I look up into his eyes. They are eerily like mine, except for the wrinkles fanning out on the sides. I see myself in his pupils. It’s like I’m inside of him, too, staring back at myself way down below.
He steps forward and embraces me. He smells exactly like that old wooden box full of netsuke, a faint whiff of powdered sugar mixed with musty wood and fresh green grass.
“Musashi-chan,” he whispers, and kisses the top of my head.
I know it’s him, even though I’ve never met him, and he seems way, way younger than my grandmother. But he died old, not young. “Ojīchan,” I say, and it’s not a question at all. Somehow I’m not surprised to see him here. Of course—it’s totally normal to see the ghost of my grandfather. At least when you’ve had a day like mine.
I look down at the crackling leaves beneath my feet. This is a really detailed dream. “Where’s my father?” I ask. I figure he knows. He’s a ghost. Can’t they see the whole planet or something?
“You must retrieve him.” Ojīchan crosses his arms, and his silvery eyebrows slant down in a scowl.
My heart beats really fast. “But I don’t know how.” Why did he say retrieve, instead of save?
“You do know how.” Ojīchan turns away, gets on his knees as if he’s praying. “You have powers unknown to the rest of us. The trick is unlocking them.”
“You’re wrong. I don’t have any power.” Tears spring into my eyes, and my nose starts to run. I sniffle. I hate crying, but I can’t help it. What do they want from me? A few hours ago, the hardest thing I’d ever done was play in an all-day Mario Kart video game battle.
Ojīchan doesn’t answer. His body shakes, and I wonder if it’s got something to do with the ship moving in real life. I walk over and put my hand on his shuddering shoulder. “Are you all right?”
My grandfather turns. Slime oozes up between my fingers as if he’s an amphibian. It burns my skin. “Ouch!” I wipe my hand on my side, but it still hurts like I’m holding a hot lightbulb.
A forked red tongue darts out of his mouth. At the end of each fork is a hissing, fanged snake. I jump backward.
The skin on his face is now red and scaly, covered in a thin coat of shiny goop.
His eyes are coal-black.
“Xander. At last.” The creature reaches for me.
“Anata ni wa nani mo nai!” I don’t know what I just said. The creature looks as surprised as I feel.
I shout it again. “Anata ni wa nani mo nai!” And then I’m just screaming, a long wail, as I feel myself fall.
I wake up by falling out of bed. My eyes fly open right before my face hits the extremely wooden, extremely hard, extremely real floor.
But then I land upright, perfectly fine. How did I do that?
In his bunk, Inu lets out a loud yawn-sigh, high-pitched moving to low. Buh, he barks in a bored way, knowing I’m all right. He drops his head back down on the pillow.
“Good morning to you, too.” I feel my face with my hands, just to make double sure I didn’t get hurt. No bruise, no blood. I use the toilet, then go into the galley.
Peyton sticks his head down from the upper deck. “Dude, are you okay? You were screaming like a girl in a horror movie.”
I have to laugh. “You mean, I screamed the same way you scream when you see a spider?”
“Something like that.” Peyton grins back at me. His hair’s sticking straight up like a cockatoo’s head feathers. Mine probably is, too. There’s no adult here to tell us to comb our hair or brush our teeth. That’s kind of cool. “Nightmare?”
I nod. That’s all it was. Not a visit from my real grandfather or a real demon creature. Justadreamjustadream, I chant silently to myself. “Yeah. Guess I’m not used to the boat.”
I go up on deck. “Here.” Peyton comes up beside me and hands me something wrapped neatly, like a diamond-shaped origami, in wax paper. “Found these in that box.”
Good old Peyton, always pecking around for food. I unfold the paper to find a big, fat buttery croissant stuffed with chocolate. My mouth waters. “Thanks.” I bite into it. So good. Obāchan usually makes me eat something disgustingly healthy for breakfast, like oatmeal sprinkled with bran fiber. Maybe this trip’s not such a bad thing. “Did you find something for Inu?” Dogs can’t have chocolate.
He nods. “A meaty rice ball.”
“Cool.” We stand there quiet for a minute, gazing out at the horizon. The sky is stained violet, the way it looks at sunset sometimes, only the sun’s getting higher and this sky is definitely getting a brighter shade of purple. The color is reflected in the water, crystalline and countless meters deep, dark mauve in some parts and light lilac in others. I inhale sharply, tasting the salt in the back of my throat from the ocean. A school of dolphins leaps in and out of the amethyst water, their sleek gray-green bodies forming perfect half-moons as they squeak merrily to each other. Only, when I lean forward, I see that they’re not dolphins, but unfamiliar creatures with green scales and wider eyes. I just hope they’re as friendly as dolphins. I don’t feel like battling anything this soon after breakfast.
“Wow,” is all I can think of to say. Words seem pretty inadequate at this point.
“Yeah,” Peyton says in a hushed tone, like he’s inside a church.
We stand silently for another moment as the sun turns brilliant on the sea. The dolphin creatures dive and disappear.
I finish the croissant and lick my fingers. “Got any orange juice?”
“I didn’t see it. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any.”
I stand there for a moment, debating whether I want to bother going back to the galley. Then something tickles my side. Like a branch with soft leaves. I laugh. “Peyton, cut it out.” I turn and look at him. He’s packing a croissant into his mouth, chocolate smeared around his lips.
And then I see. My mind is blown.
“Peyton,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. I point at his back. Now I can’t speak at all. I just keep pointing with a quivering finger.
Peyton frowns and tries to see behind him. He turns all the way around. “What? Do I have TP stuck to my butt?”
No.
He has wings.
Big, golden, feathery, soft, honest-to-goodness, eagle-looking wings.
Finally my voice works again. “LOOK AT THOSE THINGS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF YOUR BACK!”
He cranes his neck until he sees what I see. “AAAGH!” He leaps forward like he’s trying to get away. The wings spread out, wider than his arms, longer than his whole body.
Peyton starts running. He sprints all the way down the deck to the end of the boat, then back to the prow, then to the stern again.
His wings start flapping, and his body goes horizontal. The wind catches him and hoists him up.
“AAAAUGH!” he yells again as he’s borne out over the water like a crazy hang glider. “HELP!”
I run to the prow. “I don’t know what to do! Flap them!”
“I don’t know how!” he shouts. “They won’t flap!”
Inu runs back and forth from the prow to the stern, barking.
Peyton, now high up by the top of the mast, puts his hands together like he’s about to dive into a pool. He zooms toward me, plummeting straight down like a cannonball. He’s going to go face-first into the wooden deck. “Slow down!” I crouch and wait for the impact.
But then Peyton pulls his shoulders back, making his body vertical. He lands on the deck, his legs windmilling like a cartoon character as he bounces across the wooden planks. He’s going too fast to stop. Throwing his body into a base-runner slide, he skitters across the boards and lands in a pile of canvas sacks.
I run over. His body is bent at funny angles, his arms going in a different direction than his legs. “Are you okay?”
Peyton sits up, his hair even messier than it was before. “Dude, that was awesome!”
I almost cry, I’m so relieved. I thought he was going to die and I’d be alone on this ship. “Dude,” I say back. “Dud
e.”
“Dude.”
We sit and sort of grin at each other for a minute.
“What the what. I have wings, dude. Freaking wings.” Peyton flaps them. They blow wind into my face.
I reach out and touch one. Underneath the feathers is hollow bone, just like in bird wings, and I’m afraid I’ll snap it. The feathers are iridescent, gold from one angle, deep green and blue from others. The tips are emerald green. They’re as soft as my grandmother’s silky satin kimonos. “Do they hurt?”
“They feel great. Like I can fly to the moon!” He flaps the appendages. A big smile breaks across his face. “I want to go again.” He flaps them harder and he rises to the top of the mast. “Woo-hoo!”
I sit back and look up at him. Those glorious wings spreading out against the sun.
My best friend just grew wings.
Demons took my father. A professor who’s actually a mythical warrior person.
This ship popped out of a tiny sculpture, and California is now an island.
What’s going to happen to me?
We continue cruising through the purplish water. I try turning the wheel, which does nothing. The ship just stays on its course. I guess I’ll have to trust it.
We hang out on the deck and eat some more of the never-ending supply of croissants. (Hey, we’re a couple of sixth-grade boys—eating’s our favorite hobby.) Inu lies on his back in the sun, his legs splayed out wide like an enormous goofy cat. I scratch under his left armpit, making his back left leg wiggle uncontrollably and drool drip out of his mouth. His “spot,” Dad called it. Calls it. I’m going to think about him in the present tense no matter what.
Peyton sits cross-legged, his wings spread out behind him. Occasionally he flaps them, sending my hair blowing back. Show-off.
I bite into my sixth croissant. “How do the wings feel now?” I ask with my mouth full. No grandmother telling me not to do that, either. I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
He unfurls them to their full length. “Like they’ve always been there. It’s weird. I can feel things with them.”
“Like they’ve got nerves?” I gently bend the end of a feather. “Does that hurt?” Uh-oh. I got chocolate on it. I try to wipe it off.
“Nope. They’re more like cat whiskers, I guess.” Peyton wrinkles his nose at the state of his wing. “Xander! Quit messing up my wings!”
“Sorry.” I use the end of my shirt to get most of the offending smears. “It’ll wash off.”
Inu leaps up and licks the chocolate, sending spit puddling down the feathers.
“Ugh!” Peyton leans away. “Cut it out!”
“Inu, you’re not supposed to have chocolate!” I scold him, and he leans back on his haunches and looks guilty. Then he lets out a loud belch.
Peyton guffaws. “Good one, Inu.”
“At least he cleaned you up.” I consider Peyton’s profile. Will he completely transform into a bird, like a man transforms into a werewolf? His hair sticks up like feathers—they always have. His long nose is what my father calls “Roman,” with a little hump in it. “You know, I never noticed this before, but your nose kind of looks like a beak.”
“Gee, thanks.” Peyton shifts his legs.
I hold up my hand. “I didn’t mean that in an insulting way.”
Peyton snorts. “Yeah, that totally came across.”
“But,” I continue, “now that I think about it, you are kind of like a bird.”
Peyton cocks his head to stare at me.
“Like that!” I point at him. “And your hair. And your extremely long arms and legs.”
Peyton shakes his head. “So? What are you saying? You saw this coming?”
“No.” I examine his face. No feathers there. Unless you count the beginnings of a blond beard on the lower half of his face. Was that there yesterday? I don’t think so. “Do you feel any different? Like, don’t birds’ hearts beat twice as fast as humans’? Is yours? Are you sprouting feathers anywhere else?”
“No feathers so far.” Peyton holds out his arms and turns them over. My eyes widen. His arms are as ropy and muscled as an action figure’s. He puts his hand on his chest. “Seems normal enough.”
I put one of my hands on his chest and the other on mine, feeling the thump-thump-thump of our respective hearts. “Yep. They’re both about the same.” I sit back. It’d be kind of cool if he turned into a real bird. But then again, if he did, he might not be able to talk.
“I do feel stronger, though.” Peyton snaps his wings with such force that I, squatting right next to him, fall backward. Oof. I’m splayed out on the deck. I sit up. He laughs. “Told you I was the bodyguard.”
“Fine. You’re the bodyguard,” I mutter. Can someone who’s stronger ever really be a sidekick? I guess not. “How about protector?”
“Whatever.” Peyton waves his hand around. “It’s just a word, Xander.”
But I’m still the one in charge. Still Momotaro. I don’t say that aloud, though. Peyton won’t like the idea of me bossing him around. I reach for another croissant, but my stomach clenches and I decide that I’ve finally had my fill.
“So, I’m the pheasant.” Peyton does take another croissant and shoves the entire thing into his mouth. It’s his tenth, I think.
I nod.
“I told you.” Peyton slaps my back a little too hard, and I almost choke. “We’re the comic! We better finish reading it.” Peyton gets up and runs to the ladder.
“It’s not a school assignment, you know!” I call after him. Okay, he was right. It sure seems like we’re following the plot, with the ship and the dog and the oni and now Peyton. Could it tell me how to fight like Momotaro, too?
I try again to remember drawing the book, but I can’t. Was I asleep? In a trance? You would think that even if I blanked on it, I’d wonder where that block of time had gone, like if I started drawing it at noon one day and finished at four.
And how did that happen? Did my father give me paper and tell me to draw it?
I decide I probably did it when I was supposed to be asleep. That’s when I do my best work after all.
Peyton returns with the comic in a flash. He’s not even out of breath, and his muscles are all ripply, like he’s a comic book character himself. It’s disgusting, actually. I fold my puny arms, which actually seem like they’ve shrunk since yesterday. “Let’s read it.”
A few dark gray clouds begin covering the sky like ice spreading across a giant windshield, and a frigid wind cuts across the deck, numbing my ears. I frown. “Hey, uh, how do you know if a big storm’s coming?”
“The wind would be stronger than this.” Peyton sticks his finger in his mouth and then holds it up in the air. “And it’s coming from the south. That’s usually not bad. I think it’s just cooling off.”
“But do we even know that south is south here?” I examine the clouds. They’re feathery, not super dense like thunderheads, so I guess they’re okay.
Inu cranes his neck at the sky, too, and then curls up into a warm ball beside me.
“If it starts raining, we’ll go inside. What else can we do? Turn this thing into a submarine?” Peyton sits next to me on the deck and arranges his wings so that Inu and I are protected from the wind. Now that is kind of convenient. He opens Momotaro and I read it aloud.
The ship took them to an island with a castle sitting on top of a craggy cliff.
The group walked around the perimeter of the castle, searching for an entrance. They could not find a way in.
They stumbled upon a group of young women washing bloody garments in a pond.
Momotaro called out, “Who are you?”
A maiden stood up. The dress she wore was soaked in blood, too. “This was once our island, but the oni have enslaved us,” she said pitifully. “They have eaten all our people and will eat us very soon. Go, now, before they eat you, too!”
Momotaro crossed his arms. “No. I am here to help.”
“Nobody has helped us for years
and years,” the girl said warily.
Momotaro planted his feet. “I am here now. Show us a way inside.”
The women pointed out a hidden passageway. “But you will die, you know!”
“Thank you for your advice.” Momotaro thought for a moment. He recalled the painting he had made for his mother, in which he had painted craggy cliffs very much like these. Perhaps he already knew what to do.
Momotaro sent the pheasant flying up over the ramparts, to distract the oni, and the rest of them went inside.
There they battled the oni with great valor and threw them off the steep cliff. They fought as fiercely as a thousand men.
My blood turns cold. They think I can fight like a thousand men? Try a thousandth of a man.
At last, they vanquished the chief oni, and he bowed before Momotaro. “You are the greatest warrior who ever lived. If you spare my life, I shall be forever indebted to you.”
“Your life is not mine to spare,” Momotaro answered. He put the oni in chains and took him to the emperor of Japan. The emperor was so happy that he invited Momotaro to marry one of his daughters. Momotaro agreed and, in this way, became a prince.
“Is that it?” I grab the comic from him and look at the back. “That’s the whole thing? There’s nothing in there about how to fight the oni. He just vanquishes them. What does that even mean?”
“It means he beat them,” Peyton explains patiently. “Also, he threw at least one off a cliff.”
“I know that.” I feel like throwing the comic book into the ocean. “But how? Does he cut off its head? I can’t believe I drew such a useless thing. Some imagination I have.” I blow out a frustrated breath.
I remember how Obāchan said that nobody knew how being half-Irish affected a Momotaro’s power. Maybe all I can do is draw comics. Maybe in this new, half-Irish Momotaro story, Momotaro is really the sidekick. Maybe the pheasant gets to be the hero this time and I’m just along for the ride.
My stomach clenches. And now the water’s getting choppier, thumping the ship up and down. Suddenly all those croissants I porked down don’t seem like they were the best idea. I bend in half, trying to quell what I know is coming. “Unnngh,” I croak. Also not very herolike.
Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Page 8