro thought of his terrible dream and felt his fear ebb, for he would no longer have to walk the cold and dark place all alone. He patted the dog on its worn head.

  On their way to the ocean, the dog and Momotaro saw a pitiful golden pheasant dying in a bare tree. Its feathers drooped, and its skin showed through in spots. “Please help,” the pheasant croaked. “The land has dried up. There is no food left for birds.”

  Momotaro peered into his lunch box. Only two rice balls remained. But he was a good-souled boy, and he could not let this bird starve.

  “Go away,” said the dog with a growl. “Momotaro has me. He does not need you as well.”

  “I must help this pheasant as I helped you,” Momotaro said, and the dog went silent. Momotaro threw a rice ball to the bird.

  The bird gobbled it up. “I will come with you,” the pheasant said. “My life is yours.”

  “I have no food left to give.” Momotaro did not know how he would feed both the dog and the pheasant. “It’s too dangerous. Both of you should stay here.”

  “No,” the dog and the pheasant answered. “Where you go, we go.”

  “Very well. But come at your own risk,” Momotaro said. Now he had two companions for his desolate adventure. He would find a way to care for them.

  In the evening, they passed through a village of empty houses. A monkey sat alone, picking through a pile of dry garbage. “Please,” the monkey said. “Food?”

  Momotaro sighed a little bit now, for his own stomach rumbled with hunger. But he did not hesitate before reaching into his bento box and bringing out the final rice ball. “Take this, without obligation.”

  The monkey bowed so low its forehead scraped the hard dirt ground. “I am at your service, Momotaro.”

  The pheasant flapped its wings. “We have no need of a monkey! Begone!”

  The monkey bared its teeth. “I will rip off your wings, useless bird!”

  “Enough!” Momotaro held up his hand. “We must work as one if we are to accomplish anything. Now, do as I say, or do not come at all.”

  Thus chastened, the animals followed Momotaro to the ocean, where they boarded a waiting ship, and sailed for the Isle of Akumu.

  “They’re eating rice balls, just like us.” Peyton takes the book from me and flips through. “Dun-dun-duun!”

  “So what? Everybody in Japan eats those. It’s an easy food to pack.” And apparently an easy food to regenerate.

  “Duh. Xander, we’re following in Momotaro’s footsteps.” Peyton opens up the comic and points at a picture of the dog. “This is Inu.”

  It’s brown with maybe a hint of gold, but not curly like my Inu. “It doesn’t look like him exactly. And Inu’s never starved a day in his life.”

  “It doesn’t have to be exact, does it?” Peyton frowns at the drawing.

  “I don’t know. So which character would you be?” It’s nuts, just thinking about this. That we’re characters from a comic book, come to life.

  “The monkey, maybe?” Peyton flips through the comic. “’Cause I’m good at climbing and I like eating.”

  “Or maybe you’re not in here at all, because, hello, this is a fairy tale.” I take the book back from him. “And even if it was real, who was my father’s monkey? His pheasant? I don’t think he had those. And Inu is with us right now, not with my father like he should be.”

  “Do you know everything your father did when he was your age?” Peyton takes the book out of my hands again. “Maybe he had those companions.”

  I pause. I don’t know what my father did when he was twelve. What his life was like back then, growing up in Japan. All I know is that he and his own father bickered a lot, and Dad couldn’t wait to be an adult so he could move to the United States. He never gave me the details. “The past is past, Xander,” he liked to say. “Unchangeable. Everything happens as it is meant to happen.”

  See? Not helpful at all.

  I remember what my grandmother said—her husband was all about fighting the oni with might, and my father was about fighting them with his mind. Maybe that’s what they bickered about. But I don’t know for sure. It’s making my head hurt again. “No, I don’t know, Peyton. That’s the problem. He never told me anything.” A panicky, trapped feeling comes over me. “Even if you’re the monkey and Inu helps me, how am I supposed to fight a demon? I want to get my father back, but really…they might as well ask me to fly a spaceship.”

  Peyton slaps the comic book down, his crest of hair bobbing, and gives me a stern look. “It’s not just about your father, Xander. It’s about getting that water out—my house is in danger, too, you know.”

  I hadn’t thought about that.

  “And it’s about, I don’t know, saving the world from bloodthirsty demons.” Peyton stands up on the ben
ch and spreads his arms wide. “Don’t you care about humanity? Sheesh, Xander. You have to try. With that attitude, you’re dead before you start.”

  “All right.” I shrink down into myself. Peyton’s right. “I agree, already. Stop your squawking.”

  Peyton jumps down onto the floor and points at me. “Finally. I knew you’d see it my way.” He does a high kick at an imaginary enemy. “I can’t wait to kick some oni butt.”

  “Calm down, dude.” I’ve only known Peyton to fight one time. Back in fourth grade, I was standing in the cafeteria line and playing with a temari ball my grandmother had made. Temari are embroidered balls made out of scraps of silk kimono fabric, sewn together in geometric patterns. This one was green and gold and silver; it looked like a throwing star was sewn onto the fabric. I probably shouldn’t have taken it to school.

  “Let me see that,” a huge eighth grader named Conrad demanded. The kid was the biggest at the school, solid as a boulder.

  I ignored him and kept on throwing the ball up and down. I didn’t want anyone taking the ball and ruining it. I figured if I said nothing, he’d give up.

  “Let me see that thing.” Conrad grabbed for it and missed.

  I held it up with a smirk. “Look. You’re seeing it fine from where you are.”

  The next thing I knew, Conrad pulled back his fist and punched me right in the face, snapping my neck back. My nose spurted blood. And the next thing I knew after that, Peyton was tackling Conrad around the knees, sending him to the ground.

  “I can’t calm down,” Peyton says now. He does another high kick. “This is what I’m going to do,” he sings in his falsetto, another line from the boy group song. “I’m going to put the hurt on you.” That last part isn’t a real lyric.

  Inu puts his head on my lap and yawns, a loud deep sound with a yip at the end. Suddenly I’m tired, too. I’ve been tired this whole time. In fact, I wish I could just go to sleep and forget this ship. Wake up from this nightmare in my own bed. With no beachside access. I never thought I’d miss that mountain, but I do now.

  Inu gets up and goes into a dark corner of the room. More lights flicker on, and I see there’s another room connected to the galley. I follow.

  “Where are you guys going?” Peyton asks.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you keep on kicking your imaginary friends?”

  “They’re imaginary oni, not friends.” Peyton does yet another high kick. I sigh.

  Here, there are bamboo bunks built into the sides of the ship. Four beds. The mattresses are covered in puffy white down quilts. Inu jumps into a bottom one. Peyton climbs above him and burrows into the quilt so only his face peeks out. “Aaaah,” he says. “I’m surprisingly tired.”

  “Surprisingly?” I sit on the bunk opposite, sinking into the comforter. “Dude. Not after the day we’ve had.”

  A small bathroom with a toilet and a pull chain sits off to one side. I think it’s called a “head” on a ship. Well, at least we aren’t stuck using chamber pots. I wonder where the waste goes—probably just shoots into the ocean. I hope we don’t make any whales mad.

  I frown. “There are four beds. Why?” It feels like someone’s missing. Kind of like when I look at the dining table at home and see the empty spot where Mom used to sit.

  “It’s just an extra.” Peyton yawns. “For guests.”

  “Well…” I think of the story. “I have a dog. I don’t have a pheasant or a monkey. Maybe you’re the extra. Momotaro didn’t have a boy sidekick.”

  Peyton snorts. “Bodyguard.”

  “Sidekick.” I grin.

  “Hmmmm.” Peyton turns toward the wall. I can tell he’s not used to the idea. “Maybe it’s more like you’re the brains, and I’m the brawn.”

  “Hey. I’m the peach boy, not you.”

  Peyton lifts a hand in the air. “Good night, peach boy. Hope you grow some fuzz while you sleep.”

  I throw my pillow at him.

  Before long, Peyton starts snoring, the way he always does, like he’s some kind of grizzly bear. I can’t sleep. But it’s not because of the snoring.

  Because I’m the peach boy. Momotaro. The great warrior, who’s going to face an island full of demons.

  Except I’m not really Momotaro, the kid who can rip a tree out of the ground. All I have are my bare, puny little hands. I don’t even have Momotaro’s sword. What on earth can I possibly do?

  I try to picture me confronting a monster, that beast-man, and throwing salt in its face. He would just laugh at me before he ate my heart, or whatever oni do for fun.

  For a moment I get angry at my father and grandmother again, for not telling me anything. I have no idea what these monsters do, or how many different kinds there are. What if each one has a special way it has to be killed? You know, like a silver bullet, or garlic, or chopping off its head? Dad never talked about it. Obviously, I needed to know this stuff a whole lot more than I needed pre-algebra. What a waste of time school was. I always knew it, but now I really know it.

  I don’t have what it takes to save my father. Poor Dad. Peyton should have been his son, not me.

  I wonder if my mother knew about my father being Momotaro. Maybe that’s why she left. When I asked my father about my mom leaving, all he said was, “You’re too young to understand. But she loves you very much.” Not a very satisfactory answer, but the only one he’d give. Just this year, I went to Dad and said, “Hey, I think I’m old enough now to handle whatever you need to tell me.”

  For a second, Dad peered at me as if he agreed. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Soon, Xander. I promise.”

  I’d heard Peyton’s parents talking about my mother more than once when I was over at their house. One time, Peyton and I were watching a baseball game. We both probably would have preferred to watch an anime, but that would have caused Peyton’s father to come in and lecture us about the uselessness of cartoons. Still, the baseball game was tolerable, mostly because we were splitting a bag of BBQ-flavored sunflower seeds. Peyton pecked his out of his hand, eating ten for every one that I ate. I was trying my best to catch up so he wouldn’t finish the whole bag before I got my share.

  Peyton’s parents were in the kitchen, washing dishes or something. “Guess what?” Peyton’s mother said to her husband as she ran water in the sink. “I know someone I could introduce Xander’s dad to. That new librarian in town.”

  I sat up straight and spat out a husk. It hit the television screen. I knew who she meant. A pretty, young librarian with long brown hair who smiled at me every time I came in. She’d special-ordered a graphic novel I wanted from a county library on the other side of San Diego. “No!” I yelled.

  Peyton reached out and wiped the husk off the screen. “Ew. Be careful. What are you yelling about? Our team is winning. I know you don’t care about baseball, but that’s a good thing.”

  “Can’t you hear what your mother is saying?” I said. “She wants to set my dad up with the librarian.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t hear her at all.” He spat a shell into an empty paper cup and said nothing else.

  “I don’t want my dad dating some silly librarian.” She’d probably bring me brand-new books and comics all the time, or let me have extra minutes on the library computers, or pretend she didn’t see when I was eating a snack in there.

  Oh no. I couldn’t think of a single negative thing about her. But that didn’t mean I wanted my dad to date her. Why wouldn’t my friend back me up? “That would be totally awful,” I said to him.

  Peyton cleared his throat and stared into the sunflower seed cup. “Xander. It’s been eight years since your mom left.”

  I slumped back into the couch. “So?”

  “So…” Peyton sucked a few more seeds into his mouth. “That’s more than half your life.”

  “So?” I sounded angry, even to myself. “What are you saying?”

  He crunched the seeds and looked at the television. “So maybe your mom’s just not c
oming back.”

  My eyes got hot and teary. And right now they get hot and teary all over again, here on the gently rocking Momotaro ship in the middle of the ocean, as they stare up at the empty bunk.

  Because I know Peyton is right. My mother’s not coming back, and my whole family needs to get over her and move on with our lives.

  Well, maybe my mother’s gone because she couldn’t handle being the wife of a demon-fighting peach man. I kind of want to run away myself.

  Maybe Dad tried to tell her all this and she thought he’d lost his mind. But if that was the case, why didn’t she take me with her?

  The truth is, I just don’t know.

  The questions churn in my mind like clothes in a big old washing machine. Great. Now I’ll never get to sleep.

  I turn over and fluff my sweaty pillow. Across the room, Peyton and Inu breathe slowly and deeply. They, of course, have been asleep all this time.

  The current knocks into the ship with a gentle whoosh, whoosh. Despite myself, lulled by the rocking, I finally doze off.

  I’m in a black forest. Not the pine one that used to be by my house. No, this is a different forest, with lots of leafy trees, and dry brush crunching under my feet. Ahead of me is a small clearing, with dusty dirt on the ground. This is the only spot where the sun shines through.

  A silver-haired man, shirtless, in a pair of loose white pants, swings a samurai sword in a circle above his head, his back to me. His white skin has a sort of glow to it, like a dim moon. His back muscles bulge as the sword cuts the air. The blade gleams. Ivory peaches decorate the black handle.

  “Ie ni kangei suru,” the man says in a quiet, deep voice, his back still turned. Welcome home, my brain translates instantly.

  The man turns and smiles at me, wrinkles forming parentheses beside his mouth. He has a sparse, closely trimmed silvery beard, and his eyes sparkle like blue topaz.

  Without thinking, I drop into a bow. When I straighten up, he slides the sword into a scabbard that is stuck through the left side of his obi belt, by his hip. He strides toward me. He’s tall—tall for anyone, but especially for a Japanese man. Taller than Dad. I only come up to his chest.